Given its worldwide popularity, it’s a no-brainer for Paramount Global to extend CBS’s “NCIS” franchise beyond the United States, especially given that the real NCIS has offices in 41 countries.

CBS’s “NCIS: Sydney” (8 p.m. Nov. 14, KDKA-TV) leans into the possible conflict with local authorities as NCIS special agent Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann) butts heads with her Australian Federal Police counterpart Sgt. Jim “JD” Dempsey (Todd Lasance). Additional characters include familiar archetypes from existing CBS procedurals, like a mousy computer whiz/forensic scientist (Mayournee Hazel) and a veteran, world-weary, dark-humored forensic pathologist (William McInnes).

Beyond that, “NCIS: Sydney” plays the same as all the other “NCIS” iterations down to a variation on the theme song and to- and from-commercial stingers. Fans who like “NCIS” will surely approve of this brand extension. Viewers who see it as a simplistic procedural will ignore it as they have past versions over the franchise’s 20-year run.

Anyone looking to get drunk need only chug every time “NCIS: Sydney” features views of the Sydney Opera House. You’ll be out cold before the first episode ends.

‘The Curse’

The “youths,” as Joe Pesci said in “My Cousin Vinny,” may turn up their noses at all things “cringe” but secretly they must love anything discomfiting otherwise there would not be an entire series aimed at their demo.

“The Curse,” produced by the popular-with-Gen Z A24, delivers a constant stream of excruciatingly uncomfortable comedy.

Streaming and on demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers Friday and debuting on linear Showtime at 10 p.m. Sunday, “The Curse” stars Emma Stone as Whitney (“La La Land”) and Nathan Fielder as Ash (“The Rehearsal,” “Nathan for You”), a young married couple who have convinced themselves they’re making a pilot for an HGTV passive house series for the benefit of their largely Hispanic New Mexico community and not for themselves. But every step of the way they, with an assist from their scuzzy cameraman Dougie (Benny Safdie, “Oppenheimer”), they reveal themselves to be self-serving with a white savior complex added for good measure.

The show’s title comes from a scene where Dougie coaxes Ash to buy a soda from a young girl selling drinks in a parking lot, which Dougie captures on camera. But Ash only has a $100 bill so after he thinks the cameras have stopped rolling, he snatches the $100 back and says he’ll get change and come back and buy $20 worth of soda. The girl announces she’s put a curse on Ash.

Co-created by Sadfie and Fielder, “The Curse” accomplishes what it sets out to do with gusto – amuse through embarrassments that make “Curb Your Enthusiasm” seem staid – but I could only make it through three episodes before deciding I didn’t need to subject myself to more.

‘For All Mankind’

Apple TV+’s alternative history of the U.S. space program, “For All Mankind,” is back for a fourth season Nov. 10 that’s incapable of measuring up to the show’s second season high water mark, but does improve on the show’s slightly disappointing third season. (Season one will be released on Blu-ray Nov. 14.)

The year is now 2003, Al Gore is president and a multinational crew maintains a Mars colony. With the exception of Mars executive officer Ed (Joel Kinnaman), former astronaut Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and former NASA boss Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt), who’s defected to Russia, the show’s original cast has largely disappeared.

While Ed’s daughter, Kelly (Cynthy Wu), is still around, the feeling that every spacefarer is related to an Apollo-era astronaut, one of the drags on season three, has dissipated. The annoying Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson) still casts a shadow but in a less hair-pulling way that’s more about his impact on others than it is about Danny himself.

New characters include Miles (Toby Kebbell), a roughneck who takes a job on Mars with a promise of making more money than he would on earth and then finds a lack of appreciation for colony support staff (e.g. “Upstairs/Downstairs” in space). Irina Morozoma (Svetlana Efrremova, “The Americans”) takes command of Russia’s space command, Roscosmos, an opportunity to extend Margo’s story.

It takes a few episodes for a lot of the new season’s setup – more politics than space exploration, really — to pay off but when it finally does, it proves worth the wait.

Apple made seven (of 10) episodes available for review and it’s in the latter episodes that “For All Mankind” offers echoes of its bonkers (in a good way!) second-season storytelling.

In a Zoom interview last week, executive producers and “FAM” co-creators Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi said they usually learn whether the show will have another season while editing the most recent season.

“[Getting a fourth season] didn’t really necessarily impact things in season three,” Wolpert said, “but there are things that you discover in shooting a season that can change the trajectory. So there were certain elements that we found in season three as we were editing it together that we wanted to lean more into as we went into season four.”

Nedivi said they don’t have an official fifth-season renewal.

“Right now Apple has been very positive about the prospects of another season,” Nedivi said. “We’ve always had in mind this long arc that catches up to the present, so that’s still the goal.”

Kept/canceled

Hulu renewed “Futurama” for two additional seasons; Hulu renewed FX’s “The Bear” for a third season.

The upcoming fourth season of “Superman & Lois,” airing in 2024 on The CW, will be the show’s last.

Showtime canceled political docu-series “The Circus” after eight seasons; its final episode airs at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Channel surfing

Timothée Chalamet hosts NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” this weekend with musical guest boygenius; Jason Momoa hosts Nov. 18 with Tate McRae. … All eight seasons of “House” are now streaming on Hulu. … “WWE NXT” will relocate from USA Network to The CW in October 2024, around the same time “WWE Smackdown” moves from Fox to USA.

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