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9/18/03 Written by: Casana Atkins Exclusive to MAYDODMA.com PART II: MAYDOGMA’s
Fall 2003 Television Preview!!!!
Next up is CBS or the Crappy Broadcasting Station. Because really, what else do you watch on it besides CSI and maybe Without a Trace? And don’t you dare say JAG, you liar. To be blunt, I’ve never really forgiven CBS for canceling American Gothic. Yeah, yeah, that was a few years ago, but still, it pisses me off when a network cancels a show with so much potential. I mean c’mon, Gary Cole (better know as the annoying boss, Bill Lumbergh, from the hilarious Office Space) as an evil, murderous sheriff, hunting down an 11-year-old kid who knows that he killed his sister, who, by the way, still appears to the orphaned kid as a ghost? Seriously, it was like The X-Files without the pretension of the latter years. And I’m still a little annoyed over Due South. Add to that “gems” like Everybody Loves Raymond (though I can’t personally find anyone who does), The King of Queens, The Nanny, Wolf Lake, The Education of Max Bickford (I mean two Academy Award winners, and your show still sucked?) Baby Bob, The Agency, C.S.I. Miami (yes, it does suck and should be ashamed to call itself CSI), Murder She Wrote, and fucking Matlock, it’s no wonder it was known as the Old Folks Network for so long. But I digress. Sundays start off with the old stand-by 60
Minutes at 7pm, with the new Cold Case coming in at 8pm. Starring Kathryn Morris (Minority Report) as
a the only female detective on the Philadelphia Police force, Cold Case
(9/28) traces just that – cold cases that have never been solved. Apparently,
the excitement lies in our protagonist using that-there new-fangled sciencey
stuff and interviewing old witnesses to solve crimes. Think C.S.I.,
but without the blood, random body fluids, that blue gel stuff that lights up
the blood and random body fluids, and general excitement. And seriously, how
many more cop shows does America need? 40 billion spin-offs of Law &
Order just not doing it for you? 9pm brings the CBS
Sunday Night Movie. Whatever. Coming in on Monday
is the SOS a.k.a Same Old Shit. I’ve never seen an episode of Yes Dear
or Still Standing. And Everybody Body Loves Raymond is quite contrary to my general attitude
concerning the said protagonist and his irritating, manipulative in-laws, his
loser brother and his hounded wife. 9:30pm brings us the new sitcom Two
and a Half Men (9/22), staring Nose Candy and whoring extraordinaire
Charlie Sheen as a rich bachelor whose “life is turned upside down!” when his
brother (Jon Cryer, Pretty in Pink) and 10-year-old nephew
(Angus T. Jones, Bringing Down the House) move into his Malibu
beach house. How ever will they survive? Will it be through the
magical healing powers of a precocious, irritating child? Through the good
intentioned forces of his goober single father brother? Who the hell knows. As for 10pm, C.S.I.
Miami will be returning to aggravate us all. Forgive us father, for we
have surely sinned by allowing David Caruso to headline another TV show. Tuesday is Drama Night with the new Navy NCIS
(9/23) at 8pm. Mark Harmon heads up the NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative
Service), a team of investigators who…um…investigate any crime with links to
U.S. Navy and Marine personnel. You’ve got your interrogator, your former
Secret Service agent, a former homicide detective, a forensics expert and a
medical examiner. And get this; they operate outside the rules. Like,
they actually bend the rules to get things done. Christ
on a cracker, there had better not be any “YOU CAN”T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
moments, or something will be thrown through my television. And how
this is different from JAG, I don’t know. 9pm brings The
Guardian, Judging Amy coming in at 10pm. Apparently, Providence
over on NBC was not the same show as Judging Amy. For news junkies
such as myself, Wednesday starting off with 60 Minutes II at 8pm never hurts. However, King of
Queens and Becker at 9pm and 9:30pm respectively does hurt.
Tremendously. Quite similar to the sensation of a fork going through my eye.
Except far, far, worse. At 10pm, we have The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H. (9/24)
from producer David E. Kelley. It tells the stories of three quirky
brothers (Randy Quaid, Chris Penn, John Carroll Lynch) and their quirky
little families in the quirky little town of Poland, New Hampshire. Look for
quirky neighbors, quirky little town festivals, and quirky eccentrics who
would get shot on sight if they lived in a real town with a intolerable
homogenous population. And yeah, I think I saw this one before too, except it
was 1990, its name was Northern Exposure, and it was done a lot better
with a lot fewer second-rate stars. Thursdays remain unchanged with Survivor: Pearl Islands (9/18) gearing up to kick Friends worn-out ass in the ratings at 8pm. C.S.I. moves up an hour to 9pm from now until Survivor is done, with Without a Trace at 10pm, new eps of both starting 9/24. Seriously, if you haven’t seen Without a Trace, check it out. It’s good stuff, and even the worst episode one-ups Caruso and his C.S.I. Miami bastardization. The new Joan of Arcadia (9/26) starts off Fridays
at 8pm. The Simpsons Fat Tony…I mean Joe Mantegna stars as the police chief father of a humorously
troubled teen (Amber Tamblyn), who
claims she can suddenly hear the voice of God giving her directions through
random people part of her everyday existence. Add to that the string of serious crimes starting to occur in
her little town, and you’ve got one weird drama with a lot of potential for
weird but quality programming. I’m hoping it’ll be something like HBO’s Six
Feet Under or Carnivale dark humor-wise. But then again, my hopes
are usually dashed. 9pm has JAG, and the less I say about that, the better. 10pm brings the potentially interesting The Handler (9/26), starring one of my personal favorites Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos, Memento, The Matrix) as an FBI agent who handles and trains agents going undercover in the field. Even if it ends up sucking, Pantoliano can make even the most preposterous concept watchable. Hell, he got me through Daredevil. Saturday is pretty much the deadzone, with newsmagaine 48 Hours at 8pm, Hack at 9pm, and The District at 10pm. The latter two I could give a flying you-know-what about. No one’s home to care about them anyway. Overall, I’ll be
catching C.S.I., Without a Trace and Survivor: Pearl Island,
assuming the latter doesn’t contain hateful contestants who I want to see die
on camera from starvation/poison from some foreign animal. Joan of Arcadia
and The Handler will have to be TIVOed, considering they’re on
Fridays in “The Timeslot of Death” as I like to refer to it. In the meantime,
CBS has, for the last two years, put in a decent attempt to overhaul its
image away from the rest home standby, so I’ll give ‘em props for that.
However, as long as C.S.I. Miami continues to besmirch its airways, my
love for it is destined to remain far out of reach. COMING FRIDAY: FOX ***Much thanks to http://www.epguides.com, which has listings of every television show ever made, broken down by year. Literally. It’s kinda insane. And to http://www.tvpicks.net which has that awesome grid system of the Fall 2003 schedule, without which I would have found myself quite lost… Casana Atkins, MAYDOGMA’s Resident Movie and T.V. expert, and a 2003
graduate of USC, has spent all 22 of her years eking out a meager existence
in Los Angeles. Email her at sana@maydogma.com. |
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