The Return of Dolphin Girl!

Not that they bothered to officially announce it, but NBC has at least noted on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’s website that the show will finally be returning to the air on Thursday, May 24—the day after May Sweeps are over, coincidentally. How long it lasts there against CBS’ hit Shark and other networks’ fare is anyone’s guess; the famously flopped Aaron Sorkin series’ burn-off could be dealt further indignity with a Saturday or even online death sentence, which would actually be better than Saturday. NBC is still overlooking my brilliant idea to merge semi-hit 30 Rock with Studio 60 to make one mega-tribute to Saturday Night Live. Tiny Fey against Sarah Paulson? Tina wins. Tracy Morgan vs. D.L. Hughley? Tracy wins. Alec Baldwin taking on Steven Weber? Puh-leez. But, no one on 30 Rock can brood like Matthew Perry. Balances out.

Duff Enough

Tonight’s one-hour season finale of Ace of Cakes (Food Network) delivered two impossible creations: A dead-on replica of a Royal typewriter (see, kids, back in the dark ages … never mind) and a football monstrosity roughly the size of a Mini Cooper that Duff and the Charm City Cakes crew drove from Baltimore to Miami for the Super Bowl. Whether these cakes are actually edible is beside the point—they’re engineering and artistic marvels; if you can eat ‘em, bonus. Me, I’m saving up for a cake re-creation of Jimi Hendrix burning his Strat at Monterey Pop (see, kids, Jimi Hendrix … never mind).

DVDs 4.24.07

Moral Orel: Season 1 Everything you need to know about Christianity, in convenient 15-minute stop-animation chunks. You can enjoy it repeatedly … in hell. AdultSwim.com

.45 Milla Jovovich, not in the future nor super-powered, just killing her abusive drug dealer boyfriend. So, it’s a romantic comedy. ThinkFilmCompany.com

Code Name: The Cleaner Cedric the Entertainer is an amnesiac super-spy (or janitor) juggling two women (Nicollette Sheridan, Lucy Liu) and a bad, bad movie. NewLine.com

Déjà Vu Denzel Washington sees the past to solve present crimes. How does that help? Who cares? Here comes the action! Touchstone.movies.go.com

NCIS: Season 3 Either you or your mom watches NCIS—just admit it already. As crime procedurals go, you could do worse … like Criminal Minds. Paramount.com

Satan’s Cannibal Holocaust With a title like that, you need more? OK, fine: Evil Catholic schoolgirls live under the streets and torture and eat coeds. There. ThadiusPictures.com

More New DVD Releases (4.24) Caffeine, Ed, Edd & Eddy: Season 2, Ironside: Season 1, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, Night at the Museum, The Odd Couple: Season 1, One Day at a Time: Season 1, The Queen, Thr3e, WKRP in Cincinnati: Season 1

BROADBAND
Pacific Blue The Only TV Column That Matters™ is constantly having to argue the existence of a ‘90s cable series called Pacific Blue, which was essentially Baywatch on Bikes with pretty bicycle cops (including Paula Trickey, most recently Taylor Townsend’s mom on The O.C.). Nobody ever believes it, but now clips are all over YouTube and vindication is mine. Yes, it is quite a shallow existence ...

Scartarded

I’ve finally found not one, but two shows on MTV I can watch without wishing for the Apocalypse! Human Giant is smart (more on this another time), but Scarred is pure idiot genius: Young dudes on boards, skis, blades and other “extreme sports” conveyances getting utterly fucked up while attempting to perform ridiculous stunts—for the cameras! This is Natural Selection in action. There’s the big build-up (“I totally knew I could pull this off”), the slow-motion approach (“Something was, like, wrong”), the impact (“I could feel my ankle snap in, dude, 40 places”), the screaming like a pussy (“Aaaauuugggh! Ooowww! Bleep!”) and the poignant music followed by “I sure won’t try that again … for a while.” During this, you’re either A. Cheering these “heroes” on or B. Wondering why these boneheads spend more on clothes and hair products than protective gear. Either way, big dumb fun! Mitigating factor: Host Jacoby Shaddix, a Hot Topic casualty who somehow manages to be even more annoying introducing video clips than fronting ‘90s grunt-rock leftovers Papa Roach. Proceed with caution. Or not, even better.

