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What to watch on Tuesday, October 9...

Howdy! Judging from yesterday's "What to Watch Tonight" comments, I take it you're enjoying our new "What I'm Watching" widget (say that six times fast)? We're still ironing out some kinks, so if you don't see a particular show listed, let us know via the comments and we'll take a look. In the meantime, here's tonight's TV lineup!

SPECIAL TV PREMIERE, 9pm, The CW
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
For those who missed Joss Whedon's critically acclaimed three-part musical comedy series when it hit the internet in 2008 (and subsequently failed to catch it on DVD), don't fret! Now is your chance to watch it for FREE in a slightly edited version with some commercial breaks. The series stars Neil Patrick Harris as Billy, a.k.a. Dr. Horrible, a villain struggling to pull off the perfect caper and to be noticed by the super villains. He's also really shy and can't muster up the courage to talk to his laundromat crush Penny, played by Felicia Day.

SEASON 6 PREMIERE 8pm, Sundance
Iconoclasts
I can't believe Sundance Channel's celebrities-interviewing-celebrities series is already in its sixth season. Tonight's episode will profile Academy Award-nominated actor James Franco and Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Also on deck for this season: Judd Apatow with Lena Dunham and Seth MacFarlane with Norah Jones. Woot!

9pm, Fox
New Girl
In "Neighbors," Jess and Schmidt are determined to meet the "young, twenty-something" folks who've moved in across the hall. Elsewhere, Nick tries to make Schmidt feel old through a series of pranks... which is cruel. But frankly, I'm slightly curious as to what type of jokes he's got up his sleeves.

10pm, NBC
Parenthood
Get ready to bite your nails and/or fidget nervously, and definitely stock up on tissues: In "There's Something I Need to Tell You...," Kristina informs the family of her diagnosis. Meanwhile, Sarah and Hank are caught up in a romantic moment. Ooh, is something finally going to happen?

10pm, NBC
Vegas
In "All That Glitters," Mia's father Johnny—a Chicago mob boss with a temper and a gambling problem—visits Savino's casino (hey, that's got quite a ring to it!), where he causes enough trouble that Sheriff Lamb has to get involved. Plus Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks guest-stars as Angelo, a different Chicago mob boss who accompanies Johnny to Vegas.

LATE-NITE HIGHLIGHTS:
Kevin James, Chris Elliott on Late Show With David Letterman, 11:35 p.m., CBS
Tyler Perry on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, 11:35 p.m., NBC
Megan Mullally and the latest Dancing With the Stars cast-off on Jimmy Kimmel Live, 12 a.m., ABC
Christopher Walken on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, 12:37 a.m., NBC
Jeremy Irons and Monica Potter on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, 12:37 a.m., CBS

View the original article here

What to watch on Tuesday, September 25...

The premieres just keep flowing in and I couldn't be happier to report it. Mostly because it gives me something to write about in these intros! Woohoo! Time to check out what's on TV tonight:

SEASON 2 PREMIERE, 8pm, Fox
New Girl
Zoey Deschanel will swoop in to take over for the So You Think You Can Dance time-slot, now that it has run its course. And we couldn't be happier to have her back—twice, technically, because New Girl will air two new episodes tonight: One at 8 p.m. and the other at 9 p.m. In the first, the second season premiere called "Re-launch," Jess gets laid off from her teaching gig and so decides to work as a shot girl at Schmidt's 'rebranding' party. Of course, Winston gets a little loose after a couple of drink-tastings. And in other news, Cece introduces her new boyfriend to the gang. Oh! And Parker Posey guest stars as an apathetic cocktail waitress.

SERIES PREMIERE, 8:30pm, Fox
Ben and Kate
Smack in the center of two New Girls, it's Fox's new Ben and Kate. In it we meet Kate, a single mom whose older brother Ben shows up one day to "help out," but it soon comes to light that Ben is really back in town because he's planning on trying to reunite with an ex—who's engaged to be married. In the meantime, Kate prepares for a date after years of being out of the game. Will this quirky duo win your hearts and thusly this Tuesday night time-slot? It's yet to be determined!

SERIES PREMIERE, 9:30pm, Fox
The Mindy Project
Mindy Kaling jumps networks and stars as Mindy Lahiri in this new Fox comedy: Lahiri is an Ob-gyn struggling to make sense of the disaster that is her personal life. The pilot kicks off with a toast no one will forget at her ex-boyfriend's wedding... that's just the beginning. As events unfold, Mindy bumps elbows with the law and it turns out to be even more embarrassing than the toast.

