Aretha with Oprah, ‘The Last Sharknado,’ True Crime Fix with Pamela Smart & Amy Fisher
A critical checklist of notable weekend TV:
Aretha Franklin: The Oprah Interview (Saturday, 8/7c, OWN): Among the many TV remembrances of the late Queen of Soul, this rebroadcast of a 1999 The Oprah Winfrey Show interview is likely to be among the most resonant. In the episode, Aretha Franklin discusses her life as recounted in her autobiography, Aretha: From These Roots, performs some of her greatest hits, including a medley in memory of her father, and brings the house down with a gospel rendition of “We Need Power.” Which is a quality the great Miss Franklin never lacked.
The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (Sunday, 8/7c, Syfy): All cheesy things eventually come to an end, and so it is with the campy disaster-movie franchise that somehow took the world by storm (pun unavoidable). As Fin (Ian Ziering) travels through time to try to avert the first sharknado and thus save the world from future apocalypse, this last (they promise) Sharknado sends up clichés from the Jurassic, medieval, Revolutionary War and Wild West eras, prompting celebrity (using the term loosely) sightings along the way. If you’ve been pining for a romp that gives air time—sometimes mercifully fleeting—to the likes of La Toya Jackson, Kato Kaelin, Tori Spelling, RuPaul’s Drag Race’s scene-stealer Alaska, Gary Busey and Bo Derek, this jaws-dropping spectacular will live up to your drive-in dreams.
Fear the Walking Dead (Sunday, 9/8c, AMC): Stormy weather also assails the horror-show spinoff this season, which scores another gripping episode with a focus on one of its strongest, if most troubled, characters: Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), the last of her family still standing. She takes refuge from the zombie-nado in a seemingly abandoned house, but when she discovers someone else lurking in the shadows, it forces a reckoning for this grieving warrior.
It’s a (True) Crime: Fans of notorious tabloid true-crime icons get a double dose Sunday, as Oxygen’s Snapped (6/5c) opens its 24th (!) season with a rehash of the Amy Fisher affair, including a 25-year-later interview with her surviving victim, Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Later in the evening, Investigation Discovery kicks off a three-part look at Pamela Smart: An American Murder Mystery (10/9c), recounting the 1990 scandal that involved Smart’s affair with 15-year-old high school student Billy Flynn, leading to the murder of her husband, Gregg.
Inside Weekend TV: The makers of Sesame Street present a new animated series for preschoolers, HBO’s Esme & Roy (Saturday, 9:30 am/8:30c), about a little girl and her monster friend learning through play. … Showtime’s music documentary Lynyrd Skynyrd: If I Leave Here Tomorrow (Saturday, 9/8c) celebrates the history of the legendary band from Jacksonville, Fla., which was devastated by a 1977 plane crash that killed its lead vocalist, Ronnie Van Zant, and two other band members. The group reformed a decade later and continues to make music. … Wipeout’s Jill Wagner and Kristoffer Polaha (Life Unexpected) search for a Pearl in Paradise in Hallmark’s latest romantic drama (Saturday, 9/8c). She’s a nature photographer, teaming with a romance novelist to find a rare blue pearl on the island of Fiji. … Showtime’s The Affair (Sunday, 9/8c) wraps its fourth season—only one more to go—with Noah (Dominic West) running into an old friend while taking Anton (Christopher Meyer) to Princeton, and Cole (Joshua Jackson) re-examining his relationship with Luisa (Catalina Sandino Moreno). … In the series finale of NBC’s Shades of Blue (Sunday, 10/9c), Harlee (Jennifer Lopez) faces a police commission, and Wozniak (Ray Liotta) enlists the team to help her any way they can.
Fear the Walking Dead where to stream
Sharknado where to stream
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