Big Brother Thursday 7.5 (CBS) Season Premiere: After an endless cavalcade of morons-in-a-house reality rip-offs, Big Brother is suddenly looking pretty good—you know, like the first skank you eyed at the club earlier in the evening before those 12 Jagerbombs. The Season 8 twist: One of the 14 housemates is secretly vying for extra cash by doing the bidding of the viewers via Internet and text-message voting. So, if enough voters conspire and command the Emotionally Unstable Cocktail Waitress (redundant?) to, say, drive a meat thermometer through this douchebag on the right's skull, she’ll do it? Me like! Me like!Dr. Who Friday 7.6 (Sci-Fi) Season Premiere: Last season, they replaced Dr. Who. This season, they’ve replaced the replacement Doc’s hot blond sidekick Rose Tyler with a new hot-but-less-blond sidekick. This is beginning to look like a Foghat tour—ready to play the Spot the Original Member drinking game? Dr. Who acquires his new partner when the hospital where she’s a med student is relocated to the moon so the intergalactic Judoon cops (who have no jurisdiction on earth, natch) can execute a fugitive vampire “patient.” Lost you at “no Rose Tyler,” didn’t I?
Mind of Mencia, American Body Shop Sunday 7.8 (Comedy Central) Season Premiere/Series Debut: If you hate Carlos Mencia (yo, Joe Rogan), get ready to really hate his fans: The winner of the online So You Think You Can Rant? contest will have his/her/its video broadcast on the season premiere—and you know what a laugh riot video-bloggers are. As for American Body Shop, just imagine Reno 911 transplanted into a Phoenix auto-body shop, or a less scripted Monster Garage. On the Reno knockoff scale, ABS lands somewhere between Comedy Central’s Dog Bites Man (comedy gold) and Halfway Home (comedy graphite), but where are the Bondo gags?
Eureka Tuesday 7.10 (Sci-Fi) Season Premiere: Science-fiction purists (like the writers of the just-canceled Stargate SG-1, for example) hate it, but the quirky-cute Eureka is one of Sci-Fi’s biggest hits—and the channel can always point to ECW wrestling and say, “At least it has more science that that, so shut the fuck up!” Weirdness continues in Eureka, a NorCal town populated with super-geniuses assembled for government research and one unwitting but handsome block of wood U.S. Marshal; this episode’s Freak of the Week culprit being cosmic spontaneous combustion—see? Science! And really, even at its most cloying, Eureka still beats the hell out of subidiot network fare like …
The Singing Bee Tuesday 7.10 (NBC) Series Debut: When faced with the decision to just throw up color bars for the summer or air anything dropped off at the front desk, scrambling broadcast networks usually go with the latter—because they care about quality off-season programming … Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, back on track: The Singing Bee is another piece of karaoke shit, but the twist here is that regular folk warble along with a song until the music is cut off … and then they have to finish the lyrics correctly! This is an actual TV show! On a major network staffed with well-educated and -paid professionals! When oh when is my spec pilot for Here, Shove This In Your Ass going to be picked up?
Don’t Forget the Lyrics Wednesday 7.11 (Fox) Series Debut: Yes, it’s the same fucking show. I have nothing to add. Oh, I need to stretch for space? Uh, OK … this one is hosted by Wayne Brady, whereas the other is hosted by Joey Fatone? Will that do? Here, Shove This In Your Ass: Summer 2008 …