SERIES PREMIERE, 10pm, CBS
Vegas
Hey, it's a network that's not Fox on this list! CBS's new drama is set in 1960s Nevada where ex-rancher Ralph Lamb reigns as the reluctant sheriff for a little town called Las Vegas. In the pilot, Ralph begins to investigate a murder that involved the governor's niece—and it casts him into high waters with a mobster from Chicago who runs a posh casino on what will one day be called the Vegas strip. Based on historical facts (though I'm not sure how closely), this one should be fun for anyone who liked to imagine how "sin city" first built its reputation.

SERIES PREMIERE, 10:30pm, Comedy Central
Brickleberry
Comedy Central is trying its hand at another animated series. In "Welcome to Brickleberry" we are introduced to the completely inept forest rangers who roam the grounds of Brickleberry National Park. Steve, who has Ranger of the Month on lockdown, starts to worry about his position on the team now that new ranger Ethel is arriving to the park. Also, Malloy gets put on a diet after his taste for chocolate becomes too much for him to handle.

PLUS ALL NEW EPISODES OF...
Dancing With the Stars: All-Stars, 8 p.m., ABC
NCIS, SEASON 10 PREMIERE, 8 p.m., CBS
The Voice, 9 p.m., NBC
19 Kids and Counting, 9 p.m., TLC
Dance Moms, REUNION PART 2, 9 p.m., Lifetime
Face Off, 9 p.m., Syfy
Frontline, 9 p.m., PBS
Go On, 9 p.m., NBC
Hard Time, 9 p.m., NatGeo
Mysteries at the Museum, 9 p.m., Travel
New Girl, 9 p.m., Fox
NCIS: Los Angeles, SEASON 4 PREMIERE, 9 p.m., CBS
Property Virgins, 9 p.m., HGTV
Top Gear, 9 p.m., History
The New Normal, 9:30 p.m., NBC
Abby & Brittany, 10 p.m., TLC
Addicted, 10 p.m., Discovery Fitness & Health
All the Right Moves, 10 p.m., Oxygen
Bomb Girls, 10 p.m., Reelz
Chopped, 10 p.m., Food
Counting Cars, 10 p.m., History
Flipping Out, 10 p.m., Bravo
Gangsters: America's Most Evil, 10 p.m., Bio
House Hunters, 10 p.m., HGTV
Hot Set, 10 p.m., Syfy
Man, Fire, Food, 10 p.m., Cooking
Parenthood, 10 p.m., NBC
Private Practice, SEASON 6 PREMIERE, 10 p.m., ABC
Sons of Anarchy, 10 p.m., FX
Twisted, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery
Tosh.0, 10 p.m., Comedy Central
TV Guide Magazine's Top 25 Best Oprah Show Moments, SPECIAL, 10 p.m., OWN
House Hunters International, 10:30 p.m., HGTV

LATE-NITE PICKS:
Kaley Cuoco on Late Show With David Letterman, 11:35 p.m., CBS
Ann Romney and Seth MacFarlane on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, 11:35 p.m., NBC
Melanie Griffith, Kerry Washington, and Dancing With the Stars' runners up on Jimmy Kimmel Live, 12 a.m., ABC
Jerry Seinfeld, Anthony Anderson, Zach Cregger, and Jesse Bradford on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, 12:37 a.m., NBC
Tom Selleck and June Diane Raphael on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, 12:37 a.m., CBS

What are you watching tonight?

View the original article here

Vegas S01E01: "Vegas"

CBS's new drama Vegas, based on the real life of 1960s Las Vegas sheriff Ralph Lamb, comes to us from the mind of Nicholas Pileggi. He's the screenwriter behind some of the greatest mob movies of all time: Goodfellas and Casino (and he didn't write Married to the Mob, so that's a plus). But this is CBS, and this is network television, so expecting Vegas to feature slow-motion car bombs, mob men with their faces dusted with cocaine, or fatally mis-executed pen tracheotomies—scenes we all remember from the aforementioned movies—isn't even an option. Instead, we'll get a much tamer version of those things, buttered up for comfort and told from the point-of-view of television's next great over-50 hero.

