TV Tonight: Community, The Office, Prime Suspect

This just in: I'm on the latest Audio Vaudeville podcast, talkin' Fall TV, right over here.

What’s new tonight:
Community (NBC) Season Premiere: Forget the whole “Is Pierce (Chevy Chase) coming back?” nonsense: Tonight, Omar from The Wire shows up as a biology teacher, and Dean Pelton has a new nemesis in John Goodman. Shit’s gettin’ real this season!

The Office (NBC) Season Premiere: Since Kathy Bates is busy with Wednesday-night deadweight Harry’s Law (it’s still a show; look it up), James Spader has stepped in as the new CEO of Dunder-Mifflin parent company Sabre, the suspiciously/awesomely-named Robert California. He’s not technically the new Michael Scott; the search for a Regional Manager continues this season—and the name may be on a mysterious piece of paper circulating through the office tonight. But probably not.

Prime Suspect (NBC) Series Debut: Mario Bello is a tough homicide cop dealing with precinct sexism and a stupid fedora. Prime Suspect is a decent and gritty enough remake of the British, Helen Mirren-starring original, but do you really need another police drama in your life? Not even if it’s directed by Peter Berg.

Whitney (NBC) Series Debut: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 1).

Charlie’s Angels (NBC) Series Debut: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 2).

Person of Interest (CBS) Series Debut: Read all about it at CityWeekly.net (Item 3).

Also new tonight:
Grey’s Anatomy (season premiere, ABC); The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist (season premieres, CBS); Parks & Recreation (season premiere, NBC); The X Factor (Fox); The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle (The CW); Project Runway, Dance Moms, Russian Dolls (Lifetime); Millionaire Matchmaker (Bravo); NTSF:SD:SUV (Adult Swim); Jersey Shore (MTV); It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Archer (FX)

Community is back, hopefully not going overboard on the musical numbers …

The Office: New Websodes!

The new round of The Office Webisodes (last seen in 2006) premiered today with a very funny two-minute bit involving Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), alleged gambling debts and a possibly fraudulent bank loan. Next week (new installments go online Thursday afternoons), the story continues with Kevin trying to sell his “Malone’s Cones” ice-cream business—marquee flavor: “Fudge the Magic Dragon”—plan to a loan officer. Yeah, I know—you’ll wait for the DVD set.

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.

Minimum P.I.

Andy Barker P.I. Thursday 3.15 (NBC) Series Debut: Remember Andy Richter Controls the Universe, a funny-as-hell 2004 Fox sitcom that was unceremoniously canceled for being funny as hell? Or Quintuplets, a lousy-as-hell Fox sitcom that met with the same fate in 2005? Good news: Andy Richter’s latest is neither too funny nor too lousy—and it’s not even on Fox! Andy Barker P.I., starring Richter as a bored strip-mall accountant who stumbles into a more exciting career as a private eye (could have been pitched as “The Rockford Files meets The Office”), plays it safe in comparison to its Thursday-night NBC neighbors, going for endearing over edgy (even Arrested Development’s Tony “Buster” Hale takes it down a notch or 12 here) at a leisurely comic pace. It’s solid, but you won’t lacerate yourself laughing at it, unlike, say …

Raines Thursday 3.15 (NBC) Series Debut: Jeff Goldblum is a Los Angeles detective who sees and converses with dead crime victims (could have been pitched as “The Rockford Files meets Medium”). Once more: Jeff Goldblum is a detective; never mind the corpse hallucinations—that’s comedy! Naturally, his unorthodox ways piss off his Exasperated Captain to no end and keep his Hot Therapist (Madeline Stowe—where’s she been?) intrigued. Goldblum’s Michael Raines is also crazy(er) about ‘40s cop noir, thus giving the show an oldies hue that would make it a passable partner for Monk on cable. Since NBC is moving/dooming Raines to the Friday-night dead zone after its debut, maybe that’s the plan.

October Road Thursday 3.15 (ABC) Series Debut: Big-city writer moves back to his small Northeastern hometown after 10 years away to get back in touch with his roots or some such bullshit … do we really need another one of these? Apparently, yes. Dead parent? Check. Ex-girlfriend who still carries a torch and may have had his son? Ditto. Quirky old friends who haven’t changed a bit? You betcha. Mental laundry basket full of regrets to assuage and loose ends to tie up? Oh, what the fuck do you think?! Welcome to What About Brian’s Garden State.

