The 24-year-old annual celebration of oceanic predators known as Shark Week will kick off on Sunday, July 31 at 9 p.m., Discovery Channel announced on Tuesday.
This year's Shark Week — which will be presided over by "Saturday Night Live" comic Andy Samberg, who'll serve as Chief Shark Officer for Discovery — will feature the one-hour special "Shark City" (working title), in which Samberg thrusts himself into the shark-infested waters of the Bahamas.
Another highlight of Shark Week 2011 is a special with the working title "Great White Invasion," which delivers footage of the fearsome finned sea-beasts swimming perilously close to humans. There's also "Jaws Comes Home," which chronicles a quintet of great white sharks as they make their 1.200-mile trek up and down the eastern seaboard, making their fearsome presence known in tourist spots such as Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod for the first time in almost three decades.
Of course, no Shark Week would be complete without coverage of actual shark attacks. Ergo, "Dual Survival" explore a series of unfortunate shark-people encounters in Australia and South Africa.
Shark Week was watched by 30.8 million people last year, making it the most successful installment in its history.
