MONDAY, JULY 7
THE BACHELORETTE
ABC | 8 P.M.
DeAnna Pappas (right), you own ABC tonight. A two-hour finale reveals her choice—hey, good luck with that—then there's a post-rose analysis.
WEEDS
10 P.M. | SHOWTIME
Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker, left) goes on another mission, this time taking along Andy (Justin Kirk). Well, you might as well put a nervous cat in an open car seat.
TUESDAY, JULY 8
30 DAYS
10 P.M. | FX
Season finale: Series creator Morgan Spurlock lives and shares in the tough times on a Native American reservation.
BALDWIN HILLS
10 P.M. | BET
New faces on the returning reality drama about black teens in the L.A. district include sisters Aunjel and Lor'Rena.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9
SCARE TACTICS
10 P.M. | SCI FI
Unsuspecting nitwits are terrified by special-effects pranks. Tracy Morgan (right) slightly more focused than on 30 Rock, hosts.
THURSDAY, JULY 10
BURN NOTICE
10 P.M. | USA
New season for the Miami-set series about a funny, ironic spy (Jeffrey Donovan, right, with Gabrielle Anwar) in big, big trouble.
CBS, July 11, 10 p.m. ET |
NEW SERIES!
DRAMA
A woman is taken hostage at gunpoint in an urban plaza. While her captor shouts at authorities in what sounds like an Eastern European language, an expert marksman high above waits for a signal from his sergeant (Enrico Colantoni) to take him out. Though this is sharply filmed—the buildings loom up like Stonehenge tablets witnessing a potential sacrifice—the show overall doesn't break new ground. We move back and forth between high-stakes drama and the lives of a SWAT team, but in the premiere there's no one as involvingly messy as, say, those Rescue Me guys. Flashpoint does get points for not overdoing the macho bluster. Hugh Dillon, the man on the roof, is like a reedier, friendlier Bruce Willis. As the hostage negotiator, Colantoni, familiar from good performances on Just Shoot Me and Veronica Mars, sometimes seems to be trying to haggle his way out of a parking ticket, but as always he also comes across as completely human. This is unflashily serviceable programming for fans waiting for a new season of The Unit.
ABC, Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET |
REALITY
Absolutely but also inspiredly idiotic, this series takes a group of Americans to Tokyo, where, in the rudest awakening since Godzilla stirred from his nap, they're thrown into an anything-goes Japanese game show, Majide, translated as You Got to Be Crazy! In the premiere, for instance, two contestants in insect costumes hurled themselves against a tilted platform for a challenge identified in an English subtitle as "Big Bugs Splat on Windshield!" The whole thing is trippily garish. I liked the cartoon icons (green monkey, yellow penguin) for competing teams, as well as the way the first week's loser was removed: hoisted on the shoulders of a cheering gang of men in dark suits and carried off. That's a happier, if weirder, way to go than having Jeff Probst snuff out your torch.
Filling in as moderator of NBC's political chat-fest through the November elections, the former anchor, 68, pays homage to his friend Tim Russert, who died of a heart attack June 13.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TAKING TIM'S SEAT? I like to think Tim would say this was the right call at the right time. I've been appearing on Meet the Press since 1973. It feels like family. I hope I can be successful at it and keep the bar as high as he did.
WOULD YOU CONSIDER STAYING FULL-TIME? No. As Tim would say, "Meet the Press is a national treasure, and I'm only the temporary custodian." I have a new life. I've done nine documentaries in the last three years; I've written Boom! [his history of the 1960s]; I also had to cancel a fly-fishing trip to Russia to do this.
ANY THOUGHTS ON WHO SHOULD TAKE OVER THEN? Besides Chris Rock? No, I have some thoughts, but I'm not sharing them publicly.
TIM WAS EXCITED ABOUT THIS ELECTION. ARE YOU? Oh yeah! For me it's reminiscent of 1968. This country's at war, we have an energy crisis, a housing meltdown. And we have an African-American who, as far as the polls say, is the leading candidate for President. This is historic.
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!
