"After every breakup I told myself, 'I'm never doing this again,' " Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) said to Jack (Ron Livingston) in the finale of Sex and the City's fifth season. "I mean, how many of these things can one person survive?" Well, survivor Carrie launches an affair with Jack in the sixth-season premiere (airing June 22), and by the second episode she's critiquing his sexual performance with her friends Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis).
As the series begins its long goodbye—12 episodes this summer, to be followed by the last eight in early 2004—I confess flirting with the idea that it may be about ready for retirement. Carrie's latest boyfriend does seem lacking, partly because he's not as witty as the writers intend him to be. Charlotte is having super sex with Harry (Evan Handler), despite his hairy back and bald head. But Harry is a Jew who refuses to marry outside his faith, leading the sweetly WASPy Charlotte to talk of conversion. "I never thought a shiksa goddess like you would fall for a putz like me," Harry says. Please tell me we're not sinking to such clichés.
All that aside, the show won't slip from the A-list as long as it delivers laughs. When Miranda develops a passion for TiVo and Samantha forces down the food at a trendy restaurant called Raw, Sex proves it still has a sharp eye for the passing scene.
BOTTOM LINE: Funny, but showing its age
TNT (Sun., June 22, 8 p.m. ET)
If a TV movie has you guessing, it's likely to keep you watching.
So it is with this above-average thriller about Paul Kane (Alec Baldwin), an American who awakens in a London hospital with only fragmentary memories of a plane crash that killed his wife and two daughters and left him in a coma. Under the care of concerned psychiatrist Harriet Fellows (Louise Lombard), Paul gradually recalls that he is a secret agent specializing in assassinations. When his sinister boss, Kelton Reed (Powers Boothe), orders Paul to eliminate a Malaysian leader, things go awry, and the plot takes a pleasingly sharp turn.
Baldwin offers a first-rate characterization of a man leery of trusting anyone, including himself. If his performance isn't totally convincing, it's only because the star is not in ideal fighting trim and the part calls for all manner of action-hero exertions—dangling from a ledge, diving into a canal, squeezing into small hiding places and engaging in frequent fisticuffs. The psychology of this story is intriguing, but the physical stuff isn't worth the sweat.
BOTTOM LINE: Flawed, but it'll hook you
Comedy Central (Tuesdays, 10 p.m. ET)
Gary Busey has played his share of strange dudes. Now the toothy, raspy-voiced actor portrays himself as an eccentric in a new show billed as a comedy-reality series. These days that's a logical career move.
Adam de la Pena, a comedy writer claiming to idolize Busey, tags along with the big guy on various adventures—a rough game of paintball, a trek through the Arizona desert—and evinces puzzlement at Busey's words of wisdom ("When you get lost in your imaginatory vagueness, your foresight will become a nimble vagrant"). The odd-couple act is funny at times, but one episode is plenty for all but confirmed Buseyphiles.
BOTTOM LINE: For cultists only
Sunday, June 22 DOGGY FIZZLE TELEVIZZLE MTV (10 p.m. ET) Droll hip-hopper Snoop Dogg launches a sketch-comedy series.
Monday, June 23 AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD USA (9 p.m. ET) Analyze this, film fans: Billy Crystal joins in a salute to Robert De Niro.
Tuesday, June 24 LAST COMIC STANDING NBC (9 p.m. ET) Ten comedians share an L.A. house while competing in a talent contest.
Wednesday, June 25 THE DATING EXPERIMENT ABC (10 p.m. ET) Love-seeking strangers follow scenarios from a mysterious diary in the debut of this reality show.
Thursday, June 26 THE AMAZING RACE 4 CBS (8 p.m. ET) Help! Teams end up waist deep in cow manure.
Friday, June 27 ESSENCE AWARDS FOX (8 p.m. ET) Steve Harvey hosts, and Queen Latifah is named Entertainer of the Year.
Saturday, June 28 ULTIMATE COUNTRY HOME CMT (6:30 p.m. ET) In the finale, a viewer wins a house that country stars helped decorate.
KELSEY GRAMMER
Kelsey Grammer is the producer and the voice behind the title character in TNN's new animated series Gary the Rat, premiering June 26. The 48-year-old Frasier star also hosts ABC's An American Celebration at Ford's Theater, which airs June 23.
ON GARY: "Gary is a lawyer who one day woke up as a rat and has to find his way back to being human. When he's finally capable of doing something truly selfless, he'll be reborn. It's pretty funny and irreverent. And not entirely in bad taste, which is important."
ON THE NEXT (REPORTEDLY LAST) SEASON OF FRASIER: "I expect he'll find someone. It could be Roz, it could be Julia. We hope to take each character to a place where, when the show's over, you can imagine they're going on with their lives in a very exciting way."
ON FAMILY LIFE: "I'm watching lots of cartoons with my 1-year-old daughter Mason. And I'm back into Barney. That's a frightening thing. My wife, Camille, and I kind of think one more would be appropriate. That's kind of in the works."
- Contributors:
- Anna David.
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!
