What to watch this weekend July 5, 2024: TV awards contenders

The calendar flipped to July this week. There is plenty of ongoing scripted programming to help you pass the time indoors and away from the oppressive heat and humidity of summer (see: “House of the Dragon,” “The Bear” and “Presumed Innocent”). But in terms of new shows, Netflix’s latest sports documentary series, “Sprint: The World’s Fastest Humans,” is the highlight of the long holiday weekend.

The streaming service’s newest addition is a six-episode series that offers viewers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to be not just an elite athlete but one of the fastest people alive. A perfectly timed primer for the Paris Olympics later this month, the show — all episodes of which are now streaming on Netflix — follows top sprinters throughout the 2023 World Championships, including Americans Sha’Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, and Jamaican superstar Shericka Jackson, among others. If you can keep up, “Sprint: The World’s Fastest Humans” is the awards contender to watch this weekend.

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Of course, there are a few other options on the table as well. Other contenders include:

• “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants”: If Netflix’s track-related series has not satiated your sports documentary fix yet, this week also marks the premiere of this new iteration of HBO’s popular football docuseries, which for the first time follows an NFL team during the offseason (January to July 2024). We kick things off with the New York Giants as the team prepares for its 100th season as a franchise. The premiere is now streaming on Max.
• “Star Trek: Prodigy”: Is it just me or is it sometimes difficult to keep up with all of the “Star Trek” shows lately? This animated kids series about a ragtag group of alien teens who discover an abandoned Starfleet ship moves from Paramount+ to Netflix for its second season, which makes it much more accessible to the general viewing public. All 20 episodes are now streaming.
• “The Boys”: Nothing says “Happy Birthday, America!” quite like a debauched new episode of Amazon’s wild superhero series set at a conservative fundraiser full of corrupt individuals wanting to overthrow democracy. But there is also a bit more going on in “Dirty Business” than its timely political drama and NSFW shenanigans, as major developments reveal the hour to ultimately be a turning point for Butcher (Karl Urban) and the season as a whole. The episode is now streaming on Prime Video.

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