TV Heartbeat! What to Watch During the Summer Doldrums! UnREAL! Mr Robot! The Last Ship!

As we head into the holiday weekend, things are quiet on TV with just a few debuts for a bunch of reality and game shows. This would be the dreaded summer doldrums. Yawn!

Halle Berry is back with a mission on Extant. Ramping up the action with a new showrunner at the helm, this season picks up 6 months later with less focus on her husband (Goran Visnjic) and more focus on a cop played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. (You can tell this season is going to be different since she’s got a new hair-do.)

Extant season 2

Hollywood Game Night is basically Win, Lose or Draw but without any drawing. Contestants play random games with celebrities in a living room-like setting. The other differences include Jane Lynch as host and a bar where the losing contestant hangs out as a consolation prize.

Hollywood Game Night

Tonight: Extant season premiere (CBS)
Thursday: Food Fighters season premiere (NBC)
Monday: Penn & Teller: Fool Us season premiere (The CW), Whose Line Is It Anyway? moves to new night (The CW)
Tuesday: Hollywood Game Night season premiere (NBC)

Health check

In the cobra/”You’re fired” heard across the NBC/Universal conglomerate, NBC severed ties with Donald Trump and his Miss America/Universe pageants and his role on Celebrity Apprentice. NBC/U wasn’t too thrilled with The Donald’s statement that illegal immigrants from Mexico were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s running for president and just got fired — not a good sign for his candidacy, but I look forward to Saturday Night Live’s take on his

The American Odyessy turned out to be a lot shorter than Homer’s. The NBC show starring Anna Friel just got its voyage cut short to just one season.

Odyssey - Anna Friel

Project Runway remains in and not out at Lifetime. The original Project Runway will start up in August and will be followed by Project Runway Junior (featuring teenage designers) and then Project Runway All-Stars. Fashion trends may come and go, but this one has staying power.

Meanwhile, Syfy has picked up Bitten, the vampire/werewolf drama, for a third season.

Best bets for summer viewing

Yes, TV is definitely quiet this month as we head into the height of summer, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth watching. In case you missed it, here are a few shows worth catching!

  • The Last Ship (Sundays on TNT) – After a super-virus kills 4 billion people, the crew of the USS Nathan James has found a cure and is on a mission to manufacture and distribute the cure. However, the governments around the world have collapsed and not everyone has such altruistic intentions for distributing the cure. While the whole post-apocalypse trend is getting old, this one stands out for pure action and suspense fun.

Last ship season 1 finale

  • Mr. Robot (Wednesdays on USA) – Elliot works in a large cyber-security firm when he’s approached by a strange underground hacker group to bring down the big companies. If you like conspiracy theories, this show has a unique voice as Elliot struggles to figure out the hacker group’s agenda and where he fits in. Rami Malek is a nicely understated Elliot while Christian Slater is his normal self as the leader of the hacker group.

Mr Robot

  • UnREAL (Mondays on Lifetime) – This show slipped under my radar since I’m not a big fan of reality dating shows. But the buzz has been so strong on this one that I had to give it a chance and, yes, it’s worth watching. This scripted story is about the behind-the-scenes of a Bachelor-like reality show called Everlasting. Shiri Appleby (Roswell) is a producer trying to survive the day-to-day set drama and squeeze out the best quotes while Freddie Stroma (Harry Potter, Pitch Perfect) is the gorgeous playboy all the girls are trying to wed. Lots of soapy drama and a look at the non-reality of reality shows.

Unreal

Not all is lost, right?

Stay tuned!

Comment below or email me at Erica@MikeTheFanboy.com
For more adventures, follow me on twitter: @Cambear

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