SUNDAY: Bored to Death (9:30pm on HBO)
A disaffected Brooklyn writer does his best Nancy Drew—advertising his private-eye services on Craigslist, of course—in Jonathan Ames’s new noir comedy. Starring Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson, Bored to Death promises to be drier than a fine chardonnay. Read our review here.
Giovanni Rufino (courtesy of the CW)
TONIGHT: Gossip Girl (9pm on the CW)
College is a minefield for the teen drama—somehow the story lines always end up getting mired in the administration, like when Steve Sanders dated the chancellor’s daughter on Beverly Hills: 90210, or when Veronica Mars spent her freshman year investigating the dean’s murder. OMG, how dull.
Hopefully Gossip Girl will be smart enough to steer clear of the stultifying world of university politics. The show’s third season will include roommate clashes, boy-on-boy power flirting and Hilary “the Duff” Duff, playing a movie-star-turned-NYU-classmate…and, who knows, maybe Chuck having a three-way that includes the provost? That we could handle.
Check out the TONY blog tomorrow to see what we thought of New York’s trashiest TV addiction.
SUNDAY: MTV’s Video Music Awards (9pm on MTV)
If the 26th annual VMAs were a person, they’d be one of those twentysomethings who starts bailing on bar nights in favor of book club meetings. But the award show is still going strong, with its usual three-ring circus for the kids who’ve actually heard of Cobra Starship, Pitbull, Miranda Cosgrove or The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
If you haven’t, you may still like the idea of Green Day and Jay-Z performances, an MJ tribute from Janet Jackson and British comedian Russell Brand, the show’s host, taking potshots at American teen culture. So set the TiVo and skim through it on Monday before work; who can stay up late on a Sunday anymore?
Quantrell Colbert/The CW
TONIGHT: The Vampire Diairies (8pm on the CW), Project Runway (10pm on Lifetime)
It’s only four more days till new Gossip Girl episodes, kids. You teen-angst addicts will get your fix soon enough, so don’t harsh your buzz with the premiere of vamp-themed high-school series The Vampire Diairies. If the voiceovers don’t kill you, the wistful, blank stares of the bloodsuckers and their would-be prey will.
Instead, hold out for a new episode of Project Runway, which has successfully navigated its channel switch and booted its whiniest contestant. The only problem? The remaining designers all seem so…nice. We want to see blood spatter in the sewing room, not in yet another suburban high school.
See more of what to watch and what to toss in our Fall TV preview.
Carin Baer/FOX
TONIGHT: Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress (8pm on ABC, CBS, NBC); Glee (9pm on Fox)
Health care, public option, Medicare, blah blah blah. We forced America’s schoolkids to sit through a presidential speech this week, so we should probably endure a little civic instruction ourselves. And as a reward: Glee! The song, dance, geek and freak show that premiered last spring is back with an episode all about sex, including a killer PG-13 rendition of “Gold Digger.” Plus, when the show’s Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch, Glee’s highlight) hears about Palin’s death panels, she’ll install one in the cafeteria, just to keep the cheerleaders in line.
See what Glee star Matthew Morrison had to say to Time Out New York about high school (like “the people who were kinda cool and popular in high school are kind of messes now”).
SUNDAY: Mad Men (10pm on AMC)
While we (in the present day) are dealing with job insecurity, so too are those at Sterling Cooper as Mad Men kicks off its third season. When our well-groomed, boozy friends left us, they were mid-merger with British advertising company PP&L. And, as expected, there’s some house cleaning to be done when season three premieres. It’s a hearty serving of juicy office goodness, sexual debauchery, the pop culture evolution of Popsicles, and more insights into the man that was Dick Whitman but is now sexy adman Don Draper.
Who stays and who goes at SC? Anyone hoping to see Pete Campbell’s pink slip is in for a disappointment; he gets some good news, which he then turns into bad news in a way only Pete Campbell can do. (Actor Vincent Kartheiser has plenty to say about his weaselly alter ego.) Back in the burbs, Don and his preggers wife Betty seem to be at peace—but was that lengthy time apart enough to scare Don off his unfaithful ways? Do you really want to bet on it?—Lisa Freedman
For more Mad Men coverage, check out the insider info we scored from the randy half of Sterling Cooper, Roger Sterling (er, actor John Slattery). Can’t get enough ’60s swing? Check back Monday for our day-after episode recap.
