What’s Worth Watching: The Olympics Opening Ceremony, ‘The Bandit’, ‘The Night Of’, ‘Inspector Lewis’ and more for Friday, August 5 thru Sunday, August 7.
Olympics Opening Ceremony (Friday, Aug. 5, 7:30/6:30c, NBC): Let the Games officially begin—with a Carnival-like extravaganza to show off the colorful culture of Rio, kicking off the first Olympics to be staged in South America. Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Hoda Kotb will host, no doubt doing their best to accentuate the positive despite all of the negative pre-Games publicity. Prime time on Saturday (8/7c) and Sunday (8/7c) will lean heavily on women’s and men’s gymnastics, swimming and the inevitable beach volleyball.
The Bandit (Saturday, 10/9c, CMT): Burt Reynolds was at the height of his 1970s fame when he gave his best friend and longtime stunt double Hal Needham the chance to direct the smash hit Smokey & the Bandit, second only to Star Wars among 1977 releases. This documentary celebrates the making of the movie and their enduring friendship.
The Night Of (Sunday, 9/8c, HBO): The fate of an impounded cab, an orphaned cat and lawyer Stone’s (John Turturro) eczema-ravaged feet continue to be significant subplots of unusual realism in this first-rate crime drama. In prison, Naz (Riz Ahmed) falls further under the sway of the charismatic Freddy (Michael Kenneth Williams), while Detective Box (Bill Camp) retraces the suspect’s timeline to try to get at the truth of the murder.
Inspector Lewis (Sunday, 9/8c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): In a more conventional whodunit, this Inspector Morse spinoff begins its final season with Lewis (Kevin Whately) and Hathaway (Laurence Fox) trying to identify a dead body found in a well while investigating the possible murder of a young artist. And if you think Lewis, who’s come out of retirement, wouldn’t have to prove himself to a boss anymore, you’d be wrong.
Inside Weekend TV: PBS’s long-running music series Austin City Limits presents a special preview featuring Lauryn Hill (Saturday, 8/7c, check local listings at pbs.org) as a warm-up to its 42nd season, starting in October. . . . Timed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the infamous clock-tower shooting at the University of Texas at Austin, Guns on Campus: Tamron Hall Investigates (Sunday, 10/9c) looks at the controversy surrounding Texas’s SB11, which allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus. . . . On a lighter note, CBS’s BrainDead (Sunday, 10/9c) takes a step forward in getting to the bottom of the outer-space bug invasion when Gus (Johnny Ray Gill) and Rochelle (Nikki M. James) find a way to communicate with the infected.
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