June 29, 2007

What to Watch: Coming Up on Cable

The hottest guy on CNN? Larry King, who's not resting on his 3.2 million Hilton check-ins.

Tube Stake: Programming Reviews by Seth Arenstein

HILTON POINTS: Can Larry King keep the ratings momentum going?

• FRIDAY, JUNE 29

The Best Years, series premiere, 8:30pm, The N.

Teen network The N goes to college after years of high school dramas like Degrassi and the more recent South of Nowhere. In fact, Degrassi writer Aaron Martin is the creator of this new drama that centers on the streetwise, parentless Ivy League freshman Samantha Best, played by Charity Shea, one of countless actresses who’ve had small roles on Entourage as one of Vince Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) love interests.

The pilot sets up the series in typical The N fashion. Besides Samantha, we have the usual crowd: the nerdy Asian girl, the spoiled rich girl and the not-too-good-looking guy who worships her. Then there’s the teen actress who’s lived the fast life since she was 14. The blonde lass uses her wits and considerable charm to talk her way into a nightclub that (hold on) serves alcohol. The temptations—liquor, drugs, sex etc.—that didn’t seem quite right for the kids at Degrassi High are front and center for the college students at fictional Charles U in Massachusetts. 

But back to our heroine — it’s day one at college and Samantha’s in the restroom when she’s surprised by A hunky male. It’s BMOC Devon Sylver (Brandon Jay McLaren), a basketball star who strolls in wearing only a towel. Once Devon explains to Samantha what passes for the facts of life (that the dorms and restrooms are co-ed), he coos, just inches from her face: “We’re grown ups. We can do anything we want.” Will Devon and Samantha get together? Ya think?

It takes only one night of drinking for the alcohol to hit the fan and things get very serious fast for Samantha and her entourage. Today’s lesson: underage drinking can lead to trouble. 

[Note: A new episode of Degrassi premieres tonight at 8pm, right before the start of The Best Years.]

• SATURDAY, JUNE 30

The Sopranos, the final 9 episodes, 9pm, HBO 2.

A Saturday night special for nine weeks. Try as we might, we just can’t fuhgedaboudit — or stop believin'.

• SUNDAY, JULY 1

Hometown Gospel: Atlanta, 4pm ET, Gospel Music Channel.

As if we needed additional proof that Atlanta, with its rich tradition, is a gospel music town, WTJH’s gospel radio host Reggie Gay tells us early in this special that the father of gospel music, Thomas A. “Tommy” Dorsey, was born in Villa Rica, near Atlanta, in 1899, the son of a Baptist minister. His blues influence came from listening to and working with the mother of the blues, Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey (1882-1939), who was immortalized in the August Wilson play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982). When Dorsey moved out of the blues clubs and began working in churches around 1930, he took blues, mixed it with spirituals and developed the roots of what’s known as gospel music.

While there’s not too much more in this special about gospel’s historic roots in Atlanta, it provides a good look at the contemporary gospel music scene in the city. True to Gospel Music Channel’s eclectic approach to gospel music, this special cuts a wide swath across gospel, from traditional artists like Dorothy Norwood to Mark Hall and the Casting Crows and even the mélange of punk, rock, hip hop and Christian sentiment known as crunk, as practiced by Family Force 5.  

• MONDAY, JULY 2

Camouflage, 7pm, GSN.

GSN continues its search for a new game show that will hook young viewers the way Match Game reruns feed the nostalgia fix for the 30 and over set. Its attempts over the years have been either too difficult, like Lingo, or not worth the effort, like the ill-fated Danny Bonaduce vehicle Starface. GSN may have found something with Camouflage, which is challenging, but not impossible. More than that, it might be addicting.

Camouflage isn’t brand new in the sense that it’s a clever inverse variation on Wheel of Fortune, sans the Wheel and Vanna. There are also elements of Match Game and Jeopardy! in Camouflage. Three contestants are given a clue like “way through Egypt,” and a word, like “convertible,” or sometimes a jumble of letters, and are given a few seconds to solve the puzzle. Once the clock begins letters that aren’t part of the answer drop away as point  totals decrease. The answer to this one: “Nile.” The next clue: “Where Lindsay Lohan hears cut,” and the word is “Lindsaylohan.” The answer here was “salon.”

Round 2 features 2-word answers and double points. The clue is “dunce at the door” and the words are “Idiomring, Doorclang.” The answer, which a contestant provided in 10 seconds, was “ding dong.” Round 3 challenges with 3-word puzzles and 3-word answers. The clue: “he has to stretch to reach the deep fryer?” and the word jumble is “sixhourstoeat, souredbeer, onchoppedpork.” The answer, given in an amazing 4 seconds:  “short-order cook.”

Host Roger Lodge continues to mine his trademark sarcastic personality that he’s honed to an art on the sometimes hilarious show Blind Date. If you’re a Lodge fan, you’ll say his shtick keeps things light on Camouflage, which could be seen as a show for word nerds.