Mars Redacts

Veronica Mars Tuesday 5.1 (The CW) Return: Oh, relax. This is one of the last times you’ll have to read about Veronica Mars here—ever. Inside TV-biz buzz says that our dear Veronica has already been canceled by The CW, and this Season 3 runoff will culminate in a two-hour series finale on May 22. Well, unless there’s a pressing Search for the Next Pussycat Doll reunion/chlamydia-screening special, then forget about closure. On the upside, this will free star Kristen Bell up for deservedly bigger and better things; she was too good for UPN, and definitely above a leftovers network that would cast her aside for far-less-talented hoochies and skanks (Top Models, Pussycat Dolls, One Tree Hillers, take your pick). And, since you’re not watching Veronica Mars on TV, be sure and check out the DVD sets and send me all kinds of “Hey, why did they cancel this great show?” queries later this year, OK?

30 Rock Thursday 4.26 (NBC) Season Finale: Oh, relax. This is the last time you’ll have to read about 30 Rock here—until next season! That’s right: Tina Fey’s unlikely little hit will be back in the fall, which is more than you can say for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the other “Saturday Night Live show.” True to TV, the 30 Rock gang are heading into summer hiatus in the season finale, and wackiness ensues as Liz comes off her boyfriend high, Tracy’s still missing and Jack’s marriage to the brittle-boned British bird looms—can Dr. Spaceman help? Oh yeah.

October Road Thursday 4.26 (ABC) Series Finale: ABC had the perfect Thursday night with Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and Men in Trees—until they pissed it all away on October Road, a maudlin 9 p.m. dramarama that might as well have “Just flip over to ER or Shark—hurry!” in the opening credits. Take heart: Men in Trees returns May 10, and October Road will fade into the television ether with …

Six Degrees Friday 4.27 (ABC.com) Online Burn-Off: Or, “Cross-Media Platform Repurpose,” as they probably say in the Wide World of Web. Like NBC’s The Black Donnellys (in case you didn’t notice), Six Degrees is playing out its final episodes online instead of in primetime—which makes perfect sense, to have a star-heavy multimillion-dollar series streaming on the Internet alongside no-budget YouTube videos of geeks in bathrobes smacking each other in the nuts with plastic light sabers. Also, as with the Donnellys, ABC is making the mistake of rolling the episodes out weekly (like it’s TV) instead of making them all available at once (like it’s, oh, the Internet).

Lake Placid 2 Saturday 4.28 (Sci-Fi) I’ll admit it: I actually paid money to see the original Lake Placid in ’99—it was a different century then, and Bridget Fonda was still hot. Not that she isn’t currently hot, I assume; just haven’t seen her since Monkeybone (yeah, paid for that one, too). In this long-unawaited sequel, the babies of the giant killer crocodiles of Lake Placid (which still isn’t the actual Lake Placid, just a placid lake prone to giant killer crocodiles) are grown and out for blood, and they can only be stopped by … John Schneider and Cloris Leachman? What, they couldn’t get Bridg?

The Bad Girls Club Tuesday 5.1 (Oxygen) Season Finale: God, I love this show. Sure, it perpetuates a certain stereotype of “crazy women” who fly into jealous psycho rages and/or crying jags after a few drinks, but come on … we all know one. Some of us even have a scar or bar ejection or two. Ahem. Anyway, imagine a Reality House filled with eight of ‘em while you’re safe on the other side of the screen. Beats the hell out of ESPN 2.

Skanks Ahoy!

The Henry Rollins Show Fridays (IFC) New Season: How did The Only TV Column That Matter™ miss the season premiere of The Henry Rollins Show last week? With guests Marilyn Manson and Peaches? That’s a show! All we get in this week’s installment are Ben Stiller (zzz) and Ryan Adams (had a bath yet, Ry?). Still, for all of its rough edges (Rollins is as good an interviewer as he is a ballad crooner) and hit-and-miss couch fillers (which have ranged from Werner Herzog and Oliver Stone to … Adam Carrolla?), HRS always delivers on the musical-guest side, and Rollins’ uncensored rants are the sharpest and funniest on television. But how about some more Heidi May, Hank?

Acceptable TV Fridays (VH1) Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab created the infamously rejected Heat Vision & Jack for Fox in the ‘90s, then went underground with Channel101.com and now Acceptable.tv. Since Heat Vision & Jack was funny, and absolutely none of the short films shown so far on Acceptable TV (either created within the show or by wannabe YouTube “stars”) have proven these guys have enough talent to even sell camcorders at Circuit City, it must have been a fluke. Or Jack Black. Just sayin.’

