What to watch this week (July 23-29)
More search shows, two programs about journalism, and Oscar nominees you won't see in theatres.
All times Central
SUNDAY
Two more shows looking for America’s next great something-or-other debut tonight. On “HGTV Design Star” (8 tonight, HGTV) 10 architects, decorators and housing know-it-alls are forced to collaborate in pressure-cooker projects (a la “Extreme Home Makeover”). They’re competing for the coveted prize of a show on the same network airing this program. Slightly more ambitious is “The Messengers” (9 tonight, TLC), an eight-part series that will crown the “next great inspirational speaker.” The winner of this eight-week elimination will get a publishing deal and … a show on the same network airing this program.
Robert Schuller’s grandson is among the judges, though studio audience members will do the voting. Meanwhile, for those who like a little less talking and a little more gawking in their reality shows, the “Miss Universe 2006” pageant airs at 8 p.m. on NBC (KSHB-41). Summertime and swimsuits go together, but this is the first beauty contest I can recall airing in July (last year’s Miss Universe was crowned in May). Still, it will likely draw a bigger audience than this year’s Miss America pageant, which aired on cable.
MONDAY
“Tabloid Wars” (8 p.m. on Bravo). Reporters and editors at the New York Daily News, which used to be known as Gotham’s “Picture Newspaper,” are now in pictures themselves. Bravo (one of the few entertainment cable channels with a New York profile) shadowed staffers last summer for this six-week docu-series. Like the paper itself, it’s a stewy mix of crime stories, celebrity gossip and offbeat features. One minute you’re watching reporters chase down a cop-shooting story, and the next minute Adrian Grenier of “Entourage” is chiding a gossip reporter to find a job that’s “more fulfilling.” It’s all heat-of-the-moment observing and innately interesting for the exact same reason tabloid newspapers are interesting. And there are sweet treats for the journos in the audience, like the scribe who moans about spending his whole day with “lobotomized publicists.”
WEDNESDAY
Unlike Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite still has a job, an office and a secretary at CBS. And now he’s the subject of yet another PBS special, a new “American Masters” airing at 9 p.m. on KCPT. The St. Joseph native cut his teeth in Kansas City before becoming the most trusted person in journalism. Katie Couric, the anointed successor to Cronkite’s throne on the “CBS Evening News,” narrates this two-hour look at the life and career of the man who teared up on JFK’s death, sealed LBJ’s fate with his on-air Vietnam commentary and reacted with boyish glee on seeing NASA launch rockets into space.
THURSDAY
“A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin” kicks off a monthlong tribute to the four documentary shorts nominated for Oscars this year. One film a week airs at 6 p.m. on Cinemax, starting with the one that won. It tells the story of radio producer Corwin and the program he made on VE-Day 1945 that resonates to this day.
