Killing Time

Big Shots Thursday 9.27 (ABC) Series Debut: They’re four alpha-male corporate execs but, damn it, they have feelings, too! Big Shots was apparently shooting for Sex and the City With Dicks, but just wound up with dicks. Watching metrosexual power-players whine about relationships, kids, office politics and golf just makes The Only TV Column That Matters™ long for the days of AMC’s Mad Men that much more: bang a secretary, pour a bourbon, light a Lucky and shut the fuck up already.

Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy Thursday 9.27 (ABC) Season Premieres: Betty’s still ugly, but the interns are now real doctors. Scary.

CSI, Without a Trace Thursday 9.27 (CBS) Season Premieres: Sara’s gone missing, then the Trace team searches for Shark.

My Name Is Earl, The Office, ER Thursday 9.27 (NBC) Season Premieres: Full-hour premieres for Earl and The Office, while ER enters its 57th season.

Moonlight Friday 9.28 (CBS) Series Debut: If you still miss Angel or even Forever Knight, there’s a new crime-fightin’ vampire with a heart of gold in town; this one sleeps in a freezer and looks a lot like The Shield’s Alex O’Loughlin. That’s about all there is to report, because Moonlight has undergone several cast, script, showrunner and title changes (previous names: Twilight and Crime-Fightin’ Vampire With a Heart of Gold) since CBS first picked it up; could be all sock puppets and show tunes by the time it gets on the air.

Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs Friday 9.28 (CBS) Season Premieres: So many boob and math jokes, so little space.

Las Vegas Friday 9.28 (NBC) Season Premiere: Nikki Cox is gone, but Tom Selleck has arrived. Doesn’t seem like a fair trade.

Dexter Sunday 9.30 (Showtime) Season Premiere: At the end of Dexter’s excellent first season, our Serial Killer With a Heart of Gold had finally eradicated Miami’s Ice Truck Killer (who’d turned out to be his own brother, who was dating Dex’s stepsister to get to him … you had to be there) and all seemed relatively right in Dexter’s sorta-wrong world—so why so down at the onset of Season 2? A month later, it’s more bowling than killing: “My life’s been all Jekyll and no Hyde.” He’s not only off his vigilante game, but his freaked-out sis has moved in with him and his girlfriend suspects he may have framed her douchebag ex-husband and sent him back to prison (which Dex did—the guy wasn’t quite evil enough to murder). Then there’s the discovery of the bodies of his previous villainous victims—and Dexter can’t even carry out a nice, relaxing kill. Sheesh.

Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters Sunday 9.30 (ABC) The housewives enter their 60s, and I still hate Brothers & Sisters.

American Dad Sunday 9.30 (Fox) The Smiths go on vacation, which can’t end well.

Brotherhood Sunday 9.30 (Showtime) The best Rhode Island mobster drama since Family Guy returns to fulfill your Sopranos-free life.

Cavemen, Carpoolers Tuesday 10.2 (ABC) Series Debuts: Yes, Cavemen is the new sitcom based on those Geico insurance ads, so it already has a built-in audience of people with 30-second attention spans. Now, it’s 30-minute comedic allegory for racial and class divisions … yeah, sure, they’ll hang with it. Except that the first version of Cavemen’s pilot sucked harder than Allstate, so ABC sent it back to be “reworked”—a phrase on par with, “Let’s make this commercial 1,000 percent longer! With other commercials in it!” As for Carpoolers: If you liked the underrated/under-watched Sons & Daughters (Fred Goss stars here), you’ll probably wonder why no one brought that back instead of watering it down and moving it into the commuter lane. I know I did.

