Hallmark’s European Adventure, Training Great Whites, ‘Runway’ Gets Wild, X Marks the ‘Trek’

Paris Is Always a Good Idea

Who can argue with this title? (Except maybe during a heat wave.) Channel favorite Lacey Chabert stars in a six-part limited series based on Jenn McKinlay’s novel about Chelsea, a nonprofit executive who journeys into her romantic past to figure out her future. The catalyst is a message left by her late mother, which prompts her, while on a business trip to Paris, to revisit the crushes she met years earlier during a post-college European tour. While reconnecting with Parisian Sebastian (Julien Samani), Irish Colin (Stephen Hagan) and Spaniard Marcos (Alejandro Albarracin), Chelsea finds herself drawn to Jason (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Scott Michael Foster), the co-worker sent overseas to help her woo a donor in the City of Lights. The series launches with two episodes.

How to Train a Great White

Three new Shark Week specials feed our fascination with the ocean predators, and in the centerpiece, How to Train a Great White (9/8c), marine biologist Dr. Tristan Guttridge explores the possibility of modifying the behavior of the feared creatures in the same manner that the U.S. Navy was able to train dolphins in cognitive experiments. The evening opens with What Shark Attacked? (8/7c), in which shark experts use forensic methods to investigate shark attacks to identify which species was responsible. In Ultimate Shark Dive (10/9c), high diver Molly Carlson prepares for a stunt in which she jumps from a helicopter into a plexiglass cage surrounded by reef sharks. Look out below!

Project Runway

Wild animals are the inspiration for the latest fashion challenge, with designers going head-to-head as they display looks derived from the animal kingdom. Among the guest models working the runway: reality-TV veterans familiar to viewers of Hulu‘s Get Real, including Sarah Jane Nader (Love Thy Nader), Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu (Love Island), Veejay Floresca (Season 21 Runway champ), Charity Lawson (The Bachelorette), and Runway contestant Chloe Magleby.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Three Starfleet officers with a tangled romantic history — science officer Spock (Ethan Peck), security chief La’an (Christina Chong), and the pre-Enterprise Kirk (Paul Wesley) — board the abandoned starship Griffin, which soon appears to be haunted. Their creepy and surreal escapade has a distinct X-Files vibe, which explains several veiled references to Division 12, which specializes in unexplained stellar phenomena. (Could another spinoff be brewing?) As they explore this “ship of the damned” upon which they’re trapped, each is forced to face their worst nightmares, underscoring Capt. Pike’s (Anson Mount) reminder that “Space is limitless in its beauty — and in its horror.”

Stuart Fails To Save The Universe

Another episode, another “crazy upside-down world,” observes lost-in-space Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), the unlikely hero of the sci-fi comedy from the Big Bang Theory universe. All appears peaceful when he, Bert (Brian Posehn), and Barry (John Ross Bowie) land in a parallel Pasadena where everyone gets along — even in the comic books he sells, where Superman and Lex Luthor are now “Best Buddies.” The reality is closer to Pluribus, with any sign of conflict or anger bringing serious, and seriously funny, consequences.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• Mickey’s Country Farm (7 am/6c, Disney Jr.): A full-length Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+ special features Megan Hilty (Smash) as the voice of Lasso Lucy, performing Hoedown Throwdown to the delight of Mickey, Daisy Duck and their friends. The episode streams Friday on Disney+.
• Celebrity Family Feud (8/7c, ABC): Teams led by rapper-songwriter 2 Chainz and comedian Eric André go head-to-head, followed by a showdown between singer-songwriters Zac Brown and Mickey Guyton.
• Surviving Earth (8/7c, NBC): The series ends with a voyage back in time to the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, when an ice dam collapses, bringing forth a mammoth flood that imperils a mama bear and her cubs.
• The Bear (9/8c, FX): Getting the VIP treatment in the series’ penultimate episode, as a tumultuous dinner service nears its end: a rumored Michelin representative and, perhaps more important, Marcus’ (Lionel Boyce) dad.

ON THE STREAM:

• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (streaming on Peacock): The hit animated sequel makes its streaming debut.
• The Bombing of Pan Am 103 (streaming on Netflix): A six-part docudrama revisits the investigation into the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, which claimed 270 lives.
• 20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations (streaming on Disney+ and Hulu): The true-crime newsmagazine looks across the pond to explore six high-profile British cases.
• Gone (streaming on BritBox): Acting as family liaison officer as well as detective, Annie (Eve Myles) uses her proximity to get murder suspect Michael Polly (a tremendous David Morrissey) to open up.
• Home in You (streaming on Viaplay): A Swedish drama depicts the emotional dislocation of a Lebanese family when gentrification uproots them from their Stockholm neighborhood, and they seek a new place to call home.