Your Week in Beefcake:

 E! Introduces “Men of the Strip” and a Gay “Penny Dreadful” Hookup
From: The Backlot

Here it is, Your Week in Beefcake, our shameless roundup of what was hot and buff on TV. We’re taking a prurient tour of the past week with a look at which shows had a special on six packs.

Things started with the debut of pirate drama Crossbones, which ended with Richard Coyle‘s British agent stripping down and walking into the ocean to cool down after a long day of outwitting pirates.

Sunday brought E!’s “reality movie” Men of the Strip which followed Jeff Timmons‘ male review as they prepared for their Vegas opening. That means we got to see the guys learning how to shake their hips for giving lap dances:

Of course there was also shirt ripping:

Trou dropping:

And pre-show oiling:

This one felt ready to become a regular series. Come on, E!. You know we’ll watch it (even if we might not admit to watching it.)

Sunday also gave us a Penny Dreadful that made us wonder if it was summers gayest show. Things started with this sight of Ethan after some sexy time with girlfiend Brona:

Then we got Dorian Gray lounging shirtless with another guy, somehow finding a way to be bored in the middle of an orgy:

And then we were surprised to see American gunslinger Ethan hook up with Dorian:

Monday brought a new episode of American Ninja Warrior as the qualifying rounds moved to Dallas. Apparently the Dallas area is full of youth pastors who want to demonstrate that they’re cool with their rapping and obstacle course running.

Last season, Karsten Williams took an early exit trying to look cool on the Septuple Steps. This season he took things more cautiously and finished the course and still looked cool.

Whoever wrote the captions gave my inner 12-year-old a chuckle with the way they phrased Jimmy Bogle Jr.‘s occupation:

At 5’2″ Olympic gymnast Jonathan Horton is the shortest American Ninja Warrior competitor. That just means there’s more hotness packed in that compact frame:

I suspect Tremayne Dortch was hoping he could intimidate the obstacles to with those ripped abs. It turned out he didn’t need any extra advantage to beat the qualifying course

One of Nick Cannon running gags on America’s Got Talent is to imitate an act that just left the stage. Following a guy who balanced his body on a blade, Cannon stripped off his shirt as if he were about to try to lie down on that blade himself. It was more fun than the act he was imitating.

Once again, The Night Shift took little time to get Eion Macken shirtless:

This time they even got meta about his shirtlessness:

It also added some bonus shirtless J.R. Lemon, who was practicing some boxing nearby:

USA’s Playing House made some beefcake contributions this week. Maggie and Emma were able to convince the Pinebrook Police to turn its annual spaghetti dinner into a strip show.

In an interview with Seth Meyers, series creators Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham said that this episode they played a prank on Keegan-Michael Key, telling him at the last minute that a line in the script, “Look at those abs!” was supposed to be “Look at that ass!” After working hard to make sure he had nice abs to show for the scene, Key made a last-minute rush to look up “butt exercises”.

Thursday, Undateable asked if Chris D’Elia‘s pick-up artist character became any more bearable if he left his furry torso expose through an open robe. The sight was appreciated but the character still awful:

We did get to see Justin (Brent Morin) and Brett (David Fynn) share a bubble bath, as Brett convinced Justin this would prove he’s fine with Brett coming out as gay.

Finally, in soap news, Tuesday’s Days of Our Lives saw Eric Martsolf lose his shirt again, thanks to Theresa:

Meanwhile, Friday’s Hollyoaks (as it airs on Hulu) revealed that Holly hooked up with Dodger with this shot:

That’s it for this week.