What’s on TV This Week: ‘Irma Vep’ and ‘Riverdale’
With 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, July 25-31. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
IRMA VEP 9 p.m. on HBO. This limited series, which stars Alicia Vikander, will end its first season on Monday. Its eight-episodes follow Mira (Vikander), an American actress who goes to France to star in a remake of the French silent film “Les Vampires.” While there, she struggles to keep her personal world and the world of her character separate. The show is written by Olivier Assayas, who wrote the 1996 film of the same name, but it isn’t a sequel or a remake, Assayas told The New York Times. “Turning ‘Irma Vep’ into the new ‘Irma Vep’ is like moving from poetry to novel,” he said, “and to a thick novel.”
Tuesday
MH370: MYSTERY OF THE LOST FLIGHT 8 p.m. on History. Eight and a half years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, History will air an original documentary about the flight. Though the official search for the missing plane and passengers ended in 2018, people have not stopped trying to come up with theories and to find evidence about what might have happened to the plane. In this documentary, experts discuss possible explanations for the disappearance.
Wednesday
WE MET IN VIRTUAL REALITY (2022)9 p.m. on HBO. Exploring a new kind of reality, this HBO documentary is filmed completely within Virtual Reality. We have seen V.R. help autistic children experience the world, allow older adults relive their memories and become a general means of communication. This movie expands the idea of using V.R. in day-to-day life and follows the stories of four sets of people who are using V.R. to connect romantically, start new businesses and improve accessibility for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Thursday
MAGIC MOMENTS — THE BEST OF ’50s POP 8:30 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Originally filmed in Atlantic City, N.J., in 2004, this show is hosted by Mary Lou Metzger, Phyllis McGuire and Pat Boone. It features performances by Debbie Reynolds, Patti Page and the Chordettes, plus a reunion of the McGuire Sisters.Cue the nostalgia.
FATAL FLAW: A SPECIAL EDITION OF 20/20 10 p.m. on ABC. This four-part documentary show uses firsthand perspectives from investigators and journalists — as well as dollhouse re-creations of homicide scenes — to look at how detectives tracked down different killers. Thursday’s finale focuses on a crime that was solved by a clue found in a kitchen freezer.
HELL OF A WEEK WITH CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. Charlamagne Tha God’s show, formerly known as “Tha God’s Honest Truth,” got a big rebrand this year: This season is formatted like a talk show, whereas last season had more of a variety format. The new season, entitled “Hell of a Week With Charlamagne Tha God,” will feature celebrity guests — including politicians and comedians — who have a range of political views. (Last season’s guests included Vice President Kamala Harris, Ed Sheeran and Kevin Hart.)
Friday
BARRY LYNDON (1975)8 p.m. on TCM. This Stanley Kubrick film stars Ryan O’Neal as a man who climbs the ranks of wealth and privilege after being left homeless by a duel. (The film was adapted from a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, itself based on a true story.) “‘Barry Lyndon’ is another fascinating challenge from one of our most remarkable, independent-minded directors,” the film critic Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times. If you are in the mood for a Stanley Kubrick double feature, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) airs on TCM right after “Barry Lyndon.”
Saturday
PHANTOM THREAD (2017)8 p.m. on TCM. In this movie, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis teamed up for a second time (10 years after “There Will Be Blood”) to take the audience to a dressmaking business in the 1950s. Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a renowned dressmaker to the rich and famous. He is also a notorious playboy — until he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), who becomes his muse. “Not every movie about an artist is a self-portrait of its director,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times, “but ‘Phantom Thread’ almost offhandedly lays out intriguing analogies between Reynolds’s métier and Mr. Anderson’s.”
Sunday
RIVERDALE 6 p.m. on the CW. This season of “Riverdale,” the downbeat and dramatic TV adaptation of the Archie comics, has included superpowers, a Barchie (the couple name given to Betty and Archie by their fans) relationship and a parallel universe. Sunday night’s episode is the season finale. The cast has recently been shooting its seventh and final season in Vancouver.
CITY ON A HILL 10 p.m. on Showtime. Set in the 1990s, this show follows an F.B.I. veteran (Kevin Bacon) and an assistant district attorney (Aldis Hodge) as they try to change Boston’s criminal justice system. The show’s new, third season will follow Bacon’s character, Jackie Rohr, as he lands a new gig after leaving the F.B.I. It also keeps up with Hodge’s character, Decourcy Ward, as he continues working to fix the broken criminal justice system. When the show debuted in 2019, Ben Affleck, one of its executive producers, wrote in an email to The Times that his inspiration to develop the series came from his research for the movie “The Town” (2010), which was also set in Boston. This show, Affleck explained, allowed for a wider exploration of“what was going on politically, socioeconomically, racially and culturally at the time I kind of came of age there.”
