Best-bets for Aug. 30: pain, parks and lots of talent

1) “The Patient” (shown here) opener, any time, Hulu. Far removed from his eager comedy characters, Steve Carell plays a widower who’s a quiet and diligent therapist. Then a patient kidnaps him and chains him in a basement. Perfectly played by Carell and Domhnall Gleeson, this slowly builds a sharp intensity.

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1) “The Patient” (shown here) opener, any time, Hulu. Far removed from his eager comedy characters, Steve Carell plays a widower who’s a quiet and diligent therapist. Then a patient kidnaps him and chains him in a basement. Perfectly played by Carell and Domhnall Gleeson, this slowly builds a sharp intensity.

2) “America’s Got Talent,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. America has lots of talent, but so does the rest of the world; so far, half the finalists are from abroad. Magicians Nicolas Ribs and Yu Hojin are from France and South Korea; singer Sara James is from Poland. They’ll be in the Sept. 12-13 finale, along with musicians Drake Milligan, Avery Dixon and the Chapel Hart trio. Tonight, 11 acts compete for two spots; the same happens next week, completing the top 10.

3) “America’s National Parks,” 8 and 9 p.m., National Geographic; rerunning at 11 and midnight. In 1906, John Muir took President Theodore Roosevelt on a camping trip to Yosemite; they were awed by Yosemite Falls (three falls, actually, totaling 2,400 feet) and more. Roosevelt launched the process that led, 10 years later, to the National Park Service. Here are gorgeous Yosemite scenes at 9 p.m., preceded at 8 by Saguaro National Park in Arizona.

4) “What We Do in the Shadows,” 10 p.m., FX. One of the great TV characters, Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) has suffered endlessly as a vampire’s aide. Now he finally has a shot at romance … unless his boss ruins it. It’s a funny episode, setting up some big steps in next week’s season-finale.

5) “The End is Nye,” 10 p.m., Syfy. Closing his six-part look at potential disasters, Bill Nye (the science guy) views a power-grid failure. To get us in the mood for near-disaster, Syfy reruns “Apollo 13” (1995), a Ron Howard/Tom Hanks gem about a real-life near-tragedy in space.

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