Vegas's series premiere wasted no time identifying its key players. The episode opened with the man of the hour, a freshly shaved, doppelganger-to-the-Marlboro-Man Sheriff Lamb (Dennis Quaid), going about his business herding cattle like the good old folk do, all to the uppity twangs of a stock Americana tune. Moments later, Chicago mob boss Vincent Savino (the return of Michael Chiklis to a role he's better suited for) emerged from a Spruce Goosey plane (the same damn plane that spooked Lamb's moo cows!), and the audio accompaniment—sinister jazz—revealed that he's a bad guy. Subtlety is not welcome in Las Vegas, and it's not welcome here, either.

Like all-in gamblers, everything is laid out on the table in Vegas, which is ready to show you what it's got. The good guys wear cowboy hats, the bad guys wear fancy suits. This is plain-to-see TV. Vegas is one of the least-edgy new shows of the season, but I mean that in the best way possible. The series is not only set in the '60s, it also seems to have a '60s television mentality; it's a capable show that is so comfortable in its well-worn jeans that it doesn't try to do too much more than the bare minimum.

But the key to Vegas's success, and I'm guessing it will be a hit for CBS, is in that reluctance to overreach. Instead, the show goes through the process of really making sure that what it does do, it does very well. So here we've got a very likeable classic cowboy in Lamb who's fond of dust-ups and the simple way of life, and he's standing in the way of a driven criminal who commands the underground elements in a burgeoning metropolis built on gambling, sex, and booze. It's old versus new, blue collar versus a criminal corporate element, natives versus invaders. There was a chase scene between a rifle-toting Lamb on a horse and a bearded biker on a Harley through the streets of downtown Vegas, for crying out loud. In addition to Quaid's performance, which has more than just a bit of Indiana Jones in it, there's also competent pacing and good-looking location shots and sets, and it all works well. But it doesn't offer anything more, which will leave adventurous television viewers bored.

Lamb is justly the main attraction here and one of the best new characters of the season (because he likes to roll into casinos with big guns), but he does have help. Terra Nova's Jason O'Mara plays Lamb's subservient brother Jack, who wouldn't steal a scene from his sibling even if there was no chance he'd get caught. Taylor Handley plays Lamb's extroverted son Dixon, who brings the most life to the family and joins the very long list of TV characters we first meet as they're crawling out a bedroom window with an angry husband looking to string them up by their nuts and a nether-region-sore housewife clutching her pearls and fondly remembering being treated like a rodeo bull. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) is also around as an assistant district attorney and likely possible future love interest for Lamb, but she was largely forgettable in the pilot. Chiklis does what he can with Savino, a business-first villain who knows violence isn't always the answer, but remains a good fallback plan (I expect Savino to develop more in later episodes because the pilot was all about Lamb). However, the man I was most impressed with was the familiar Michael O'Neill as Mayor Ted Bennett, an ally of Lamb's who is wrestling with keeping the criminal element out of Vegas but not totally against the business it brings in. He's a couple inches of mustache away from being the next Sam Elliott.

The decent and well-defined characters are accompanied by outstanding sets and location shots, and if the rest of the episodes continue the work that went into the pilot, Vegas will be a weekly visual treat for owners of gigantic HD screens. Furthering the black-and-white, good-guys-versus-bad-guys theme are the alternating shots of the deserts of Vegas where hard-working men and women wear denim and name cows, and the luxurious, over-the-top classiness of the casinos where the bourgeois and the burnouts hand over cash to the mafia. That's the duality of what Las Vegas is, captured on camera, and it's a perfectly simple monochromatic setting for what's going on here.

Right now it looks like the series will go case-of-the-week, with occasional run-ins between Lamb and Savino—the correct and obvious creative choice—with much of the satisfaction coming from Lamb's ability to use old-school -ranch police work to pull one over on the monolithic casinos and snappy mobsters running them. And CBS's audience will eat that up. The pilot's case was copied straight from Intro to Old West Procedurals and involved the murder of a young woman (just as A & E's similar Longmire opened with), and [spoiler alert] it was solved with a few interviews and knuckle sandwiches. Next week, it's the murder of a craps dealer, to remind you that this show takes place in Las Vegas.

And now for the big Vegas-pun finish! Vegas doesn't hit the jackpot, but the odds are definitely in your favor for an enjoyable hour that will come out somewhat profitable and won't take your shirt. You're only here for the free cocktails anyway, right?

