Laurel’s TV Picks

Best Bets

Salma Hayek on a new Ugly Betty (ABC, 7pm)
Roseanne Barr on a new My Name Is Earl (NBC, 7pm)
New The Office (NBC, 7:30pm)
Season premiere of The O.C. (FOX, 8pm)
Alan Tudyk on new CSI (CBS, 8pm)
New Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 8pm; also Friday at 7pm)
Zeljko Ivanek on a new Shark (CBS, 9pm)

News & Notes

Can you tell November sweeps is underway? The guest stars and special episodes should be a big clue.

So I guess I can stop reminding you that Kidnapped now airs on Saturdays– NBC has now pulled the plug on those airings of the show. All thirteen episodes will be made and will wrap up the storyline, but the remaining episodes will air only online and not on NBC Saturdays; Law & Order: Criminal Intent reruns will air on Saturdays at 8pm. I hope maybe they’ll consider airing episodes on Bravo or someplace else as watching things online just isn’t the same and I think they really should’ve done a marathon to catch people up on Kidnapped as they did with Heroes. Oh, well. I really like the show and I’m bummed about this development, but (alas) I’m not in charge.

Word from NBC is that the season premiere of Crossing Jordan is “To Be Determined”. It’s not on the schedule for November and has been pushed back, no date yet known. I’m really not sure what is going on. Jordan (Jill Hennessy) and Woody (Jerry O’Connell) do appear in a new episode of Las Vegas later in November.

Times listed are for the Central timezone, if you’re in another zone, please adjust accordingly.

Primetime Grid

Featured Pick

Season premiere of The O.C. (FOX, 8pm).

I’ve been a fan of The O.C. since the very beginning, though at first like many I thought it was just fun fluff. Later on, the show hit some high points and some lows, but I stuck with it. The cast chemistry has always been great, the characters have been– for the most part– interesting. I love that the teens and the adult characters are all interesting and have good interactions. Love the Cohen family, of course.

Tonight’s season premiere is truly excellent. My, how this show has matured. Needless to say, the end of last season left this show in a dark place. When this season opens, five months have passed since the death in the family and various characters are coping in different ways. Summer is away at Brown; one of her friends there is played by Chris Pratt (who was great as “Bright” on Everwood and is really good in this role as well). In a non-shocking development, Seth is working at a comic book shop. Julie Cooper is not coping so well (another non-shocker). Marissa’s little sister is attending Harbor high. And Ryan . . . well, he’s in a dark place. His family reaches out to him multiple times in this episode. Taylor Townsend and Marissa’s little sister have both been added to the regular roster of characters this season; I’m guessing that the character played by Chris Pratt will recur for a while.

I was impressed by the way this episode was shot, the use of music, and by the acting. I think that while many have enjoyed and admired this show over the years, it’s never really gotten the respect it might deserve simply because it is seen as a light and fluffy teen show, even though anyone who has watched knows that it’s not all hearts and flowers. Sometimes the efforts to be serious or dark haven’t quite worked (and have even proved laughable), but not this time . . . now, I can’t wait to see where this season is headed. It gets off to a very interesting start with stellar performances in a really good episode. And yeah, maybe I totally cried over some of this episode too.

I worry about this show because it faces some steep competition in both Grey’s Anatomy and CSI and also because it got such a late start. I hope that people will tune in tonight; if you gave up on the series at some point over the years, but liked it once upon a time, it’s really worth checking in again. The season premiere is already available online if you can’t wait to watch it on TV. Tonight’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy airs again tomorrow on ABC; episodes of CSI are rebroadcast many times over the course of the season (and end up available on the CBS website this week).

I can’t wait to get done with these picks because I have a couple more episodes of the show to watch and I want to watch them Now– believe it or not, that doesn’t happen to me a whole lot. And as I’ve been pretty depressed of late, it’s been even harder than usual for shows to grab me. So when I say tonight’s episode is good– I really mean it.

