CBS (Wednesdays, 9 p.m. ET)
B +
Trying to simulate the Old West success of its Dr. Quinn, CBS has dusted off a busted pilot from last summer, recast it and come up smelling like sage. With his chiseled good looks and quiet dignity, Brad Johnson, a former Marlboro Man, is the best TV cowboy in decades. (In the original pilot, Ned Blessing was played by the portly Daniel Baldwin, who looked silly in a five-gallon hat and profoundly uncomfortable in the saddle.)
Each episode begins with Blessing as an old one-armed man sitting in a jail cell, awaiting his own hanging (for an as yet unspecified murder) and recounting his adventures in Texas as a bandit turned sheriff. He has a mystic Mexican sidekick (Luis Avalos) and many enemies. Tim Scott, Wes Studi and Brenda Bakke costar.
Creator Bill Wittiiff, who adapted Lonesome Dove for TV, is a slow but flavorful storyteller. His yarns and colorful characters help make this five-week series as smooth and comfortable as old leather.
Lifetime (Thurs., Aug. 19, 9 p.m. ET)
C
A New York jazz musician (James Wilder of Route 66) is the latest target of the Night Owl, a mysterious late-night radio hostess whose sexy voice seduces men, then drives them mad (the voice is Karen Hartman-Golden's). But Wilder's wife (Jennifer Beals) isn't about to surrender her husband to the ancient siren.
Justin Louis and Allison Hossack costar in this stylish but increasingly silly supernatural thriller.
Showtime (Sun., Aug. 22, 9 p.m. ET)
B +
Forest Whitaker gets to reverse his role from The Crying Game in this unsparing drama: Here he plays a guard who forms an unlikely bond with his soon-to-die prisoner. Kiefer Sutherland directed and plays the death-row inmate. For Whitaker, it's a busy week on cable. He also directed Strapped for HBO (Sat., Aug. 21, 8 p.m. ET), a wrenching hip-hop parable about inner-city youth and the bane of firearms.
Last Light, parts of which were filmed at California's Soledad Prison, is disturbing for its language, violence (particularly Sutherland's execution) and sex (there is a less-than-explicit but grim depiction of masturbation). Yet the movie is powerfully acted, particularly by Sutherland as a canny, vicious societal throwaway.
Clancy Brown, Lynne Moody, Kathleen Quinlan and Amanda Plummer costar.
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