Best-bets for Aug. 1: tales, talent, Lucy-thon

1) “Southern Storytellers” finale, 9 p.m., PBS. We see talented people – writers Jesmyn Ward and Michael Waldron, singer-songwriters Justin Moore, Thao Nguyen and “Tank” Ball – express love of the South; we also see Natasha Tretheway (shown here) discuss love and hate. She was born (to parents whose mixed marriage was illegal in Mississippi), in town dominated by Robert E. Lee’s statue. The statue has been removed; a new memorial denotes her time as U.S. poet laureate. Read more…

1) “Southern Storytellers” finale, 9 p.m., PBS. We see talented people – writers Jesmyn Ward and Michael Waldron, singer-songwriters Justin Moore, Thao Nguyen and “Tank” Ball – express love of the South; we also see Natasha Tretheway (shown here) discuss love and hate. She was born (to parents whose mixed marriage was illegal in Mississippi), in town dominated by Robert E. Lee’s statue. The statue has been removed; a new memorial denotes her time as U.S. poet laureate.

2) “America’s Got Talent,” 8-10 p.m.. NBC. After pausing last week for a retrospective special, “AGT” has its eighth round of auditions. The live portion (with viewers voting) starts Aug. 22, but five acts already have “golden buzzer” spots. Two are singers – Putri Ariani, 17, from Indonesia, and Lavender Darcangelo, 27 (who is blind and autistic) from Massachusetts. The others are a French dance group, a South African choir and an Atlanta percussion group.

3) FBI shows, 8-11 p.m., CBS. The drug and tech worlds intersect in these reruns. On “FBI” (8 p.m.), a teen arrives with a big bag of fentanyl and wants protection from the man who shot his dad. On “FBI: Most Wanted” (10), a tech entrepreneur is kidnapped at a rave and killed, leading to a probe into the world of psychedelics. In between is “FBI: International,” with a predator luring underage girls online.

4) Lucy day, Turner Classic Movies. Every August, TCM devotes each day to one star. That starts with a familiar name (Lucille Ball) in some unfamiliar movies. An eatrly exception is the Marx Brothers’ “Room Service,” at 7:15 a.m. ET. Then come lots of films made before “I Love Lucy” and two after Ball became a star. She and Desi Arnaz are in Vincente Minnelli’s “The Long, Long Trailer” (1954) and “Forever Darling” (1956), at 8 and 10 p.m. ET.

5) More movies. The cable people want us to watch marathons today. Freeform has the animated “Monsters, Inc.” and “Monsters University” at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Syfy has the final four Harry Potter films, at 11:29 a.m. and 2:29, 5:57 and 9:01 p.m. AMC has Chevy Chase’s “Vacation” films in scrambled order – “Christmas Vacation” at 3:45 p.m., “European Vacation” at 6, “Vacation” at 8 and “Vegas Vacation” at 10.

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