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Coagulations! HBO Bounces Back with "True Blood"
One thing HBO needs is another "Sopranos," a show that can drive the national conversation and define the network as first among quality-TV equals. "True Blood," which premieres Sunday, isn't that show. Not quite, or at least not yet. But it's a good one, no question about it. Alan Ball, who also created Six Feet Under, returns to HBO with a series that gets more interesting, and original, as it goes on. By episode five (the last one provided for preview), you can really sink your teeth into it. (more)
Friday, Sept. 05, 2008
STAND UP TO CANCER ABC, CBS, NBC, 8 p.m. ET This first-time commercial-free TV fundraiser against cancer, broadcast simultaneously on ABC, CBS and NBC, is designed as an intentionally very mixed bag, like some modern edition of Omnibus, only with pleas for donations. Included in the hour: Katie Couric takes Abigail Breslin on a visit to Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital; Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow perform together; Dana Delany undergoes a mammogram; and Christina Applegate, whose own struggles with cancer were made public this summer, also appears. |
SAMURAI GIRL ABC Family, 8 p.m. ET Because of young viewers not drawn to the cancer fundraiser on the broadcast networks, this three-part ABC Family miniseries, with a strong young female lead, ought to attract quite a sizable audience for this network. Jamie Chung plays a modern young woman who may have ninja warrior ancestry – and have it in her future, too. |
SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON TCM, 8 p.m. ET I admit it. When this movie came out in 1960, I may have fallen in love for the first time – with the castaways’ amazing multi-level treehouse. I don’t know whether, all these years later, this family movie can inspire anywhere near the same level of wonder. But I wonder… |
DOGTOWN National Geographic, 9 p.m. ET This series begins its second season with an extended episode about a quartet of pit bulls, rescued from Michael Vick’s property, rehabilitated at the Best Friends animal sanctuary. |
STAR STORIES BBC America, 9:20 p.m. ET There’s just enough goofy outrageousness in this satirical series, which pretends to offer TV tabloid-type celebrity biographies, to keep me interested – and watching. Tonight’s impersonated subject: Catherine Zeta-Jones. |
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART Comedy Central, 11 p.m. ET In interviews as well as check-the-record clip features, this show has coarsed through the conventions like a guided missile, with more accurate and deadly aim than its “serious” counterparts. Tonight, on this special Friday edition, the two weeks of inspired convention coverage concludes. And don’t forget HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, which starts at the same time. But for tonight, record that, and start with this. |
FLICK PICKS: Politics, Hollywood style With this year's presidential race shaping up fact to be wilder than fiction, perhaps the scripted stuff offers more true insight than reality can. Hollywood political films play Wednesday nights through September on Turner Classic Movies, starting with such on-screen campaigns as 1958's "The Last Hurrah" with Spencer Tracy and 1972's "The Candidate" with Robert Redford -- a savvy double feature this Wednesday . . . (more) FLICK PICKS: Cinerama lives! (Sort of)
WEIRD & WILD: 'True Blood' vampires ooze onto the web
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FOR BETTER OR WERTS
"How the West Was Won" debuts on Encore Westerns Saturday at 8 p.m. after a six-year frame by frame restoration of the original three-strip Cinerama print of the 1962 epic. John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Gregory Peck and Debbie Reynolds head an all-star cast, directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall, in a sprawling three-part saga chronicling four generations of a 19th century pioneer family. The film won Oscars for best writing, editing and sound, and earned five other nominations, including best picture. But an even bigger draw back in 1962 was the surround-screen Cinerama process, which . . . 
"True Blood" is so much fun on the internet, who cares if it ever premieres on TV? OK, I'm getting carried away there. HBO's new Grand Guignol vampire drama/comedy/character study is pretty tasty in hour episodic form, too, which viewers can see next week when the juicy action debuts Sunday, Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. Hot sex, blood-drinking, meaty romance -- what's not to love? But why wait? HBO's viral promo campaign is already online. While not as lurid as the series itself . . . 
NEW and RECOMMENDED 
Lionsgate's first-season DVD set of Mad Men, AMC's first, fabulous weekly drama series, is out now -- and if there's one thing that will make this long, hot summer of TV doldrums more tolerable, this is it... Mad Men is set at a Madison Avenue advertising agency in 1960 -- when men were chauvinists, women wore bullet bras, and everyone smoked like the chimney tops in Mary Poppins. Three-martini lunches were common. So were office affairs, ambitious jockeying for position, and secrets. Lots of secrets. Matthew Weiner, a talented writer on The Sopranos, created this series, and started out by getting the cast and look exactly right. Jon Hamm stars as Don Draper, a dashing ad exec with a beautiful blonde wife (January Jones as Betty), more than one woman in his peripheral orbit, and some deep, dark secrets in his distant past... CLASSICS TO CONSIDER 
How perverse WERE the 1950s? Get a load of these kiddie shows. Hosts whose attitudes would probably get them run through criminal databases today. Shrieking studio audiences of tots clearly mainlining sugar
before the show. Unbridled, unapologetic product shillery. The
innocent days? They're now, people! These folks were sick. |
