Laurel’s TV Picks

Best Bets

Lots of marathons & sports (see below)
New Everybody Hates Chris (CW, 7pm)
New Christmas episode of Monk (USA, 8pm and 11pm)
New Christmas episode of Psych (USA, 9pm and midnight)
Kristin Chenoweth, Diedrich Bader on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, 11:37pm)

News & Notes

The Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog DVD is now available for pre-order from Amazon.

DVD Deals

No need to rush around to stores today to find good deals, there are some great deals available online. Amazon has some great TV DVD deals including seasons of Gilmore Girls and The Simpsons for $15 and Weeds and Sex and the City for $9. And there’s another sale with even more deals including seasons of House, Psych, 30 Rock, Monk, and The Office for just $14 and much more. There are some great early bird deals available this morning too.

Other TV DVD deals I spotted at Amazon today:
Seasons of 24 for $20 each.
Band of Brothers on Blu-Ray for $55.
The Complete Black Books for $27.
Crusade – The Complete Series for just $13.
Everwood – The Complete First Season for $12.
Extras – The Complete Series for $27.
Fawlty Towers – The Complete Series for $32.
Firefly – The Complete Series is on sale for just $20.
Friends – The Complete Series Collection for $115.
The incredible Get Smart – The Complete Series Gift Set for just $110!
Gilligan’s Island – The Complete Series Collection for $34.
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law season sets for $8-12.
Kung Fu – The Complete Series Collection for just $35.
Little Britain single season sets for just $15 each.
Looney Tunes Golden Collection Sets are $26 each.
Mad Men – Season One for $27.
Seasons of Magnum, P.I. for around $21 each.
The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus 16-Ton Megaset for $54.
Sex and the City – The Complete Series (Collector’s Giftset) for $100.
Season sets of The Shield are going for $16 each.
Most seasons of Smallville on DVD for $15.
Two and a Half Men sets for $15 each.
The three seasons of The Unit for $20 – $26.
Venture Brothers seasons for $13 each.
The West Wing – The Complete Series Collection for just $75!
Or if you just need a set or two to complete your collection, Amazon has single seasons of The West Wing for $18 each.
Seasons of Without A Trace for just $12 each.

There’s still time to pre-order The Wire: The Complete Series for about $137.

Of course there are deals on lots of things other than TV DVD sets– tons of stuff at Amazon and at other online retailers.

As always, if you shop at Amazon via the links I post on any of my websites, a little bit of the money you spend comes my way. There’s an Amazon search box in the sidebar here at TVPicks.net so you can start any shopping trip to Amazon via one of my links. (You can also click any of these links and go shopping there and I get a cut of any purchases you buy at Amazon, not just the things I link to.) Thanks to everyone who shops in this way– it’s really my only source of income these days (other than your donations) so every little bit helps. There are other affiliate links in the sidebar at TVPicks.net for starting shopping trips to eBay, Lush, eBags, Zappos, the Apple Store, iTunes, and so on which work the same way (more or less).

Daytime

It looks like The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives air today, but most other soaps aren’t on due to special holiday weekend programming.

There’s college basketball on ESPN and ESPN2 today.

College Football: West Virginia at Pittsburgh (ABC, 11am).

College Football: LSU at Arkansas (CBS, 1:30pm).

Yet another airing of A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! (Comedy Central, 2pm).

College Football: Colorado at Nebraska (ABC, 2:30pm).

College Football: Bowling Green at Toledo (ESPN Classic, 2:30pm).

College Football: Fresno State at Boise State (ESPN2, 5pm).

Marathons

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Travel Channel, 8am – 7pm).

The Bernie Mac Show (FX, 8am – 5pm).

The Beverly Hillbillies (TV Land, 9am – 2pm).

Cities of the Underworld (History Channel, 7am – 7pm).

The Cool Tools marathon continues on DIY.

CSI: Miami (A&E, 7am – 2am).

Deadliest Catch (Discovery, 8am – 2am).

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (Food Network, 1pm – 9pm).

Dog Whisperer (National Geographic, 1pm – 2am).

Hannah Montana (Disney, 3pm – 7pm).

