Between streaming and cable, viewers have a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, July 6-12. Details and times are subject to change.
Luxurious gatherings and frontier survival.
Elin Hilderbrand has written over 30 novels since 2000, cementing herself as an ultimate beach-read provider and a local Nantucket celebrity — and now, her book “The Five-Star Weekend” is getting a TV adaptation. Jennifer Garner stars as Hollis Shaw, a cookbook author and food influencer, who finds herself in a public breakdown after the unexpected death of her husband. To cope with her grief, she decides to host a weekend with a friend from different stages of her life. Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny, D’Arcy Carden, Gemma Chan and Timothy Olyphant round out the cast. All eight episodes will be released together, alongside a companion podcast with Hilderbrand as the host. Begins streaming Thursday on Peacock.
“Little House on the Prairie” has been a staple of American culture for nearly 100 years. The first book of the semi-autobiographical series (there were nine) by Laura Ingalls Wilder was published in 1932; then in 1974, the first TV iteration began, and it had nine seasons. The books and series tell the story of the Ingalls family who, in the late 1800s, move across the American Midwest. The parents and children navigate sickness, food shortage and adapt to a new and changing lifestyle. The story is being told again in the new adaptation, starring Luke Bracey, Crosby Fitzgerald, Alice Halsey and Skywalker Hughes, and promises to show the more gritty and harsh realities of this time in history, including the perspective of the Osage tribe who are native to the land where the Ingalls move. The series has already been renewed for a second season. Begins streaming Thursday on Netflix.
In 2006, Twitter became available to the public, Pluto was a demotion to dwarf planet and Italy defeated France during the FIFA World Cup finals. For some Bravo fans, the most significant event of 2006 was the premiere of the “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” which was also the first in the “Housewives” franchise. This week, the show is back for its 20th season with an O.G. member of the cast, Vicki Gunvalson, returning to the show alongside a mix of other veterans, including Tamra Judge, Heather Dubrow and Shannon Storms Beador. Thursday at 8 p.m. on Bravo.
Documentaries to catch up on.
Take a journey with me here. Imagine you are a police officer, and you pull over a woman for speeding. She claims that she just gave birth in her car and is holding a baby in her arms, but when doctors assess her at the hospital, they determine that she has not recently given birth. That is what happens in the first five minutes of “Maternal Instinct,” a recently released true-crime documentary. The story follows Taylor Parker and the series of events and lies that led to the initial scene. Now available to stream on Netflix.
In 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James built an eight-foot-tall wooden effigy on Baker Beach in San Francisco — and the Burning Man festival was born. It moved to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada in 1991 and has been a cultural tradition and mainstay ever since. The festival made headlines in 2023 when the desert flooded, and 70,000 attendees, including Diplo and Chris Rock, were stuck, and then again in 2025 when whiteout dust storms hit during the festival. The four-episode documentary series “The Man Will Burn” tells the story of the festival’s anarchic and rebellious roots through archrival footage and interviews. Thursday at 9 p.m. on HBO and streaming HBO Max.
On Jan. 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia, an Italian cruise ship carrying over 4,000 passengers and crew members, struck submerged reef off the coast of the Italian island Giglio. The emergency caused flooding and power blackouts, with ultimately 32 people dying. The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, left the ship before passengers were off, which is considered a breach of duty, and didn’t return, even after the Italian coast guard instructed him to. He was eventually charged and found guilty of manslaughter, causing a maritime disaster, abandoning his ship and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The documentary “Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea” uses footage and passenger testimony to tell the story. Begins streaming Friday on Netflix.
In 2018, a former Russian military intelligence Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a public bench in Salisbury, England — and what followed was a yearslong investigation that involved counterterrorism units, the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the police. The documentary “The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door” features interviews with the former Prime Minister Theresa May, as well as the former home secretary, former MI6 chiefs and the former head of Counter Terrorism Policing. Sunday at 8 p.m. on CNN.
