Australian Road Trip With ‘Darby and Joan,’ ‘Saul’ and the Aftershow, Ramsay vs. Ramsay, Ashton Kutcher Takes Costa Rica Challenge
Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi star in the Australian light mystery Darby and Joan as a former detective and retired nurse touring Queensland and solving crimes in an RV. Better Call Saul’s penultimate episode is followed by a Talking Saul after-show, setting up the series finale. National Geographic heads to Costa Rica for the season finale of Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted Showdown, where he faces off with daughter Tilly, and it’s also the setting for Ashton Kutcher running wild with Bear Grylls.
Darby and Joan
Series Premiere
Erase thoughts of the proverbial happily married couple. For Australian detective Jack Darby (Bryan Brown) and newly widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope (Greta Scacchi), both retired, it’s scorn at first sight when she runs him and his dog off a back road in Queensland in her spacious RV. Joan has gone Down Under to look into the circumstances of her husband’s mysterious death, and the happy accident of her collision with Darby leads to a series of mild mysteries in which the bickering duo also snoop into each other’s pasts. Also on Acorn: the season finale of the long-running Murdoch Mysteries, with Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) trying to figure out who’s seeking to kill his family.
Better Call Saul
As usual, details are scarce about this week’s episode, setting up next week’s series finale. Will we once again be in the black-and-white post-New Mexico world of Gene/Saul/Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk), or will the show deliver another taste of that sunny Breaking Bad magic? What we do know is that Odenkirk will be joined by executive producers Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan to break down the latest events with host Chris Hardwick on a special edition of the Talking Saul after-show (10/9c).
Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Showdown
Season Finale
Cooking skills run in the Ramsay family, as we learn in the season finale when the ubiquitous TV host sends his daughter Tilly, also a cooking show star, into the wilds of Costa Rica with three friends to forage for local cuisine. The episode ends with a multigenerational cook-off.
Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge
Costa Rica also provides the exotic backdrop for the naturalist’s latest celebrity adventure. He pushes Ashton Kutcher to the limits, with a helicopter jump into the Pacific Ocean followed by a canoe trip to catch fish and a 300-foot cliff descent. In the climax, Grylls tasks the actor-producer to cross a ravine in a commando crawl rope challenge.
Inside Monday TV:
- American Ninja Warrior (8/7c, NBC): The semifinals end in Los Angeles, with the two fastest competitors facing off on the Power Tower to score a Safety Pass heading into the National Finals.
- Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta (8/7c, VH1): The 10th season of the reality show opens by celebrating Spice’s Grammy nomination, a first for the franchise. Followed by the Season 4 premiere of Love & Hip Hop: Miami (9/8c).
- sMothered (9/8c, TLC): Three new closer-than-close mother-daughter pairs join the reality series exploring family ties that know no boundaries.
- President (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): POV presents a Sundance award-winning documentary that follows a fraught presidential election in Zimbabwe in 2018, the country’s first democratic election (following a military coup) since becoming independent in 1980.
