Forget “Shrek.” Here comes the made-for-TV shocker “Ogre” (8 p.m., today, Sci Fi), featuring a creature who is anything but lovable. This Canadian-U.S. film has a lot better production values than your average Sci Fi Saturday-night shocker. But the story, the acting and the script are on par with the film franchise that brought us “Mansquito.”

The ogre in question resides in a mysterious Pennsylvanian town lost in a parallel dimension and stuck in the early 1800s. After a plague threatened the town’s existence, a local shaman (John Schneider) made a deal with the Devil, or some evil force, to make an annual sacrifice to the local monster in exchange for ending the pestilence.

Flash forward to 2008, and four college kids (Ryan Kennedy, Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fletcher and Kimberley Warnat) stumble into town and upset the unnatural order. If this sounds familiar, it is. Last October, Sci Fi aired a remarkably similar movie about a doomed town that ritually sacrificed a fraternity-party crowd to the local headless horseman.

¢ Cable television’s love affair with tough, hard-working guys continues with “Ax Men” (9 p.m., Sunday, History). The genre that began with “Deadliest Catch” and “Dirty Jobs” on Discovery and spread to “Ice Road Truckers” now finds itself deep in the rain-soaked emerald beauty of the woods of Washington State, where four crews of woodsmen try to wrestle a living from the logs.

“Ax Men” gets right down to the dirty and dangerous aspects of the job. These teams use chainsaws to cut down giant trees and then drag them out of the woods deploying a treacherous array of wires, winches, hooks and pulleys. One team strings a guide wire over a mile long with a helicopter. Another team does the same task by hand. A team suffers an injury almost immediately, and another loses precious time when their main vehicle, a converted WWII-era Sherman Tank, gets stuck in the mud. The presence of the Sherman Tank must be a nod to old-school History-channel fans who assume that their programs should be about history.

The division of the action and narrative into four teams tends to dilute the human interest. There are simply too many tough guys to follow. The strongest personality to emerge is JM Browning, the head of a logging crew that bears his name, He’s the one with the prosthetic hand that replaces the one he lost in an accident some years back. With a startling deadpan bravado, he discusses losing his hand, getting his skull fractured and nearly losing his leg on several occasions.

Nearly all of these guys smoke, engage in crude but affectionate jokes at each other’s expense, and curse like, well, lumberjacks.

Today’s highlights

¢ A naturalist raises 50 cubs in the wild on the special “A Man Among Bears” (8 p.m., National Geographic).

¢ Chaos proves contagious on “Torchwood” (8 p.m., BBC America).

¢ Amy Adams hosts “Saturday Night Live” (10:30 p.m., NBC), featuring musical guest Vampire Weekend.

Sunday’s highlights

¢ Carcetti tries to limit the damage on the series finale of “The Wire” (8 p.m., HBO).

¢ A killer leaves a trail of limbs on “Dexter” (9 p.m., CBS).