TV Land Awards 2007 Sunday 4.22 (TV Land) So, TV Land has been handing out awards to decades-dead shows since 2003 … are you fucking serious? Were Gilligan’s Island and Star Trek really lacking in historical cachet? Once The Brady Bunch is anointed, then what? But, the most frustrating TV Land trophy is the Future Classic Award, which has previously gone to American Dreams (forgotten five minutes after NBC canceled it), Arrested Development (maybe this is worthwhile), Desperate Housewives (just not this season) and Grey’s Anatomy (OK, never mind on the whole “worthwhile” thing). This year’s Future Classic? It’s gotta be …

Heroes Monday 4.23 (NBC) Return: After a Saturday, April 21 catch-up mini-marathon (it’s only been off for six weeks; quit asking me if it’s been canceled), Heroes finally returns so TV critics will have something to piss themselves over now that Friday Night Lights—aka American Dreams 2.0—is gone. Heroes has maintained a brisk pace in story development thus far, and this comeback episode packs in more than five Losts; the biggest WTF? moment arriving for time-traveler Hiro (no, he’s not teleported back into Scrubs). And yes, a Hero dies, at least as much as anyone really “dies” in comic-book/soap-opera world. It’s a vicious one-question-answered-three-more-posed cycle; keep the whining down or NBC will cut back on pricey programming with actual stories and give you more crap like …

The Real Wedding Crashers Monday 4.23 (NBC) Series Debut: As if Thank God You’re Here weren’t punishment enough, here’s another reality-pranker: Improv performers infiltrate actual weddings as guests and/or staff, calamity ensues—and the bride and groom are in on the gag! Aww, ain’t that cute? Who needs Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? Apparently, since NBC is experiencing its lowest-rated season in history right now, even something that looks like a Bravo reject can make it on the air. Can’t wait for Celebrity Ro-Sham-Bo.

The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll Tuesday 4.24 (The CW) Season Finale: Smell that? It’s the sweet aroma of female empowerment. Or an un-disinfected stripper pole. Or the Next Pussycat Doll! You’ve heard the jokes: Why do they need another Pussycat who can’t sing? They already have at least five. How many skanks does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three to give directions and one to call the OB/GYN. Laugh it up; one lucky girl will join the Pussycat Dolls just in time for their tour of the finest state fairs in the country—what are you doing this summer, Mark McGrath?

DVD
Highlander: Best of the Best There can be only one? Not when it comes to Highlander DVD sets—but this 15-episode collection is tighter than Adrian Paul’s ponytail. AnchorBayEntertainment.com

Mork & Mindy: Season 2 The year when Mork became a newspaper columnist, a Denver Broncos cheerleader and a priest. Aliens takin’ our jobs! Paramount.com

National Lampoon’s Pucked A down-and-out lawyer (Jon Bon Jovi!) buys an all-women’s hockey league with fraudulent credit cards he swiped from Tico Torres. SonyPictures.com

Not Just the Best of The Larry Sanders Show As close as you’ll ever get to owning the entire series on DVD, with 23 episodes and 8 hours of extras. No bitching, no flipping. SonyPictures.com

Smokin’ Aces The Jeremy Piven star-making vehicle that wasn’t is still a slick slice of Tarantino trash, heavy on guns, blood and naked ‘hos. Nice. NBCUniversal.com

The Venture Bros: Season 2 One of the few series on Adult Swim that actually makes sense, The Venture Bros. is still plenty bizarre, and Season 2 is a must. AdultSwim.com

More New DVD Releases (April 17) Happy Days: Season 2, Last King of Scotland, Laverne & Shirley: Season 2, Murder She Wrote: Season 6, Notes on a Scandal, Spider-Man 2.1

BROADBAND
Reh Dogg, “Why Must I Cry?” Not only is he one of the worst rappers ever, he’s prolific! Of all of Reh Dogg’s hysterically bad no-budget videos (almost all taking place in the woods, for some reason), his “Why Must I Cry?” could bring 50 Cent to his knees.

No Pain, No ...

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Celebrity Skin

The Office, 30 Rock Thursday 4.5 (NBC) Super-Sized Episodes: You say The Only TV Column that Matters™ writes too much about The Office and 30 Rock? Ahem … don’t you know who I am? I’m Utah’s Best Newspaper Columnist! Back off! Anyway, on tonight’s new 42-minute Office, Daryl tries to get a raise from Michael and Roy begins his reign of terror on Jim—thanks, Empowered Pam. On the 39-minute return episode of 30 Rock, Arrested Development’s Will Arnett guests as a west coast NBC exec who’s after Alec Baldwin’s job. Hysterical over-overacting ensues; television may not be able to contain this—not even high-def.