Pushing Daisies Wednesday 10.3 (ABC) Series Debut: Then again, sometimes networks take too big of a chance with something that might have even been difficult to pitch on cable: Pie shop owner Ned can bring the dead back to life with one touch, but a second sends them back Dirtnap City for good—helpful for solving murder cases with his private eye buddy (doesn’t everybody have one?); not so much when he revives his childhood sweetheart. Pushing Daisies comes from the creator of Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, and shares their offbeat tones of sweet romance and dark humor—and eventually, probably a DVD discussion group on Amazon.com about brilliant-but-canceled shows. Catch it while you can …

South Park, The Sarah Silverman Program Wednesday 10.3 (Comedy Central) Cartman struggles to reach the new Wednesday-night offensiveness bar set by Sarah Silverman, who joins an anti-abortion group and then performs an anal abortion on Steve. Good times.

Chuck You

Chuck, Journeyman Monday, Sept. 24 (NBC) Series Debuts: This is not another hack piece about how the new fall season is all “geeked” out. Damn, TV critics are a creative lot. The titular Chuck of NBC’s new Heroes lead-in works at Buy More (think Best Buy) in the tech-troubleshooting Nerd Herd (think Geek Squad), so of course he’s a girlfriend-free underachiever—until he accidentally downloads the entirety of America’s secret intelligence into his brain via an e-mail (just go with it) and bam! Instant Alias, with clip-on ties instead of wigs. Chuck takes the average-dude-in-over-his-head comedy of Andy Barker P.I. (remember that?) to a new level—the first episode’s chase scenes could be the most hysterically intricate ever shot for television—and nails the balance of smart comedy and sweet charm, not to mention killer action. As for NBC’s new time-travelin’ sci-fi drama Journeyman … at least it’s better than Day Break (I know you don’t remember that).

The Big Bang Theory Monday, Sept. 24 (CBS) Series Debut: Hyper-intelligent geeks struggle to meet hot girls; middling comedy ensues. On the upside, The Big Bang Theory actually makes Rules of Engagement seem funny an hour later—score, CBS!

Cane Tuesday, Sept. 25 (CBS) Series Debut: Jimmy Smits presides over a Cuban-American family’s sugar and rum empire in Florida; middling soap-opera drama and intrigue ensue. CBS has promoted Cane with Mojito-flavored lick-strips in magazines, so at least one original idea has come from all of this.

Reaper Tuesday, Sept. 25 (The CW) Series Debut: Another nerdy guy toiling away in a big-box store is thrust into extraordinary circumstances—similarities to Chuck don’t quite end there; instead of being forced to moonlight for the government, Reaper’s Sam has new gig with Satan. Tomato, tomato. But, whereas Chuck star Zachary Levi carries his show with confident ease, Reaper’s Bret Harrison (late of Fox’s The Loop) is upstaged at every turn by slacker bud Sock (Invasion’s Tyler Labine) and the Devil (Twin Peaks’ Ray Wise), who bought Sam’s soul before he was even born—enough about Britney being a bad parent—and now employs him to hunt down escaped Hell-ions. Reaper has a funny, crackerjack Kevin Smith-directed pilot ep, but is it too smart for the viewers of lead-in Beauty & the Geek? Oh, hell yes.

Private Practice, Dirty Sexy Money Wednesday, Sept. 26 (ABC) Series Debuts: Ever seen Kate Walsh on a talk show? Hi-larious. She’s also probably more capable of carrying a show than anyone back on Grey’s Anatomy, from whence Private Practice spun-off last spring in a lame tentative “pilot” episode. Fortunately, the final Addison-does-Cali product is far better, and this is coming from a guy who hates Grey’s Anatomy. I mean, really, really hates Grey’s Anatomy. Oh, and ABC didn’t send me Dirty Sexy Money, so fuck it.

