Your TV GPS, a look at the week ahead in television, appears every Monday morning on BostonGlobe.com. Today’s column covers Jan. 12-18.
Will Smith — actor, rapper, producer — adds another title to his resume: nature documentarian. In “Pole to Pole with Will Smith,” premiering at 9 p.m. on the Nat Geo channel Jan. 13 and streaming on Hulu and Disney+ the next day, the performer heads out into the wilds to witness some nature firsthand. As implied by the title, he’ll visit both the North and South poles, although thankfully they let him warm up a bit by sending him to the Amazon as well.
The question of who and what qualifies as punk rock is nearly as old as the genre itself, but in “Riot Women,” premiering Jan. 14 on BritBox, the answer is a group of middle-aged women who form a punk rock band to enter a talent competition. The series comes courtesy of Sally Wainwright, who also created “Gentleman Jack,” “Happy Valley,” and “Last Tango in Halifax.”
While it sounds like something she could have used to program a time machine, “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials,” out Jan. 15 on Netflix, is an adaptation of the legendary mystery author’s book of the same name. The miniseries stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, who begins investigating after a prank at a country estate goes seriously awry (usually pranks go awry when the person figures out what’s going on, but this one goes murderously awry). Helena Bonham-Carter and Martin Freeman costar.
“Ponies,” out Jan. 15 on Peacock, does not involve the four-legged equines (at least, it probably doesn’t). Instead, the term refers to a “person of no interest” in the intelligence world. The show is about two women (played by Emilia Clarke, of “Game of Thrones,” and Haley Lu Richardson, of “The White Lotus”) whose husbands are killed while undercover in Russia in the late ’70s. Given the ability of two women to fly under the radar, the duo decides to try to investigate what happened to their husbands.
Every great Starfleet captain has to start somewhere. In “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” premiering Jan. 15 on Paramount+, the world of Star Trek expands to include the college years, so to speak, as a group of talented youngsters goes through the challenging academy. The cadets have Holly Hunter’s Captain Nahla Ake to guide them along the way. “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, known for his nerdy interests, voices a digital dean.
The “Game of Thrones” spinoff efforts continue with “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” premiering Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. on HBO. Set 100 years before the events of the original “GoT,” the new series follows the exploits of Ser Duncan the Tall, a struggling knight who hopes to make his name. He’s accompanied by a very young squire named Egg. The series seems to be skewing slightly more comedic than the other shows we’ve seen, and unlike “Ponies,” this show does appear to have actual horses in it. It also has a lot of mud and swords, just like “GoT.” Flagons of ale may even get quaffed.
Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at lisa.weidenfeld@globe.com. Follow her on X @LisaWeidenfeld and Instagram @lisaweidenfeld.