My Bare Lady Thursday, Dec. 7 (Fox Reality) Series Debut: The rerun-riffic Fox Reality cable channel (go ahead, try to find it in your listings) hasn’t been much of a contender in the original series arena—unless you count the misadventures of a pair of vineyard-buyin’ millionaires in Corkscrewed: The Wrath of Grapes … which, let’s hope, no one does. But now, get ready for My Bare Lady! Adult-film actresses Chanel St. James, Kirsten Price, Sasha Knox and Nautica Thorne (all tops in the field—I’ve researched their work, extensively) fly across the Atlantic for three weeks of proper theatre—that’s “re”—training before debuting on London’s West End in a classical drama. Can the porn queens prove themselves as real thespians? How many thespian/lesbian jokes can be squeezed into an episode? Is there a money shot in Medea? Will Falstaff need a fluffer? Can the ladies rise from creampies to the crème de le crème? Could I gone on and on like this? Yes, but I’ll need an hour or two turnaround.The Wire Sunday, Dec. 10 (HBO) Season Finale: First Heroes (off till January), now The Wire (back for Season 5 in late 2007)? What are TV critics going to have to talk and giggle about amongst themselves for the rest of the month? How about …
Sleeper Cell: American Terror Sunday, Dec. 10-Sunday, Dec. 17 (Showtime) Miniseries: As if domestic criminals weren’t enough to worry about, Showtime’s miniseries about Islamic terror cells in Los Angeles is back—and with Jack Bauer currently on a slow boat to China, no less! Chloe!
The Lost Room Monday, Dec. 11-Wednesday, Dec. 13 (Sci-Fi) Miniseries: Doesn’t get much more high-concept than this: A cop (Six Feet Under’s Peter Krause) comes into possession of the key to a motel room along Route 66 in New Mexico—a supernatural motel room full of powerful objects, like a comb that can bend time and an electricity-shooting pen, if not a decent air conditioner (yeah, all motels are the same). When his daughter (Elle Fanning) suddenly disappears within, he realizes Room 10 of the Sunshine Motel is the center of unearthly power—also because a mysterious woman (Julianna Margulies) tells him so, and mysterious women are always right in science fiction. Naturally, all kinds of nefarious figures are out to collect the objects to Control the World, and now Cop and Mysterious Woman are in the thick of it. The Lost Room is on the dazzling, high end of the Sci-Fi quality scale—more The Triangle and Taken than FrankenFish and DinoCroc—so expect much talk of it becoming a series but never panning out.
Nip/Tuck Tuesday, Nov. 12 (FX) Season Finale: Not only did Nip/Tuck finally jump the shark this year, it gave it a sex change and a new nose before bending it over a gurney and having its way while crying “Mommy!” Seriously, this season would have been effdup even without naked Rosie O’Donnell (eww), the lobster baby (sheesh), Larry Hagman’s sag-sack (yikes), the dwarf nanny (zoinks), lesbian Alanis Morissette (oh, sure), the nipple-eating dog (ouch), the kidney thieves (damn) and Scientology (that’s just going too far). In the season closer, tattooed mofo Escobar Gallardo is back again, and Christian’s “love” life is in jeopardy … again. Ah, at least some things never change.
DVD
Beerfest The Broken Lizard crew (Super Troopers and other lesser movies that make you want to keep referencing Super Troopers) takes on the most sacred of all subjects: Beer, and the voluminous guzzling of same—oh, and boobs. There’s also a “story” involving a competition, if you’re into that. WarnerBros.com
Miami Vice Other than Collin Farrell’s mullet, not much ‘80s action going on here—they didn’t even bring back the Jan Hammer theme! Still, the modern Miami Vice remake is a passable action-cop drama with more plot than required for the multiplex, hence a more satisfying ride on DVD. But why so serious? NBCUniversalStore.com
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest A stunning feat of trilogy filler between original and finale, Dead Man’s Chest at least seems like it’s going somewhere even though absolutely nothing is happening during the six-hour (or whatever it is) running time. It’s The Cap’n Jack Sparrow Show, for sure, which saves it from absolute suckage. Disney.com
24: Season 5 Easily the most thrilling season since the first, with the best villain the series has ever had: President Logan, a magnificent weasel of the highest order (face it, President Palmer was a snooze). Also more Chloe and more kills, not to mention a hijacked-to-China cliffhanger that’ll resolve … uh, how? FoxHome.com
More New DVD Releases (Dec. 5) Cheyenne: Season 1, The Dukes of Hazzard: Season 7, The Oh in Ohio, Pinky & the Brain: Vol. 2, Pulse, Rosanne: Season 6, Saturday Night Live: Season 1
BROADBAND
Jericho CBS’ apocalypse soap is on vacation until February, but the website is loaded with enough catch-up content (including all episodes streaming to present and a full-on Wiki section) to maybe justify jumping on the Jericho bandwagon next year. Missing: Lil’ Jon doing a “Skeet-Skeet-Skeet” parody.
Beerfest The Broken Lizard crew (Super Troopers and other lesser movies that make you want to keep referencing Super Troopers) takes on the most sacred of all subjects: Beer, and the voluminous guzzling of same—oh, and boobs. There’s also a “story” involving a competition, if you’re into that. WarnerBros.com
Miami Vice Other than Collin Farrell’s mullet, not much ‘80s action going on here—they didn’t even bring back the Jan Hammer theme! Still, the modern Miami Vice remake is a passable action-cop drama with more plot than required for the multiplex, hence a more satisfying ride on DVD. But why so serious? NBCUniversalStore.com
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest A stunning feat of trilogy filler between original and finale, Dead Man’s Chest at least seems like it’s going somewhere even though absolutely nothing is happening during the six-hour (or whatever it is) running time. It’s The Cap’n Jack Sparrow Show, for sure, which saves it from absolute suckage. Disney.com
24: Season 5 Easily the most thrilling season since the first, with the best villain the series has ever had: President Logan, a magnificent weasel of the highest order (face it, President Palmer was a snooze). Also more Chloe and more kills, not to mention a hijacked-to-China cliffhanger that’ll resolve … uh, how? FoxHome.com
More New DVD Releases (Dec. 5) Cheyenne: Season 1, The Dukes of Hazzard: Season 7, The Oh in Ohio, Pinky & the Brain: Vol. 2, Pulse, Rosanne: Season 6, Saturday Night Live: Season 1
BROADBAND
Jericho CBS’ apocalypse soap is on vacation until February, but the website is loaded with enough catch-up content (including all episodes streaming to present and a full-on Wiki section) to maybe justify jumping on the Jericho bandwagon next year. Missing: Lil’ Jon doing a “Skeet-Skeet-Skeet” parody.