The Bionic Woman, Life Wednesday, Sept. 26 (NBC) Series Debuts: The good news: The Bionic Woman lives up to nearly all of its Battlestar Galactica-pedigreed buzz. The bad news: That buzz is limited to the relatively small audience of Galactica (sorry, not everybody reads your blog), and Michelle Ryan’s performance in the title role is so stiff you may wonder if she’s not entirely circuitry and silicone. The best news: Matters not, because The Bionic Woman is dark, taut, action-packed and riveting every second that Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff appears onscreen as the first bionic woman who’s gone rogue and quite insane. She’s out to kill her 2.0, and The Only TV Column That Matters™ is rooting for her—I wanna see that series. I don’t, however, want to see another cop show. Life is another cop show. Ergo …

Five to One

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia Thursday 9.13 (FX) Season Premiere: How to kick off a new season of basic cable’s most infamously sick/wrong/hysterical sitcom when you’ve already mined the comedy gold of racism, abortion, molestation, welfare, crack addiction and—worst of all—local politics? I believe the title of tonight’s episode says it all: “The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby.” There’s also a subplot about environmental idiocy, er, activism, and the continued, utterly unnecessary presence of Danny DeVito, but It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia still rides on the flawless cartoon-nihilism chemistry of Mac, Charlie, Dennis and Sweet Dee, which occasionally equals that of Seinfeld’s Hallowed Four … if they lived in a seedy Philly borough instead of Manhattan, that is. Love the show, hate yourself.

Nashville Friday 9.14 (Fox) Series Debut: If you actually consider Laguna Beach and The Hills to be “reality” shows, you just might be a big enough sucker to fall for the same brain trust’s Nashville, which follows the manufactured dreams and drama of young pretty folk “struggling” to forge a career in country music—or whatever it is Nashville cranks out these days. Then again, it’s on Friday nights, so it won’t even last as long as the previous sentence. Moving on …

Prison Break, K-Ville Monday 9.17 (Fox) Season Premiere/Series Debut: When last we left Prison Break, Michael had been tossed in a hellhole Panamanian prison and Lincoln was on the outside—tables turned, man! Is your mind blown? If not, this should do it: Nash Bridges’ daughter (Jodi Lynn O’Keefe) is introduced this season as a character named … Susan B. Anthony! Prison-breaking, conspiracy-busting and head-shining ensue anew. Considerably less-complex is new series K-Ville: Jaded maverick cop + by-the-book new partner with a Dark Secret + colorful crew x post-Katrina New Orleans = Standard Police Drama No. 625, with a side of Cajun sauce. In other words, don’t bet on any new series with a “ville” suffix.

Back to You, ‘Til Death Wednesday 9.19 (Fox) Series Debut/Season Premiere: Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton and Fred Willard star in the hottest new sitcom of 1987—now! Sure, Back to You may feel like a throwback to Murphy Brown, but it smells as dead as Ted Knight’s decomposing corpse under the remnants of the Mary Tyler Moore set (see kids, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a newsroom comedy of the 20th Century, as was Murphy Brown). How ‘Til Death made it to a second season is equally unclear; Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher’s undercooked homage to Al & Peggy Bundy would probably have gone straight to TV Land if Fox wasn’t so preoccupied with giving Ryan Seacrest more shit to do—seriously, that assclown is hosting the Emmys and animating backgrounds for American Dad on breaks.

America’s Next Top Model Wednesday 9.19 (The CW) Season Premiere: The search is on for the latest 98-pound skank to sequester in the Witness Protection Program, uh, launch into a fabulous modeling career! Or at least a future guest spot on a doomed CW series like …

Gossip Girl Wednesday 9.19 (The CW) Series Debut: If I thought the pilot episode of Gossip Girl would stay in my head for longer than the two minutes it’s going to take to recap it, I’d spring for a lobotomy. Josh Schwartz has relocated The O.C. to an east-coast private school for rich teen models with more “problems” than personality; when you can spot the group “bad boy” wearing a bored look, artfully mussed hair and an ascot (!) in the first act, things probably ain’t going to get better. No, it gets worse, and the unseen titular “blogger” narrating the show only drives home the inanity: It’s Kristen Bell, ex-star of The CW’s far-superior-so-of-course-it-was-canceled Veronica Mars. Stellar first week of the new fall season, eh?