Johnny Test (Cartoon Network, 7:30am – 10pm).

Life of Ryan (MTV2, 8am – 4pm).

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC America, 10am – 4pm).

Mork & Mindy (Sci-Fi, 7:30am Friday – 5am Saturday).

One on One (BET, 8am – 3pm).

FOX Movie Channel is still airing Planet of the Apes movies today.

SpongeBob SquarePants (Nick, 7:30am – 5pm).

The Starter Wife (USA, 6am – 2pm).

Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood (Oxygen, 10am – 7pm).

Trauma: Life in the ER (Discovery Health Channel, 11am – 3am).

True Life (MTV, Noon – 9pm).

Untamed and Uncut (Animal Planet, 8am – 5pm).

What Not To Wear (TLC, 7am – 2am).

Wizards of Waverly Place (Disney Channel, 11am – 3pm).

Primetime Grid

Primetime

As usual, there are good movies today on Turner Classic Movies. Uncut, without commercial interruption, sometimes letterboxed.

Julius starts watching The Oprah Winfrey Show as a way to get closer to Rochelle, but of course his plan backfires on a new Everybody Hates Chris (CW, 7pm). And Chris volunteers for the “Big Brothers” program.

NBA: Heat at Suns (ESPN, 7pm).

Elvis Mitchell talks to Richard Gere on Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence (TCM, 7pm and 10pm).

A cluttered den is cleaned up and decorated for the holidays on a new Myles of Style (HGTV, 7:30pm and 11:30pm).

Three homeless men want Monk’s help when a friend of theirs dies in this special new Christmas episode of Monk (USA, 8pm and 11pm; also on Saturday at 12:30pm and 11pm). Meanwhile Captain Stottlemeyer is in a whole lot of pain– it’s so bad he actually tries the water at a fountain which people claim has healing powers. I’ve had a chance to screen this episode and I found it merely okay; I found Monk’s being freaked out by the homeless men to be tedious and the plot line with Stottlemeyer to be a bit far-fetched. Still . . . it’s a new episode of Monk and there are some fun bits in it. Just not one of their finer outings. Monk returns with more new episodes on January 9th.

A new special which features 25 Great Holiday Ideas (HGTV, 8pm and midnight).

Starz airs a marathon of Crash starting at 8pm. In case you want to catch up with this show.

Brian Wilson, Martha Wainwright, & Teddy Thompson on Live from Abbey Road (Sundance, 8pm and 1am).

College Football: UCLA at Arizona State (ESPN2, 8:30pm).

Gus and Shawn help a girl get a Santa out of jail, but things (of course) aren’t quite what they seem in this special new Christmas episode of Psych (USA, 9pm and midnight; also on Saturday at 11:30am and 10pm). And then there’s some personal drama as Gus’ sister visits his family for the holidays and she’s got some history with Shawn that Gus is unaware of. Phylicia Rashad returns as Mrs. Guster, but Mr. Guster is not played by Ernie Hudson this time, instead he’s played by Keith David. This was a fun episode with some nice moments with both the Spencers and Gusters. This show also returns with new episodes on January 9th.

Guy Fieri and his family throw a party in the new special Guy’s Family Feast (Food Network, 9pm and midnight; also on Saturday at 1pm and Sunday at 5pm).

A look at “straining relationships between foreign-born adopted children and their new American families” on a new 20/20 (ABC, 9pm).

Two new episodes of Say Yes to the Dress (TLC, 9pm and 11pm, 9:30pm and 11:30pm).

The very first episode of NewsRadio (WGN, 9:30pm).

Late Night

Tom Arnold, Faith Hill on The Late Show with David Letterman (CBS, 10:35pm).

Sen. John McCain, Kaiser Chiefs on a rerun of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (NBC, 10:35pm).

Megan Mullally, Brittany Snow, Detroit Octane on a rerun of Late Night with Conan O’Brien (NBC, 11:37pm).

Kristin Chenoweth, Diedrich Bader on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, 11:37pm).

Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Ben Folds on a rerun of Jimmy Kimmel (ABC, check your local listings).