Check Into the ‘Resort,’ New Format for Charlamagne, ‘Liars’ Spinoff, Tracy Morgan on Shark Week

Series Premiere

Imagine if a cynical Nancy Drew had married a funky Hardy Boy, and 10 years into a now-stagnant relationship, they check into a Mexican White Lotus-style resort and discover a 15-year-old unsolved missing-persons case. That’s roughly the escapist premise of this eight—part comedy-mystery (launching with three episodes), starring Cristin Milioti and The Good Place’s William Jackson Harper as Emma and Noah, who head to the Yucatan in an attempt to salvage their marriage and find themselves embroiled in intrigue after she discovers a long-abandoned phone belonging to a young man (The Righteous Gemstones’ Skyler Gisondo) who vanished back in 2007 during a terrible hurricane. Flashbacks tease his fate, and that of another guest at a now-shuttered resort, as Emma and Noah risk their necks to learn the truth.

Season Finale

11:30/10:30c

Bringing more diversity back into the late-night talk space—good news given the recent collapse of the Desus & Mero partnership and the cancellation of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee—this reformatted showcase for TV-radio personality Charlamagne Tha God (aka Lenard “Charlamagne” McKelvey) promises to bring a fresh take on ever-turbulent current events. With Stephen Colbert among the executive producers, and former Daily Show/Tonight Show boss Josh Lieb as showrunner, Hell of a Week brings together comedians, celebrities and political thought leaders to match wits with the outspoken host.

Series Premiere

Using the term “intellectual property” loosely, the long-running ABC Family/Freeform teen melodrama spins off again in a new setting with a new group of adolescent liars getting their comeuppance from an unseen tormentor. Original Sin takes us to blue-collar Millwood (not to be confused with Rosewood), where a group of besties are beset by a mystery “A”-hole who’s apparently bearing a grudge over a bad deed done by the girls’ parents two decades earlier. Familiar faces among the older generation include Dreamgirls’ Sharon Leal, Broadway’s Lea Salonga and Rookie Blue’s Eric Johnson.

Special

8/7c

Will the former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star channel his SNL character of animal enthusiast Brian Fellow as host of the latest Shark Week special? We can only hope. The program description only suggests that he teams up with shark experts to point out the ocean’s wildest variety of sharks. Followed by Shark House (9/8c), Monster Mako Under the Rig (10/9c) and Tiger Queen (11/10c).

Inside Thursday TV:

• Wild West Chronicles (8/7c and 8:30/7:30c, INSP): In the frontier-history docudrama’s double-barreled return, host Bat Masterson tells of “The Bone War,” where rival paleontologists battle over dinosaur bones discovered in Wyoming, and “The Texas Fence-Cutting War,” with Texas Ranger Ira Aten coming up with a dynamite idea to protect a widow’s land.
• The Fatal Flaw (10/9c, ABC): In the season finale of the true-crime series, which uses miniature dollhouses to re-create crime scenes, a secret in a kitchen freezer reveals the killer of a new mom.
• Keep Breathing (streaming on Netflix): Over six episodes, a limited-series survival adventure follows Liv (Scream’s Melissa Barrera) facing her demons and taking on Mother Nature after a small plane crashes in the Canadian wilds.
• Harley Quinn (streaming on HBO Max): The Flight Attendant’s Kaley Cuoco is back for a third season of animated shenanigans as the fabled DC villainess, returning to Gotham with Poison Ivy (voiced by Lake Bell) as a power couple intent on turning the embattled city into a paradisical Eden.
• Planet Insect (streaming on Curiosity Stream): A three-part nature docuseries, narrated by Orange Is the New Black’s Kate Mulgrew, gets up close and personal with the Earth’s thriving and diverse insect population, their mating and social hive habits, revealing an eco-system essential to our planet’s health.
• Idea House: Mountain Modern (streaming on The Roku Channel): A weekly series follows Denver couple Jared and Amber Phifer through the construction of a 4,500-square-foot home that weds modern design to energy-efficient building science.