NBC’s Olympics coverage has dominated television since Aug. 5 — but that will all end with this Sunday’s closing ceremoni🐭es.
If you’ve been avoiding the games — and are now rejoicing because you will finally be able to watch TV again — we have some suggestions for you: from high-camp reality shows to sci-fi sagas to violent crime dramas. In other words, t𓆏he new season can’t come fast enough.
‘Running Wild With Bear Grylls’
Monday, 10 p.m., NBC
After bromancing his way through the wild with Nick Jonas, Bear is back with actress Courteney Cox, navigating the jagged peaks and sheer cliffs of Ireland’s lonely West Coast. As they are battered by ocean swells, Bear and Cox “struggle” to stay warm (isn’t that why h🍰e’s called Bear?) and subsist on a meager diet of maggots sourced from a rotting sheep. Tasty! On Aug. 29, Bear𝔉 dials it back, taking Shaquille O’Neal to the remote regions of … the Adirondacks.
‘Better Late than Never’
Tuesday, 10 p.m., NBC
Television programmers i💃n LA have no shortage of brilliant ideas — and this bucket-list “If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Shanghai” road trip is one of them. Four men of a certain age with showbiz histories — William Shatner, Henry Winkler, Terry Bradshaw and George Foreman — team up on a six-country, four-week trip with their man-sitter, comedian Jeff Dye. First stop: Tokyo. Then they’re off to Mt. Fuji via a karaoke bus trip. Can Shatner sing? Will the Japanese let him? If this show is a hit, you can bet that Hollywood geezerettes — Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Shirley MacLaine — will demand their own version.
‘Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy: We’ve Been Thinking’
Friday, Aug. 26, Netflix
The two comedians 🧜team ♑up for a live show in Minneapolis in this comedy special.
‘The Night Of’
Sunday, Aug. 28, 9 p.m., HBO
Many critics and viewers have enjoyed this murder mystery in the classic style of Sidney Lumet. John Turturro leads a strong cast as low-rent 𒈔lawyer John Stone, whose defense of a Queens college student convicted of murder puts him in the spotlight in the season finale.
‘The Strain’
Sunday, Aug. 28, 10 p.m., FX
As Season 3 begins, New York City🍒 is a battleground. Written off by the federal government, the citizens must fight for their survival. The question is, who will win? Humans or strigoi? Meanwhile, Eph’s (Corey Stoll) b☂ioweapon is failing. He struggles to improve it while trying to work through the emotional fallout of the abduction of his son, Zack, while a Navy SEAL team searches for the Master through the underground tunnels of New York in an attempt to save the city and humanity.
‘Narcos’
Friday, Sept. 2., Netflix
Season 1 of the explosive cartel drama ended with special forces raiding Pablo Escobar’s (Wagner Moura) self-styled prison fortress, eliminating many memb😼ers of the cartel but allowing Escobar to escape. DEA agent Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) is clearly disgusted. Colombian police chief Horacio Carrillo (Maurice Compte) throws a man out of a helicopter midair. Meanwhile, Escobar carries out his own payback executions, finally coming face to face with Murphy’s partner, DEA agent Javier Pena (Pedro Pascal).