To the Curb

Torchwood Saturday 9.8 (BBC America) Series Debut: A spin-off (and anagram) of Doctor Who that’s being pitched as a sci-fi combo plate of The X-Files, Angel and, well, Doctor Who: A team of pretty special-ops agents keep watch on a space/time rift in Cardiff, Wales, and use acquired alien technology to battle whatever baddies pop out of it. Torchwood continues BBC America’s summer hot streak (if you forget about Hotel Babylon, which you should), even if it falls slightly short of Jekyll. Oh, and like Britain’s previous Buffy the Vampire Slayer tribute Hex, there’s plenty of sex. But not as much as …

Tell Me You Love Me Sunday 9.9 (HBO) Series Debut: Home Box Office answers the “It’s HBO-ver!” naysayers of the post-Sopranos era with a meta-depressing rumination on Relationships and Intimacy that makes Ingmar Bergman look like Judd Apatow. Too much? OK, breaking it down: You. May. Kill. Yourself. Before. Episode. Three. Tell Me You Love follows four couples at various stages of marriage working through trust and commitment issues while … too much again? Try this: There’s a whole lotta graphic sex, including a scene in the premiere with Lost’s Sonya Walger performing a tug-job on her husband that could have only been simulated with a prosthetic—which would be even weirder than the actual sex that’s rumored to have been filmed for the series. If this all sounds like more draining work than pirating Showtime, you’re right. For real creepy awkwardness, stick with …

Curb Your Enthusiasm Sunday 9.9 (HBO) Season Premiere: What valuable social lessons has Larry David learned since the last new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm way back in December 2005? You know, when he died? None—he’s a rich white guy, what’s to learn? In the Season 6 opener, Larry and Cheryl take in a family of Hurricane Katrina survivors (it’s a Cheryl thing, natch), conveniently named … the Blacks. Upcoming episodes involve the violation of unspoken drycleaner codes, roadside memorials, teddy bears and Ted Danson, as well as the disturbing revelation that one of Larry’s pals has been masturbating in his house (HBO now stands for Habitually Beating Off, apparently). In other words, it’s still the hysterically real/unreal Curb you and the network pray never ends—and in what universe is Richard Lewis dating Tia Carrere?

Frisky Dingo Sundays (Adult Swim) Season 2 of Frisky Dingo premiered Aug. 26—which was unexpected, considering the planet was supposedly driven into the sun by supervillain Killface’s Annihilatrix doomsday device at the end of the first. Turns out it malfunctioned and actually pushed the earth’s orbit 3 feet away from the sun, stopping global warming. Now he’s an insta-hero running for president while former millionaire playboy/Iron Man-esque nemesis Xander Crews is a destitute porn star. This is he part where you assume I’m going to say, “It all makes sense if you watch it.” Yeah … anyway, Frisky Dingo: Funny and educational for the marketing of evil pinheads for president—listen up, Brownback-ers.

Rescue Me Wednesday 9.12 (FX) Season Finale: So Season 4 of Rescue Me has been shakier than an all-Gavins AA meeting—it’s still better than any series out there, comedy or drama. Denis Leary has delivered both in a double-barreled shotgun blast of pathos every week, no matter how many ridiculous new characters clutter the scenes (Leary’s latest girlfriends, Gina Gershon and Amy Sedaris, make Callie Thorne’s whacked Sheila look like a pillar of sanity). The season-ender cliffhangers, however, must go, because none—not even tonight’s—live up to Leary’s lingering threat of having all the 62 Truck firefighters die in an out-of-control blaze. There’s always Season 5 … right, FX?

Endless Bummer 2

Last week, The Only TV Column That Matters™ told you how wrong the pretentious fucks were about television, that there’s plenty on the tube (mostly cable fare) artistically equal to anything that’s happening in The Cinema. As usual, I made an airtight case.

