Laurel’s TV Picks

Best Bets

New episodes of Some Assembly Required (Discovery, 7pm and 11pm, 7:30pm and 11:30pm)
New Modern Marvels (History Channel, 8pm and midnight)
New The Works (History Channel, 9pm and 1am)
New Ace of Cakes (Food Network, 9pm and midnight)
Sen. Evan Bayh on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central, 10pm and midnight)
Rick Brookhiser on The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 10:30pm and 12:30am)
Amy Sedaris, Aaron Peirsol, Lykke Li on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (NBC, 11:37pm)

News & Notes

I’m still working on getting the time switcher gizmo back in operation. The timezone switcher is back in operation, is located in the right-hand sidebar on the website. By default times listed here are for the Central timezone.

I’m not sure how it happened, but for a while yesterday when you tried going to pages on this site, you’d always see the content from the front page, even if you were trying to look at the grids page or contests page or any of the other pages. Freaky, eh? Technical details: I’m guessing it was a mod_rewrite/Wordpress issue. Not sure how long the site was like that, could’ve been for a while late in the afternoon too. Eek! The problem is fixed now.

I’m still behind on emails as well as updates to other parts of this site; I appreciate your patience as I try to catch up after having a rather eventful summer– I wish I were talking about fun events!

Daytime

U.S. Open coverage continues on USA.

Charlton Heston is the featured star on TCM, movies that air during the daytime include: The Greatest Story Ever Told (TCM, 11:30am, letterboxed) and Ben-Hur (TCM, 3pm, letterboxed).

Primetime Grid

Primetime

Charlton Heston is the featured star all day and night today on Turner Classic Movies. You can read more about him and the featured films on the TCM website, you can also see the full schedule there. Movies that air tonight: The Big Country (TCM, 7pm, letterboxed), Major Dundee (TCM, 10pm, letterboxed), Soylent Green (TCM, 12:30am, letterboxed), and The Hawaiians (TCM, 2:30am).

CSPAN, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and other stations air coverage of the Democratic National Convention starting tonight. CSPAN starts their coverage at 4pm, CNN starts coverage at 5pm, MSNBC begins their coverage at 6pm, and PBS coverage starts at 7pm. ABC, CBS, and NBC have coverage at 9pm. There’s coverage all over the place.

Tennis: U.S. Open (USA, 6pm) coverage continues with the second rounds of men’s and women’s competition.

Four more episodes of Jeremiah (Sci-Fi, 5:59pm – 10pm).

Special Thursday edition of NBC’s Sunday Night Football; it’s a pre-season game between Washington and Jacksonville. Start time of 6pm.

College Football: North Carolina State at South Carolina (ESPN, 7pm).

Baseball: Phillies at Cubs (WGN, 7pm).

Two new episodes of Some Assembly Required (Discovery, 7pm and 11pm, 7:30pm and 11:30pm). Brian Unger hosts. The first episode covers tennis balls, Old Town kayaks, and silly putty; the second episode covers state-of-the-art compound bows and Ludwig drums. Find out how these things are made on this show.

Rerun of the “Peachy Keen” episode of Good Eats (Food Network, 7pm and 2am).

Today marks the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The special The Dream Speech: 45 Years Later (BET, 7:30pm; also Sunday at 11:30am) looks at it and how Sen. Barack Obama is seeking the Democratic nomination 45 years after the famous speech.

Modern Marvels (History Channel, 8pm and midnight) travels some of the world’s most dangerous roads in this new episode.

Two new episodes of Blog Cabin (DIY, 8pm and midnight, 8:30pm and 12:30am). First episode is focused on creating a “state of the art Arts and Crafts kitchen” and the second is all about the media room (a.k.a. “man cave”).

One of my favorite action movies of the ’80s: Big Trouble in Little China (FOX Movie Channel, 8pm, 12:15am). Should be letterboxed and uncut, I think. Kurt Russell stars. It’s such a fun movie.