In Conversation: The Senator Barack Obama Interview, 10pm, TV One.

Immigration, Darfur and of course Iraq are some of the topics discussed during an hour-long interview with presidential hopeful Sen Barack Obama (D-Illinois). The interview, with Roland Martin, kicks off TV One’s presidential election programming. Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to appear on the TV One series TV One on One later this year.

• TUESDAY, JULY 3

Larry King Live, 9pm, CNN.

74-year-old Lawrence Zeiger (aka Larry King) is on a roll, celebrating 50 years in the biz with a bevy of great gets in the past two weeks — and a whopping 3.2 million viewers for his Paris Hilton get, his highest ratings since Sept. '05. Besides ex-jailbird Hilton last Wednesday, King’s schedule included Gen. Colin Powell (ret.) on Thursday, Michael Moore on Friday, ousted Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington and tonight, the irrepressible Robin Williams. There’s little room to maneuver with Williams. You either like or detest his wit, which moves at supersonic speeds in interview settings. Judging by his tour de force sit down with James Lipton on Bravo's Inside The Actors Studio a few years back, our advice for Larry King is simple: Say “good evening, Robin,” and get out of the way.

Coma, 9pm, HBO.

This achingly emotional documentary follows the cases of four patients, all relatively young, who’ve emerged from comas after traumatic brain injuries. That’s  not necessarily good news. Each is in either a minimally conscious state or vegetative state, barely able to move, talk or otherwise live. In other words, they are in a condition that many of us have told our families, ‘if I ever get that way, don’t let me live.’ We are told that one year after an injury is the critical time factor in brain injury cases. If patients don’t improve in that first year, chances are they never will. Toward the film’s end one of the families is faced with the question of euthanasia.

While filmmaker Liz Garbus spends most of the film’s time on the four patients, she wisely also trains her camera on a family member or two, who seem to be constantly with the patients. Most of the family members seen here are parents. Their dedication is obvious, so is their heartache, which they seem to absorb extraordinarily well. Yet you sense that when the cameras are off their emotions are not as cooperative.

Another example of dedication and strength is Lynda, the pretty, young fiancé of post-coma patient Tom. Lynda is resolute in her belief that Tom will get better, and she has stuck by him. She even lifts him from his hospital bed to his wheelchair. To be fair, he’s made great progress since the filming began, but still requires constant care. A social worker asks Lynda how she’s coping. “You don’t really have a choice,” she answers. Her mother-in-law-to-be describes Lynda as “an amazing, incredible  woman, and she loves my son.” She’s right.

You also have to admire the doctors treating these patients. In this case the treatment is being administered at JFK Medical Center in Edison, NJ, by physicians, therapists and neuropsychologists led by Dr. Joseph Giacino and Dr. Caroline McCagg.  How do they face these sorts of dire situations daily, we wonder. What makes someone pursue this branch of medicine, where success is measured in such small steps? True, the brain remains a great unknown, and treatment of it can be a fascinating theoretical exercise.

Additionally, some of the best moments in Coma make the field seem fascinating, particularly the film’s coda, which describes the Terry Wallis case, where Wallis regained awareness after being in a minimally conscious state, not a vegetative state, for 19 years. Mr. Wallis continues to gain new cognitive functions. A breakthrough study in 2006 of Wallis’s brain shows that it is healing itself by forming new neural connections. This is the first such human evidence and offers hope to brain injured patients. Still, doing this sort of work on a daily basis must require a strong will, at the very least. 

For sure, there’s a strong demand. There’s a brain injury in the U.S. every 15 seconds. Traumatic brain injury affects more Americans each year than breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and spinal cord injury combined, the Brain Injury Association of America says.

In addition to Coma, HBO On Demand is offering two short films, one about Mr. Wallis and the other dealing with Willie Hicks, whose recovery is more pronounced than the four patients in Coma.

• WEDNESDAY, JULY 4

Styleyes Miami, season 3 premiere, 11pm, ET, SiTV.

For a small network with relatively limited resources, SiTV has produced an entertaining magazine show with a pleasant new host—Jai Rodriguez of Bravo's Queer Eye fame—even if the reach of the series sometimes exceeds its grasp. People and things are introduced, but barely explored; the late salsa goddess Celia Cruz makes a brief appearance in tonight’s episode, but is gone in seconds.

Yet the pace, footage and especially the music of this series should be enough to keep young Latinos interested. And give credit to SiTV for providing historical context to the subjects Styleyes explores. The series also cleverly puts elder Latinos and members of Jai’s family on camera, recognizing the importance of family in Latino culture. And the series holds true to SiTV’s mandate of providing Latino programming in English, with bits of Spanish included. When they are, subtitles are provided. 

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All times ET/PT unless otherwise noted.