5. The guest stars are funnier here than they are on Leno or Letterman. In the season opener, for example, Roseanne returns as Larry's ex-love interest, who has to get booked on his show just to speak to him.
4. And they're a choicer bunch. "Thankfully," Shandiing says, "we don't have as much trouble booking this show as they do on a real talk show. So far we've already got Vendela, Ryan O'Neal, Sandra Bernhard, David Duchovny, Dana Carvey and Rob Lowe."
3. The show comes on at 10:30 p.m. ET, which means you can watch Sanders and still get to bed at a decent hour.
2. There are no wisecracking kids, wacky neighbors, theme songs written by Alan Thicke or loyal pets—unless you count Larry's whiny but still loyal sidekick Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley (played by Jeffrey Tambor).
1. Sanders has classier O.J. jokes. In the opener, as the staff takes time out to watch the Trial of the Century, Larry is reminded that he once bumped Simpson for Murphy Brown's Faith Ford. Responds Sanders testily: "Who knew he was gonna get this hot?"
A&E (Sun., July 23, 8 p.m. ET)
B
This special 4-hour installment of A&E's documentary series Investigative Reports may not bite the hand that feeds it, but it certainly does engage in some heavy-duty nibbling. The best hours are the first, which opens with a York, Pa., anchorwoman's debut, and the fourth, which tags along with some New York Daily News reporters. As both segments wryly demonstrate, what's important is not the news itself so much as who's first on the scene and who looks best on the air.
Showtime (Sundays, 11 p.m. ET)
D
Since I actually live in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks being mocked in this misguided sitcom, I suppose I should disqualify myself from reviewing it. However, you could live in a suburb of Kuwait City and still not find anything funny about the show, which follows an egocentric documentary filmmaker as he attempts to chronicle the lives of a plastic surgeon and his family. Albert Brooks did it better with his 1979 film Real Life.
(David Hiltbrand is on vacation.)
>TUBE: Hey now! The Larry Sanders Show returns; Naked News noses around the media biz
SCREEN: Nine Months is lightweight but heavy-handed; Catherine Deneuve shines in a re-release of Belle de jour; Species is so-so sci-fi 13
SONG: Pocahontas gets the royal treatment; Morissette makes a splash; Wailing Souls Live On 16
PAGES: Newt Gingrich redesigns World War II in 1945; Gabriel García Márquez spins a magical tale Of Love and Other Demons 22
BYTES: Surfology is an easy introduction to riding the waves 31
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!
