What to Watch This Week: January 9 to 14

From classic thrillers to gripping documentaries, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Jaws – Sunday, January 9, 3 p.m., AMC

When the mechanical shark in your movie about a killer shark doesn’t handle salt water so well, it’s a problem. Luckily, the man in the director’s chair was a young Steven Spielberg, who cut the screen time of his razor-toothed star, amped up the tension and let the viewer’s imagination do most of the work.

2. Pivoting – Sunday, January 9, 6:30 p.m. & 8:30 p.m., Fox; 8:30 p.m., CTV – Series Premiere

Ginnifer Goodwin (Once Upon a Time), Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings) and Maggie Q (Designated Survivor) play three women who’ve been besties since they were kids. Amy (Coupe) produces a local cooking show but struggles with feelings that she’s a little too selfish to be a good mother; Jodie (Goodwin) is a stay-at-home mom who feels ignored by her husband; and even though Sarah (Q) is a very successful doctor, her personal happiness is flatlining. But when the fourth member of their old friend group dies suddenly, it pushes them all to chase their bliss and really live for the moment. Alas, inspiring though that all may sound, their rash decisions don’t exactly work out for the best.

Lending a hint of truth and tragedy to it all, creator Liz Astrof based the series on a similar loss she and her own friends endured.

3. Dexter: New Blood – Sunday, January 9, 8 p.m., Crave1 – Season Finale

This much-buzzed revival comes to its gory, darkly amusing end (for now), as Dex and his boy Harrison wonder if they can live a normal life in the sleepy little town they’ve come to realize isn’t so sleepy after all. Either way, they’ll need to unleash their “Dark Passengers” one last time to survive all the threats lining up against them.

4. Euphoria – Sunday, January 9, 8 p.m. & 11 p.m., HBO Canada – Season Premiere

It has been an interminable wait, but after nearly three years (plus, an Emmy win for leading woman Zendaya and two bittersweet holiday specials), this zeitgeist-grabbing teen melodrama is back for season two.

“When you’re younger, everything feels so permanent,” our recovering teen addict Rue teases in the trailer. “But as you get older, you begin to realize—nothing is.” Cue a nothing-if-not-dramatic montage, including Rue running from the cops, Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane) driving angrily with a bandaged head and an unidentified figure waving a gun around, among other provocative snippets.

“The show was intense,” Zendaya—who can also currently be seen on the big screen in Spider-Man: No Way Home—previously divulged to Teen Vogue. “And it’s very personal to, not only ourselves and all the people who work on it, but also, to other people who have been able to relate so deeply to the characters or see their experiences being reflected through Rue. So, we take that very seriously.”

5. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. – Tuesday, January 11, 5 p.m., WTVS; 8 p.m., KCTS

This week’s new episode of Professor Gates’ celebrity family tree series is all about activists. His guests: Brittany Packnett Cunningham, who founded the anti-police violence organization Campaign Zero, and Anita Hill, who took a bold public stance against sexual harassment during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

6. Naomi – Tuesday, January 11, 6 p.m. & Midnight, Showcase; 9 p.m., The CW – Series Premiere

It’s no great secret that television has become a boomtown for superhero series, and this week brings another one.

Based on the DC Comics title of the same name, Naomi is something of a passion project for executive producer Ava DuVernay, the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning director of such films as Selma and the acclaimed Netflix miniseries When They See Us.

Playing the titular Naomi is Kaci Walfall (seen on TV in Army Wives and Power, and on Broadway in The Lion King), described as “a cool, confident, comic book-loving teenager as she pursues her hidden destiny.”

When a supernatural event shakes her small hometown of Port Oswego to its core, the ever-tenacious Naomi sets out to uncover its origins, leading her on a journey of discovery that yields a shocking revelation about her own origins—and the new powers that have mysteriously been given to her.

She’s not alone, gaining help from her fiercely loyal best friend Annabelle (Mary-Charles Jones of Kevin Can Wait) and her supportive adoptive parents, veteran military officer Greg (Barry Watson, 7th Heaven) and linguistics teacher Jennifer (Mouzam Makkar, The Fix).

After an encounter with Zumbado (Cranston Johnson of Filthy Rich), the mysterious owner of a used car lot, leaves her reeling, Naomi turns to tattoo parlour owner Dee (Alexander Wraith, Orange Is the New Black), who becomes her reluctant mentor on this journey, relying on further support from fellow comic book enthusiast Lourdes (Camila Moreno), who works in a vintage collectible shop.

“As Naomi journeys to the heights of the Multiverse in search of answers,” the synopsis adds, “what she discovers will challenge everything we believe about our heroes.”

7. Children Ruin Everything – Wednesday, January 12, 8 p.m., CTV – Series Premiere

This new Canadian-made comedy follows the exploits of city-dwelling parents Astrid (Meaghan Rath) and James (Aaron Abrams) as they struggle to raise two young children while unsuccessfully attempting to cling to both the last vestiges of their cool, pre-kid lifestyle and their own sanity. As they concede one battle after another, they experience the various ways that children can both kill dreams and bring about a whole new reinvented existence.

8. Eternals – Wednesday, January 12, Disney+

Following its theatrical run, the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to Disney+. Directed by Nomadland Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, Eternals follows a group of ancient extraterrestrials who have been secretly living among humans for millennia. Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden and Salma Hayek star.

9. Bowling for Columbine – Thursday, January 13, 9 p.m. & Midnight, Knowledge

Nearly 20 years after its release, Michael Moore’s look at the array of forces contributing to America’s epidemic of gun violence—which has only grown worse in the decades since—remains eye-opening.

10. Ray Donovan: The Movie – Friday, January 14, Crave1

Fans of gritty Showtime drama Ray Donovan were not happy when the show was unceremoniously cancelled after the season-seven finale, leaving storylines unresolved and both the series’ producers and stars feeling blindsided by the network’s decision. Two years later, closure is offered in this one-off movie in order to give this series the kind of sendoff it should have received in the first place. Picking up where the final season left off, Mickey (Jon Voight) is on the lam while Ray (Liev Schreiber) is on a mission to find his felonious father and stop him from causing any more carnage. Meanwhile, the film will also weave together the present-day fallout from the Donovan/Sullivan feud, with a series of flashbacks detailing the origin story of Ray and Mickey from 30 years earlier, featuring newcomer Chris Gray as young Ray. Alan Alda returns to reprise his season-seven role as Dr. Arthur Amiot, Ray’s analyst, to whom Ray makes a shocking confession in the opening moments of the film.