Appointment Viewing: It's Summer Finale Season, and VH1 Goes "Behind the Music" of Adam Lambert

It's time for another look at the week ahead of Appointment Viewing, and we're at the point where the first batch of summer shows fade away to make room for a new batch, to get ready to bridge the gap until the fall shows are ready to return, so this week sees a good number of shows wrap things up for now, along with a couple of interesting documentaries.

Friday, Bravo wraps up its search for a promising songwriter (at least one who can come up with an interesting song on a short timeline) on the final episode of Platinum Hit. Out competitor Scotty Granger, having made it all the way to the final three, can he win the big prize? For the final challenge, the hopefuls will have to come up with a career-defining song with no requirements to meet. I've complained in the past that Platinum Hit has usually failed to deliver compelling songs each week, but I'm actually curious if, freed from team drama and requirements, the competitors can finally deliver a song as memorable as the high points of Project Runway or Top Chef.

While I'm curious if Platinum Hit can finally deliver at the end, I'm not keeping my fingers crossed that Bravo tries to figure out how to make a second season work. It has done it in the past, Top Design was a boring mess in the first season but some important changes turned it into a show that was compelling for the next two seasons. However, Bravo tried something different with Platinum Hit. We've seen how design can make for compelling TV plenty of times, there's a whole channel focused on it. No one has managed to make compelling reality TV out of songwriting, and I don't see anyone being able to figure out a way to reconfigure Platinum Hit into a Work of Art.

IFC debuts one more intruiging reality show Friday with Whisker Wars, which follows a group of men who travel the world to compete in facial hair competitions in places like Oregon, Norway and Germany. At the very least, this sounds like something the bears might enjoy.

There's also a new Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings on IFC that sees the pals head to Tonopah, Nevada, a remote town with a few interesting tourist attractions. Again, I say that if you haven't been watching Rhett & Link, you're missing one of television's most enjoyable half-hours.

Meanwhile, Syfy has a new Haven that sees Nathan find a man who has been keeping the town's secrets buried. I wonder if that has anything to do with Jason Priestley making his first appearance on the Syfy drama.

Sci-fi fans also can choose Torchwood on Friday as the team makes a key discovery about the miracle, just in time for the world to change. They can also go for an animated pick with new episodes of ThunderCats on The Cartoon Network, or more of Warren Ellis' anime vision of Iron Man, and Wolverine on G4.

Finally, HBO has a new Real Time with Bill Maher that sees Anthony Bourdain and Christina Romer sit down for interviews while filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon (whose most recent film is Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated), Joan Walsh and Neil deGrasse Tyson sit on the panel.