Laurel’s TV Picks

Best Bets

NBA Finals Game 2 (ABC, coverage starts at 7pm; gametime is 8pm)
When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (Discovery Channel, 8pm – 10pm, midnight – 2am)
New Law & Order: Criminal Intent (USA, 8pm and 11pm)
New In Plain Sight (USA, 9pm and midnight)
Season premiere of Army Wives (Lifetime, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm, midnight; also Monday at 7pm)
Season finale of This American Life (Showtime, 9pm and 12:30am)

Recommended Reruns

Everybody Hates Chris (CW, 7pm)
The Unit (CBS, 9pm)

Primetime Grid

Primetime

New episode of Code Monkeys (G4, 6pm).

Dust explosions in U.S. factories, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute probes life’s medical mysteries, Joel Osteen on 60 Minutes (CBS, 6pm).

Baseball Tonight (ESPN, 6pm).

The first two episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati (WGN, 7pm, 7:30pm).

Sunday Night Baseball: Cubs at Dodgers (ESPN, 7pm).

Turner Classic Movies features movies directed by Nathan Juran: 20 Million Miles to Earth (TCM, 7pm, letterboxed) and Fire Men in the Moon (TCM, 8:30pm, letterboxed).

Michelle Trachtenberg (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) stars in the new ABC Family movie The Circuit (ABC Family, 7pm and 9pm; also next Saturday at 4pm). The movie is about an estranged father and daughter who both compete on the stock car race circuit. Billy Campbell and Drew Fuller also star.

Rosie O’Donnell and Tony Hawk are the celebrities on a new Million Dollar Password (CBS, 7pm). Regis Philbin hosts.

Chefs create unique Luau menus as part of another Food Network Challenge (Food Network, 7pm and 2am).

Families compete for rooms of new furniture for their homes in the series premiere of Your Place or Mine? (TLC, 7pm and 10pm). Soap star Cameron Mathison hosts. The press release says: “With a unique format combining trivia and friendly competition with home decorating, viewers get to play along while obtaining great tips and ideas for redecorating their homes.”

Carter Oosterhouse reveals the winner of the green home in Hilton Head, S.C. on HGTV Green Home Giveaway 2008 (HGTV, 7pm and 11pm).

Chris goes to work at a Chinese restaurant in the “Everybody Hates Minimum Wage” episode of Everybody Hates Chris (CW, 7pm).

Julius: You just can’t quit every time you don’t like something. What if Miles Davis quit the trumpet?
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. What if George Washington Carver quit the peanut? What if B.B. King quit Lucille? What if Paul Robeson quit “Ol’ Man River?” What if Bill Cosby quit Jell-O? What if Mr. T quit “pityin’ the fool?” What if Stevie quit Wonderin’? What if Fat Albert quit the Cosby Kids? What if Ashford quit Simpson? What if Michael Jackson quit doin’ the moonwalk? What if Diana Ross quit the Supremes?
Julius: Diana Ross did quit the Supremes.
Chris: You get my point.
  from Everybody Hates Chris

The first ever episode of Newhart (WGN, 7pm) followed by another episode from the first season (WGN, 7:30pm).

Justin’s Mom wants him to audition for a community theater production of Rent in this rerun of Aliens in America (CW, 7:30pm).

Someone is looking for a house on a lake in Minnesota on a new House Hunters (HGTV, 7:30pm and 11:30pm). I grew up in a house on a lake in Minnesota– well, not literally on the lake, but you know what I mean.