– There's always the chance that this show will add some complexity, but I don't think it will, and I don't think it needs to. For those who are looking for something similar but a little more substantive on the character side, I'd highly recommend A & E's Longmire, which recently concluded its first season.

– I'm pretty sure you could watch this with your eyes closed and instantly be able to tell who the bad guys are by the sounds of their voices. No drawl? Bad guy! Slight Italian or New York/Chicago accent? Bad guy!

– Sarah Jones (Alcatraz) joined the cast after the pilot, and she'll be playing a mobster's daughter. It's like a redo of her turn in Sons of Anarchy, when she played Ethan Zobelle's daughter.

– Potential supercut: all the times Ralph Lamb puts on or takes off his hat.

View the original article here

What to watch on Tuesday, September 25...

The premieres just keep flowing in and I couldn't be happier to report it. Mostly because it gives me something to write about in these intros! Woohoo! Time to check out what's on TV tonight:

SEASON 2 PREMIERE, 8pm, Fox
New Girl
Zoey Deschanel will swoop in to take over for the So You Think You Can Dance time-slot, now that it has run its course. And we couldn't be happier to have her back—twice, technically, because New Girl will air two new episodes tonight: One at 8 p.m. and the other at 9 p.m. In the first, the second season premiere called "Re-launch," Jess gets laid off from her teaching gig and so decides to work as a shot girl at Schmidt's 'rebranding' party. Of course, Winston gets a little loose after a couple of drink-tastings. And in other news, Cece introduces her new boyfriend to the gang. Oh! And Parker Posey guest stars as an apathetic cocktail waitress.

SERIES PREMIERE, 8:30pm, Fox
Ben and Kate
Smack in the center of two New Girls, it's Fox's new Ben and Kate. In it we meet Kate, a single mom whose older brother Ben shows up one day to "help out," but it soon comes to light that Ben is really back in town because he's planning on trying to reunite with an ex—who's engaged to be married. In the meantime, Kate prepares for a date after years of being out of the game. Will this quirky duo win your hearts and thusly this Tuesday night time-slot? It's yet to be determined!

SERIES PREMIERE, 9:30pm, Fox
The Mindy Project
Mindy Kaling jumps networks and stars as Mindy Lahiri in this new Fox comedy: Lahiri is an Ob-gyn struggling to make sense of the disaster that is her personal life. The pilot kicks off with a toast no one will forget at her ex-boyfriend's wedding... that's just the beginning. As events unfold, Mindy bumps elbows with the law and it turns out to be even more embarrassing than the toast.

SERIES PREMIERE, 10pm, CBS
Vegas
Hey, it's a network that's not Fox on this list! CBS's new drama is set in 1960s Nevada where ex-rancher Ralph Lamb reigns as the reluctant sheriff for a little town called Las Vegas. In the pilot, Ralph begins to investigate a murder that involved the governor's niece—and it casts him into high waters with a mobster from Chicago who runs a posh casino on what will one day be called the Vegas strip. Based on historical facts (though I'm not sure how closely), this one should be fun for anyone who liked to imagine how "sin city" first built its reputation.

SERIES PREMIERE, 10:30pm, Comedy Central
Brickleberry
Comedy Central is trying its hand at another animated series. In "Welcome to Brickleberry" we are introduced to the completely inept forest rangers who roam the grounds of Brickleberry National Park. Steve, who has Ranger of the Month on lockdown, starts to worry about his position on the team now that new ranger Ethel is arriving to the park. Also, Malloy gets put on a diet after his taste for chocolate becomes too much for him to handle.

