Monday at TCA: USA, Bravo, Syfy and the return of ‘Sharknado’

SHARE Monday at TCA: USA, Bravo, Syfy and the return of ‘Sharknado’

After a busy Sunday devoted to NBC, the Television Critics Association summer press tour shifts to NBCUniversal’s cable networks on Monday.

We’ll get things started this morning with “Dig,” an upcoming USA series starring Jason Isaacs (“Awake”) as Peter Connelly, an FBI agent stationed in Jerusalem. He uncovers an ancient conspiracy while investigating a mystery surrounding a young archeologist named Emma (Alison Sudol, “A Fine Frenzy”). Anne Heche (“Save Me”) stars as Lynn Monahan, the head of the Jerusalem FBI office, Peter’s boss and casual lover. I don’t know much more than this since we didn’t get a pilot to review before the panel, but the show’s pedigree (Tim Kring, “Heroes” and Gideon Raff “Homeland”) intrigues me. We’ll see…

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I’ll admit to not having the least bit of interest in the next panel about season two of “Chrisley Knows Best,” a USA reality series about a Georgia bazillionaire and his family.

I’ll probably take this opportunity to write up the answers I received to “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.” fans’ questions for showrunner Matt Olmstead.

Speaking of bazillionaires, Chicago area businessman Marcus Lemonis will be here talking about his CNBC show, “The Profit.” Maybe he’ll share his plans to bail out the broke cupcake chain Crumbs.

Cris Colinsworth and Al Michaels will be touting NBC Sunday Night Football, and Meredith Vieira will explain her new talk show. (Good luck to Meredith. This time last year we had a session on Bethenny Frankel’s new chatfest and that went south in a hurry. Jeff Probst’s talker is gone and so is Ricki Lake’s. Katie Couric didn’t have much success either.) I’m sure Meredith will be forced to spend just as much time talking about cast shake ups on “The View” as she will promoting her latest venture.

Bravo has a few shows it wants reporters to know about: “Million Dollar Listing” and “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.” Personally, I want to know how the Chicago-filmed “100 Days of Summer” fared for the network.

The day caps off with a panel on Syfy’s “12 Monkeys.” I watched it on the plane ride here and it’s not bad.

In the evening, TV critics are invited to gather around the Beverly Hilton pool for a screening of Syfy’s “Sharknado 2” with stars Vivica Fox, Tara Reid, Kari Wuhrer and Ian Ziering. That should be, ahem, interesting.

I’ll be writing and tweeting about the day’s news, so follow along on Twitter at @lorirackl and check out the blog at sun-tim.es/lorirackl.

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