Gary Sinise narrates When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (Discovery Channel, 8pm – 10pm, midnight – 2am). This new HD series has “transferred original mission footage from NASA’s own secret film vaults to high definition for the first time, to tell the stories in a depth never seen before.” Excellent! For more details, check out the website about the series

Law & Order: Criminal Intent (USA, 8pm and 11pm; also Wednesday at 10pm) finally returns with a new episode after taking a break because of the WGA strike. Dean Winters (of 30 Rock, Rescue Me, Oz) guest stars as a former police detective (and it seems to be a different detective than the one he played during the first season of Law & Order: SVU). Just in case you forgot– when we last had new episodes of this show, Goren had been suspended after going undercover in a prison. In this episode, we catch up with Goren after he’s been on suspension for five months or so. Eames is joined for a new case by a detective played by Seth Gilliam (who was “Carver” on The Wire and “Clayton Hughes” on Oz); he’s played this same detective in a couple of previous episodes.

Chef Marcus Samuelsson (of Aquavit) makes his first appearance on Iron Chef America (Food Network, 8pm and 11pm). Will be facing off against Iron Chef Bobby Flay. Alton Brown hosts.

Season premiere of Design Star (HGTV, 8pm and midnight; also Monday at 10pm and 2am). The contestants are revealed and receive their first challenge.

A cold-case detective in Buffalo is on a quest for justice and freedom of those wrongly accused on Dateline NBC (NBC, 8pm – 10pm).

A cobra attack, fisherman catch a spinner shark, a black bear climbs a power pole on a new Untamed and Uncut (Animal Planet, 8pm, 11pm, 3am; also Tuesday at 8pm, 11pm, 3am).

“Truckers venture 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the most isolated and dangerous ice roads in North America to deliver vital supplies to natural gas and mineral exploration site” on a new Ice Road Truckers (History Channel, 8pm, 10pm, midnight, 2am).

Bloods and Crips: L.A. Gangs (National Geographic, 8pm and 11pm).

A soon-to-be mother-in-law shows up at a wedding and I’m guessing that’s not a good thing on Bridezillas (We, 8pm and 10pm).

U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon (played by the fabulous Mary McCormack) is charged with helping a kid enter the witness protection program in this new episode of In Plain Sight (USA, 9pm and midnight). The kid ends up placed with a family who is already in the program, but things get complicated when his Dad gets out of prison and wants custody. I’ve seen this episode and I liked it because we got to see a softer side of Mary; the guest performances are also good. I thought I knew where this episode was going from the first scenes and then was surprised– that’s always a plus. Not a great episode, but better than the pilot– this show did grow on me after I saw this episode and a couple more so I give it a mild “well it’s summer and there’s not much on” recommendation so far.

The wives struggle to put their lives back together after the bombing at the bar in the season premiere of Army Wives (Lifetime, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm, midnight; also Monday at 7pm).

Too Ugly to Love (BBC America, 9pm, midnight, 3am) is a special that looks at body dysmorphic disorder.

Special hour-long season finale of This American Life (Showtime, 9pm and 12:30am). It’s about several people who share the name “John Smith”.

This week’s challenge has the chefs racing to prepare brunch on a moving train on a new The Next Food Network Star (Food Network, 9pm and midnight).

Season finale of Ax Men (History Channel, 9pm and 1am; also Thursday at 10pm).

New episode of Property Virgins (HGTV, 9pm and 1am).

“A mother sets out to prove her daughter’s death was not an accident” on the season finale of Captured (Oxygen, 9pm, 10pm, 1am).

A classic Hollywood, 1940s-designed, black tie wedding at the historic Bentley Reserve in San Francisco on Platinum Weddings (We, 9pm, 11pm, 2am).

Denise weighs the pros and cons of modeling nude, Irv gets a Hollywood makeover on Denise Richards: It’s Complicated (E!, 9pm and 11pm).

Bullets Over Boston: The Irish Mob (National Geographic, 9pm and midnight).

Jon Hamm (of Mad Men), Ricky Jay, Lindsay Frost, and Rebecca Pidgeon guest star on The Unit (CBS, 9pm).

An engaged couple have six weeks to find and close on their first house on My First Place (HGTV, 9:30pm and 1:30am).

Ali becomes the target of harassment by her schoolmates on Living Lohan (E!, 9:30pm and 11:30pm).