Before we get into the premiere dates, some links to things you might have missed the past few days:
• Project Hail Mary is a big, giant hit, having now made more than $300 million at the worldwide box office ($164 million of that in the United States) through 10 days. It’s not like this came out of nowhere — the Andy Weir novel the movie is based on was a best seller — but it’s nice to see a non-franchise movie take off like this.
• CBS and AMC Friday news-dumped a few series cancellations: First-year comedy DMV and medical drama Watson, in its second season, are done at CBS. AMC axed its Anne Rice-inspired show Talamasca: The Secret Order after a single season (not a big surprise, since there’d been no movement on it since it finished airing in November). On the happier side of things, NBC renewed its three Chicago shows.
• Netflix is raising its monthly subscription fees across the board — but the ad-free tier is rising by more than the one with ads. That might be, my THR colleague Alex Weprin argues, because Netflix and other streamers want to move you toward the ad-supported plan, which are becoming as lucrative (if not moreso) than the ad-free ones.
• At Salon, TV critic Melanie McFarland looks at the recent spate of Bible-inspired TV, including Prime Video’s House of David and Fox’s miniseries The Faithful.
Now that you’re caught up, here’s what’s on tap for the next seven days. Times listed are ET/PT unless noted otherwise.
Premieres
Monday
9 p.m.: Henry David Thoreau (PBS) - A two-night re-examination of the life of the author and activist, executive produced by Ken Burns.
Tuesday
Untold (Netflix) - The next batch of the sports documentary umbrella title includes films about former NBA star Lamar Odom (that streams Tuesday), a 2022 chess controversy (April 7), the 2000s Portland “Jail Blazers” (April 14) and the strange story of an Olympic equestrian rider who takes on a new dressage student (April 21).
8 p.m.: Secrets of the Bees (Nat Geo)
Wednesday
8 p.m.: The Valley season 3 (Bravo) - This is a Vanderpump Rules spinoff. That’s all I know.
10 p.m.: Our New World (PBS) - A documentary about how the Earth’s natural systems are adapting to climate change.
Thursday
XO, Kitty season 3 (Netflix)
9 p.m.: The Real Housewives of Rhode Island (Bravo) - Bravo apparently will not stop until there’s a Real Housewives in every state in the union.
Friday
Your Friends and Neighbors season 2 (Apple TV) - Jon Hamm is still stealing things from his well-to-do fellow suburbanites.
Sunday
8 p.m.: The Real Housewives of Atlanta (Bravo) - See above.
Finales
Wednesday
8 p.m.: The Masked Singer (Fox) - Still going, and ending its 14th season here. Unmasked participants so far this season have included Billy Ray Cyrus, David Ortiz and Taraji P. Henson.
Sunday
8 p.m.: The Faithful (Fox) - The above-mentioned miniseries, which dramatizes the stories of several women in the Old Testament, concludes with a focus on Leah (played by Millie Brady) and Rachel (Blu Hunt).
And while these aren’t finales in the strict sense, the end of the month means a bunch of shows and movies will be leaving streaming services. Click the links for what’s disappearing from Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Prime Video and HBO Max.
Sports and specials
Monday
7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT: NCAA Women’s Elite Eight (ESPN) - Michigan vs. Texas in Fort Worth is up first, followed by TCU vs. South Carolina in Sacramento at 9 ET/6 PT. In what’s been a pretty chalky tournament so far, TCU is the lowest remaining seed at No. 3 in their region.
Wednesday
1:45 p.m. ET/10:45 a.m. PT: World Cup Qualifying Playoffs (FS1) - The final spots in the expanded 48-team field will be determined. UEFA has four games to decide its last spots, with FS1 carrying Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Italy in the early afternoon slot. At 4 p.m. ET, Congo DR faces Jamaica, and at 10 p.m., Iraq plays Bolivia. The latter two games will be played in Mexico, one of the World Cup co-hosts.
Friday
7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT: NCAA Women’s Final Four (ESPN) - One of my hot takes is that the men’s and women’s Final Fours should be in the same city. It would be an awesome, four-day basketball spectacle — particularly when both teams from a school make it, as is the case this year — but alas it’s not happening anytime soon. The women’s games are in Phoenix this year, with two of the teams playing Monday joining UConn and UCLA. Game two will tip off at 9:30-ish p.m. ET.
Saturday
6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT: NCAA Men’s Final Four (TBS) - Michigan and Arizona, both of whom spent time at No. 1 in the polls this season, play in the first matchup in Indianapolis, followed by Illinois and UConn — which beat Duke on a last-second shot — at 8:30-ish p.m. ET. Note that it’s TBS’ turn to broadcast the games this year in its rotation with CBS.
7 p.m.: The Ten Commandments (ABC) - The network has aired this biblical epic, most famous for the at-the-time cutting edge special effect of parting the Red Sea, on Easter weekend for more than 50 years.
Sunday
3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT: NCAA Women’s Championship (ESPN) - If UConn, which has only won by less than 15 points once in a thus-far undefeated season, doesn’t end up in the title game it will be a huge upset.
7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT: Sunday Night Baseball (Peacock) - NBCUniversal is kind of soft-launching its marquee Sunday baseball game on Peacock only for the next couple weeks — it’s Cardinals-Tigers here — while NBC finishes its NBA regular season schedule. The broadcast network picks it up on April 12, with simulcasts on Peacock.
Other stuff
Wednesday is April Fool’s Day, and it may be the first fully AI slop-ified one we’ll have to live through. Be extra skeptical about what you read and see online that day (except here, of course).
Wednesday also marks the start of Passover. There’s a really good Rugrats episode about the extended Pickles family gathering for a seder, but most of the best Passover TV is aimed at adults — here’s a good list, topped by “The Seder” from season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
As I sort of mentioned above about The Ten Commandments, Easter is on Sunday. When I was a kid, networks aired a smattering of Easter TV specials, including a Peanuts one (It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown) and the Rankin/Bass effort Here Comes Peter Cottontail — which I remember as weird and kind of creepy. This old ad for the show also makes the narrator (voiced by Danny Kaye) look like the Frosty the Snowman villain’s slightly more reputable brother.
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Photo: Anna Cathcart in season 3 of XO, Kitty. Courtesy of Netflix.