Pirate Master Thursday 5.31 (CBS) Series Debut: It’s Survivor with a trendy pirate twist. Or gay porn. Might take about three episodes to figure it out, which is five more than The Only TV Column That Matters™ is prepared to invest. At least it’s not Rock Star: Stone Temple Pilots.
The Starter Wife Thursday 5.31 (USA) Miniseries Debut: If you haven’t heard about this one, you don’t have cable—or TV, or sensory perception. The USA Network has never promoted an event as heavily as The Starter Wife, a four-hour-that-coulda-been-two miniseries starring Ned & Stacey’s (sorry, Will & Grace’s) Debra Messing as the just-dumped spouse of a Hollywood power weasel trying to find herself with the help of her friends (one cynical, one sweet, one gay—bases covered) and zippy one-liners (“Of course I’m cranky! I haven’t eaten for 12 years!”). The irony of 38-year-old Messing playing a 40-something in a pseudo-commentary on Hollywood’s treatment of older women aside, The Starter Wife is hyper-colorful fun that nicely balances laughs and Touching Moments, even when you know exactly where it’s headed (Will she find happiness with a younger/hotter man than her douchebag husband? Duh. Is the guy who played Will unemployable?). This may also be Messing’s I’m-Not-Grace breakout role—but she’ll always be Stacey to me.
Hex Saturday 6.2 (BBC America) Season Premiere: It didn’t make much sense, but last year’s BBC America run of the addictive British supernatural series Hex at least kept you asking, “What’s going to happen next? And what just happened now?” Nutshell: Unpopular schoolgirl gains witch-y powers, her lesbian roommate is killed by a hunky demon, said roommate remains as a wisecracking ghost, together they must battle the minions of Satan—and possibly a cease-and-desist order from Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s lawyers. In the second and final season, Unpopular Girl is dead and a centuries-old demon-hunting witch has taken her place; wisecracking and rampant sex (hey, it’s cable—and British) continue unabated.
Entourage Sunday 6.3 (HBO) Season Finale: In a network first, HBO won’t make you wait two years for the next season of a series: Entourage’s fourth will begin on June 17—never mind the long-ass break in this third season and just go with it. That said, not much of a cliffhanger here: Does anyone really think Medellin is ever going to get made? And am I the only one concerned about how easy it was for Drama to storm into The Hollywood Reporter’s offices a few weeks ago and confront a TV critic? No? Just me, then … Drama rules!
The Riches Monday 6.4 (FX) Season Finale: FX has granted second seasons to Dirt (eh) and The Riches (woo-hoo!), but only the latter earned it—and with far less hype. The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as gypsy grifters posing as wealthy suburbanites living on the edge of being found out, has evolved quietly from quirky setup to societal-class study without getting (too) preachy about it. Izzard’s Wayne/Doug, originally the optimistic Man With a Plan, has become a broken “lawyer,” while Driver’s Dahlia/Cherien, at first a druggy wreck, is looking more and more like the only “Rich” who’ll be able to hold the family and the scam together. As with the first season of the like-minded Big Love, The Riches’ first closes with the threat of exposure; also similarly, that’s the least of their problems.
The Shield Tuesday 6.5 (FX) Season Finale: Don’t we end every season of The Shield saying “the shit’s all coming down, man!”? Well … the shit’s all coming down, man!
Las Vegas Friday 3.9 (NBC) Season Finale: Yes, already—the season only began in October! And that’s not all of the NBC cost-cutting going down on their only Friday-night hit: Las Vegas has been renewed through the 2007-08 season … but without star James Caan and increasingly-background eye candy Nikki Cox. Caan’s decision was entirely his own; he wants to get back to film work, and also has hinted that he thinks Las Vegas is dumber than a box of Keno cards (yeah … and?). On the other hand, Nikki Cox has just been flat-out canned, proving that C cups and D-minus acting (or is it the other way around?) will only carry you so far. Let’s get on with making Vegas even stoopider—and don’t even think of booting Vanessa Marcil, NBC …
Earthstorm Saturday 3.10 (Sci Fi) An asteroid crashes into the moon, thus nudging the moon closer to earth, screwing with the tides and pelting the planet with lunar junk, and only Stephen Baldwin (one of the less-greasy Baldwins) and Dirk Benedict (old-school Battlestar Galactica Starbuck) can stop it … or something. As Saturday-night B-movies on the Sci-Fi Channel go, Earthstorm is, well, one of ‘em—but why are exotic dancers working for Canadian Actors Guild scale always cast as scientists and TV reporters? If “Anna Silk” and “Heather Chase” aren’t stripper names, I’ll eat a pasty. Or two.
