The ghosts of TV past haunt the summer shows this week:
“Fatal Honeymoon” (Saturday, 8 p.m., Lifetime) Harvey Keitel, who was a TV star for 10 minutes in the American version of “Life on Mars,” is slumming it in a Lifetime “based on a true story” movie. He’s great as a grieving dad, but Billy Miller (“The Young & the Restless”) steals the show as the arrogant, hot-tempered newlywed who may have murdered his wife while diving in Australia. Amber Clayton (“Three Rivers”) plays the blinded-by-love wife in this flashback-fueled flick.
“Strawberry Summer” (Saturday, 8 p.m., HMC) Lifetime’s similarly sappy rival, Hallmark Movie Channel, responds to the Keitel get by unearthing former TV icons Shelley Long and Cindy Williams to play supporting roles in a sugary love story set at a small-town strawberry festival, of all things. Mama wouldn’t expect to see any of these people at next year’s Emmys, but Long admittedly is amusing in a school-marm guise and granny glasses.
“Necessary Roughness” (Wednesday, 10 p.m., USA) Ryan McPartlin, née Captain Awesome of the recently departed “Chuck,” takes a seat on Dr. Dani’s (Callie Thorne) couch as half of a doubles tennis team seeking a return to awesomeness. But the counselor already has enough to deal with as TK’s (Mehcad Brooks) drug addiction spirals out of control. And next week’s midseason finale brings us the return of Michael Imperioli, whom we all know from “The Sopranos,” but he also starred with Keitel in “Life on Mars.”
“Days of Our Knives” (Monday, 1 p.m., Investigation Discovery) Apparently trying to capitalize on both the true-crime craze and the paucity of daytime dramas, this program block delivers real-life crime stories hosted by current and former soap stars. It’s a bizarre concept, but it’s hard to argue with anything that reunites Robert Newman and Kim Zimmer, supercouple Josh and Reva from the late “Guiding Light,” even if they might be reduced to cheesy awards-show style patter. There will also be a sneak peek of Susan Lucci’s new series “Deadly Affairs,” which premieres in September.
“Haunted High” (Saturday, 9 p.m., Syfy) Tough guy Danny Trejo (whose most recent notable TV credit is a drug kingpin on “Sons of Anarchy”) and Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase from the “Buffy” and “Angel” series) star in this latest budget Syfy movie. Carpenter finds herself back in a high school library—though this time she’s a “sexy librarian” fighting a demonic headmaster played by the great M.C. Gainey (Bo Crowder from “Justified” and Tom Friendly from “Lost”). If Trejo says, “These books are overdue” while pumping a shotgun, it’ll be worth the price of admission.
Krista Allen watch: Speaking of semi-familiar faces, the former “Days of Our Lives” buxom beauty shows up in “Perception” (Monday, 10 p.m., TNT) as a wealthy alumnus’s widow and in “The L.A. Complex” (Tuesday, Aug. 21, The CW) as a woman from Jennifer’s past whom Connor (Jonathan Patrick Moore) encounters.