Zero Worship

Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Thursday 7.26 (Sci-Fi) Season Premiere: Marvel Comics legend-turned-comic-flick-punch-line Stan Lee—or his animated corpse, tough call—presides over another round of adults in superhero drag competing for “immortality” (i.e. their own comic book), with a standard-issue elimination every week cloaked in allusions to “good” and “honor” (a change of reality-house pace from “Well, at least you didn’t get drunk and piss on your roommate”). Wackiest hero: Mr. Mitzvah, who “deflects attacks with his Star of David paddle.” Hottest hero: Basura, who “turns trash into treasure and reshapes rubbish into robots.” Snubbed hero: Homeless Man, who was cut in the first round. Not kidding. Excelsior!

I Hate My 30s Thursday 7.26 (VH1) Series Debut: An “irreverent,” “absurd” and “ironic” comedy about “relatable problems.” This must have been a hit at the VH1 programming meeting … in 1995. With a pitch like—this is for real—“You may not learn much from I Hate My 30s, but you're sure to laugh at the misfortune of your friends as they're devastated by the realization that the life they've imagined is but a faint and fading dream slowly escaping their reach as they sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand of real life,” all that’s missing are Zima gags and a theme song by Filter. Too bad it can’t touch the comedy of …

Megasnake Saturday 7.28 (Sci-Fi) From the director of Mansquito! Reportedly, former Stargate SG-1 star and Canadian Michael Shanks agreed to headline Megasnake solely to obtain a new U.S. work visa, not because he believed the film would be a cinematic tour de force—hello? Mike? Mansquito! This one is about a giant snake what eats people in the Deep South. If you need more reason than that to tune in, you’re as dead to me as Michael Shanks.

My Boys Monday 7.30 (TBS) Return: Now that TBS is posting ridiculously high summer ratings with half-assed sitcoms like The Bill Engvall Show and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, My Boys looks almost edgy—but only almost. When last we left the romantic comedy about female sportswriter P.J. (Jordana Spiro), who spends more time hanging out with her guy pals than writing about sports, things were getting sexy and awkward (oh, the redundancy) between her and one of those platonic guy pals—can’t remember which one, since they all look the same except for her brother (oh, the albino-cy).

The Nine Wednesday 8.1 (ABC) Return: Remember this? The mystery serial about nine hostage-crisis survivors harboring all kinds of secrets designed to unfold over an intense 22-episode season? Yeah, you’re getting 13 and no plot resolution—which may not matter, since The Nine has been off the air since November and even the fans (numbering slightly more than nine) probably don’t recall what the hell was going on. Recap: Killer pilot episode, followed by six progressively lamer ones, then cancellation. Now there’s six more. Happy burn-off!

Footballers Wives Wednesday 8.1 (BBC America) Series Finale: Unfortunately, the most addictively insane soap opera since the days of Dynasty (Sex! Murder! Sex! Kidnapping! Sex! Serial marriage! Sex! No actual soccer!) ends here, and not gracefully—American television doesn’t have a lock on premature cancellation. Likewise, Footballers Wives may have climaxed early a few episodes back when revenge-crazed Amber dressed up as a warrior goddess and attempted to blow Bruno’s head off with a shotgun at a cocktail party (top that, Grey’s Anatomy). Now ABC’s remaking the series stateside. Let’s hope they don’t cock it up and add … soccer.