New episode of Destroyed in Seconds (Discovery, 8pm and midnight). A train crash, a stealth bomber crashes near a picnic, NASA crashes a jet via remote control to study accident prevention.

College Football: Oregon State at Stanford (ESPN2, 8pm).

Sadly there is no Burn Notice on USA tonight because of their coverage of the U.S. Open. The next new episode of the show doesn’t debut ’til Thursday, September 11th.

Flashpoint is also not on tonight and it also doesn’t return ’til September 11th. It’s off the schedule to make room for coverage of the conventions, though honestly I don’t see why they couldn’t air it at an earlier hour instead of reruns of CSI ’cause we get enough of those.

Miss the new episode of Mythbusters last night? Lucky for you, it airs again tonight (Discovery, 9pm and 1am).

A wedding cake modeled after the Stanley Cup, a dirt bike cake for a bar mitzvah, and an island themed cake are constructed on a new Ace of Cakes (Food Network, 9pm and midnight).

The history and science of motorcycles, including a look at the latest technology on a new episode of The Works (History Channel, 9pm and 1am).

New episode of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover (Bravo, 9pm, 10pm, midnight, 2am). Tabatha Coffey helps clean up a spa & salon.

Guest judges for a new episode of The Gong Show with Dave Attell (Comedy Central, 9pm) include Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Adam Carolla, and Kate Walsh (of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice).

A visit to Cape Cod on a new episode of Samantha Brown: Passport to Great Weekends (Travel Channel, 9pm and 1am).

Two new episodes of Jacked: Auto Theft Task Force (A&E, 9pm and 1am, 9:30pm and 1:30am).

New episode of Live From Abbey Road (Sundance, 9pm; also on Friday at 8pm and 1am). I’m not sure who the musicians are this time around.

A family has a hard time finding a single-story home in Phoenix on a new House Hunters (HGTV, 9pm and 1am).

Tonight’s new episode of Reality Bites Back (Comedy Central, 9:30pm) is titled “The Amazing Disgrace”.

Late Night

It’s possible that coverage of the Democratic National Convention will run a little long on the networks and push the local news and some late night talk shows a little late.

Sen. Evan Bayh on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central, 10pm and midnight).

Debut of the second episode of The Cho Show (VH1, 10pm and 11:30pm; with lots of additional airings). Margaret Cho holds her own kind of mother-daughter beauty pageant. If you’re a Cho fan and somehow missed the first episode, it airs again tonight on LOGO at 7:30pm and is also available on the official website for the show. The website is, obviously, the place to go for more info on the show. If you’re a fan of Margaret Cho, you probably already know about her blog. Her comedy and show are definitely for mature audiences and not for everyone, but her fans are happy to have her on TV again.

The blueberry episode of Good Eats (Food Network, 10pm and 1am).

Rerun of the season finale of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (USA, 10pm). If you somehow missed this on Sunday night and are a fan of the show who enjoys the more personal cases for Det. Goren, you really must watch this. Had more “OMG!” moments for me than most shows this year.

Rick Brookhiser on The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 10:30pm and 12:30am).

Brad Garrett, Blake Lively (of Gossip Girl), Randy Houser on The Late Show with David Letterman (CBS, 10:35pm).

Gordon Ramsay, Natalie Coughlin, Missy Higgins on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (NBC, 10:35pm).

Amy Sedaris, Aaron Peirsol, Lykke Li on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (NBC, 11:37pm).

Stockard Channing, Bill Engvall on a rerun of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, 11:37pm).

Kristin Chenoweth (of Pushing Daisies), Staind on Jimmy Kimmel (ABC, check your local listings).

Dov Davidoff, Jack McBrayer, George Stanford on a rerun of Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC, check your local listings).

Rerun of the latest episode of Burn Notice (USA, midnight). It’s the one where Michael helps with the theft of some rare drugs from a boat . . . or at least pretends to.