The stars of the beloved holiday movie reflect with Diane Sawyer, and USA airs a preview of Blake Shelton’s new celebrity game show.
Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Nov. 28-Dec. 4. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY 9 p.m. on Bravo. The Bravo-celebrity and business owner Leva Bonaparte is starring in this new reality show, which is a spinoff of “Southern Charm.” In this series, cameras follow Bonaparte and her staff as they run the Charleston, S.C., restaurant Republic Garden & Lounge. Fights, drama and hookups are sure to be on the menu.
BARMAGEDDON 11 p.m. on USA. Drinking games like keg curling, beer pong and flip cup are not just for college house parties anymore. Blake Shelton and Carson Daly are bringing the fun to Shelton’s Nashville bar, Ole Red, to compete in drinking-related challenges, with the professional wrestler Nikki Bella in tow as host. This week, there is a special preview of the show before the full season starts on Dec. 5. Guests include Gwen Stefani, Sheryl Crow and Jay Pharoah.
Tuesday
THE LAUGHTER & SECRETS OF LOVE ACTUALLY: 20 YEARS LATER 8 p.m. on ABC. It might be hard to believe that its been nearly 20 years since we first experienced the “to me, you are perfect” sign, Hugh Grant as a prime minister dancing to “Jump (For My Love),” and Emma Thompson opening a Joni Mitchell CD instead of the necklace she thought she was getting. Diane Sawyer is sitting down with Grant, Thompson and others to discuss the beloved 2003 holiday movie, including what was going on behind the scenes (one not-so-fun fact: Grant did not want to do that famous dance sequence).
MY SO-CALLED HIGH SCHOOL RANK 9 p.m. on HBO. This new documentary is kind of like “High School Musical” — but real life. The story follows students at Granite Bay High School, near Sacramento, Calif., as they put on a production of their musical “Ranked,” which focuses on the difficult process of college applications. After the production, high schools around the country including Fordham High School for the Arts in New York City and Ripley High School in West Virginia reach out to Granite Bay see if they can put on their own production of the show.
Wednesday
CHRISTMAS IN ROCKEFELLER CENTER 8 p.m. on NBC. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which stands 82-feet tall this year, is making its New York City debut with a ceremonial tree lighting and a range of celebrity guests. Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani will be performing a duet of their song “You Make It Feel Like Christmas”; and Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Andrea Bocelli and the Radio City Rockettes will be in attendance — to name just a few.
SECRETS OF THE DEAD: ABANDONING THE TITANIC 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The details around the sinking of the Titanic are by no means unknown at this point, but this documentary investigates a question about a lesser-known detail: Who was the captain of the ship that was seen within view of the passenger liner as it sunk? Shortly after the maritime disaster, the SS Californian and its captain, Stanley Lord, were accused of abandoning the Titanic but were later exonerated — so who exactly was out there?
LOVE WITHOUT BORDERS 9 p.m. on Bravo. Social experiments turned reality dating shows are all the rage these days (just watch “Love Is Blind” or “Are You the One?”). This new show follows five people who have not had much luck finding love at home in the United States, so they travel around the world to meet up with people who are supposedly their perfect matches. They have to travel at a moment’s notice without even seeing a picture of the person they are to meet.
Thursday
DOLLY PARTON’S MOUNTAIN MAGIC CHRISTMAS 8 p.m. on NBC. Dolly Parton plays herself in this musical within a musical based around the magic of Dollywood around Christmastime. Throughout the production, Parton goes on a journey to her past, which teaches her a lesson about the importance of the holiday. The star-studded cast includes Jimmy Fallon and Miley Cyrus.
Friday
DON’T WORRY DARLING (2022) 7:55 p.m. on HBO. This film, which premiered in September after some iffy moments on the press trail, stars Harry Styles and Florence Pugh as a seemingly perfect couple with a happy-looking life — until it all starts to fall apart. “The movie’s take on gender roles is stinging,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “But its targets are amorphous (yes, agreed, sexism is bad) and carefully nonpartisan, and its take on the prison-house of the traditional feminine role — what Betty Friedan called the ‘happy housewife heroine’ in her 1963 classic ‘The Feminine Mystique’ — is shallow.”
MATT ROGERS: HAVE YOU HEARD OF CHRISTMAS? 10 p.m. on Showtime. This holiday special, based on Matt Rogers’s live show of the same name, has it all: music, sketches and celebrity guests — all with the goal of Rogers being able to crown himself the “Pop Prince of Christmas.” Bowen Yang, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson join him on his mission.
Saturday
ELF (2003) 7 p.m. on AMC. Before viewing, make sure you’re fully stocked on waffles, maple syrup and marshmallows because Buddy the Elf’s diet, while shocking, can also induce some serious sugar cravings. Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a human man who was accidentally transported to the North Pole as a toddler and raised as one of Santa’s elves. As he grows up and notices that he is a couple of feet taller than everyone else, he feels like he no longer fits in and travels to New York City to try to find his real father. Turns out, he does not fit in there either, and chaos ensues as Buddy embraces the holiday spirit more than his family.
Sunday
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) 4 p.m. on TCM. Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) is a food-column writer whose recipes and tales about family life on a farm keep the war hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) entertained while he recovers in a hospital. Elizabeth’s publisher — who does not know that it has all been a charade and that Elizabeth doesn’t have the picturesque life that she pretends to have in her column — suggests that she hosts Jefferson for Christmas dinner.
Source: Television - nytimes.com