SUNDAY, JULY 22
THE KILL POINT
9 P.M. | SPIKE
A bank heist goes wrong and escalates into a hostage standoff between the gang leader (John Leguizamo) and the police negotiator (Donnie Wahlberg). This six-week series doesn't seem to bring much new to the genre, but the two stars have the requisite grubby intensity.
MONDAY, JULY 23
BIG LOVE
9 P.M. | HBO
Why doesn't Big Love, sharply written and acted throughout with an incisive, humorous bite, generate bigger buzz? Bonnie Bedelia arrives as the mother of polygamist suburban bride Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), and that gray, grizzled rat Bruce Dern returns to bedevil his crazy wife Lois (Grace Zabriskie).
TUESDAY, JULY 24
NEW SERIES
DAMAGES
10 P.M. | FX
For my money, Glenn Close is at her best playing satiric grotesqueries (The Stepford Wives), but in a dramatic role she's never, ever boring: You're guaranteed fireworks and a queenly show of force. In this new series, she's Patty Hewes, a powerful, crafty Manhattan litigator with Diane Sawyer hair and a knack for playing cruel mind games with the attorneys under her. Close blazes through one scene after another, reducing everything to cinders. As the newest member of the firm, Rose Byrne is pale, girlish and not very believable. You wish Close had been given a more formidable costar—maybe Alexis Bledel.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25
THE NEXT BEST THING
8 P.M. | ABC
Results night for the cheerful if not terribly consequential reality show that searches for a celebrity impersonator worth a $100,000 prize. The Robin Williams is pretty good, and so's the Barbra Streisand.
THURSDAY, JULY 26
WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO?
9 P.M. | SCI FI
Season 2 for the winningly geeky reality show. Mortals act out their fantasy superhero characters. Like Hygena, who fights crime and grime.
Welcome to the Parker
Bravo, July 26, 11 p.m. ET
REALITY
The Parker Palm Springs, a deluxe hotel that was once California's first Holiday Inn, opens its shiny orange doors to reality cameras. We watch as the sometimes panicked staff meets the needs of guests, including a strange man who hides under the sheets while requesting buckets of ice for the tub, and a Ping-Pong club whose members do serious, frat-boyish damage to the hotel's best suite. Does the show make you want to stay there? No. But it's light, gracious fun, and worth checking out. Or would that be "in"?
