What to Watch This Week: July 12 to 17

From country legends to sitcom reunions, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

From country legends to sitcom reunions, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Down to Earth with Zac Efron | Netflix

Zac Efron made headlines last year after taking ill whilst filming a new series in Australia, but what might surprise you is that it wasn’t this series. Nope, it happened on his Quibi show, Killing Zac Efron. This series is completely different: it finds the young movie star travelling around the world with wellness expert Darin Olien to explore healthy, sustainable ways to live.

2. Match Game – Sunday, July 12, 10 p.m., CTV & ABC

Original Match Game host Gene Rayburn left some big shoes to fill, but as viewers of this reboot of the 1970s celebrity game show are well aware, new emcee Alec Baldwin does an admirable job. For tonight’s episode, the former 30 Rock star welcomes comedian Adam Carolla, former Major League Baseball player Nick Swisher, actress Ali Wentworth, Cheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, The Morning Show‘s Mark Duplass, and Loni Love, co-host of daytime talk show The Real. As always, they’ll try to fill in the blanks to provocative questions with the funniest—and occasionally filthiest—answers they can come up with.

3. CMA Best of Fest – Monday, July 13, 8 p.m., ABC

Given that the pandemic has shut down music festivals, this year’s CMA Fest will be a “best of” sort of deal, with American Idol‘s Luke Bryan serving as host to introduce performances from past fests. Among the stars featured are Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Maren Morris, Zac Brown Band, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Little Big Town and, oddly enough, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” singer Joan Jett.

4. Variety’s Power of Women: Frontline Heroes – Wednesday, July 15, 5 p.m., 11 p.m. & 2 a.m., Lifetime

Hosted virtually by Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts, this new special celebrates the courageous women on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic—including doctors, nurses, teachers and researchers, among others—who are putting themselves at risk in order to make a difference, working towards finding a solution in this time of crisis.

5. Fatal Affair – Thursday, July 16, Netflix

Nia Long (Empire), Stephen Bishop (Imposters) and Omar Epps (House) star in this Netflix Original film. After having drinks with an old friend, a female lawyer suddenly becomes the target of an intense, terrifying obsession, placing everyone she knows and loves in peril, especially her husband.

6. 30 Rock – Thursday, July 16, 8 p.m., NBC

Reunion specials are nothing new but in the age of COVID-19, they’ve become prolific and virtual. The latest comes Thursday on NBC, when the cast of 30 Rock regroups for an hour-long program titled simply 30 Rock. Filmed remotely (of course), it doubles as an introduction to NBC Universal’s 2020-21 lineup of new series, in what the network calls “a first-of-its-kind all-audience upfront event.” Few other details were available at this writing except for the fact that regulars from the show about the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a fictional NBC sketch comedy series—among them Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer—will be involved.

7. Celebrity Watch Party – Thursday, July 16, 8 p.m., Fox | Season Finale

Celebs: they’re just like you and me—stuck at home with not much to do except stare at the tube. Hollywood has cooked up a variety of ways to continue harnessing their star power amidst the pandemic—from All Rise‘s quarantine episode to Joel McHale’s Tiger King after show to the forthcoming 30 Rock reunion special. And then there’s this Fox effort, which trains a camera on self-isolating celebs as they watch TV. Based on a long-running British series called Gogglebox (which plunks cameras in the living rooms of average folks), the show welcomes viewers into the homes of luminaries like Rob Lowe, Lindsay Lohan, Tyra Banks and the Osbournes, flicking back and forth between them as they react to breaking news stories and thrilling twists on their fave dramas. The show caps off season one this week; with any luck, season two won’t be necessary.

8. Killer Camp – Thursday, July 16, 8 p.m., The CW | Series Premiere

If the shortlived 2013 reality series Whodunnit and equally shortlived 2009 drama Harper’s Island had managed to produce a love child during their short lives, it would probably look a little something like Killer Camp. The British program, which aired on ITV last fall, is a murder mystery that’s also something of an homage to Friday the 13th—taking place as it does at a 1980s American summer camp, where a group of contestants are killed off one by one, leaving the survivors to wonder who did it and who’s next. Each week, another unfortunate soul is “murdered” by the deranged killer—a masked caretaker named Bruce (trust us, he’s scarier than he sounds). Further complicating things: one of the 11 contestants is the real murderous mastermind, and the rest of the campers will need to sniff out the enemy among them if they hope to survive (i.e. win money). Another twist: all these people thought they were signing up for a very different sort of reality show, but that just makes it all the more entertaining—at least, for us viewers.

9. The Bold Type – Thursday, July 16, 7 p.m. & 10 p.m., ABC Spark | Season Finale

It’s an eventful season ender for the ladies of Scarlet, as Sutton takes a much-needed break at home but quickly falls into old patterns, while Kat hides her new romance and Jane hesitates to pull the trigger on a big story that could spell big trouble for Jacqueline.

10. Decoys – Friday, July 17, CBC Gem (Stream) | Series Premiere

This new homegrown comedy from CBC’s streaming service, CBC Gem, delves into the unique world of duck decoy carving. The mockumentary-style series (consisting of six 10-minute episodes) follows fictional decoy carvers as they prepare to compete in the Northern Alberta Duck Decoy Carving Competition, which, yes, is an actual thing. In the tradition of such mockumentaries as Best in Show, the carvers are an eccentric lot, such as Donald Sinclair (played by series creator David Pelech), who has taken up carving as a way to connect with his deceased dad, while his girlfriend Margaret Russell (Kelly Van der Burg) does her best to tolerate this new hobby even as it starts to dominate their lives. Other characters include: Amandeep Singh (Rup Magon), a recent immigrant who carves as a way to integrate himself into Canadian culture; veteran carvers Jane (Alice Moran), Zeke (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) and Frank Brunswick (Brian Paul); and Rhett Peltier (Brandon Oakes), the original bad boy of Alberta carving.