60 Minutes/YouTube
60 Minutes
SUNDAY: The success of Netflix’s recent Harry & Meghan docuseries suggests our obsession with the willingly exiled Duke of Sussex and his bride has not abated. In anticipation of next week’s publication of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, he begins his U.S. media blitz with a double-length segment on TV’s leading newsmagazine, interviewed by Anderson Cooper. (The night’s other segment is a profile by Lesley Stahl of prolific film composer Hans Zimmer, which is kind of like being one of the other acts booked on the night The Beatles first performed on The Ed Sullivan Show.)
Lifetime
The Hammer
SATURDAY: “How do,” chirps feisty traveling judge Kim Wheeler (Reba McEntire) at first meeting. She sure is a folksy jurist, but watch out if you cross her, because she swings a mighty gavel—thus her “Hammer” nickname, which suits the agreeable movie based on the antics of Nevada’s own Kimberly Wanker. In what feels like the launching pad for a series or series of movies (nothing announced yet), The Hammer finds Kim taking over Nevada’s 5th District court after the suspicious death of her predecessor, a case that puts her and her family—including a sister (Reba co-star Melissa Peterman) who runs a local trailer-park brothel—in jeopardy. Rex Linn, McEntire’s real-life beau and Big Sky co-star, plays the local bigshot whose friendly overtures to Kim flirt with a conflict of interest. Reba is an authentic TV star, and The Hammer’s robes fit her to a T.
PBS
All Creatures Great and Small
SUNDAY: You are cordially invited to the wedding of veterinarian James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) and his Yorkshire lass Helen Alderson (Rachel Stenton) as the third season of the charming period drama ensues. The winds of war are blowing in 1939, but James’ sense of duty for now is torn between his nuptials and a local farmer whose cows need to be tested for TB. (On their wedding morn?) A missing ring and a frantic shoe exchange add levity to an hour that gets the season off to a rousing start. Creatures is the centerpiece of an all-new night of PBS drama including the Season 3 premieres of Victorian detective caper Miss Scarlet and the Duke (8/7c) and 1900s psychological mystery Vienna Blood (10/9c).
AMC+
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches
SUNDAY: (Also streaming on AMC+; premiere simulcast on BBC America, IFC, SundanceTV and WEtv). Joining what the network is labeling the “Anne Rice Immortal Universe”: an adaptation of Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy, which plays like a weak Gothic stepsister to AMC’s more compellingly erotic Interview with the Vampire series. A tremulous Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus) stars as Rowan Fielding, a San Francisco neurosurgeon who learns her true heritage lies in New Orleans with a family of conflicted witches. Rowan’s headstrong nature presents a challenge to Lasher (Jack Huston doing his best Johnny Depp impersonation), the ancient and seductive supernatural entity who has haunted the Mayfair clan for ages and stalks his new prey like the Phantom of the French Quarter. (See the full review.)
Shane Mahood/FOX
Alert: Missing Persons Unit
SUNDAY: The missing ingredient in this crime drama is originality—and believability. Set in Philly, the generic and overheated Alert stars Hawaii Five-0 veteran Scott Caan as an ex-military private contractor recruited by his ex-wife (Dania Ramirez) to join her missing-persons unit—just as the former couple gets news that their long-vanished son Keith (Graham Verchere) has emerged after six years in mysterious captivity. If it is really Keith…
Inside Weekend TV:
- 48 Hours: The Idaho Student Murders (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): Peter Van Sant reports the latest developments following the arrest of Bryan Kohberger, accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November.
- Floribama Murders (Saturday, 9/8c, Oxygen True Crime): More real-life mayhem, courtesy of Blumhouse Television, with bizarre cases along the Florida-Alabama border, starting with a murder during a 4th of July fireworks celebration.
- Rico to the Rescue (Saturday, 9/8c, HGTV): Builder Rico León and his team of experts help desperate Denver homeowners who’ve had it with their unhelpful contractors.
- Svengoolie (Saturday, 8/7c, MeTV): The comedic horror-movie host expands his macabre reach to two-and-a-half hours, starting with 1963’s The Raven, starring Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and a then-unknown Jack Nicholson. Look for more interstitial antics and fan auditions for the “Spawn of Svengoolie.” Followed by companion show Sventoonie at 10:30/9:30c.
- East New York (Sunday, 8:30/7:30c, 8 pm/PT, CBS): While Officer Bentley (Lavel Schley) fights for his life after November’s cliffhanger shooting, the squad seeks the shooter, who may have been aiming for someone else from the precinct.
- The Cube (Sunday, 9/8c, TBS): Host Dwyane Wade welcomes wife Gabrielle Union-Wade and La La Anthony into the Cube in the game show’s Season 2 premiere.
- Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor? (Sunday 9/8c and 10/9c, CNN): His reputation tarnished in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack and election conspiracy theories, controversial former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani is the focus of a four-part docuseries profile, concluding next Sunday.
- A Year on Planet Earth (Sunday, streaming on Fox Nation): Stephen Fry narrates a visually ambitious six-part nature docuseries, filmed across the globe, tracking wildlife on land, sea and sky across the arc of a calendar year.
- Devotion (Sunday, streaming on Paramount+): Released in theaters in November, the movie starring Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell as U.S. Navy fighter pilots in the Korean War makes its streaming debut.