Jane Seymour returns to Saturday night. The star of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” has the title role in the made-for-TV mystery “Dear Prudence” (8 p.m., today, Hallmark).

A popular advice columnist and TV host, Prudence McCoy combines the classy hauteur of Martha Stewart with the nuts-and-bolts approach of Hints from Heloise, delivered in a voice that sounds like Mary Poppins grown up to become an annoying know-it-all. Gotta headache? Rub a lemon on your temples. A squeaky wheel deserves a shot of olive oil. She’s full of advice.

Even her TV producer can see she’s a miserable workaholic, so he sends her off to this spacious Wyoming ranch to recharge her emotional batteries.

Once there, Seymour gets reacquainted with “Dr. Quinn” scenery, and Prudence becomes embroiled in a murder mystery involving sacred Native American land. “Prudence” propels itself by borrowing from a grab bag of TV formulas. One moment it seems like the “woman of a certain age gets her groove back” CBS Sunday-night movie of a few years back. Then it becomes MacGyver-meets-Monk on the set of Martha Stewart Murder She Wrote Mystery Theater. The familiarity of all this is never a problem, but Prudence remains a fairly cold and humorless pill.

¢ An odd hybrid that I wanted to like, “Z Rock” (10:30 p.m., Sunday, IFC) is a 10-part sitcom about a struggling Brooklyn hard-rock band whose members earn money by working as a Wiggles-like kids’ band during the day.

The IFC comedy borrows heavily from the spirit of two HBO series. As in “Entourage,” we have a bunch of regular knuckleheads (brothers Paulie and David Z and Joey Cassata) from a New York borough (Brooklyn, in this case) trying to make it in the entertainment business. And like “Flight of the Conchords,” much of the humor and tension arises from trying to land gigs and get noticed.

“Z” has the kind of high-concept plot that used to be the staple of network sitcoms. The band even sings the theme song explaining their story. It has a great deal of potential to be funny and charming, but it goes in a much more obvious direction.

Both scripted and improvised, “Z-Rock” is stuffed with cameos from real-life rockers like Sebastian Bach and Dave Navarro, as well as comics like Joan Rivers, Gilbert Gottfried, Dave Attell and Greg Giraldo.

The comedy marks a strange departure for IFC, a network invented to showcase independent movies.

Today’s highlights

Note: Local listings may vary because of preseason NFL coverage.

¢ Summer Olympics (7 p.m., NBC) coverage includes track and diving.

¢ Cutter believes he may find his wife on “Primeval” (8 p.m., BBC America).

Sunday’s highlights

¢ Summer Olympics (7 p.m., NBC) coverage concludes with the closing ceremonies.

¢ The company reaches Baghdad on the series finale of “Generation Kill” (8 p.m., HBO).

¢ The gang remains oblivious to Cassie’s disorder on “Skins” (8 p.m., BBC America).

¢ Joan finds Don a new assistant as he has to put out more fires set by a renegade insult comic (Patrick Fischler) on “Mad Men” (9 p.m., AMC).