Punk’d Saturday 4.7 (MTV) Series Finale Marathon: For the first time ever, a network is rolling out an entire season of show in one day—and then MTV plans on running the same Punk’d episodes weekly on Tuesday nights. Genius or insanity? Since MTV’s target audience is generally even dumber than MTV’s reality “stars” (don’t worry, they’re not reading … anything), let’s go with genius. And yes, this really is the final season of Punk’d; Ashton Kutcher told me so … wait a minute …

The Sopranos, Entourage Sunday 4.7 (HBO) Season Premieres: A day in jail or a weekend in the countryside—where do you think Tony would get jumped by a sweaty goombah? A fat-guy fight and a special birthday “gift” from Carmella aside, the first episode of The Sopranos’ final stretch is fairly domestic and introspective for Tony, who’s not quite feeling his old self and seems to be sensing the end of the line (in, say, eight more episodes?). If you want laughs, you’ll have to wait till next week, when we finally get to see some of Christopher’s “Saw meets Godfather II” film production, wherein Daniel Baldwin (!) takes the fired Ben Kingsley “to fuckin’ actin’ school.” On that note: Vince has a new agent on Entourage: Carla Gugino, so you know he’s going to nail her. Ari, meanwhile, is struggling with post-partum “feelings” (!!) after being canned by Vince—now that’s comedy.

The King of Queens Monday 4.8 (CBS) Season Premiere: Doug becomes a vegan, Carrie remains a bitch … so, final season, huh? Yeah, that’s a shame …

Thank God You’re Here Monday 4.8 (NBC) Series Debut: Fabulous celebrities (well, Joel McHale of The Soup, Newman from Seinfeld and some other C-listers) are thrust blindly into improv-comedy situations in front of a live audience—apparently, it was either this or picking up trash along the highway. The shells of David Allen Grier and Dave Foley’s former selves host.

Friday Night Lights, ‘Til Death Wednesday 4.11 (NBC, Fox) Season Finales: One of the most critically exalted new shows of the season and one of the most reviled, both ending on the same night—guess which I’ve actually seen more than one episode of? Good call. There’s a certain nobility in the way ‘Til Death seems determined to drag this dead horse of a sitcom premise (essentially Married With Children minus the deep intellectual subtext and hot teen daughter) across the finish line into the great Fox Comedy Graveyard. Not that it’ll be missed; just sayin.’ As for Friday Night Lights … look, I don’t even consider college ball a real sport—are you seriously asking me to care about high-school football? I’d rather watch improv, fergawdsakes.

DVD
Entourage: Season 3 Pt. 1 Vince hits big with Aquaman and nails more hot women—but Ari and Drama still rule. Highlights: James Woods and Seth Green as James Woods and Seth Green. (HBO.com)

The Good Shepard Slightly less dull (but still longer) than an actual documentary about the CIA, starring Matt Damon and his Serious Eyeware. (NBCUniversal.com)

Guys Gone Wild: Spring Break Explosion Drunk buff-boys prance around naked in a schlong-swingin’ frenzy—but they’re not gay, dude. Just completely shaved. Dude … (GuysGoneWild.com)

Jump In The Valuable Life Lessons of High School Musical, plus the razor’s edge tension of Double Dutch jump-rope competition! Squeal! (Disney.com)

Tom Goes to the Mayor: The Complete Series It seemed bizarre before Tim & Eric: Awesome Show; now, not so much. But hey, we’ll always have Bass Fest. Rats off to ya! (AdultSwim.com)

Volver A woman (Penelope Cruz) learns that women are divine beings and men are utterly disposable jerk-offs. Yeah, sounds about right. (SonyPictures.com)

More New DVD Releases (4.3) Black Xmas, Hardcastle & McCormick: Season 2, Law & Order: Season 5, The Lost Room, Twin Peaks: Season 2

BROADBAND
The Sopranos in 7 Minutes Don’t have time to catch up on five seasons of The Sopranos before it all comes to an end? Of course you don’t. As always, someone with waaay too much time on their hands has solved your problems: a YouTube video that condenses the entire story thus far with deft editing and sarcastically simple narration:

DVD Releases 3.27

Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj Van Wilder’s not actually in it—but Harold (or Kumar) is! Thus, the best Brit-collegiate romp since Oxford Blues. MGM.com

Afro Samurai Samuel L. Jackson kicks anime ass as a big-haired post-apocalyptic swordsman bent on daddy vengeance. Sucka. Funimation.com

Hacking Democracy Documentary: Electronic voting machines aren’t foolproof. Cynical logic: Fools are just voting for fools, anyway. HBO.com