This time around, it’s all about the stuff that’s stunk up the summer. Not that the PFs are right—they’re just a little less wrong when you factor in shows like …

… Flash Gordon on the Sci-Fi Channel, where we left off. There was no reason for this series to exist when it debuted like a limp Smallville with Kryptonite down its Speedo a few weeks ago, and certainly not now that it’s failed to live up to even that promise. At least Sci-Fi’s now-canceled Painkiller Jane launched strong, even though it’s since devolved into Scooby-case-of-the-week banality that makes CSI (pick one) look like Long Arc Theater. And Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Once the hottest (Basura) and the craziest (Mr. Mitzvah) contestants were eliminated, who wants to fucking watch?

Somebody must be watching Code Monkeys on G4 (it’s that channel with the Arrested Development reruns), and I’m guessing they’re all wearing helmets and sipping dinner through a straw: A badly/barely-written cartoon animated like an ‘80s videogame sounds like nice time-killing YouTube short; 14 half-hour episodes sounds like my brain dripping onto the floor. Same goes for ABC Family’s Greek, a college dramedy for those who can’t keep up with the Byzantine plot twists of High School Musical. Or The Two Coreys, a sad A&E “reality” show that’s more tightly scripted than any movie Haim or Feldman have done in 20 years.

TBS now stands for Terminally Bland Shit, with throwback sitcoms like The Bill Engvall Show and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne mingling seamlessly with repeats from yesteryear and yet only improving upon them in hair (Nancy Travis’ on Engvall has never looked fab-er, nor has Bill’s mustache). Even My Boys, a relative critical hit, has lost its edge over the summer—OK, that “edge” was akin to a plastic spork, but still …

Vaguely vanilla is not necessarily better than aggressively craptastic, which sums up VH1’s entire summer slate: Rock of Love With Bret Michaels, Scott Baio Is 45 & Single, The Rock Life, Mission: Man Band, The Pick-Up Artist, I Hate My 30s—collectively the worst non-Flavor-Flav-related programming the channel has ever excreted; only Rock of Love earns a partial pass for humorously including a couple of transvestites in the lineup of ladies staying in the house and rocking Michaels’ world … wha? Rodeo and Mags weren’t dudes? Get the fuck outta here!

Also, USA’s The 4400 and The Dead Zone … they’re still on, right? Yes? No? Get back to me. And didn’t we used to count on Bravo and Comedy Central for at least one watchable summer series apiece? Flipping Out and American Body Shop, respectively, fall waaay short of the bar set in previous summers by Boy Mets Boy and Dog Bites Man, the greatest send-up of local TV news ever.

Well, until Fox’s Anchorwoman. Not a cable show, but notable nonetheless for being canceled after a single airing last week because fewer people tuned into its reality-jiggling debut than an America’s Top Model rerun on The CW (!) and Telemundo’s La Noche de 1,000 Iguanas (admittedly, stiff competition). Who could have predicted that no one would tune in to watch a brainless, unqualified bimboid attempt to become a serious news anchor? You know, besides CBS and Katie Couric? Remember the wisdom of Champ Kind: “It is anchor man! Not anchor lady! And that is a scientific fact!”

Still, all of this dreck is easily negated by AMC’s awesome Mad Men, one of the summer’s coolest new series; marathon Sunday, Sept. 2. (No way I’m going out on a TV downer, you pretentious fucks).

Endless Bummer

You know those pretentious fucks who’ll post a laundry list of favorite “indie” films on their MySpace profiles, but simply put something like “I don’t watch that vile, evil box of drivel and lies” under Television? They obviously don’t have cable. And they’re pretentious fucks.

The PFs obviously know nothing of the excellent work filling up an insane amount of cable space this summer; most of it better than any pretentious fucking movie they’d theoretically soil themselves over on the Independent Film Channel, while The Only TV Column That Matters™ is just waiting for IFC originals The Business, Minor Accomplishments or The Henry Rollins Show. Or that flick with all the Anne Hathaway topless scenes—hey, it was in the name of Independent Art.

