Are we ready to wrap things up? I'm exhausted after just watching 16 days of competition.
The Olympics finally come to an end at 7 p.m. today on NBC with the closing ceremony from Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
For those who want to revisit all the golden glory, NBC will begin the evening at 6 with Rio Gold. The hour special is a look back at some of the defining moments from the Olympics -- and there were plenty.
Certain to be atop the retrospective is Michael Phelps, the 6-foot-4 human fish who was competing in his fifth summer games (2000-2016: Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio), and did quite nicely at the creaky old age of 31.
How nicely? Phelps now has enough individual victories to break the previous 2,168-year-old Olympic record set by one Leonidas of Rhodes in 152 B.C.
For the record, Leonidas was a runner specializing in the 200- and 400-yard races (called the "stadion" and the "diaulos"). Leonidas won 13 titles over four Olympiads. However, he didn't score any gold medals because there weren't any back then. Instead, champions were rewarded with a crown of olive leaves. My guess is that made the games a lot cheaper to run.
Also bound to get well-deserved attention during the Rio Gold special is gymnastics phenom Simone Biles and star swimmers Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel.
Gold medal trivia: The last solid gold medals were awarded during the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. The gold-plated Rio medals weigh 1.1 pound and contain only 0.12 ounces of gold, the rest is sterling silver. According to Forbes, that makes each "gold" medal worth only $564.
There were 812 gold medals awarded during the Olympics. If they were solid, they would weigh 3.35 pounds and be worth around $76,000 each.
• The Voice. NBC takes advantage of those too lazy to change the channel to present a special half-hour preview of The Voice at 9:30 p.m. today. Season 11 won't officially kick off until 7 p.m. Sept. 19, but tonight's teaser will introduce the two new coaches who will join Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.
For the first time, the series will have two female coaches alongside the guys when Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys join the show, replacing Christina Aguilera and Pharrell Williams. (Aguilera's singer won last season, making her the first female coach to have a winner.)
I fully expect with new high-profile coaches aboard, the show will become even more about them and less about the actual contestants. That doesn't seem to matter since few Voice contestants are heard from again after their seasons are over.
Hopefully, the 23-year-old former Disney star Cyrus (Hannah Montana) will resist her recent exhibitionist urges and dress appropriately for broadcast television. She served as an adviser last season along with Gwen Stefani; Keys advised during Season 7.
Mentors reported to be lined up for the new season include music veterans Bette Midler, Sammy Hagar and Joan Jett, along with 24-year-old Charlie Puth, who got his start on YouTube.
• Too Close to Home.TLC's first scripted series is all Tyler Perry -- written, directed and produced. The eight-part drama (Perry's first with an all-white cast) debuts from 8 to 10 p.m. Monday.
The series follows the adventures of Anna (Danielle Savre) who left her blue-collar life in Happy, Ala., for a fast-paced career in Washington.
Highly successful, she had a steamy affair with a married senator that led to a major political scandal that forced her to slink back to the trailer park in Happy with her controlling mother, two sisters and her old high school sweetheart.
Added bonus: Heather Locklear has a recurring role as a "smart and beautiful" Washington wife.
Hopefully Perry has a hit on his hands to help elevate TLC to a higher level. TLC is the outfit initially known as The Learning Channel and featuring educational programming. TLC devolved over the years and these days we mostly learn how some folks will do anything to be on TV.
Evidence? The TLC roster includes such low-brow fare as My Big Fat Fabulous Life; Love at First Kiss; Return to Amish; Jill & Jessa: Counting On; Toddlers and Tiaras; Sister Wives; My Five Wives; Kate Plus 8; Long Island Medium; 90 Day Fiance; America's Worst Tattoos; Buying Naked; My Strange Addiction; Sex Sent Me to the ER; and Strange Sex.
TLC was also home to Cheer Perfection, an "unscripted" series set in Sherwood's Cheer Time Revolution gym and featuring the (seemingly manufactured) tacky cutthroat world of cheer moms.
One Sherwood mother featured prominently later admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old boy, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
TLC canceled the series and no reruns have aired.
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Style on 08/21/2016