BY TOM GLIATTO
COMEDY
Donal Logue, a rough stone slab of a man, plays Eugene Gurkin, a Manhattan janitor whose destiny changes when he sees an E! report on Mick Jagger's dream apartment on Central Park West. The janitor asks himself, Why not break into Jagger's place? Will Mick even miss a few crumbs of his wealth? Logue is an actor who seems to have just shuffled in from real life—just got out of bed, maybe the wrong side—and happened to cross the camera's path, and he makes this sad man's dream seem, if not sensible, certainly not criminal. You wouldn't want Mick to be robbed, no, but you don't want Eugene to fail, either. He assembles an enthusiastic, completely inexperienced team, including a waitress (Sofia Vergara), a security guard (Kevin Michael Richardson) and a cabbie (Maz Jobrani). It's something like a blue-collar Ocean's Eleven. Of the large, nicely peppered cast, I especially like Vergara, who has some of the vamping yumminess of a Catherine Zeta-Jones.
ABC (Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m. ET)
COMEDY
Four graduates of Westwood South High, class of 1987, reunite under farcically dire circumstances—a hijacked truck full of snack cakes is one element—and take measure of their empty lives. Jason (David Arquette) is a financier facing a corporate-scandal indictment. Sherman (Greg Germann), a diet guru, has just come home to his mansion to find that his wife has left him high and dry—literally: She even drained the pool. Harry (Jonathan Silverman) is a lonely divorced dad. And the class valedictorian (Kelly Hu) works as a sex masseuse. It's a good cast, and Arquette's peculiar charm is always welcome. But I'm tired of comedies about the desperate infantilism of panicked adults. You wish someone would do a sitcom about ancient Stoics.
FX (Tuesdays, 10 p.m. ET)
DRAMA
Courteney Cox Arquette, in her first regular role since Friends, stars in a Nip/Tuck-y drama about the dark and decadent world of Hollywood journalists, publicists and stars. It's one big paella of cynics and sinners! Cox plays Lucy Spiller, editor of not one but two gossip magazines, one respectable, one not. Cox, who often looks like Famke Janssen's twin sister, doesn't have the right vulgar relish to hold the show together. She needs a tiny Jeremy Piven perched like a parrot on her shoulder and squawking naughty words to urge her on. A storyline about Spiller's shrewd exploitation of a failed indie-movie star (Josh Stewart) has bite, but an awful lot of time is spent on a paparazzo named Don Konkey (Ian Hart). Konkey is schizophrenic and lost in delusions about a dead actress and a cat. This isn't dirt, it's the unconscious, and it doesn't make much sense.
Lifetime (Jan. 8, 8 p.m. ET)
REALITY
This is like a Dating Game for our sexually open age. It's frisky, light and mindless, and I have no problem with that. An eligible girl spends some sunny, flirty time relaxing with three Romeos: One is as eligible as she is, a second is gay, and a third already has a girlfriend. (Although if the gay one turns out to have a boyfriend, why isn't he "taken" too?) The girl's job is to guess who is which and win a vacation with Mr. Available. In the pilot, at least, the participants seem to enjoy the silliness of it all. The show (which airs as back-to-back half-hour episodes) plays out closer to a romantic comedy—an abridged My Best Friend's Wedding—than a Bachelor, where the girls practically end up with ulcers from dealing with such a range of emotions.
>The Rolling Stones frontman in a sense drives Knights of Prosperity—his luxurious lifestyle is what launches the gang's ridiculous life of crime—but you probably won't see much of him behind the wheel. Jagger camps it up in a few scenes in the pilot but otherwise hasn't shot anything. "Where we left things with Mick was, as his schedule becomes available, we would put him in the show," says executive producer Rob Burnett. "It's not out of the question." But keep an eye out for other cameos, including Kelly Ripa and Ray Romano.
Beauty and the Geek (The CW, Jan. 3, 8 p.m. ET)
Two-hour premiere for season 3. The girls have to decipher the Dewey decimal system.
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens (PBS, Jan. 3, times may vary)
American Masters documentary about the celebrated celebrity photographer.
Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve 2007 (ABC, Dec. 31, 10 p.m. ET)
Rihanna is one of the headliners for the night, which stretches on till 2:05 a.m.
Ugly Betty (ABC, Jan. 4, 8 p.m. ET)
Another administrative crisis when Betty (America Ferrera) files a $20,000 expense report for her boss.
Grease: You're the One That I Want (NBC, Jan. 7, 8 p.m. ET) ...the one that I want, ooh-ooh-ooh. New reality show to cast fresh faces for a Broadway revival of Grease.
Cybill Shepherd
Shepherd, 56, is new to the cast of The L Word, starting on Showtime this month. She's a married college chancellor who comes out of the closet.
ON HER MOM'S REACTION
She said, "What's the 'L' stand for?" I said, "Lesbian." She said, "Oh, my. You're not playing one, I hope." I said, "Yeah, Mom, I am." And she said, "Ohhh, my !"
ON REAL-LIFE DAUGHTER CLEMENTINE FORD, 27, PLAYING HER L WORD DAUGHTER
It got very intense. Every mother and daughter could probably use role-playing like this. You can have all these big emotions in a safe environment. It gets out any leftover anger.
ON PLASTIC SURGERY
I'm terrified by needles. Though I've had acupuncture... but it doesn't hurt, and I don't let them do it on my face.
ON WORKING MOTHERHOOD
I got this part two weeks before my twins [Ariel and Zach, now 19] graduated from high school. It was very hectic: I needed to make sure I was there for my kids, but I wasn't going to miss this part.
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!