The PFs could never deny the high artiness of HBO’s (now canceled) John From Cincinnati, a testament at least to the network’s willingness to take a chance and blow a truckload of money on something that makes less sense than The Sopranos’ finale—was John actually Jesus? An alien? A mystical meld of Coreys Haim and Feldman? Whatever. My prediction that the increasingly intense Big Love (season finale Sunday, Aug. 26) would become HBO’s new flagship drama is looking better all the time; not so much with Entourage, which is losing it as fast as Flight of the Conchords (renewed for 2008, BTW) is gaining a cult rep as the ultimate premium-cable musical comedy. Maybe even better than Tenacious D … yeah, I said it.

The Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, a True TV reality favorite no matter what the season, dropped a 12-ton musical bombshell of its own during its current summer run: Receptionist Mary Alice’s brother is the lead singer of … Clutch! Most PFs can agree that Clutch is the greatest band in the known universe, and now they’ve gotten more airplay in 30 minutes on the Food Network than in 10 years of MTV. Suck on that.

Even Lifetime has broken its cycle of Women In Peril Who Still Manage to Be Stylish Professionals Whilst in Bitter Custody Battles With Their Abusive Trailer Park Husbands crapola this summer with Army Wives (season finale Sunday, Aug. 26), a surprisingly good military soap opera that walks a fine line between patriotism and pathos. Just overlook the fact that its record ratings inspired Lifetime to launch State of Mind and Side Order of Life, two half-assed dramas not even up to Oxygen snuff. Ouch.

Or blame TNT’s runaway hit The Closer for the basic-cable wave of ancient actresses (you know, over 40!) in tough-chick roles. Just because The Closer—a standard-issue cop drama—lucked out with Kyra Sedgwick and an equally interesting supporting cast, TNT took another shot with Holly Hunter in Saving Grace (interestingly weird show, but Hunter has to carry it), and FX handed over Damages to Glenn Close (who can’t wrangle the 85 subplots). Still, either is better than any given CSI or Law & Order, and especially TNT’s flat-line House clone Heartland.

Poor ol’ Treat Williams got stuck with that dog, while Jeffrey Donovan has nailed pure cool in USA’s killer Burn Notice (picked up for another season) and Denis Leary still delivered the goods in FX’s Rescue Me (even though the series is going utterly batshit crazy around him) throughout the summer. It ain’t fair, but at least you’re not a guest perp on Criminal Minds, Treat.

None of these guys had as much fun with a role as James Nesbitt has in BBC America’s Jekyll (series finale Saturday, Aug. 25), which has come and now almost gone with far too little notice. As smart science-fiction goes, this Jekyll & Hyde upgrade gets it as dead-on right as Sci-Fi’s lame-o Flash Gordon remake gets it painfully wrong. More on that in next week’s True TV: The summer’s most sucktastic slop. You’ll love it, ya pretentious fucks.

High Times

Flash Gordon Friday 8.10 (Sci-Fi) Series Debut: Based on the 1930s comics and film serials, the ‘50s TV series or the “campy” (read: so gay even the Village People, filming Can’t Stop the Music next door, said, “Oh, puh-leez!”) 1980 movie? None of this ringing a bell? Hello, coveted demographic! Sci-Fi’s new Flash Gordon has recycled Queen’s bombastic (yes, redundant) ’80 theme song for the ads, but the 90-minute pilot has little of the spark or fun of previous incarnations, coming off like a particularly flat episode of Smallville populated with interchangeable Canadians (this Flash is a full-on Canuck production). They even removed “the Merciless” from villain Ming’s name—oh, puh-leez!

The Business, Minor Accomplishments Sundays (IFC) The Business, which spun-off from IFC’s previous and equally funny series The Festival, is about a struggling independent film company that spun-off from a far-more-lucrative porno video company … but it’s still called Vic’s Flicks. For Season 2, the focus is off sleazy boss Vic (Rob DeLeeuw) and hapless filmmaker Rufus (Nicholas Wright) and squarely on exasperated producer Julia (Kathleen Robertson)—smart move. Maybe they took a cue from The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, which has upped its cynic-girl power by elevating Nicholle Tom (of … The Nanny!) to full second-season sidekick status to Laura Kightlinger’s titular Jackie, not that she needed it. If you don’t believe a second of Entourage and like your showbiz comedy blacker than Larry Sanders’ dye job, The Business and Minor Accomplishments are for you. (Now there’s an ad quote, IFC!)

