TV Tonight: Golden Globes, Napoleon Dynamite, Robot Chicken

What’s new tonight:
The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards (NBC) Ricky Gervais is back as your Mean Host—not necessarily Funny Host, as his bastard shtick tends to run out of steam after the first hour (note where all the best YouTube clips will come from tomorrow). On the TV noms side, why the hell are Enlightened and New Girl up for Best Comedy, but not Parks & Recreation? Fucking travesty. And, while I loves me some Callie Thorne, she deserved a Globe for Rescue Me, not tonight’s WTF-nominated Necessary Roughness. And where’s Louie? So many complaints, not enough coffee …

Napoleon Dynamite (Fox) Series Debut: Would The Salt Lake Tribune waste an entire Friday Weekend Entertainment section front page on a complete piece of shit that’s seven years too late? Yes, and they did. This new cartoon take on the 2004 film hit Napoleon Dynamite features all of the original actors’ voices, but also flat artwork and nary a fresh idea. Bring back Bob’s Burgers, already.

Hell on Wheels (AMC) Season Finale: In case you shut off AMC after The Walking Dead midseason finale, a reminder that Hell on Wheels is still on. More AMC reminders: The Walking Dead will return Sunday, Feb. 12, and the looong-delayed fifth season of Mad Men will kick off with a two-hour premiere on Sunday, March 25. Oh, and Hell on Wheels will be back next year. No, really.

Robot Chicken (Adult Swim) Season Finale/100th Episode: Have they run out of action figures and pop-cultural references yet? Of course not: Tonight, Seth Green & Co. take on … Fight Club? At least it’s not Napoleon Dynamite.

Also new tonight: 
Once Upon a Time, Desperate Housewives, Pan Am (ABC); Undercover Boss, The Good Wife, CSI: Miami (CBS); The Simpsons, Family Guy (Fox); Downton Abbey (PBS); Baseball Wives (VH1); The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Chef Roble (Bravo); Kourtney & Kim Take New York (E!); Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain (Comedy Central); Leverage (TNT); Angry Boys (HBO); Shameless, House of Lies, Californication (Showtime)

Not Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes, but funnier:

TV Weekend: Boss, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time

What’s new this weekend:
Boss (Starz, tonight) Series Debut: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 2).

Supernatural (The CW, tonight) Buffy/Angel Alert: Charisma Carpenter (Cordy!) and James Marsters (Spike!) guest-star as a witch and a Mr. Witch about to cause a shitstorm in a small town—and only Sam and Dean can stop them! That is, if Sam’s brain can withstand the Hell migraines and Dean will put down his beer for a minute. They gots problems, these two.

Strike Back (Cinemax, tonight) Season Finale: International anti-terrorism has never been this sexy—this is Cinemax, after all; expect at least one sweaty humpin’ scene, probably even before the opening credits. Then, Scott and Stonebridge track a pair of suicide bombers out to cause a shitstorm in Budapest. That is, if they can put aside the sweaty humpin’ for a minute … with women. This ain’t Logo, after all.

Also new tonight:
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC); A Gifted Man, CSI:NY, Blue Bloods (CBS); Kitchen Nightmares (Fox); Nikita (The CW); Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Cartoon Network); Sanctuary (Syfy); Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO); The Soup (E!)

New Saturday:
Austin City Limits: The Decemberists (PBS/KUED 7), Free Agents, Bedlam (BBC America); Dogs 101, Puppies vs. Babies (Animal Planet)

Once Upon a Time (ABC, Sunday) Series Debut: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 3).

Robot Chicken (Adult Swim, Sunday) Season Premiere: It’s the fifth season, and Seth Green still hasn’t run out of Star Wars gags. I’m really forward to the day when he does, however.

The Walking Dead (AMC, Sunday) Like apparently everyone in SLC did last Sunday, come watch it at Brewvies (677 South 200 West, 21+) for free at 8 pm—yes, 8 pm, promise.

Also new Sunday:
Desperate Housewives, Pan Am (ABC); The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, CSI: Miami (CBS); Sister Wives (TLC); Kendra, Dirty Soap (E!); Squidbillies, China Il. (Adult Swim); Boardwalk Empire, Hung, How to Make It in America (HBO); Dexter, Homeland (Showtime); Talking Dead (AMC)

Once Upon a Time makes about this much sense …

Cable Ready

Flight of The Conchords Sunday 6.17 (HBO) Series Debut: Meet the new Tenacious D—if the D were more skinny, subtle and Auckland-y. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are The Conchords, “New Zealand’s fourth most popular musical comedy duo,” looking to make it big in America, or at least New York City. Unfortunately, their incompetent manager (a la HBO’s Extras) won’t book them gigs at night because “it’s dangerous out there,” their lone fan is a creepily obsessed housewife and their first music video was shot on a camera phone. It might be blasphemy to say that The Conchords’ daily misadventures and hysterical songs rival Tenacious D’s, but the debut Flight episode kills … and it’s not even the funniest one.

Entourage Sunday 6.17 (HBO) Season Premiere: Yes, already—don’t ask me to explain it. You can, however, call me on my prediction that Vince’s Pablo Escobar dream project will never be filmed: Entourage’s fourth-season opener is shot as a behind-the-scenes doc of … The Making of Medellin. It’s a clever change-up for the usually glam series to get on-location dirty in Columbia, but is director Billy Walsh having a meltdown over budget constraints or the fact that Vince, who’s had such a righteous hard-on to get this movie right, didn’t even bother to grow a real fucking mustache to play Escobar? Cheesy stick-on ‘stache aside, Medellin does indeed wrap production—as for the final cut, well, that’s next week’s problem.

The 4400, The Dead Zone Sunday 6.17 (USA) Season Premieres: Jesus, er, Jordan Collier (Billy Campbell) is now a series regular on The 4400, despite having been assassinated last season—because no one’s going to watch a show called The 4399. On The Dead Zone, Johnny (Anthony Michael Hall) is no longer seeing visions of the apocalypse, even the Antichrist has taken office as the Vice President of the United States … when did this become a documentary?

Robot Chicken: Star Wars Sunday 6.17 (Adult Swim) Not only did Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich get George Lucas’ permission to ironically/satirically/scatologically re-create the Star Wars canon with stop-motion action figures, they got Lucas himself to provide the voice for his own character—good humor or evil genius? Never know with that guy. Do I even need to add that Robot Chicken’s version of Star Wars is better than Episodes 1, 2 and 3?

The Closer Monday 6.18 (TNT) Season Premiere: Without Kyra Sedgwick, her Golden Globes and excellent supporting cast, a standard-issue cop show like The Closer would never have become The Biggest Cable Series of All Damn Time (as TNT would probably love to subtitle it). Unlike the average fatally flawed FX antihero, Sedgwick’s ex-CIA-turned-LAPD chief Brenda Johnson’s biggest vice is sugar—and she’s still as captivating as The Shield’s Vic Mackey; just imagine if she started offing perps after a bad Splenda binge. As Season 3 opens, she has a grisly triple homicide and department budget cuts to deal with—bust out the Little Debbies!

Heartland Monday 6.18 (TNT) Series Debut: Stop me if you've heard this one before: A brilliant asshole of a surgeon who plays by his own rules routinely pisses off his colleagues but always saves the life at the end of the day/show. Yes, it’s Treat Williams as House, minus the limp and stubble … and pretty much everything else. Oh, and he works with his bitter ex-wife and the series is called Heartland because he’s an organ-transplant specialist. Probably. Don’t really care. TNT dumped Saved (last year’s waaay better medical Closer companion) for this?