Shark Week with Andy Samberg

Details for the 24th annual Shark Week — kicking off July 31 — are emerging. Today, Discovery announced that this year’s “Chief Shark Officer” Andy Samberg will host his own special with the working title Shark City. Per the network, “Samberg travels to the Bahamas and takes the plunge — literally jumping into the shark-filled waters to introduce viewers to a specific group of sharks that live off the shores of Nassau. They each have their own distinct personalities, quirks and feeding patterns. Learn how they size each other up, what they like to eat and what scares THEM.” That’s all the info I have, but if this is something like Shark Week regular Stuart Cove introducing Samberg to individual Caribbean reef sharks and revealing what he’s come to know about them over the years he’s led his underwater adventures, that could be totally fun. If you’re going to swim with relatively non-threatening sharks like that, you’ve got to give us something different, and finding out that this shark responds more to women in bikinis and has therefore earned whatever nickname is acceptable.

Other specials include the previously announced Great White Invasion (working title). “[V]iewers will see that, around the globe, great white sharks seem to be coming closer to shore and swimming among unsuspecting humans,” says the release. “In Australia, South Africa and on our own west coast, the great whites swim under surfers as they catch waves and in the shallow waters of popular beaches. If this is happening, why are there so few attacks? This is a question everyone wants answered because, no matter where you swim, you’re apt to have a close encounter of the great white kind!” Glad we’re not trying to cause a panic. Jaws Comes Home sounds more scientific than its title suggests: “Utilizing state-of-the-art tagging technology, Jaws Comes Home follows five great white sharks as they make their recently discovered 1,200-mile journey up and down the eastern seaboard, appearing off Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard for the first time in nearly 30 years.” Pretty cool. Other premieres focus on analyzing shark bites, the wave of attacks off the beaches of South Africa in 1957 and the eastern coast of Australia in 2009, and the science behind the premise that sharks may “go rogue” and actually target humans. I can’t wait to see what they title that one. Any guesses?

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Andy Samberg to host Shark Week. Can he top Craig Ferguson?