TV Tonight: Parks & Rec, Late Night, Bones, Burn Notice

What’s new tonight:
Parks & Recreation (NBC) A nutjob Pawnee religious group says it’s The End of the World, so of course the Parks & Rec gang takes them seriously—hey, it’s Indiana. Reactions: April helps Andy with his bucket list, Tom throws a big-ass party (by Entertainment 720, natch), and Ron most likely holes up in a bunker to ride it out and come out the other side as The Omega Man (Wiki it, kids). I’d so watch that show.

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (NBC) Tonight, Jimmy welcomes actress Kirsten Dunst, Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick and musical guests Air Supply. Note: The drummer of my so-called band, Spork, is also employed as the touring drummer for Air Supply—due to a suspicious illness that has befallen Late Night house band The Roots’ skinsman Questlove (comb infection?), CJ Spork (a.k.a. CJ Burton) will be backing Air Supply tonight on the TV box. If he doesn’t pass Dunst a Spork CD, he’s totally out of the band.

Bones (Fox) Season Premiere: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 2).

Burn Notice (USA) Fall Premiere: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 3).

Also new tonight:
Charlie’s Angels, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice (ABC); The Big Bang Theory, Rules of Engagement, Person of Interest, The Mentalist (CBS); Community, The Office, Whitney, Prime Suspect (NBC); The X Factor (Fox); The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle (The CW); Project Accessory (Lifetime); It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The League (FX); Beavis & Butt-head, Good Vibes (MTV); Gigolos, Dave’s Old Porn (Showtime)

The End is nigh on Parks & Recreation … again …

TV Tonight: Louie, Burn Notice, Russian Dolls, SYTYCD

This just in: HBO’s True Blood has been renewed for Season 5 in 2012. This just in-er: Jersey Shore’s “DJ” Pauly D is getting a three-record deal and his own line of headphones. What’s the correlation? Both items make me want to stab people with wooden stakes.

What’s new tonight:
Louie (FX) Two New Back-to-Back Episodes: Guess FX needs to blow out some episodes before It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia returns; next week, it’s back-to-back new Wilfreds. Tonight, Louis CK makes peace with God (unlikely) and Doug Stanhope (highly unlikely), and you can come to Brewvies (677 South 200 West, 21+) to watch the FX Wilfred/Louie/Louie trifecta on the big screen with me and a beer—free!

Burn Notice (USA) Mr. Gwen Stefani Alert: Grunge icon Gavin Rossdale guest-stars as Fiona’s (Gabrielle Anwar) old boyfriend looking for a favor, which doesn’t sit well at all with Michael (Jeffrey Donovan). Then again, what does sit well with Michael?

Russian Dolls (Lifetime) Series Debut: A reality show about Moscow strippers? Wishful thinking: Russian Dolls is about Russian-American families living in Brooklyn. That’s it. What a waste of a title—way to let that one slip by, Cinemax.

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox) Season Finale: Hey, it’s finally over. If SYTYCD just got rid of that screeching idiot Mary Murphy and that pandering assclown Nigel … nah, I still wouldn’t watch it. Fuck this show. Oh, wait, Cat Deeley is kinda cool … no, forget it. Fuck this show.

Also new tonight:
Wipeout, Expedition Impossible (ABC); Big Brother (CBS); Project Runway (Lifetime); Futurama, Ugly Americans (Comedy Central); Wilfred (FX); Suits (USA); L.A. Ink (TLC); The Green Room With Paul Provenza (Showtime); Childrens Hospital, NTSF:SD:SUV (Adult Swim)

Preview: Is Gavin Rossdale’s acting on Burn Notice as good as his music? Unfortunately, yes …

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.

Paula's Burning Sensation

Hey Paula Thursday 6.28 (Bravo) Series Debut: Bravo’s celebrity-reality shows veer between highly entertaining (Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List provides more laughs than most networks’ entire sitcom lineups) and highly disturbing (Being Bobby Brown—ditto). Their latest let’s-follow-a-fameless-star-around-and-hope-for-a-train-wreck vehicle is Hey Paula, all about the wacky world of American Idol lush, er, judge Paula Abdul—sounds perfect, right? Kiss my ass, Bob-bay! Hey Paula doesn’t address Abdul’s alleged craziness or dope-iness; it just walks you through her hectic days of hawking crap on QVC and praising crap on Idol—all of which is as thrilling as reading someone else’s day planner. Poor, busy celebrities!

The Starter Wife Thursday 6.28 (USA) Miniseries Finale: This should have been over weeks ago. The initial two hours of The Starter Wife were charming enough, but the miniseries ran out of story long before it exhausted the wardrobe (apparently a larger—as in, size 2—concern). The semi-autobiographical epic been on so long that creator Gigi Levangie-Grazer left her power-player husband for real during the run, and star Debra Messing has had to have her roots retouched twice—or was it the other way around? Anyway, in the finale, Molly (Messing) chooses between the old rich guy and the hunky young homeless guy, and USA will be brainstorming over how drag this out into a series. Yeah … neither choice really needs to be made—just let it ride, folks.

Burn Notice Thursday 6.28 (USA) Series Debut: Agent Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan of USA’s too-short-lived Touching Evil) gets fired and blacklisted by the CIA and dumped in Miami. Upside: Plenty of rays, bikinis and opportunities to whip off sunglasses while dropping Caruso quips. Downside: He doesn’t know why he was canned, he now has to take on freelance private-eye gigs and the mother he hates (Sharon Gless) also lives in Miami. Burn Notice glides by on flashy cinematography and casual cool, and Westen has Black-Ops spy skills and suave charm that the dicks of USA’s Monk and Psych can’t touch. Throw in Bruce Campbell (yes, Old Spice pitchman Bruce Campbell) as his boozing/womanizing ex-spy pal, and you have what should, rightfully, be The Next Big Cable Hit. Then again, I said that about Touching Evil, too …

The Loop Sunday 7.1 (Fox) Series Finale: Didn’t know it was back on? Has been for a few weeks; sorry, forgot to drop a reminder for you dozen Loop fans. The show has been canceled by Fox (like Standoff—quit sending me e-mails insisting it isn’t; I know stuff) even though it’s a better comedy than some of the crap they’re retaining (ahem, ‘Til Death), and some of the funnier episodes have languished in the summer burn-off. Like the first half of tonight’s two-part sendoff: Sam’s airline accidentally ticks off a group of fatties known as … the American Association of Plus-Sized Adults. Please, please let the AAPSA be repurposed next season on House.

Hidden Palms Wednesday 7.4 (The CW) Season Finale: So it’s not as bad as I originally thought. Still sucks. Buh-bye!

Drive Wednesday 7.4 (Fox) Series Finale: Speaking of burn-offs, Fox is unloading the final two episodes of Drive on the Fourth of July—at least they’re not rerunning Independence Day again. God, I hate Will Smith. So, when last we left Drive in April, the high-stakes cross-country car race was heating up, the intrigue and back-stories were piling up, and these final two hours will tie up … pretty much nothing, as the season was intended to run 13 episodes, not six. Perpetual cliffhangers: The American (or at least Fox) way.