Big screen

Opening Friday

Prometheus (R) Director Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in 1979’s Alien. What more do you need to know? Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba are among the space travelers about to suffer bad things. If you want to preserve the film’s mysteries, steer clear of the tell-all trailers flooding the Internet. Also: This is Scott’s first 3D film. Our expectations? High.

Peace Love & Misunderstanding (R) Jane Fonda (soon to be seen on HBO’s The Newsroom) kicks off her comeback year playing the hippie den mother of a commune where a stressed-out lawyer (Catherine Keener) takes refuge with her kids in tow.

Hysteria (R) Romantic comedy about — um — the invention of the vibrator. Hugh Dancy is the feminist hero who creates the device. Maggie Gyllenhaal is his beloved and, we’re presuming, original test subject. Ahem.

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (PG) Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith return for the further adventures of the animated talking animals, who join a traveling circus in Europe. You know, for kids.

Rene Rodriguez

Small screen

The Diamond Queen (8 p.m. Sunday, BBC America) Traitorous Tories of all ages will enjoy this three-part documentary on Queen Elizabeth II. The rest of us can use it to work ourselves into a proper rage for the Fourth of July.

Longmire (10 p.m. Sunday, A&E) Robert Taylor of The Matrix stars as a burned-out Wyoming sheriff who gets a jolt of energy when his department adds a young female deputy played by Katee Sackhoff, the gloriously foul-mouth fighter pilot from Battlestar Galactica. Lou Diamond Phillips is along for the ride as the sheriff’s best friend, and A&E swears he won’t lip-synch La Bamba before the fifth episode.

The Week the Women Went (10 p.m. Wednesday, Lifetime) This documentary follows an experiment in Yemassee, S.C., in which all the women left for a week. Spoiler alert: The first thing that happened was Lifetime’s ratings dropped to the same level as when dinosaurs walked the Earth, while Lingerie Football League reruns drew the biggest Nielsen numbers since the series finale of M*A*S*H.

Saving Hope (9 p.m. Thursday, NBC) After the chief surgeon at Hope-Zion hospital (Michael Shanks, Stargate Atlantis) falls into a coma, his spirit or imagination or whatever wanders the corridors making annoying observations about everybody else’s work. I dunno. If I was gonna merge medical dramas with another genre, I might have gone with vampires. Or the Lingerie Football League.

Glenn Garvin

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at www.tivo.com/guruguide.