Overdosing on sappy? Here’s the antidote.
If the annual arrival of all these sweet and sentimental Christmas specials and holiday episodes have you craving a little adventure, then History Channel has you covered.
A couple of challenging series premiere today — one old and one new.
Alone, one of TV’s more fascinating survival shows, returns at 8 p.m. for Season 3 with 10 new participants.
This is the series where the contestants are truly alone — no camera crew (they do it themselves), no producers just out of sight, no luxury hotel down the beach for when the weather turns sour, none of the other nine participants around.
This season the intrepid survivalists are plopped down in the remote wilderness of Patagonia, Argentina. This is a spectacularly beautiful, but sparsely populated region at the southern end of South America. It contains the southern portion of the Andes mountains, as well as deserts and steppes on the eastern side.
The participants must locate food and water, build shelters before winter arrives and — this is always dicey — fend off predators, such as pumas and wild boar.
What? Yes, there are pumas and boar. The series tag line is “Man vs. A Whole Lot of Dangerous Stuff.”
And it’s not as if these folks are armed to the teeth. They are allowed to bring only what they can fit in a backpack.
If past seasons are any indication, mountain lions and razorbacks won’t be their biggest worry. Although the survivalists are completely separated from one another and the terrain is harsh, the main challenge will be the extreme isolation and the psychological stress that brings.
The series is rated TV-PG for the occasional salty language.
Alone is followed at 9 p.m. by the series premiere of The Selection: Special Operations Experiment. The first episode (there will be eight) is titled “Dip in the Fire.”
This series is a bit saltier and rated TV-14. It comes from executive producer Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) and may just bring out the sadist in you. Or that part of you unable to look away from a train wreck.
The Selection features special ops combat veterans (Navy SEALs, Green Berets and Army Rangers) overseeing 30 civilians (men and women) who signed up to endure extreme training and assessment exercises.
That includes being interrogated, doused with tear gas and other nasty stuff “designed to push them to the limits of the human body and mind.”
Not surprisingly, many of these masochists will bail out before the end of the first day. As it says in the trailer, “There is no prize; this is a test of the body and mind.”
“I wanna be pushed,” says one participant after his hood is removed. “I want to be motivated and this is the only way to find out what kind of person you really are when you’re pushed to the limit.”
Hmm. I can think of a few less stressful ways.
CHRISTMAS STUFF
Meanwhile, in merrier offerings …
Holiday Joy, 2 p.m. today, Freeform. Bailee Madison (Once Upon a Time, Good
Witch) plays Joy Hockstatter, a teen who is a surrogate mom to her family who (poof!) mysteriously wakes up as a member of the “perfect” family across the street.
Somehow everyone discovers the true meaning of Christmas.
Toy Story That Time Forgot, 7 p.m. today, ABC. Trixie saves the day and everyone remembers the true meaning of Christmas.
Shrek the Halls, 7:30 p.m. today, ABC. Our favorite ogre has his family Christmas go awry but, in the end, everyone learns the true meaning
of Christmas.
Antiques Roadshow, 7 p.m. today, AETN. Fiona Bruce looks back on the 2012 Christmas special.
Taraji’s White Hot Holidays, 7 p.m. today on Fox. The Empire star hosts a music and variety special. Guests include Jussie Smollett, Taye Diggs, Pharrell Williams, Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys, Darryl McDaniels and TLC. Everyone oozes the true meaning of Christmas.
A Dream of Christmas, 7 p.m. today on Hallmark. A restless young married woman (Nikki DeLoach) wishes to have it all and be single again. Poof! — a Christmas angel (Cindy Williams) makes it so.
But our ambitious gal quickly learns her rich new life is empty without her husband (Andrew Walker), so she sets out to win him all over. In the process, she discovers the true meaning of Christmas.
Mozart in the Jungle, Saturday on Amazon. It’s all 10 episodes of Season 3, so binge away until you discover the true meaning of Christmas for those in an orchestra (but not in the jungle).