The season premiere of The O.C. is available online and airs tonight at 8pm on FOX.

Primetime

NBA action on TNT; the regular season began earlier this week.

Salma Hayek guest stars on Ugly Betty (ABC, 7pm) and not just in the little telenovela within the show– she plays someone who shows up at Mode and gets Daniel’s attention; Hayek is, of course, a producer of this show (and it’s not difficult to imagine her getting anyone’s attention). Debi Mazar also guest stars. I’m enjoying this show quite a bit more than I thought I would and I don’t seem to be alone in that.

Roseanne Barr guest stars on My Name Is Earl (NBC, 7pm) as the manager of the trailer park where Joy lives. Earl tries to cross “Made A Lady Think I Was God” off his list.

Bow Wow guest stars as yet another escapee from the Phantom Zone on Smallville (CW, 7pm).

Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly on The Office (NBC, 7:30pm) wrote tonight’s episode which finds the Dunder Mifflin staff turning out for a local celebration of Diwali in an effort to be supportive of their colleague (Kelly). Ryan also meets Kelly’s parents (played by Kaling’s real life parents). There’s also a work-related drinking game. I’m guessing hijinks ensue all over the place.

The season premiere of The O.C. (FOX, 8pm) is my featured pick today (see above).

Lots of people are envious when Cristina gets to scrub in on an unusual procedure, George works with Addison on an unusual pregnancy case on Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 8pm; also Friday at 7pm). DVR/VCR Alert: Runs 61 minutes (a.k.a. a minute long). Embeth Davidtz guest stars.

A known sex offender is a suspect when two boys go missing on CSI (CBS, 8pm). Alan Tudyk (”Wash” on Firefly) guest stars. I love Tudyk but I’m not sure I’ll love seeing him as a sex offender! (I know, I know, it’s called “acting” and that’s what he does).

Blonde women are being killed in an apartment building on Supernatural (CW, 8pm; also on Sunday at 6pm)– could a ghost of a serial killer be responsible? Knowing this show, I’m guessing the answer is a resounding “yes”. Kim Manners directed this one.

Joan is in Greece on Joan Cusack’s Local Flavor (Travel, 8pm and 11pm).

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Alice Waters on Iconoclasts (Sundance, 8pm and 11pm with lots of additional airings this week).

Debut of a new documentary Hacking Democracy (HBO, 8pm). Runs 90 minutes. It’s about the Diebold electronic voting machines. Oh-oh.

Zeljko Ivanek guest stars (again) on Shark (CBS, 9pm). Hooray! Ivanek played “Danvers” on Homicide and has had memorable guest spots and recurring parts on many TV shows by now; I once saw him as Hamlet in a production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis (Julianne Moore played Ophelia). Anyway. James Woods and his team prosecutes a major fashion corporation after there’s a fire in a sweatshop tied to the company.

Forest Whitaker continues his guest stint on ER (NBC, 8:59pm). I’m guessing maybe Whitaker got the role that Andre Braugher was originally slated to have (but then Braugher took a movie role instead). In case you remember the press release that had Braugher on the show this season for six episodes (he’s not going to be on after all). It would’ve been weird to have Braugher on ER anyway ‘cuz I remember what he once said as Det. Frank Pembleton on Homicide:

Pembleton: “We just don’t get the credit doctors do. We don’t get the attention.”
Bayliss: “All right, just forget I said anything about it, okay?”
Pembleton: “You want glory? Huh? Go work at ER. Homicide’s fine by me.”
  from Homicide: Life on the Street

Shiri Appleby (who was “Liz Parker” on Roswell) continues her guest stint on Six Degrees (ABC, 9:01pm). Have any of you stuck with this show? How is it? I wanted it to be good, but got so very bored with the first episodes that I haven’t kept up.

Late Night

A number of interesting guests tonight on the late night talk shows; check out Sue’s listings.