Worth Watching: Beware the ‘Sharkcano,’ Netflix Samples Latin America ‘Street Food,’ a ‘Real Sports’ Roundtable

Sharkcano
National Geographic/Duncan Brake
Sharkcano

A selective critical checklist of notable Tuesday TV:

Sharkcano (10/9c, National Geographic): Calling Ian Ziering! Just kidding, although National Geographic is clearly trying to conjure fond memories of Syfy’s cheesy guilty pleasure with the title of its latest Sharkfest documentary. Sharkcano‘s subject, shark scientist Dr. Michael Heithaus, isn’t joking about his mission: to reveal and better understand the link between the underwater predators and volcanic hotspots, to which they appear to be drawn. Dr. Heithaus traverses the globe in this special, risking his own safety to understand what sharks find so appealing about volcanoes.

Street Food: Latin America (streaming on Netflix): The creators of Chef’s Table aren’t above enjoying a little street food, as they demonstrate in an admiring six-episode docuseries that travels to six Latin America countries to profile street vendors whose cuisine reflects their nation’s culture. Stops include Oaxaca, Mexico; Salvador, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Bogota, Colombia; and La Paz, Bolivia. Executive producer Brian McGinn notes that vendors like these have suffered through closures during the global pandemic. “We hope that after watching Street Food, our viewers will consider supporting street food vendors in their own communities so that we can continue to enjoy the incredible culinary traditions that these men and women preserve every day.” But first, please, wear a mask.

COVID’s Hidden Toll (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): Another aspect of the food industry impacted by the pandemic, going largely unnoticed in news coverage, is the toll on agricultural workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, who are seen as essential to the U.S. food supply. In the latest of many urgent Frontline reports on the fallout from the novel coronavirus, journalists Daffodil Altan and Andres Cediel investigate the disproportionate rate of infection among Latino employees who pick crops and work in meat packing plants, for whom there are no mandatory COVID-19 protections.

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (10/9c, HBO): With the return of baseball imminent later this week, and more professional sports planning to reopen, the timing is especially good for the distinguished newsmagazine’s monthly installment, which includes a roundtable of Gumbel and sports insiders Peter King, David Aldridge and Tom Verducci discussing how their respective sports are shaping up. In another segment, correspondent David Scott looks at the prospects for college football and the health challenges for student athletes.

Inside Tuesday TV: The judges on NBC’s America’s Got Talent (8/7c) reflect on the season’s most impressive auditions before moving to the next round, while dancer/choreographer Stephen “tWitch” Boss (Ellen) joins the World of Dance (10/9c) panel during the latest “Duels” round… OWN’s Greenleaf (9/8c) finds the family still reeling from the loss of their Calvary Fellowship World Ministries. But when Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield) visits Tara James (Jennifer Sears) to investigate a family secret, could this be the beginning of a reversal of misfortune?… ABC’s provocative hidden-camera series What Would You Do? (10/9c) takes on the immigration debate in a scenario filmed near the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas. When a woman takes an immigrant child she’s sponsoring to a local restaurant, another patron openly objects that she could be focusing her good works on needy American children. Will anyone object?