Lifetime (Sundays, 8 p.m. ET)
After some bad career moves—leaving The West Wing in 2003, turning up in a TV turkey called Dr. Vegas last season—Rob Lowe may be on a roll again. In this promising six-part series based on a Luanne Rice novel (parts 1 and 2 air back-to-back July 31), the usually glib actor gets to show his sensitive side as Jack Kilvert, a Boston lawyer who is spending the summer in a New England beach town with his 16-year-old daughter Nell (Chelsea Hobbs). Both are still mourning the death of Jack's wife, Emma, in a car accident the previous fall, and not even the clingy presence of a sexy young colleague from his law firm can raise Jack's spirits. He is also estranged from his kid sister Maddie, for reasons he won't reveal to Nell, and he's a bit testy with Stevie (a compelling Julia Ormond), a local artist who was childhood friends with his late wife. Subdued and misty-eyed and sporting a raffish stubble, Lowe conveys Jack's moodiness effectively. What I like most about Beach Girls, though, is that it's in no hurry to advance the plot, including the romance between Jack and Stevie. The characters are given room to breathe-or to sigh soulfully. You don't so much watch this show as wade into it, just like you would with any good beach read.
REALITY
Bravo (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET)
How's this for a sitcom? Single mom who resorted to artificial insemination seeks out her now-teenage daughter's biological father. Or how about: precocious 11-year-old runs his life as if he were a corporate CEO? Don't laugh. In the July 26 opener of this insightful fly-on-the-wall reality series, both ideas were chosen as candidates for an NBC pilot—out of 10,000 scripts submitted last fall by amateurs around the country. Actor Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) and his TV production partner Todd Milliner, aided by staffers, had the dubious privilege of combing through that slush pile—as well as the bright idea of doing for sitcom-producing what Project Greenlight did for moviemaking. Writing partners Jason Schuster and Mark Treitel (Sperm Donor) and Andrew Leeds and David Lampson (Stephen's Life) now have to prepare 15-minute pilot presentations for NBC execs, who will judge only one as ready for prime time. The process includes endless rewrites, contentious casting sessions and (in a later episode) some backroom squabbling after Stephen's Life's Leeds hires his sister in a supporting role without informing the higher-ups. Soon he may have to fire her. Hey, here's an idea: How about a sitcom about the making of a sitcom?
COMEDY
FX (Thursdays, 10 p.m. ET)
"I ate chocolate cake out of the trash can this morning," a New York City comedy commodities broker named Sam confesses to his eating-disorders group. "If you were a dog," snarls the group's tough-love dispensing leader, "I'd kick you in the face." In-your-face humor is the hallmark of this brash new sitcom created by indie filmmaker Eric Schaeffer (My Life's in Turnaround), who has cast himself as the neurotic Sam. Though the show spins around Sam's friendship with three Belt Tighteners classmates (Laura Benanti, Sterling K. Brown and Del Pentecost), it often aims below the belt, especially when the subject is Sam's hapless sex life (even when he scores he loses). Starved's raunchy humor may offend some, but I found Schaeffer's offbeat wit a veritable feast.
REALITY
NBC (Tuesdays, 8 p.m. ET)
"My God! What a valuable person she is!" says Dan Smith, a suburban dad in Austin, Texas, about his wife, Leslie. Across town, Tom Potter is similarly ecstatic about his spouse, Linda. Are she and Leslie married to Stepford husbands? Not quite. The producers of this frothy reality competition have whisked both women off to a luxury resort for a week, leaving their mates to raise the kids alone. To test their mettle, the show saddles Dan (the father of three boys) and Tom (who has three daughters) with some not terribly taxing challenges. One requires them to host a sleepover for their kids and their friends; another has the dads building wooden racers for a Smith vs. Potter soapbox derby; the winners get to take home two maids to clean up the mess left from the sleepover. Each week two new dads compete. Maybe they'll have a tougher time of it. One shudders to think of Dan and Tom on a domestic reality show that's truly traumatic—like Wife Swap. By week's end these wimpy Mister Moms would be on their knees begging for their Missuses to come home.
The Princes of Malibu (FOX, July 31, 8:30 p.m. ET)
On a Vegas spending spree, rich kids Brandon and Brody run into a friend of their step-father's, chanteuse Celine Dion.
Wanted (TNT, July 31, 10 p.m. ET)
Gary Cole (The West Wing's veep) heads up an elite task force in this gritty crime series.
CMA Music Festival: Country Music's Biggest Party (ABC, Aug. 2, 9 p.m. ET)
Y'all are invited to this Nashville concert with 200 stars, including Dierks Bentley, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, Wynonna Judd and Trisha Yearwood.
Hi-Jinks (Nick at Nite, Aug. 2, 9:30 p.m. ET)
Kids get punk'd by their parents in a clever candid-camera show.
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Bravo, Aug. 3, 10 p.m. ET)
A warts-and-all reality series tracks the stand-up comic and her entourage.
Remington Steele: Season One ($39.98)
SERIES:
Fans of Pierce Brosnan's James Bond—and who isn't?—will be both shaken and stirred to see the actor already so suave and endearing in this screwball mystery series (1982-87). The first season's plots now seem flabby, though the chemistry between Brosnan and soigné Stephanie Zimbalist remains potent and the repartee sparkling. In a couple of making-of featurettes, Brosnan recalls his role and the series fondly, but Zimbalist is MIA.
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE'S...NIGEL LYTHGOE Simon Cowell's producer on American Idol, Lythgoe, 56, is now executive producer of FOX's So You Think You Can Dance. He tangos with PEOPLE's Monica Rizzo.
ARE DANCERS MORE COMPETITIVE THAN SINGER?
Yes, they are. Dancers bond very easily. But there's $100,000 at stake here. It's going to get mean.
SPEAKING OF BEING EMOTIONAL, HAS SIMON MELLOWED?
He's changed a little bit. He doesn't like to be as booed as much. He likes the love.
WHAT'S YOUR DANCE BACKGROUND?
I was the only person to dance, choreograph, produce and direct the Royal Variety Performance for the Queen of England. My other claim to fame was that I choreographed the Muppets.
DO YOU TAKE YOUR WIFE DANCING?
My wife [Bonnie] was a dancer, too. I had a heart attack two years ago, so I've got to take it easy. But we used to dance a lot.
- Contributors:
- Mike Lipton,
- Leah Rozen.
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!
