‘America’s Got Talent,’ A Ballsy Quiz Show, Bob Barker’s ‘Price Is Right’ Heyday, Inspirational ‘For Love & Life’

Season Premiere

8/7c

What’s the buzz as TV’s top-rated summer talent competition gears up for its 19^th season? Think double the Golden Buzzers, with each judge (Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Sofía Vergara) now getting two opportunities to move an act immediately forward to the live shows. With Terry Crews returning as host, the auditions get underway with a wild array of novelty acts and ambitious performers putting everything on the line to impress the judges with hopes of getting one of them to become their champion.

Series Premiere

7/6c

“Release the balls!” is the chant of host Jay Pharoah (Saturday Night Live) as families line up to answer multiple-choice trivia questions, fearing that a wrong answer will dump them into a tank of water when giant balls are sent down a chute. “My knees are shaking right now,” says one of the contestants in the series premiere. The slapstick antics aren’t as memorable as on Wipeout, but at least the brain gets a mild workout as we play along, trying to remember the names of Bond villains or Monopoly place names. Preceded by the Season 7 premiere of the musical game show Beat Shazam (8/7c), with executive producer Jamie Foxx returning to host with daughter Corinne Foxx.

Did you know June 1 (Saturday) was National Game Show Day? If BUZZR says it’s so, who are we to argue? With game shows so prevalent on many of the networks’ summer schedules during the off season, the game-centric network celebrates by offering vintage episodes of The Price Is Right for the first time, featuring one of the genre’s masters: Bob Barker, who passed away last August at 99. With episodes licensed from 1984 and 1985, when he’d already been hosting the show for more than a decade, this is The Price Is Right in its prime.

Documentary Premiere

For many, an ALS diagnosis is a nearly immediate death sentence. Not for Brian Wallach, a lawyer who learned of his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis condition at age 37 in 2017, shortly after the birth of his and wife Sandra Abrevaya’s second child. Brian decided to fight back, advocating for others afflicted by neurodegenerative diseases including ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s by founding the nonprofit I AM ALS to raise awareness and funding for research. The film follows the couple’s crusade and their daily routines, accepting the challenge of living with ALS with grit and even humor.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• Fiennes: Return to the Wild (10/9c, National Geographic): Renowned explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes travels through British Columbia with his cousin and actor Joseph Fiennes (The Handmaid’s Tale), reflecting on his adventurous life and his recent Parkinson’s diagnosis while savoring the wilderness in Canada.
• Password (10/9c, NBC): Jokester Joel McHale (Animal Control) joins Jimmy Fallon for a round of the word game.
• Frontline (10/9c, PBS): With increasing tensions between Israel and the U.S. as the war in Gaza continues, the public affairs documentary series provides an update with a rebroadcast of December’s Netanyahu, America & the Road to War in Gaza.
• The Veil (streaming on Hulu): In the spy thriller’s finale, Imogen (Elisabeth Moss) smuggles Adilah (Yumna Marwan) into England for a meeting with Michael (James Purefoy), hoping for answers.