‘Celebrity IOU’ Keeps Up with Kardashians, A ‘Dark’ Coda, Hulu’s ‘Farmhouse Facelift,’ Food’s ‘Grill of Victory’
Drew and Jonathan Scott launch a second season of their hit Celebrity IOU with a jolt of Jenner/Kardashian reality. HBO produces a follow-up episode to its gripping true-crime series I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. Two of reality TV’s more popular subgenres, renovation shows and cooking competitions, keep churning out new titles.
Celebrity IOU
Season Premiere
Those tireless Scott twins, Drew and Jonathan, return with a new season of their latest hit, in which they help some of their famous acquaintances pay it forward to a special deserving someone in their lives with surprise renovations. In the opener, Kris Jenner (Keeping Up with the Kardashians) is joined by daughters Kim Kardashian West and Kendall Jenner to gives Kris’ BFF of 40 years, Lisa, the outdoor renovation of her dreams.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
Special
Last summer’s acclaimed true-crime docuseries, based on the late Michelle McNamara’s best-seller, returns with a follow-up episode that marks a year since the guilty plea of Joseph James DeAngelo, aka the Golden State Killer. The special covers his public sentencing in August 2020, an occasion that allowed the rapist/murderer’s survivors and members of victims’ families a chance to face the fiend directly and speak about their pain and anger. The hour also delves into another case that was important to crime blogger/author McNamara: the 1984 rape-murder of Kathy Lombardo in her hometown of Oak Park, Illinois, which sparked the writer’s interest in investigating and spotlighting unsolved cold cases.
Farmhouse Facelift
Series Premiere
Originally seen on HGTV Canada, this 10-part series features siblings Billy Pearson and Carolyn Wilbrink, who grew up on a family farm and use their professional renovation prowess to upgrade and modernize farmhouses that have seen better days.
Grill of Victory
Series Premiere
Food-truck mogul Sabin Lomac hosts a cooking competition for BBQ amateurs, who must create all of their dishes on the grill. In the opener, the challenges include making impressions with Southern chicken, coastal seafood and surf-and-turf.
Inside Monday TV:
- The Sommerdahl Murders (streaming on Acorn TV): A second season of the Danish crime drama finds chief homicide investigator Dan Sommerdahl (Peter Mygind) juggling his workload of twisted mysteries with his crusader to win his wife back. Also on Acorn: the season finale of Whitstable Pearl, where the discovery of a 30-year-old skeleton washing up on the shore becomes very personal to private detective Pearl (Kerry Godliman).
- Deliciousness (7/6c, MTV): The food-themed spinoff of Ridiculousness returns for a weeklong run, with host Tiffani Thiessen and fellow foodies Angela Kinsey, Kel Mitchell and Tim Chantarangsu dishing on viral videos involving culinary blunders.
- The Bachelorette (8/7c, ABC): Former Bachelor Nick Viall stops by to help the remaining 22 men open up and share their most personal stories to Katie.
- The Republic of Sarah (9/8c, The CW): Who couldn’t have seen this coming? After urging her small New Hampshire town to secede from the U.S., Sarah (Stella Baker) faces her first utility crisis when Greylock’s power is shut off.
- American Greed (10/9c, CNBC): In “Confessions of a Scam Artist,” Texas wheeler-dealer T.R. Wright tells all about his audacious insurance-fraud scheme.
- Two Gods (10/9c PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): An intimate and evocative installment of Independent Lens, filmed in black and white, follows Hanif, a Muslim casket maker in New Jersey, as he mentors two youths, using the practices of Islamic burial rituals to help teach them how to live better lives.
