AMC will bid farewell to its drama/fantasy series Preacher with the debut of its final season, one of several shows making their debuts this week

Preacher, based on the comic book series of the same name, ends the saga of flawed preacher Jesse Custer who, along with his ex-girlfriend Tulip and vampire friend Cassidy, seek to find God. The 10-episode series, which debuts Aug. 4, stars Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gigun.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services:

July 29 -- Lights Out With David Spade (talk show) -- Comedy Central

July 31 -- Four Weddings and a Funeral (romantic comedy series) -- Hulu

July 31 -- The Red Sea Diving Resort (drama series) -- Netflix

July 31 -- Sherman’s Showcase (comedy series) -- IFC

Aug. 1 -- No One Saw A Thing (documentary miniseries) -- Sundance TV

Aug. 2 -- A Black Lady Sketch Show -- (comedy) -- HBO

Aug. 2 -- Dear White People (Comedy) --- Netflix

Aug. 2 -- Descendants 3 (movie) -- Disney Channel

Aug. 2 -- Into The Dark: School Spirit -- (movie) -- Hulu

Aug. 2 -- This Is Football (sports documentary) -- Prime video

Aug. 4 -- Serengeti (documentary) -- Discovery Channel

AMC takes a page out of the comic-book genre with the debut of drama series Preacher.

The series, based on a 1990s DC Comics title, follows Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper), an unconventional, conflicted preacher in a small Texas town who drinks and struggles with his own faith in God. His return to head his father’s church is met with some reluctance from a few of the locals, but he looks to make the best of an untenable situation.

When an inebriated Jesse gets arrested for assaulting a wife-beating parishioner, he considers throwing in the towel on his ministry.

Soon after however, Jesse is visited in his church by an alien entity that takes over his body and spirit, giving him a new vision for his ministry. Fans of the comic series will recognize Custer’s sidekicks in his ex-girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga) and Irish vampire Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) — as well as two outsiders searching for the creature itself — but viewers unfamiliar with Preacher will have to watch later episodes to figure out their relevance to the main character and to the storyline.

The pilot’s first scene leaves no doubts that Preacher is not for the squeamish. The same entity that takes over Jesse literally explodes through several other spiritual leaders around the world as it searches for its ideal host.

At the same time, the series tames down the bloody action long enough to allow for the character development of Jesse and those surrounding him to the point where viewers will begin to care what happens to them in future episodes as Jesse’s search for God and his desire to heal the sins of those around him takes the series on an unpredictable journey.

Part Breaking Bad and part The Walking Dead, the series — executive produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Sam Catlin — will keep fans of both the drama and horror genres in the viewing spirit.

Several cable networks have put their ratings faith into scripted dramas and comedies that have church- and religion-based themes as a backdrop.

Shows ranging from dramas like OWN’s upcoming Greenleaf, starring Oprah Winfrey; Bounce TV’s first original series, Saints & Sinners; and AMC’s DC Comics-driven Preacher to comedies like TV Land’s The Soul Man and Impastor feature religious overtones that networks say help bless the show’s main storyline and characters — who often than come across more as sinners than saints.

“The shows provide a fresh perspective of the world that we know,” Ri-Karlo Handy, senior vice president of original programming for multicast network Bounce TV, said about the new church-themed drama series Saints & Sinners. “We’re not being overly religious, but instead are showing real, flawed characters that often make mistakes even in the midst of the church.”

TRACK RECORD OF RATINGS WINS

Church- and religious-themed original movies and limited series have generated strong numbers in recent years. History’s five-episode series The Bible averaged more than 13 million viewers in 2013, while National Geographic Channel’s original movie Killing Jesus set a ratings record last March with 3.7 million viewers. (Nat Geo will target the faith-based audience in a different way on April 3 with the new docuseries The Story of God With Morgan Freeman.)

Until recently, though, there have been very few scripted drama or comedy series on television that have featured the church or religion as a main component of a show’s storyline. Unlike reality or Bible-based documentary shows, which tend to have a more preachy focus, scripted dramas and comedies focus less on theology and more on the human and often-flawed characters within the church, executives said.

For African-American targeted network Bounce TV, Saints & Sinners, which stars Vanessa Bell Calloway (Coming to America) and Gloria Ruben (ER) and follows the conflicts among members of a small-town Georgia Baptist church, drew a network-record 1.5 million cumulative viewers for the episode that bowed March 13.

“Our audience is one that really likes the drama and the characters, and this is a great new backdrop that they haven’t seen,” Handy said.

“Not every character in our show is a devout Christian, but they have some sort of connection to the church, whether good, bad or indifferent.”

OWN also hopes to draw religious and non-religious viewers to Greenleaf, which debuts in June. The show, the first scripted series in which network CEO Oprah Winfrey will have a recurring acting role, follows a powerful and influential family and their Memphis, Tenn., megachurch.

Greenleaf gives the network a way to reach its core viewers with drama, as it did with the Tyler Perry-created series The Haves and the Have Nots, but this time with a show that probes religious themes, OWN president Erik Logan said.

“We find this arena to be compelling and interesting … there hasn’t been a lot of exploration to date in it, and I think it’s an area where we see opportunity to put real characters and real situations on screen for storytelling purposes,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s about all the challenges that a large family has, but the background that the church provides is a very interesting and compelling stage for us to have this story and have these very rich and diverse characters talk from.”

‘SOMETHING LARGER AT PLAY’

TV Land has approached religion afrom a comedy standpoint with freshman series Impastor, about a gambling addict who ends up stealing the identity of a gay pastor, and The Soul Man, which stars Cedric the Entertainer as a superstar singer who returns to lead his father’s church.

The Soul Man, which launches its fifth and final season March 30, is TV Land’s most watched show among African-Americans.

The religious themes add a new wrinkle to the show’s overall characters and storylines, TV Land executive vice president of development and original programming Keith Cox said.

“While the church is a background element in every episode, it’s really just a touchstone for the idea that there’s always something larger at play,” Cox said.