Week’s top-10 for Aug. 15: dragons, da Vinci & reality

1) “House of the Dragon” debut, 9 p.m. Sunday, HBO, rerunning at 10:10. Towering over everything else is this “Game of Thrones” prequel (shown here). HBO spent a reported $200 million on the 10-episode season, which started filming 16 months ago. Set 200 years before “Thrones,” the show has newcomer Emma D’Arcy as the princess and dragonrider. Sci-fi fans will spot Matt Smith of ”Doctor Who” and Olivia Cooke of “Ready Player One.” Read more…

1) “House of the Dragon” debut, 9 p.m. Sunday, HBO, rerunning at 10:10. Towering over everything else is this “Game of Thrones” prequel (shown here). HBO spent a reported $200 million on the 10-episode season, which started filming 16 months ago. Set 200 years before “Thrones,” the show has newcomer Emma D’Arcy as the princess and dragonrider. Sci-fi fans will spot Matt Smith of ”Doctor Who” and Olivia Cooke of “Ready Player One.”

2) “American Ninja Warrior,” 8-10 p.m. today, NBC, rerunning 8 p.m. Friday. NBC’s summers peak in late August and early September, leading into the new season. Now the surge starts with the “Ninja” finals, a 4-5 week process. Then is “America’s Got Talent,” expanded to two nights – 8-10 p.m, Tuesdays and 8-9 p.m. Wednesdays. The amiable “Password” is both nights – 10 p.m. Tuesday (with Meghan Trainor) and 9 p.m. Wednesday (Martin Short).

3) “MasterChef,” 8 and 9 p.m. Wednesday, Fox. Now that “So You Think You Can Dance” has ended its season, Gordon Ramsay gets the whole night. Last week’s episode (rerunning at 8 p.m. Thursday) trimmed the field to 12 home chefs. Now they pick partners and try items from Ramsay’s restaurants. The second hour is less upscale: Working with GrubHub, they try to elevate a take-out meal. By the end of the night, the show will have its top 10.

4) “Leonardo” debut, 8 p.m. Tuesday, CW. Filmmakers can’t resist the sprawling life of Leonardo da Vinci – an inventor (from musical instruments to a steam cannon and a “mechanical knight”), theorist, lover and, we’re told, really good artist. “Da Vinci’s Demons” had a strong, three-season run; this new series starts with da Vinci (Aidan Turner of “Poldark”) on trial for murder, then flashes back on his life. Freddie Highmore plays an investigator.

5) “Devils” season-opener, 9 p.m. Tuesday, CW. Sleek and stylish, this European series makes financial schemes feel like tech thrill rides. In the first season, Massimo battled his ex-mentor (Patrick Dempsey) and took control of a mega-bank. Now we jump between twin crises – Brexit in 2016 and Covid in 2020 – putting financiers in chaos. There are murders, past and present, as careers wobble. We might not follow all the fiscal-babble, but it’s still involving.

6) “Abbott Elementary,” 9 p.m. Wednesday, and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” 8 p.m. Saturday, both ABC. It’s a big Quinta Brunson summer. Her “Abbott” got seven Emmy nominations, including best comedy and two for her, as writer and star. Now she’s swept the Television Critics Association awards — program of the year, best new show, best comedy show and comedy individual. This week, she also shows school scenes on “Videos.”

7) “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” debut (Disney+) and “Reservation Dogs” (Hulu), both Thursday. Two intriguing – and opposite – shows stream on the same day. “She-Hulk” continues the Disney+ habit of short-run shows (“WandaVision,” “Mandalorian”) using Marvel or “Star Wars” characters. Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) plays a lawyer who occasionally is 6-foot-7 and green. “Dogs” gathers all its characters, for an emotional death watch.

8) “Welcome to Flatch,” 9 and 9:30 p.m., Thursday, Fox. After missing last week, this quirky comedy is back with two reruns; the first is quite good and the second is a disappointment. In the first, Kelly and Shrub plan to boost their social-media following by staging a surprise reunion between Father Joe (Seann William Scott) and his old colleague in a religious boy-band. In the second, Shrub actually finds a job that he enjoys … for a while.

9) “Secret Celebrity Renovation,” 8 p.m., CBS. Annaleigh Ashford has been a show-business dynamo lately. She was brilliant in “B Positive” (now canceled). She’s done three Broadway TV specials. She played Clinton accuser Paula Jones in one mini-series; in others, she’ll play a Chippendale dancers leader and actress Judy Holliday. And now Ashford returns home to Denver; there, she helps fix up the home of her mom (newly retired) and dad.

10) ALSO: AMC starts and ends the week with big dramas. At 9 p.m. today (rerunning at 10:38) is the finale of “Better Call Saul,” the brilliant “Breaking Bad” prequel. And at 9 p.m. Sunday is “Tales of the Walking Dead,” which has self-contained stories during the zombie apocalypse. This one, the second, has Jillian Bell and Parker Posey as a disgruntled receptionist and her overbearing boss trapped together; the first episode will rerun at 10:02.

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