Women’s Gymnastics and More Olympics, Masterful Musicians on PBS, ‘Real Sports’ Plays Chess, Amateur Detectives Play ‘Citizen P.I.’

Highlights of the Summer Olympics include the marquee event of the women’s gymnastics team final. Profiles of blues great Buddy Guy and early rocker Chuck Berry will leave PBS viewers singing and swinging. HBO’s Real Sports unearths what sounds like a true-life Queen’s Gambit story. Digital detectives try to solve crimes in Citizen P.I. on discovery+.

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

By the time you read this, you may already know how Team USA, led by Simone Biles, fared during the Women’s Gymnastics team finals, if you woke early enough to stream the event on Peacock. For everyone else, the competition will be replayed during NBC’s prime-time show (7/6c) along with live coverage of major swimming events including the Women’s 200m and 1500m Freestyle and 200m Individual Medley and Men’s 200m Butterfly and 4X200 Freestyle Relay. More sports can be found on USA (Women’s Basketball), CNBC (Rowing and Cycling), NBCSN (Softball final), the Olympic Channel (Tennis men’s and women’s singles and doubles) and the NBC Sports app. For the most complete and current listings, go to nbcolympics.com/schedule.

Chuck Berry performs live at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Holland in 1976
PBS

In Their Own Words

Documentary Premiere

Chuck Berry is remembered with vintage clips and interviews, taking the rock ’n’ roll pioneer from an inauspicious start in segregated St. Louis clubs to the top of the charts. The warts-and-all profile includes new interviews with his family and famous fans including Keith Richards, Slash and Darius Rucker.

PBS

Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away

Documentary Premiere

The music keeps playing in an American Masters tribute to the legendary blues guitarist who influenced generations while defining Chicago’s West Side sound as the go-to accompanist for Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. New interviews with Guy and rare performance footage illuminate the inspiring story of a musician who didn’t achieve the solo recognition and commercial success he deserved until a late-career renaissance in the 1990s.

HBO

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel

Who’s up for a Queen’s Gambit II? Looks like there’s plenty of material in the story of 10-year-old chess prodigy Tani Adewumi, who has his sights set on becoming the youngest ever to earn the title of Grandmaster. Mary Carillo reports on Tani’s against-the-odds journey into the spotlight, which began when his family fled Boko Haram terrorists in their native Nigeria in 2017 and landed in a NYC homeless shelter. Other segments deal with former NBA players getting into the legal cannabis trade and the controversy over animal hunting contests.

DISCOVERY +

Citizen P.I.

Series Premiere

HBO’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (based on Michelle McNamara’s best-seller) depicted how amateur sleuths helped call attention to and crack the Golden State Killer case. A new six-part series looks at other instances in which justice is served when everyday snoops get digitally connected. In the opener, “The DNA Detectives,” non-pros involved with the DNA Doe Project look into a 10-year-old cold case involving the murder of an unidentified woman in Gregg County, Texas in hopes of ID’ing the victim and finding her killer.

Inside Tuesday TV:

  • The Haves and the Have Nots (8/7c, OWN): The show may be over, but the memories live on, when cast members from Tyler Perry’s long-running soap reunite to share stories from eight seasons of back-stabbing melodrama.
  • Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail (10:30/9:30c, TBS): The slapstick Western comedy stages a hunting party to gather food for the famished settlers, which gives Rev. Ezekiel Brown (Daniel Radcliffe) another chance to try to prove his manhood. Staying behind: Benny the Teen (Steve Buscemi), who describes himself as “more of a people killin’ kind of guy. Once you go people, it’s hard to go back.” He stays busy giving bandit lessons to the restless Prudence (Geraldine Viswanathan).
  • In case you missed them during their original runs on The CW, Season 2 of Batwoman begins streaming on HBO Max, and the third season of All American arrives on Netflix.