‘America’s Got Talent,’ ‘American Ninja Warrior’ grab summer premiere dates

When are a pair of your summer favorites returning to NBC with new episodes? We’ve got the scoop now on both of them.

First of all, “American Ninja Warrior” returns on Monday, May 26, where it will kick things off at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. It’s an interesting premiere date given that it is Memorial Day (hardly a hotbed for new things), but this show has shown itself to be almost the Teflon of programming. No bad thing sticks to it, and it contains to produce pretty good (and unexpected) results. Plus, this is perfect counter-programming against “The Bachelorette,” and a cure for potential household conflicts so long as there are two TVs readily available.

Meanwhile, the new season of “America’s Got Talent” returns on Tuesday, May 27 at 8:00. We’re somewhat surprised with the early start, mostly because there isn’t really any reason for it to be preempted this season like the Summer Olympics. At least the show has going for it the simple fact that it’s not on during the bulk of the May sweeps, and that it’s bringing back the mostly-fun judging panel of Howard Stern, Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, and Mel B. Anytime that you actually get a group of judges to do anything for two seasons in a row at this point, it has to be considered a victory. Let’s just hope that there is still enough talent out there in America for the show to even have a justified existence at this point. (We’d also be okay with an “America’s Got Talent All-Stars” at some point, which is a more limited even where you have around 8-10 weeks of the best acts ever returning to perform.)

Most of the other summer release dates for shows are still to come, but we know that CBS is planning to roll out “Under the Dome” season 2 and their new series “Extant” in June.