BY TOM GLIATTO
DRAMA
This new series, a punishingly tricky variation on time-puzzle thrillers like Memento and Vanilla Sky, starts one awful day with L.A. detective Taye Diggs being framed for murder. By nightfall, he's spent hours on the lam trying to pierce through the mystery, only to wind up bound in a pit that looks as large as the Roman Coliseum. A shadowy figure sticks a syringe in his neck, he closes his eyes ... then wakes up to relive the day. Can the information he picked up in those 24 hours steer him through the next 24, which technically aren't "next" at all? What's gone wrong with time, anyway? Diggs races through all of this at a steely clip. He's a pair of scissors desperately unsure where to cut.
Day Break almost plays as a subversive joke on today's slightly panicked prime-time viewing experience—that need to keep up with so many good shows' serial stories. (I missed one week of Prison Break, and I swear when I came back Wentworth Miller had formed an ABBA cover band.) This drama forces you to focus week after week on a single day, with small changes in course that can grow into big twists. The show is like chasing a dented tin hoop down a freeway. A great workout, and a little exhausting.
CBS (Tuesdays, 10 p.m. ET)
DRAMA
CBS got rid of its nervy caper show Smith after three episodes, just disposed of it like a bad lab sample, and now has brought in a fairly routine medical drama. 3 Lbs.—the title refers to the weight of the human brain—stars Mark Feuerstein as an idealistic young neurosurgeon named Jonathan Seger. He's just been hired by the willfully impersonal but incisive and brilliant Dr. Hanson, who heads a Manhattan clinic so successful it doesn't look all that different from the luxe fashion-magazine offices in Ugly Betty. Stanley Tucci plays Hanson without overdoing the sniffy arrogance, and Feuerstein administers Seger's warm decency carefully—no overdosing on sentiment. Still, other than graphics that scoot along the neural pathways like subatomic Nascar racers, the show doesn't have much new to offer.
The CW (Mondays, 9:30 p.m. ET)
COMEDY
Of the two new series the CW ordered for its premiere lineup, one is already dead—the underrated family drama Runaway—and what's left for a full season is this comedy, generic enough it could come in a cardboard box stamped with the word "sitcom." The Game, a spinoff of another CW show, Girlfriends, is an ensemble about women whose husbands, lovers and relations are pro-football players. It's not exactly Friday Night Lights with laughs. The gags are hobbled together, but you sense the cast would be more than up for better material. Wendy Raquel Robinson, as a single mom managing her son's career, knows how to sling a punch line.
The CW (Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET)
REALITY
This ridiculously engaging reality series, which occasionally has the girly, giggly intensity of a sorority production of Valley of the Dolls, has now inched past the halfway mark of its seventh season, with an eighth season on the way next year. Host Tyra Banks is looking more goddessy than ever beneath that fountain-flow of tresses. The inclusion of identical twin contestants Michelle and Amanda, two long beanpoles, will no doubt end in heartbreak. But at this point I'm most intrigued by Anchal, whose wide-planed, high-cheeked face is a gorgeously serene piece of composition, and Melrose—less remarkable, but also more fun, more of a friend to the camera. She's what the show's about.
It's a weird challenge, acting in a show on which the day keeps repeating and producers don't tell you why. "I'm in the dark," says Moon Bloodgood, 31, who plays Taye Diggs's lover. "Sometimes we shoot two episodes at once and I'm like, 'Where am I?'" But there's a reward: She gets to shoot their bedroom scene over and over. "Who wouldn't want that? He's delicious."
House (FOX, Nov. 14, 9 p.m. ET) A very strange case with an unconscious boy and his comatose father. David Morse plays a cop with a grudge.
The Bachelor: Rome (ABC, Nov. 13, 9 p.m. ET) Down to the final three, off to Sweden, Budapest and Sicily on big dates with Prince Lorenzo.
The Office (NBC, Nov. 16, 8:30 p.m. ET) The Dunder Mifflin branches merge, throwing Pam and Jim (Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski) back into the same employee pool.
Criminal Minds (CBS, Nov. 15, 9 p.m. ET) Paget Brewster, done with Huff, joins the unit.
Top Chef (Bravo, Nov. 15, 10 p.m. ET) The contestants concoct recipes with pigs blood and lamb hearts. Sounds offal.
Dexter (Showtime, Nov. 19, 10 p.m. ET) Continued nasty fun with the Ice Truck Killer. The show, one of the year's best, has been renewed!
The actress, 44, gone from General Hospital since '02, is back as half of daytime's best-loved duo: Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura Spencer. Fresh from a hospital, Laura will remarry Luke on their 25th wedding anniversary.
ON THE RETURN The offer was so out of the blue. They called and they said, "We'd love to do an anniversary salute to the Luke and Laura saga. You're gonna love it."
ON HER CHEMISTRY WITH GEARY We were both feeling nervous, like, "Will it still be there?" And it was! It's an amazing chemistry. And apparently it has a long shelf life.
ON MOVING TO MAINE IN 2005 My husband [actor Jonathan Frakes] and I wanted family time with our two kids. At some point you say, "What's important in my life?" I wanted to kick back the pace.
James Denton
The Desperate Housewives star plays (for charity) on the game show's annual all-star challenge, airing this month. His challengers: Neil Patrick Harris and Bebe Neuwirth.
ON HIS BEST TRIVIA SUBJECTS I tend to do really well with American history and Presidents. Of course sports is a no-brainer, pop culture—movies, TV. I have a lot of useless knowledge in my head. I'm decent at that stuff.
ON HIS COMPETITION Neil and Bebe are really smart. I convinced myself that it was because on TV he'd played a doctor [on Doogie Howser, M.D.] and she played a psychiatrist [on Cheers]. But the three of us were all trying to buzz at the same time, fighting to get in on the same answer. Those buzzers are tough.
ON HIS MISTAKES I can't tell you if I won or lost—that's top secret—but I found my problem was timidity. I didn't want to miss and be wrong. I kicked myself for not taking more risks. I had people who were sitting in the audience say to me, "I can't believe you didn't know so-and-so," and I knew it, but Neil got in ahead of me.
THE WEST WING: THE COMPLETE SERIES Aaron Sorkin's savvy, classy political drama is packaged in a solemn navy box embossed with the Presidential seal. Condi Rice could carry her lunch in it. All 154 episodes, 45 discs.
THAT'S MY BUSH! In this Comedy Central series from 2001 (pre-9/11), the creators of South Park imagine George Bush (Timothy Bottoms) in his own inane sitcom. It holds up surprisingly well.
You love to hate her, and now you sort of have to pity her. Clarke, 37, is the FOX drama's grasping Julie Cooper, whose daughter (Mischa Barton) was killed off in a shocker in last season's finale.
ON LIFE POST-MISCHA In the beginning it felt like something was really missing. It's funny—my friends were asking me how I was, they felt like I'd checked out. There was quite a sadness there....
ON PLAYING A (RHYMES WITH RICH) As we've gone along I've always treated Julie as a human being just trying to survive. Julie is more complex now than ever—plus now she's motivated by revenge.
ON HER OWN CHILDHOOD NEAR ORANGE COUNTY I grew up in Dana Point, a few miles south of where our characters live on the show. I knew it was a beautiful area, but very few people were aware of this coastline and its specialness. Being on a show that allows the world to know what Orange County is—it's been a surreal experience.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
