If you simply can’t bear to watch another episode of cop shows such “Rizzoli & Isles” or witness the same old staged catfights between screaming housewives, have we got something for you.

Here are half a dozen series that will introduce you to the weird wide world of bizarre practices and strange goings-on around you — they may not be as unexpected as flipping over a table during family dinner, but they’re just as hugely compelling.

Whisker Wars

* The docu-comedy gives new meaning to the term “bearded weirdo.” These dudes with excessive facial hair — who IFC calls “whisker warriors” — travel the country competing in beard competitions. The point? To take the gold in the World Beard and Moustache Championship in Trondheim, Norway. Along the way, you’ll get a good dose of the rivalries among champ Jack Passion and his fellow Beard Team USA teammates, as well as a lesson in the competitive beard categories: moustache, partial beard, full beard groomed, full beard natural and freestyle. Germany currently holds the championship title for best facial topiary, but as captain Phil Olsen notes, “Beard Team USA grows beards for USA.” If you’re not watching this series, you’re obviously short on national pride, man.

WHISKER WARS

Fridays, 11 p.m., IFC

Hillbilly Handfishin’

* This new series takes city folk and dumps them in the middle of muddy southern Oklahoma rivers to experience the joys of handfishing — the sport of using your bare hands to catch giant catfish. You need to stick your hand or foot into a hole, wait for the fish to bite and then wrestle it out. Hysterical laughter ensues when you watch the city slickers, including Italian in-laws from Long Island, scream, squirm and generally freak out as they get bitten and dragged underwater.

HILLBILLY HANDFISHIN’

Sundays, 10 p.m., Animal Planet

I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant

* This series, now on its fourth season, uses a mix of real-life testimonials and dramatic reenactments to illustrate the ways in which the women who were clearly not paying attention discovered their surprise fecundity. Unbelievable stories include the woman who’d gotten an implanted birth control device and, months later, gone to the ER with pizza-related stomach cramps, only to learn that — OMG! — she was actually in labor and her baby’s head had already crowned.

I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT Wednesdays,

9 p.m., TLC

Taboo

* This show picks one unusual topic — say, body piercings — and explores it thoroughly, without resorting to the usual docu-reality TV cheap thrills. Underground scenes explored this season include an eye-opening look at prostitution, ranging from streetwalkers and “high class” call girls to child sex slaves, and the extremes that people go to in the name of beauty. You ain’t see nothin’ until you’ve seen the Texas woman who must (she must, she must) increase her bust. . .all the way up to a triple-K cup.

TABOO

Wednesdays, 8 p.m., Nat. Geographic

My Strange Addiction

* Your compulsive need to use Purell or take a 3:45 p.m. — on the dot — coffee break have nothing on the addictions explored in this docu-series, which probes psychological causes. This season’s strange addictions run the gamut from the revolting — the woman who eats three square feet of drywall a week— to the peculiar and sad — the 25-year-old woman who dresses like a baby and sleeps in a crib. She even wears diapers, 24 hours a day.

MY STRANGE ADDICTION

Fridays, 10 p.m., TLC