Month: August 2023

1) “Running Wild With Bear Grylls,” season-finales, 8 and 9 p.m., National Geographic Channel. For eight seasons, Grylls has taken celebrities to harsh places. Now he has takes Daveed Diggs to a desert and then Tatiana Maslany (“Black Orphan”) to rappel down a mountain. Before that, the rest of the season reruns. Starting at 2 p.m., it will be Rita Ora, Russell Brand, Troy Kotsur, Cynthia Erivo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bradley Cooper (shown here). Read more…

1) College football, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC. For most schools, the season starts next weekend. Each year, however, two historically Black colleges gets a one-week jump. This time, South Carolina State (3-8 last year) faces Jackson State, which was 12-0 in the regular-season (with an average score of 38-11), before losing a bowl game. Now its coach (Deion Sanders) and its star quarterback (his son Shedeur, shown here) have switched to Colorado. Read more…

1) “Great Performances,” 9 p.m., PBS. Each year, PBS wraps up its summer with this elegant Vienna concert. This year, Yannick Nezet-Seguin (shown here at a previous concert) conducts, opening with numbers from “Carmen” – the first show he led at the Metropolitan Opera. Elina Garanca sings beautifully … then returns for two more numbers. Things slow down at times, but close with “Bolero” – beautifully illustrated by silhouette dancers –and, as always, a Strauss waltz. Read more…

1) “What We Do in the Shadows,” 10 p.m., FX. A week from its season-finale, this offbeat comedy takes a neat detour. Laszlo (shown here in last week’s episode) has been in a funk lately, so Nandor plans a good-natured “roast.” Vampires, alas, aren’t adept at giving (or receiving) gentle jests. Tied into that is the fact that Guillermo is turning into a vampire – secretly, slowly and clumsily. It’s an odd and funny episode. Read more…

1) “Riverdale” finale, 9 p.m., CW. For decades, CW has been the home of shows based on comic books or youth novels. Now, under new owners, that era is ending. “Riverdale” (shown here) has had strong production and solid acting (especially by Lili Reinhart as Betty), but bizarre plot twists. This season, the characters slid back to the 1950s, then returned. Now we flash forward; Betty is 86 and wants to relive the final day of her senior year. Read more…

1) “America’s Got Talent,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. It’s finally time for live episodes; 55 acts have survived, led by seven “golden buzzer” awards from the judges and host (trhey’re shown here) and audeince. Two buzzer acts (Lavender Darcangel, 27, of Massachusetts, and Putri Ariani, 17, of Indonesia) are blind singers. There’s another singer (Gabriel Henrique, 28, of Brazil), plus a youth choir from South Africa, dancers from Japan, a hands-based dance troupe from France and young drummers from Atlanta. Read more…