Happy Monday morning! This week on reality TV took a summer vacation, but it’s back now with details about what’s debuting on your TV screens and/or streaming things this week.
Of course, you can see what’s debuting in the days and weeks (even months!) ahead by clicking the reality TV schedule link on the top of every reality blurred page.
Let’s start by looking backwards just a bit.
First, Fear Factor returned Friday with its celebrity edition (MTV, Tuesdays at 10), which will feature these Big Brother houseguests against these Survivor players on its July 31 episode.
On Friday, Netflix debuted three new shows:
- A new season of Last Chance U, which is now following a new team, the Independence Pirates;
- Amazing Interiors, which looks inside drab homes to see their “jaw-dropping secrets”;
- and Dark Tourist, on which the director of this movie explores crazy and dangerous tourism.
Zachary Quinto, host of History’s reboot of the 1970s/1980s series In Search Of. (Photo by A+E Networks)
Also Friday, Zachary Quinto and History brought back the 1970s series In Search Of (History, Fridays at 10), on which Quinto explores mysterious-ish phenomenon.
For a more grounded look at the word, try The Art Show, which debuts this week (Ovation, Wednesdays at 10) and has a simple mission: it “travels the globe to bring fascinating stories about art.”
CBS tries true crime again with Pink Collar Crimes (CBS, Saturdays at 8), which tells the stories of women who committed crimes, and has Marcia Clark as an expert.
Go behind the scenes with the people who feed the cyclists in The Tour De France. Eat. Race. Win. (Amazon Prime Video, July 27) follows chef Hannah Grant who creates food for Australia’s team Orica-Scott.
Back this week for a new seasons is Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood (VH1, Mondays at 8), which was bringing back Kimberly Pate, aka K. Michelle, but she says she quit the show.
Desert Flippers (HGTV, Tuesdays at 9) follows house flippers in Palm Springs, not people who flip cupcakes, which was my initial misreading of the title.
Meanwhile, Food Network has several new and returning shows:
- Comfort Food Tour (Food Network, Saturdays at 8), a new “foodie road trip” series
- The Great Food Truck Race (Food Network, Thursdays at 9), which takes the competition out west and has people who’ve never operated food trucks before compete to operate a food truck
- Ultimate Summer Cook-Off (Food Network, Sundays at 10), a competition that will ask its contestants to transform “America’s summertime favorites like hot dogs, hamburgers and lobster rolls”
Ballet, baseball, and playing sports under the threat of death
A few new documentaries are on TV this week:
- Ballet Now is now on Hulu. The documentary follows a member of the New York City Ballet, Prima Ballerina Tiler Peck, who is “the first ever woman to be asked to curate The Music Center’s famed BalletNOW program” and is “mashing together the worlds of tap, hip-hop, ballet and even clown artistry.”
- Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived (PBS, Monday, July 23, at 9) is American Masters’ documentary about the Boston Red Sox player who changed the sport.
- The War to Be Her (PBS, Monday, July 23, at 10) follows squash player Maria Toorpakai, who is one of the top 50 players in the world, but lives in Pakistan and “has had to hide her talents from the Taliban, which is strongly—and violently—opposed to women in sports,” according to PBS. As she says in the documentary, “Playing sports is an extreme act. I broke all the laws and God helped me in that.”
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