TONIGHT: NYC Prep (9pm on Bravo)
Bravo’s attempt at making The Real Houseteens of Manhattan was, at best, a rip-off of prime-time dramas to tide us over until fall. But there was something sad about watching real adolescents, rich as they might be, emulating the soap-opera mannerisms they saw on TV. Tonight’s season finale features a charity event and the ascension of a new “queen bee” in the kids’ social circle. If that sounds like a plot pulled from the Gossip Girl recycling bin, that’s because it is—the producers and “stars” both do their best to follow a “What Would Chuck Bass Do?” credo. When do we get a reality version of, say, Stargate Atlantis or 24? That we’d watch.
SUNDAY: Labor Pains (8pm on ABC Family)
It’s hard not to feel a little perverse glee in seeing party girl Lindsay Lohan fall to the level of cable made-for-TV movie. But while this comedy, originally intended for theaters, definitely belongs on the small screen, it’s one of the network’s better offerings. Lohan plays Thea, a noble secretary trying to raise her teenage sister; when her cartoonishly awful boss (Chris Parnell, doing his usual shtick) tries to fire her, she lies and claims to be pregnant. Of course, she becomes caught up in the ruse to wacky results, and every rom-com cliché is here in full force. While Lohan herself is rather flat (in manner and in washboard abs), her supporting cast livens up the joint, most notably Cheryl Hines, Janeane Garofalo and Creed Bratton from The Office. It’s not the worst place for Lohan to start a career rehabilitation, provided she was paying attention during breaks on set.
Travel Channel
TONIGHT: No Reservations (10pm on Travel)
Crusty Anthony Bourdain is the classic local NYC celebrity: He’s smart, arrogant and creatively credentialed; his Kitchen Confidential launched the badass chef memoir genre and has been copied mercilessly ever since. In the first episode of his travel/food show’s summer run, Tony pops down to Chile to sample the local cuisine and culture that regular folks never see on the package tour, this time taking in the countryside on horseback. In following weeks, he’ll go more local by visiting the exotic lands of Buffalo and Detroit to wax philosophical about wings and, one assumes, artisanal motor oil. It’s okay if you kind of hate the guy for journeying to amazing locations and then talking down to his audience about how cultured he is; the hate is part of the fun.
Credit: Isabella Vosmikova/NBC
SUNDAY: Meteor (9pm on NBC)
In the grand tradition of made-for-TV miniseries, this one wrapping up next weekend, a motley crew of estranged family members and plucky scientists band together to stop the “extinction-level event” of the meteor hitting Earth. You know, like they did back in Armageddon, but with 100% less Ben Affleck. Here Stacey Keach, Jason Alexander and Billy Campbell try to keep up with Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd, who spouts the requisite crazed-scientist talk; it takes experience to sell the constant refrain of “Right now, every minute counts!”
TONIGHT: Warehouse 13 (9pm on Syfy)
That government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark was cool, wasn’t it? And again when it popped up in the fourth Indy flick? Hope you’re still fascinated, because this thriller is more or less That Warehouse: The Series. The show debuts with a two-hour premiere on Syfy—that would be the Sci Fi channel’s new moniker, not an extraterrestrial STD. So, should Mulder and Scully be watching their backs? Read our review of Warehouse 13 here.
TONIGHT: Pitchmen (10pm on Discovery)
It’s not every country in which salesmen are celebrities, but when Billy Mays passed away last week, his life was being mentioned alongside Michael Jackson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s. Today, an all-day marathon of his Discovery channel show about pitching products (scheduled before his death) culminates in the show’s first-season finale; the whole run is sprinkled with tributes and unseen footage of Mays. Even if you weren’t a fan of the Kaboom cleaner he hawked, Mays’s career was still impressive—the man sold the very act of selling. Now that’s America!
TONIGHT: Dance Your Ass Off (10pm on Oxygen)
Dance has been a ritualized, sexualized and demonized human activity since the days of the cavemen, who used to do the Robot around the campfire to pass the time. And now it’s a workout scheme, in a reality show hosted by that chick from Hairspray (Marissa Jaret Winokur). We’re pretty sure this show was pitched as The Biggest Loser meets Dancing with the Stars (big weight losses stave off elimination; professional dancers pair with the contestants). It’s hardly more offensive than either of those two programs, and a slew of at-home programs and giveaways aim to get the audience burning boogie calories as well. But it also begs the question: Why wouldn’t we just throw on some short shorts and queue up old Sweatin’ to the Oldies tapes?
THIS WEEKEND: Hung (Sunday at 10pm on HBO)
Whang. Johnson. Pickle. They’re just three of the euphemisms we employ in our discussion of Hung, the new show about a man (Thomas Jane) and his anatomical gifts. Yep, the guy who once played the Punisher is now cast as a hustler, with a struggling poet as a pimp. Read our review for a more creative description of his manhood—oh, and to find out if the HBO dramedy is worth putting up with our juvenile vocabulary (it is).