Blood Ties Sunday 3.11 (Lifetime) Series Debut: And if James Caan thinks Las Vegas is ridiculous, he should get a load of Blood Ties, Lifetime’s ambitiously daffy combo cop drama/vampire romance/sci-fi thriller—and allow me to drive the preemptive stake into the first TV critic to try and coin Law & Order: Special Vampires Unit. Private dick Vicki Nelson joins forces with a hunky 450-year-old bloodsucker to solve supernatural crimes, only to fall in lust with him; now, she’s torn between Drac Lite and her equally hunky former cop partner/lover … sensing a pattern here with Vicki? Girl’s got some workplace issues …
The New Adventures of Old Christine Monday 3.12 (CBS) Series Return: While NBC is (quite successfully) reinventing the sitcom-block on Thursdays with laugh-track-free darkhorses, CBS is staying the course with Monday comedies so traditional they could slip into TV Land virtually unnoticed—and yet they still work. Nothing ever really happens on Julia Louis Dreyfus’ Old Christine; she’s just a lovable single-mom effup with an astonishing gift for finding new ways to effup every week (newest episode: would you believe, sleep-dialing?). But, like CBS huh? hit Two & a Half Men—the dirtiest show on network TV now that Will & Grace is gone, just ask the Parents Television Council—The New Adventures of Old Christine is more clever than it looks.
The Riches Monday 3.12 (FX) Series Debut: Contrary to the dryly witty Eddie Izzard promos from FX, The Riches is not a comedy. Sure, it has its funny moments (see: master comic Eddie Izzard), but this story of a desperate family of modern gypsies living one step ahead of the law and under the thumb of an oppressive underground society is gray drama of the HBO variety: No right, no wrong, just survival. Izzard, Minnie Driver (who plays his just-paroled cough-syrup-junkie wife) and their three kids live on the lam in the Deep South, scamming as they can—until a highway accident that kills a rich couple (conveniently named the Riches) presents the ultimate identity theft. They move into the Riches’ new home, befriend their new neighbors, join the local country club and quickly become (somewhat) comfortable in their stolen American Dream. Problem is, before they bought in, “the Riches” stole a stash of cash from the gypsy society’s “extended-family bank” and now the hillbillies are on the hunt. Even though their Southern accents drift in and out, Izzard is the perfect con-man charmer and Driver is a convincing spitfire mess; The Riches should easily win back some of that dramatic cred FX inadvertently pissed away on Dirt. Not that Dirt isn’t fun, just sayin’ …
DVD
Borat Now, those who didn’t walk blindly into a theater last fall for the shock of a lifetime (or at least lunchtime) can now blindly rent it because “Oh, that looks fun.” Ah, America. The actual comedy of Borat was slightly oversold, but not the visceral cultural impact and genius of Sacha Baron Cohen. FoxHome.com
Fast Food Nation Newsflash: Big business couldn’t give a rat’s ass about you—but it will sell you one on a sesame-seed bun. Fast Food Nation doesn’t quite work as the Super Size Me/Thank You for Smoking combo that Richard Linklater probably shot for, but the performances (particularly Greg Kinnear’s) rock. FoxHome.com
The Loop: Season 1 All seven episodes of the sitcom no one watched on Fox last year; even stranger, it’s coming back this summer. As here-today-gone-later-today Fox sitcoms go, The Loop had promise: 20-something airline exec graduates slackerdom; friends don’t, hilarity rushes by. But Happy Hour was better. FoxHome.com
More New DVD Releases (3.6) Brush With Death, Hawaii Five-O: Season 1, Kettle of Fish, Let’s Go to Prison, Moonlighting: Season 5, Nadine in Dateland, Northern Exposure: Season 6, Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Season 1, South Park: Season 9, Stargate Atlantis: Season 2, Walkout
BROADBAND
That’s My Daughter Believe it or not, there are shows even Comedy Central deems too weird (or at least too short) to air—they end up in ComedyCentral.com’s Motherlode video dump. That’s My Daughter, a Los Angeles comedy troupe with an affinity for porn mustaches and the worst of ‘80s cheese, have posted a musical trilogy of shorts espousing the joys and dangers of Patrick Swayze, tight white jeans and the possibility of “going gay.” Funny? Cautionary? You decide.
Pirate Master Thursday 5.31 (CBS) Series Debut: It’s Survivor with a trendy pirate twist. Or gay porn. Might take about three episodes to figure it out, which is five more than The Only TV Column That Matters™ is prepared to invest. At least it’s not Rock Star: Stone Temple Pilots.