The Showbiz Show With David Spade Thursday 3.15 (Comedy Central) Season Premiere: There are still some of us who aren’t so over David Spade’s snarkier-than-thou shtick—I know; I can hardly believe it, either. Sure, his sitcom work always comes across like a rabid ferret trapped in a bunny cage (see Just Shoot Me, 8 Simple Rules and the current Rules of Engagement), but Spade is in his element mocking Hollywood, hosting The Showbiz Show with the borderline-hostile disinterest of a guy who’d much rather be at the strip club (The Only TV Column That Matters™ can relate—but maybe they have Wi-Fi there). Now if only there were something ridiculous going on in showbiz right now …

Dancing With the Stars Monday 3.19 (ABC) Season Premiere: I said ridiculous, not sad and ‘tarded.

Rules of Engagement Monday 3.19 (CBS) Season Finale: Didn’t I predict this would die a quick and unnoticed death last month? Mark this—it’s one of those rare occasions where I was (!) wrong. Not that Rules of Engagement doesn’t still suck; it just caught on strangely better than other sitcoms of equal suckatude. It’s all Patrick Warburton—he’s carrying this dead, rotting llama all alone on his hulking shoulders and lush eyebrows (Peter Gallagher of The O.C., you’ve been replaced). The Artist Formerly Known as Puddy kills with the delivery of a single line; my personal favorite (to co-star David Spade): “Aren’t you due back in Paris Hilton’s handbag?” Yeah, I could stand another round of this, CBS.

DVD
Casino Royale James Bond goes all Batman Begins with a dark, gritty prequel that renders almost half of the original 007 flicks flaccid and useless. Daniel Craig is a bad-ass new Bond who takes care of business (even if the plot is slightly simplistic) without the gear and the license to kill—yes, really. SonyPictures.com

The Holiday If you pair one of the worst actresses ever (Cameron Diaz) with one of the best (Kate Winslet), does it balance out? Hard to tell if you’ve already gouged you eyes out, which is the only logical reaction to this craptastic romantic comedy if your I.Q. cracks the 3-digit mark. If not, enjoy. SonyPictures.com

The Pretender 2001/Island of the Haunted While 2001 wrapped The Pretender (one of the great unsung action-dramas of the ‘90s) nicely post-cancellation, Island of the Haunted was a needless mess on par with The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island. Still, any Miss Parker is better than no Miss Parker. FoxHome.com

More New DVD Releases (3.13) Bosom Buddies: Season 1, Lovewrecked, Shortbus, TTW: Topless Tapioca Wrestling, Without a Trace: Season 2

BROADBAND
The Office Jonesing for The Office while it’s in reruns? Hey, who isn’t? NBC.com has enough outtakes and Web exclusives to almost piece together an extra season, as well as interviews with the regulars (including Andy and Karen—oh, quit hatin’) and, currently, recent guest director Joss Whedon. The best, however, has to be actress/writer Mindy Kaling (Kelly) stepping out of hyper-annoying mode, if not Jenna Fischer artfully side-stepping the Big Pam/Jim Question.

Posh Spite

Bend It Like ... Oh, Who Cares? NBC has announced a summer reality show based on the second-least-interesting person on the face of the planet, Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham (the first would be husband David Beckham). On the upside, this could be a signal that TV weasels have finally run out of "celebrities" to follow around with cameras and pray they fuck up (never count VH1 out, though). On the downside, well, read this from NBC:

"The series will give viewers a glimpse into what makes Victoria so popular and admired as one of the most glamorous women in the world," said NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly. "She makes news wherever she goes and our audience can now become insiders in this fascinating personal view of what being 'Posh' truly represents."

Christ, and to think I liked this guy for keeping The Office on the air. And there's more:

Said Victoria Beckham, "I am so excited to be making this show for NBC with [American Idol eee-vil mastermind] Simon Fuller. He has so much success around the world with his TV shows and the respect and trust of everybody he works with. This show is really something different, it's pushing the boundaries and I think it's going to surprise a lot of people."

Only if the eventual title for the show is Posh Spice Really CAN Wipe Her Own Ass, Vickie.