1) Olympics: gymnastics team finals, NBC. This sport (shown here) reaches gold-medal peaks early – then re-sets and goes again. First are the team finals. You can catch them live – men starting at 11:30 a.m. ET today, women at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday — or wait for the recap, 8-11 p.m. nightly. Starting Wednesday, the individual medals begin.
2) Olympics: track-and-field, Friday and beyond, NBC. This used to be the focus of any Olympics, creating big stars, from Jesse Owens to Bruce Jenner to Florence Griffith Joyner. Now it gets it turn: There’s one event (“race walk”) Thursday. Then Friday starts a nine-day stretch of running, leaping, throwing and vaulting.
3) “Grantchester” season-finale, 9 p.m. Sunday, PBS. The entire season has aimed at this hour. Alphy losing his vicarage? Leonard losing his lover? A charismatic stranger dominating lives? All of that (plus one more murder) converges. The solutions come too easily, but richly human characters make up for flimsy plots.
4) “Celebrity Family Feud”, 8 p.m. Tuesday, ABC. It’s a night of musicians: Daughtry vs. Papa Roach and an old/new battle — Earth, Wind and Fire, big since the 1970s, vs. the emerging married duo, The War and Treaty. For ABC, that’s part of a no-rerun stretch, from 8-10 p.m. today through Thursday.
5) “Sullivan’s Crossing” and “Wild Cards” 8 and 9 p.m. Wednesday, CW. These Canadian shows feel like old-time TV, in a good way. Now they’re rerunning their first seasons. On “Crossing,” Maggie retreated to her dad’s lakeside home; now her boyfriend visits. On “Wild Cards,” Max and Ellis go undercover as a bickering couple.
6) “Big Brother,” 8 p.m. Wednesday, CBS. It’s the second half of a shift, moving “BB” to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. (Sundays remain at 9, after “Tulsa King.”) That’s followed at 9 p.m. Wednesday by a new “The Real CSI Miami”; it views the murder of Jill Halliburton Su, an heiress and generous benefactor.
7) Football, 8 p.m. ET Thursday, ABC and ESPN. A week before other pre-season games, it’s the Hall of Fame game. The Houston Texans, 11-8 last season, face rhe Chicago Bears, who were 7-10 and got the top draft pick, quarterback Caleb Williams. The Hall ceremony is noon ET Saturday on ESPN and the NFL Network.
8) Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne, Saturday. Taylor — a perpetual star in movies and in gossip columns – is profiled at 8 p.m. on HBO. Also, Turner Classic Movies devotes each August day to one star; it stuffs Saturday with Wayne’s cowboy classics, from “Stagecoach” at noon ET to “Red River” at 10:15 p,m,
9) “Mammals,” 8-9:23 p.m. Saturday, BBC America. At the coldest edges of the Earth, we see a world that’s both beautiful and brutal. It’s not a place for vegetarians (or for vegetation), so animals are forever on the attack or defense. Wrapped in layers of fur and lots of body fat, a polar bear still goes on high-speed chases.
10) More, Sunday. “House of the Dragon,” the epic “Game of Thrones” prequel, wraps its second season at 9 p.m. on HBO, rerunning at 10:13, 12:05 and 2. Also at 9, AMC continues its strong dramas – “Snowpiercer” and (at 10) “Orphan Black: Echoes.” And from 8-10:30 p.m., BET has the Stellar Awards for gospel music.
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