PLUS ALL NEW EPISODES OF...
Dancing With the Stars: All-Stars, 8 p.m., ABC
NCIS, SEASON 10 PREMIERE, 8 p.m., CBS
The Voice, 9 p.m., NBC
19 Kids and Counting, 9 p.m., TLC
Dance Moms, REUNION PART 2, 9 p.m., Lifetime
Face Off, 9 p.m., Syfy
Frontline, 9 p.m., PBS
Go On, 9 p.m., NBC
Hard Time, 9 p.m., NatGeo
Mysteries at the Museum, 9 p.m., Travel
New Girl, 9 p.m., Fox
NCIS: Los Angeles, SEASON 4 PREMIERE, 9 p.m., CBS
Property Virgins, 9 p.m., HGTV
Top Gear, 9 p.m., History
The New Normal, 9:30 p.m., NBC
Abby & Brittany, 10 p.m., TLC
Addicted, 10 p.m., Discovery Fitness & Health
All the Right Moves, 10 p.m., Oxygen
Bomb Girls, 10 p.m., Reelz
Chopped, 10 p.m., Food
Counting Cars, 10 p.m., History
Flipping Out, 10 p.m., Bravo
Gangsters: America's Most Evil, 10 p.m., Bio
House Hunters, 10 p.m., HGTV
Hot Set, 10 p.m., Syfy
Man, Fire, Food, 10 p.m., Cooking
Parenthood, 10 p.m., NBC
Private Practice, SEASON 6 PREMIERE, 10 p.m., ABC
Sons of Anarchy, 10 p.m., FX
Twisted, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery
Tosh.0, 10 p.m., Comedy Central
TV Guide Magazine's Top 25 Best Oprah Show Moments, SPECIAL, 10 p.m., OWN
House Hunters International, 10:30 p.m., HGTV

LATE-NITE PICKS:
Kaley Cuoco on Late Show With David Letterman, 11:35 p.m., CBS
Ann Romney and Seth MacFarlane on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, 11:35 p.m., NBC
Melanie Griffith, Kerry Washington, and Dancing With the Stars' runners up on Jimmy Kimmel Live, 12 a.m., ABC
Jerry Seinfeld, Anthony Anderson, Zach Cregger, and Jesse Bradford on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, 12:37 a.m., NBC
Tom Selleck and June Diane Raphael on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, 12:37 a.m., CBS

What are you watching tonight?

View the original article here

During this busy week of season premieres, your time (and your DVR's time) is valuable and you can use all the help you can get. CBS was nice enough to compress a bunch of 1s and 0s in the shape of its new drama Vegas onto a CD-Rom and send us a copy so that we might impart our opinion of the show onto you. Should you tune in? Here's some advice that might help you decide.

What's Vegas about?

This is CBS taking on the (already over) trend of '60s period pieces in its own way: with cowboys! The hour-long drama boasts an impressive cast to tell the true-ish story of Ralph Lamb, a real-life cattle-rancher-turned-Vegas-sheriff who battled mobsters as they turned Vegas into a glitzy money machine for their cabals.

When does it premiere?

Vegas makes its series debut Tuesday, September 25 at 10pm on CBS.

Who created the show?

If you're good at something specific, there's nothing wrong with sticking to it. Nicholas Pileggi, the screenwriter behind mob hits Casino and Goodfellas, came up with the idea and co-wrote the pilot with Without a Trace executive producer Greg Walker. So expect this Vegas to look an awful lot like Casino's Vegas.

Who's the target audience?

This mix of period procedural and character study should appeal to the "comfort TV" crowd longing for a new American hero in the vein of icons from yesteryear. There's nothing too edgy here, so expect it to do well with CBS's older-skewing base demographic, but it provides just enough of an escape from the rest of CBS's lineup to bring in younger viewers.

Let's hear the pros!

There are lots of familiar faces in the cast! Dennis Quaid channels Harrison Ford as Mr. Lamb, a country boy thrust into law enforcement who's good with his fists. Michael Chiklis really looks the part of Chicago mobster Vincent Savino. Plus you'll see Carrie Ann Moss (The Matrix), Jason O'Mara (Terra Nova), and enough familiar TV journeymen to make you feel pretty comfortable. Even though Lamb is a pretty standard cowboy hero type, he's incredibly likeable—and Quaid is perfect for the role. The cast is supported by strong time-traveling sets, and an easy-to-understand premise. Nice twang in the score, too!

And the cons?

Because it appeals to such a broad audience (in a totally okay way) it doesn't stand out or do anything unexpected. Thrill-seekers will probably find the show boring, predictable, and stale, but they're not who it's for.

Make a decision for me! Should I watch!?

Honestly, this is about a 50/50 shot here. Like I said, it's entirely unoffensive, but it's not breaking new ground, either. It's comfort food for those with an hour to fill or viewers longing for shows that echo television from the good 'ole days. You won't hate it, but you're not guaranteed to love it.

Do you have a clip or a trailer I can take a look at?

You bet.

What is the appropriate libation to imbibe while taking in this program?

Whiskey, neat.

Vegas debuts Tuesday, September 25 at 10pm on CBS.

View the original article here