MONDAY, SEPT 15
EXTRA
CHECK LISTINGS | SYNDICATED
The season launches with a new host, PEOPLE Sexy Bachelor Mario Lopez. He'll be wearing a shirt.
THE CLOSER
9 P.M. | TNT
Deputy Chief Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) needs to track down a bomb before it kills hundreds. Season finale.
WEEDS
10 P.M. | SHOWTIME
In the finale of a season full of enjoyably peculiar developments, Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker, right) spends some quality time with drug-enforcement agents.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 16
THE BIGGEST LOSER
8 P.M. | NBC
Alison Sweeney (left) hosts a new season of the dieting reality show, this time with eight family teams competing for the $250,000 prize.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 18
IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA
10 P.M. | FX
The sitcom returns with a surprisingly funny episode on the theme of cannibalism.
BURN NOTICE
10 P.M. | USA
Ex-agent Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) tries to rescue a woman he's hired to kill, but the hit's double-booked. Season finale.
SUPERNATURAL
9 P.M. | CW
As a new season begins, Dean (Jensen Ackles, left) finds himself freed from hell—don't you wish that for yourself on any given day?—but doesn't know why.
NEW SERIES!
CW, Tuesdays, 8 p.m. ET
DRAMA
The CW has gone and given Beverly Hills, 90210 the Gossip Girl treatment. The resulting premiere teemed with so many scheming, fashion-forward characters it could have been Vanity Fair with bleached teeth. The show preserves the original's conceit of midwestern siblings dropped into the shallow decadence of a high school in Beverly Hills, but it's unlikely this 2008 cast will be as potent an ensemble as the stars of the '90s version: Jason Priestley, Luke Perry, Shannen Doherty, on and on. It's not promising that a high point in 90210's debut was the arrival of Doherty herself, reprising her role of a now-adult Brenda Walsh. Maybe the new kids just need time to gel.
Shenae Grimes, as good-girl Annie Wilson, is adorable, winsome and, after a while, annoying. AnnaLynne McCord is the standout as bad-girl Naomi Clark: She's striking physically—somewhere between Charlize Theron and Courtney Love—and alternates between violent bouts of spite and self-pity. She's fun.
FOX, Sept. 16, 8 p.m. ET
DRAMA
House returns with a typically puzzling case involving a struggling career woman who suffers a psychotic break during her boss's big presentation. Her symptoms play hide-and-seek and all but stick out a tongue to blow a raspberry at House's new team. But a good deal more is going on for the grumbling wreck that is House (Emmy-nominated Hugh Laurie): Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) wants to leave. He's grieving for his lover, Amber, whose death last season was inadvertently caused by House. House is saddled with a potential sense of loss and guilt too, but it's mostly for his colleague, not poor Amber.
House has a heart, we know by now, but it beats in its own perverse way.
Fine Living Network, Sept. 16, 9 p.m. ET
COMEDY
Huh, Martha? Home-entertainment empress Martha Stewart has handed over footage from her syndicated shows to daughter Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt (they also cohost a radio show). Alexis and Jennifer view clips and make cute-snide jokes about Big M's demeanor and projects. Given Stewart's air of gracious humorlessness, this is like the Nixon girls sharing memories of the President on America's Funniest Home Videos. And yet the clips actually impress as showcases for her fussy ingenuity. Weird but watchable.
• TV critic Tom Gliatto picks his favorites for the awards show, Sept. 21 on ABC.
ACTOR, COMEDY ALEC BALDWIN 30 ROCK
As a corporate titan, he makes light comedy out of brute strength.
ACTRESS, COMEDY CHRISTINA APPLEGATE SAMANTHA WHO?
A charming, gently dizzy performance in a charming, gently dizzy sitcom.
ACTOR, DRAMA Jon Hamm, Mad Men
The show is often pallid and studied, but he gives fresh life to the cliché of the hollow adman.
ACTRESS, DRAMA GLENN CLOSE DAMAGES
Fantastically entertaining as an attorney so mean, she ordered a hit on a dog.
DRAMA DAMAGES
This dense legal thriller will probably lose to Mad Men, but no other show last year generated so much melodramatic excitement.
COMEDY THE OFFICE
I vote for this for one reason: Amy Ryan's arrival as a human resources rep with a crush on a certain awful manager. She's perfect.
NEW CATEGORY!
REALITY HOST TOM BERGERON DANCING WITH THE STARS
It says something about the staying power of reality TV that this new award is the year's hot face-off. Can anyone beat American Idol's Ryan Seacrest? This guy—affable and unflappable—ought to waltz away with it. For more on Bergeron, see page 93.
• The star, 43, is on a winning streak in season 5 of the HBO comedy. At home the married star has a 2-year-old daughter, Ava.
YOU'RE UP FOR YOUR SECOND EMMY. HOW WILL YOU CELEBRATE A WIN?
Have a couple of bevvies and have a good time. Whether I win is out of my hands, but the nomination is great.
THINGS FINALLY GO WELL FOR DRAMA THIS SEASON.
Yeah, he's making money. So there's more respect.
BY NOW YOU MUST HAVE YOUR OWN ENTOURAGE.
Not happening. I've got my group of friends, but if I call them my entourage ... I'd get in trouble.
ANY DRAMA IN YOUR OWN LIFE?
Everything is great right now. I'm a lucky guy in terms of my family. And the golf game is good. I'm hitting the golf great.
The 38-year-old actor, Penn Badgley's father on the CW hit, will be a real dad in March: He and his wife, actress Naama Nativ, are expecting their first child.
CONGRATS!
It's the best thing that's happened to me. We've been getting ultrasounds: It's starting to wave. I sing Sinatra to the baby and Naama can feel it move.
HOW DID THE CAST REACT?
The kids were thrilled because they are going to be aunts and uncles. I won't have a shortage of babysitters.
WHAT IS IT LIKE BEING A SEXY TV DAD?
It's embarrassing at times. There are girls that come up and say, "You're hot" in front of my wife. She's like: Thank you, I think!
• Wisteria Lane gets a makeover (new man for Susan!) and a makeunder (Gaby goes from sexpot to crockpot) in a daring plot renovation.
SEASON PREVIEW
Last May's crazy finale was no dream: The show really will move forward five years when Housewives returns to ABC Sept. 28. "We wanted to refresh the show," says executive producer Sabrina Wind. This'll do it! A sneak peek at what's changed:
SUSAN'S HUBBY NO. 3
"Mike and Susan have split up," says James Denton about Teri Hatcher kissing a new man (Gale Harold) in the finale. "It's going to be interesting."
BREE INC.
Bree (Marcia Cross) cashes in on her Stepford perfection, turning her garage into a place-setting empire.
THE SCAVOS GROW UP
The twins become teens and go from juvenile antics to juvenile hall.
FRUMP IS THE NEW BLACK
Eva Longoria's Gaby gains 10 lbs.—and two kids.
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!