TONIGHT: The Philanthropist (10pm on NBC)
That’s weird—NBC describes protagonist Teddy Rist as a billionaire playboy turned vigilante-philanthropist. When Bruce Wayne took the What Color Is Your Parachute? test in high school, that was exactly the occupational path he scored as well. Quelle coincidence! But let’s award credit where it’s due: The show doesn’t shy away from the Batman-silly premise.
TONIGHT: The Real Housewives of New Jersey (9pm on Bravo)
Is the reason you’re watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey not a Garden State girl at all, but a dude—and a 22-year-old one at that? Albie Manzo is the son of one of this season’s big-haired wives (no, not the phone sex one or the one who threw the table, lucky for him) and a recent Fordham University grad. Oh, and a looker. Before tonight’s reunion episode, we talked to Manzo and he helped us bridge the great New York–New Jersey divide, if just for a fleeting moment:
Time Out New York: How did your family get involved with the show?
Albie Manzo: True story: I came home one day and there were basically cameras there. I remember I was away at college—at Fordham U—and my mom had gotten involved through Jacqueline.… Next thing I know, we’re doing the show!
Read more »
TONIGHT: Make It or Break It (9pm on ABC Family)
Five reasons to watch tonight’s new gymnastics-themed show (we know you were going to anyway):
1. The drama blends the bitchy infighting of Bring It On with Olympic-level athletics. Okay, the caliber is not nearly that high, but the stunt doubles here aren’t half bad. Despite some soapy predictability (the bad girl cheats! the poor girl overcomes adversity and tacky leotards!), it’s nice to see TV teen girls fighting over something other than boys.
2. It stars Candace “D.J. Tanner” Cameron Bure, Peri “Roz from Frasier” Gilpin and Brett “been on every TV show ever” Cullen! Awesome. Oh, and a bunch of interchangeable skinny teenagers, too.
3. Gymnastics is always hilarious: “It’s not called gym-nice-tics.”
4. While the CW struggles to pull in teens with its ultrasexy reboots (90210, Melrose Place), the less-cool ABC Family has slowly amassed sizable audiences for its tamer—and yet more realistic—Greek and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. The channel is in it to win it, to borrow the kind of tired cliche that peppers Make It.
5. What else are you going to watch, the pathetic public train wreck of Jon and Kate Plus Eight (9pm on TLC)? Ew.
TONIGHT: HawthoRNe (9pm on TNT)
Sorry, doctors, your thunder has officially been stolen. Nurses are the hottest television commodity since crimesolvers with really good attention spans, what with Nurse Jackie on Showtime, NBC’s fall drama Mercy and HawthoRNe, a Jada Pinkett Smith vehicle premiering tonight. Suddenly, orthopedic shoes are in.
It’s no surprise that Smith’s managerial Christina Hawthorne is no-nonsense (bad-assery is taught on week one of TV-nursing school, apparently), but she’s also saddled with a dead husband, a snotty teenage daughter and a suicidal pal, giving her pathos-ridden story lines to compete with fellow network tough chicks Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick. Smith is appealing, but the show’s smug canonization of all the woefully underappreciated nursing staff is a bit broad; they can’t all be saintly, can they? The show is worth a shot, as long as future episodes feature more of Alias vet Michael Vartan, whose nice-boss character looks a little lost, and fewer hand-job gags—not even badass nurses should have to put up with that.
Kelsey McNeal/Bravo
TONIGHT: Top Chef Masters (10pm on Bravo)
This is otherwise known as I’m a Celebrity Chef, Get Me Out of Here, right? No, not really. This big-name edition of the Bravo hit takes on a new format (six groups of four are narrowed down to one winner each, then those six move on to a Champions round), and our dear Tom, Padma & Co. make only passing appearances. But change can be good—local foodie Kelly Choi will take over hosting duties, and for those who are impressed by names like Anita Lo, Gael Greene and Christopher Lee, this twist on TV’s top cooking show will be worth a look.
Just how top are the famous chefs? Read our recaps on TONY’s food blog, The Feed, starting tomorrow.
Tonight: Weeds (10pm on Showtime)
Nancy Botwin, Mother of the Year? One of her sons wants to grow weed in a national forest, the other is a burgeoning middle-school fetishist. And Nancy’s using her third kid, the one in utero, to keep her drug kingpin boyfriend from killing her. Is she finally owning up to the havoc she’s wreaked? Maybe. Read our review of the show’s fifth-season premiere to find out what other bad mistakes the Weeds woman of the house is making.
More TV, plus read what Edie Falco had to say about Nurse Jackie, premiering tonight after Weeds.
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