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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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by rick grant
rickgrant01@comcast.net
The fall television season left its mark on the vast TV landscape with some high quality product launching on both the alphabet networks and the cable channels. HBO remained the bastion of cutting edge writing with Rome and The Wire replacing The Sopranos, which is coming back in January, 2007 for its final run. Rome also returns January 14th with new Senatorial intrigue, which is not that much different from our present day legislative machinations. Of course, back then, unpopular Senators were murdered.
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Showtime upped the ante on its high standards by coming on strong this fall with Weeds, Dexter, Brotherhood, and its magnum opus, Sleeper Cell: An American Terror, running now with all eight episodes available on Showtime’s On-demand. Weeds and Brotherhood return midseason in 2007.
Many mid-season replacement shows on the alphabet networks that were launched in the fall schedule were axed with extreme prejudice, but many of the much anticipated shows made the cut and will be back in 2007, including Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen, So You Think You Can Dance. SC-Fi’s nutty Eureka & Who Wants to Be A Superhero will return in 2007. Get your tights ready for that goofy show.
A strong contender, USA has renewed its tour de force show Monk, which opens with a black & white episode December 22nd then the same season opener will be broadcast in color with an Internet interactive feature. Yes, we will be seeing more Internet and television interactions as the two mediums are headed for a marriage in the near future. Also, like-it-or-hate-it, Psych returns to the USA schedule in January. HBO’s popular Entourage has been renewed for its 4th season and my favorite show, Curb Your Enthusiasm has been picked up for a new season in 2007. And we thought Larry David had retired! Well, he doesn’t need the money.
Denis Leary’s brilliant series Rescue Me returns in January with new episodes. TNT’s sleeper hit, The Closer just premiered a new season that will go through January and February 2007. And just when viewers have had enough of Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, the two anorexic professional celebrities will return in a new season of the “barfathon,” The Simple Life.
Bravo has some intriguing choices for January 2007 with the return of Top Chef with fresh meat on season 2 currently running on Wednesday nights at 10:00 pm into 2007. Real Housewives premieres its 2nd season on January 16, 2007.
Also brewing up a spicy gumbo, Bravo launches Top Design, which is home design concept modeled from the reality shows like Project Runway and other such competition series. Hosted by Todd Oldham, the show will premiere on January 31st
Following the second season finale of Top Chef and then it will move to its regular 10:00 pm ET time slot the following week. The show will take 12 new interior designers, artists, and architects from around the country, stick them in a swanky West Hollywood loft and pit them against each other. The challenges will showcase their creativity, aesthetic sensibilities, and conflict management skills. It’s the season of the witch with cattiness, and the bitch coming out of both the men and women. Ouch!
That bastard cable stepchild, Ted Turner’s original claim-to-fame channel, TBS is finally producing two new original series that run into January 2007, instead of just running syndicated shows and movies. My Boys runs Tuesdays at 10:00 pm. The comedy is about a young woman being one of the guys doing guy things like playing poker, pick-up softball games, watching sports or just hanging out at a favorite bar. This overgrown tomboy is P.J. Franklin played by Jordana Spiro. She is a sports reporter for the Chicago Sun Times. Amazingly, she has managed to get her guy pals to treat her like one of the boys. The thing is, they don’t notice that she’s beautiful, sexy, and would like to be noticed as a woman, not just a guy with makeup.
The other TBS comedy series is 10 Items or Less. The premise combines scripted and improvisational elements. The series goes behind the scenes at a family owned supermarket being run by a host of kooky characters. The show runs Mondays at 11:00 pm ET.
Yes, it’s a brave new TV landscape out there with many choices. With the advent of DVRs, show webcasts on the Internet, and On-demand, you can watch any show anytime you want. Now the viewer schedules his or her own programming.
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