Happy Feet Cute penguins sing and dance while preaching the joys of communism, separatism and shame. WarnerBros.com

The Shield: Season 5 An Internal Affairs cop (Forest Whitaker) goes after Vic as tensions rise—because things weren’t tense before. FoxHome.com

Turistas Pretty backpackers get jacked up in Brazil in the mash-up of Blue Crush and Hostel no one really asked for. FoxHome.com

More New DVD Releases Full House: Season 6, Mind of Mencia: Season 2, Penny Dreadful, The Pursuit of Happyness, Seventh Heaven: Season 4

BROADBAND
This American Life Ease your way into the television adaptation of the NPR favorite with free video clips from Showtime’s This American Life, as well as radio bits so as to not slip into evil pay-TV shock.

More Bullshit!

Penn & Teller: Bullshit Thursdays (Showtime) New Season: The second episode of Season 5, and P&T are taking on … Wal-Mart? Says Showtime, the duo will be “dissecting its history of savvy business strategy while uncovering the reasons detractors are so against them.” Now that sounds like bullshit: Wal-Mart has detractors? Just because they hide behind a “friendly” “local” image and sell inferior products below cost in order to hurt competitors who don’t have multimillion-dollar corporations to prop them up? That’s just being cynical.

This American Life Thursdays (Showtime) New Series: Based on the National Public Radio series that … Hey! Come back! Where ya goin’? NPR isn’t all, as Patton Oswalt says, “Un. Listenable. Radio.” Mostly, sure, but Ira Glass’ popular This American Life is real people telling real stories with no quick-cut rushes to the next commercial and teaser—the opposite of “reality” TV, so how does Glass translate it to the tube without selling out? Quite well, TAL-heads; you’ll love the eventual DVD set (we all know you don’t subscribe to Showtime).

Sons of Hollywood Sunday 4.1 (A&E) Series Debut: If real people aren’t your reality-TV thing, there’s always Fabulous Celebrities. If none of those are available, call in the Less Talented/Charismatic Offspring of Fabulous Celebrities—like Sean Stewart (son of Rod), Randy Spelling (son of Aaron) and David Weintraub (well, he manages the other two, and this is his show). But, there’s no reason to care about the showbiz travails of the rich-boy Sons of Hollywood nor, when “singer/songwriter/model” Stewart’s lone talents seem to be looking greasy and never buttoning a shirt, wonder why you’ve never heard of ‘em before now.

Mind of Mencia, Reno 911 Sunday 4.1 (Comedy Central) Season Premieres: If Carlos Mencia really did steal all of his material from Joe Rogan and other comics … shouldn’t the shame be spread all around? Just sayin.’ And, as for Reno 911—when the hell is that Miami movie going to Brewvies? I need a beer.

Prison Break Monday 4.2 (Fox) Season Finale: Having not really watched Prison Break at all this season (not even when Rescue Me’s Callie Thorne guested—and I’m all about her), can’t offer much insight here other than the insider-biz knowledge that Michael and Lincoln will live to still be past-tense broken out of prison for a third season; the rest of the gang, maybe not so much. Next time around, the producers say, the story’s going international—and if Season 4 happens, they’re either going to outer space or Quebec.

Taquita & Kaui Monday 4.2 (MTV) Series Debut: They can’t sing or dance, which is why they were booted from Making the Band 3—and yet here they are with their own series, ready to take another shot at skankdom, er, stardom. It’s set in Las Vegas, so maybe they’ll wind up as dead strippers on CSI. Dare to dream, girls!

The Shield Tuesday 4.3 (FX) Season Premiere: Internal Affairs is still after Vic; Vic is after “Lemonhead’s” killer; the killer is a member of his own Strike Team; the Strike Team’s newest member is … the son of AC/DC’s Bon Scott?! Yes, Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin is the kid of the long-dead singer, and his character has been covertly planted by the suits at the Los Angeles Police Department to become Vic’s replacement. So he’s pretty much a goner.

In Case of Emergency Wednesday 4.4 (ABC) Season Finale: Make that series finale; ABC announced a chunk of early renewals last week, and In Case of Emergency (which somehow outlasted the better-reviewed Knights of Prosperity) wasn’t on the list. Too bad, because the show about a group of 30-something friends (Jonathan Silverman, Kelly Hu, David Arquette and Greg Germann) whose lives somehow went to shit post-high school actually turned into a funny series. Not as funny as Brothers & Sisters (allegedly a drama), but still …