John From Cincinnati Sunday 8.12 (HBO) Season Finale: So … what the fuck was that?

Hell’s Kitchen Monday 8.13 (Fox) Season Finale: Admittedly, watching Gordon Ramsay scream his vein-y head off at inept chefs is a kick—but for 11 weeks? Apparently so, since Hell’s Kitchen still kills in the ratings, and I’m not going to argue with a reality-competition show that produces something more valuable to society than karaoke clowns and DNA receptacles for Bret Michaels (that one’s for you, Krista Simonsen).

Weeds Monday 8.13 (Showtime) Season Premiere: Last season, Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) and her suburban pot-dealer crew were riding high (ha!) and flush with green (double ha!), almost to the point where it looked like a PSA for the Mary Jane retail business. Then it all went to hell in a cliffhanger that left Nancy staring down gun barrels, her DEA husband offed by Armenians, one of her sons kidnapped by a crazy woman, and the other busted with a car full of weed. There’s no happy ending in the first episodes of Season 3: Nancy survives, but her business is dead and her family is in even worse off than before—which is great TV, because while Parker plays cocky (and everything else) beautifully, she’s in the kill zone as a desperate mom out of options.

Californication Monday 8.13 (Showtime) Series Debut: David Duchovny, on the other hand, is anything but sympathetic in Californication, where he stars as a narcissistic novelist who gets a dream-state blowjob from a nun before the opening credits, and nails a variety of naked women (including Madeline Zima of … The Nanny! What’s going on here?) up to the closing. The return of gratuitous premium-cable nudity is to be applauded—ahem, HBO—but what’s it all mean? And why name it after one of the worst Red Hot Chili Pepper songs ever? At least Californication is rarely dull, offsetting the Heavy Midlife Angst with comic touches—Duchovny’s book, God Hates Us All, was turned into a hit romantic comedy fluffer starring “Tom and Katie,” hence his self-loathing and writer’s block—and the promise of redemption: He wants his ex-wife and kid back … after he nails a few dozen more club skanks. Ah, sweet …

British Steal

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DVDs 7.24.2007

Anita Swedish sexploitation classic from 1994 about a young girl who must be cured of her nymphomania—but why? XploitedCinema.com

Harvey Birdman: Season 3 The last stand of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, the greatest lawyer in the history of TV. He could easily defend nymphomania. AdultSwim.com

The Host The new standard for Korean mutant-monster films. Unaware of the old standard? You’re a dumb American, as depicted here. MagPictures.com

The Number 23 Jim Carrey goes nuts over a number and takes Virginia Madsen’s career down with him. Makes for a good drinking game, though. NewLine.com

The Secrets of Isis: Seasons 1 & 2 The ‘70s Saturday-morning TV superheroine who could fly and fight crime in a miniskirt and Egyptian stripper boots! Yay! Navarre.com

Weeds: Season 2 The Showtime series about a pot-dealing suburban mom gets even better (and darker), and Mary Louise Parker is cooler than Isis. Lionsgate.com

More New DVD Releases (7.24) Benson: Season 1, Cash Back, The Contract, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, The Long Weekend, Shadow Puppets, Slow Burn, Spawn: The Animated Collection, Stargate SG-1: Season 10, Sugar Creek, The Ultimate Underdog Collection

BROADBAND
The Two Coreys You knew it was coming: The reality-TV reunion of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim—the only surprise is that it’s on A&E, not VH1. The Two Coreys debuts Sunday, July 29, but why wait till then to see yet more humiliated ‘80s stars? Watch the seven-minute trailer online … and avoid the series entirely. Trust me. You’re welcome.

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.