SNL Gets Heated, Yellowstone Spins Off With Marshals, HBOs DTF St. Louis, Actor Awards

SATURDAY: A star was born — two, actually — when HBO Max’s steamy Canadian import Heated Rivalry exploded on the scene late last year. Never one to overlook a newly rising talent, the late-night comedy institution beckons Connor Storrie, who plays Russian hockey player Ilya in the gay sports romance, as the first-time guest host. (Will his costar Hudson Williams make a cameo?) Mumford & Sons is the four-time musical guest. Returning from Olympics hiatus, SNL has plenty of material to mine, including the longest-ever State of the Union address.

SUNDAY: Luke Grimes rides high in the saddle, reprising his role as Yellowstone‘s melancholy cowboy Kayce Dutton in the hit neo-Western’s most traditional spinoff, fitting nicely with the network’s other lone-wolf procedural, Tracker. Haunted by his fractious family’s corrupting ghosts and a more tangible personal loss, Kayce joins an elite U.S. Marshals team led by his former Navy SEAL buddy Cal (Logan Marshall-Green). In the opener, they take on a militia that disrupts a protest involving the Broken Rock reservation, with chairman Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) warning against a proposed rare earth mineral mine that could spread poisonous toxins. “It may look like God’s country, but the devil’s running free out here,” Cal observes. Try telling Kayce something he doesn’t already know. (Read the review.)

SUNDAY: Ozark‘s Jason Bateman is back in America’s heartland, this time caught up in a twisted triangle with Stranger Things‘ David Harbour and Dead to Me‘s Linda Cardellini in a darkly provocative drama. The title (think “Down to Frolic”) refers to a dating app for married couples that piques the interest of St. Louis weatherman Clark Forrest (Bateman) and his ASL interpreter buddy Floyd (Harbour). Clark also takes a shine to Floyd’s restless wife, Carol (Cardellini), and vice versa. The psychosexual intrigue results in someone’s death, but by whose hand and why remains unclear. Six Feet Under‘s Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday are the detectives sorting through the dirty laundry to get to the truth.

SUNDAY: Previously known as the SAG Awards, the rebranded Actor Awards celebrates stars of movies and TV, with many seeing this as another helpful step in predicting who’ll win an Oscar in two weeks. With Kristen Bell returning to host the livestreamed ceremony from L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall, key contests include One Battle After Another‘s Leonardo DiCaprio vs. Marty Supreme‘s Timothée Chalamet and Hamnet‘s Jessie Buckley vs. Rose Byrne of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. In the TV categories, expect The Pitt, The Studio, and Adolescence to continue to clean up, with Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn also a front-runner. Harrison Ford receives the SAG-AFTRA Lifetime Achievement Award, and if you’ve seen him lately on Shrinking, you’ll know he hasn’t lost a step.

SUNDAY: Oscar and Tony winner Kevin Kline is in his farcical element as narcissistic Broadway star Richard Bean in a delightfully theatrical comedy from Bob Martin (Slings & Arrows, The Drowsy Chaperone) and Michael Hoffman. When Richard is banished from the Great White Way after a drunken dust-up with a notorious critic, he heads back to his struggling Pennsylvania hometown where his family runs a local theater that has also seen better days. With delusions of grandeur, Richard decides to stage his comeback and revive everyone’s fortunes, to the chagrin of his good-natured brother Jon (Jon Tenney) and Jon’s wife Kristen (four-time Emmy winner Laura Linney), who’s also Richard’s ex and the town mayor. The terrific cast includes Len Cariou as Richard’s addled father and Tony Shalhoub as his frustrated agent.

INSIDE WEEKEND TV:

· Pushed Off a Plane and Survived (Saturday, 8/7c, Lifetime): This may be my favorite TV-movie title in years. Eva Marcille stars in the fact-based story as the unfortunate Jaynie, who miraculously survives a 4,000-foot plummet only to discover her husband (Tyler Lepley) was responsible for sabotaging her parachute.

· Romance at Hope Ranch (Saturday, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel): Channel favorite Alison Sweeney is Hope, who finds love with Jack (Gabriel Hogan) on a New Mexico ranch while restoring the property and reviving the Giddy Up Gala.

· Love Afloat (Saturday, 8/7c, Great American Family): When Lorelai (Alanna Smith) inherits a sailboat, she hires Rob (Travis Bravo-Thomas) to fix it up and help her sail the vessel back from the Caribbean to Miami, a voyage that soon turns cozy.

· Kingdom (Saturday, 8/7c, BBC America): The nature series’ finale turns its lens on the conservationists and filmmakers aiming to preserve the Zambian wildlife.

· Storage Wars (Saturday, 9/8c, A&E): Let the bidding begin on abandoned storage lockers as the reality series’ 17th season gets underway.

· 48 Hours (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): Erin Moriarty reports on the 2022 murder of Mindi Kassotis, whose body was discovered in a Savannah swamp after she had been reported as having died in a hospital.

· The MGM Slam (Sunday, 7 pm/ET, The CW): Eight top tennis stars, including U.S. players Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul compete for a $1 million prize in a 10-point tiebreaker knockout singles-format match from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

· Industry (Sunday, 8/7c, HBO): The collapse of banking app Tender has already publicly claimed some victims, and the Season 4 finale asks: “Who else is going to hang for it?” Reckonings and harsh awakenings await the major players.

· Tournament of Champions (Sunday, 8/7c, Food Network): Guy Fieri hosts the seventh edition of the top-rated cooking competition, with the identity of four world-class culinary icons revealed in the premiere.

· Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown (Sunday, 9/8c, CNN): A four-part docuseries, launching with two episodes, revisits the nuclear disaster on its 40th anniversary. An hour earlier, The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper (8/7c) features Omar Jimenez reporting on “Immigration Crackdown: A Year of Enforcement.”

· Tracker (Sunday, 9/8c, CBS): Colter (Justin Hartley) turns to Billie (Sofia Pernas) for help when he’s injured and framed for murder. Followed by Watson (10/9c), where the team races to save a pregnant woman and her husband from a sinkhole.

· Oscar-nominated international features The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident begin streaming runs Sunday on Hulu.