THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (8PM CBS)
Left to her own devices, Christine attempts to prove she can take care of herself. Something tells us this won’t be pretty.

GARY UNMARRIED (8:30PM CBS)
We love shows with creative episode titles. This is not one of those shows. In fact, the title of tonight’s episode — “Gary And Dennis’ Sister” — either tells you everything you need to know about the plot or tells me you’re perhaps not smart enough for a better program.

LOST (9PM ABC)
To say that this show has become wildly confusing would be an understatement on the level of “Sometimes, one can spot blue in the sky during the daytime.” But that’s not a complaint by any stretch of the imagination. Given how dumbed-down 90 percent of television is these days, we’ll take a complicated story that keeps us guessing and using our brains any day. This week, Locke gets it into his head that he can stop the island from hop-scotching through time.

LIFE ON MARS (10:02PM ABC, Global in Canada)
What does it mean that both of tonight’s shows with LIFE in their title feature plots revolving around rock stars? Perhaps only that endless episodes of LOST have left me looking for conspiracies and hidden meanings. In any case, Wallace Shawn guests as an FBI agent known as The Sorcerer, and Sam thinks he may have found a way to get back to his own time. Seeing as this is not the last episode, we kinda doubt it.

DAMAGES (10PM FX)
To be honest, this season got off to a bit of a slow start. But things are cookin’ with gas now that we’re tying in plot threads from season one and Patty has someone — Walter Kendrick — to sink her teeth into. Tonight, Patty wages a war against Kendrick in the modern-day equivalent of Thunderdome: The media!

NEW & NOTABLE:
KNIGHT RIDER (8PM NBC)
What horrible sin did Justin Bruening commit to go from the mess that is ALL MY CHILDREN to the mess that is this show? These are the things that I ponder late at night. Meanwhile, ONE TREE HILL alum Maria Menounos (she was Keith’s almost-bride, Julie) guest stars as a DEA agent who arrests our hero following a fake plane crash and a real kidnapping.

CRIMINAL MINDS (9PM CBS)
Parting is such sad, sweet sorrow. Unless, of course, you embalm your victims so you can hang out with them a little longer. In that case, well, don’t be surprised if you find out the hard way that the old axiom about houseguests being like fish in that they both start to stink after a couple days is true.

LIFE (9PM NBC)
The lead singer of a heavy metal band suffocates. Why does my first thought go to “hairball?”

TOP CHEF (10PM Bravo)
You know it’s getting close to the end of the season when you get two celebrity (in foodie circles, anyway) judges. This is the last episode before the finale begins unspooling, so place your bets. And if you’re betting against Stefan, I have a poker game I’d like to invite you to.

GENERAL HOSPITAL (10PM SOAPnet)
You know, the mobsters on this show — meaning just about every male and half the females — could really solve a lot of their problems if they simply, you know, killed their enemies. Anthony should have had a bullet in his brain ages ago, but instead, he gets yet another chance to slip away from Sonny and Jason tonight. Meanwhile, can anyone tell us what these mobsters actually, you know, do to make their money? We know Sonny doesn’t get involved with drugs or prostitution. So, um, what exactly is his racquet?

The TV Addict: The facts are these. People stopped using the term Bamboozled in 1931. But seriously, as dreadful as PUSHING DAISIES’ ratings have been — and they have been dreadful. ABC has yet to bury the show six feet under. Which is why if you really, and I mean really care about the fate of Ned, Chuck, Olive and Emerson you will be sure to not only tune into a brand new episode of PUSHING DAISIES at 8PM tonight on ABC, but knock on every house on your block and convince your neighbors to do the same.*

*Please Note: theTVaddict.com does not condone door-to-door begging and pleading in an effort to raise the ratings of your favorite shows. Unless those shows were among my dearly departed brilliant-but-cancelled favorites such as EVERWOOD, JACK & BOBBY, GROSSE POINTE, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL.

Can you please explain to me how KNIGHT RIDER got a full season pick up before EVERY OTHER SHOW ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH? — Jenn

The TV Addict: What’s that? You’re not buying my theory that NBC President Ben Silverman is secretly the fifth and final Cylon who has given a starring role to a talking car with the hopes of secretly pushing his pro-machine agenda on an unsuspecting public. Well then, how does this slightly more plausible theory from frequent friend-of-the-site John Kubiceck sound, “Even with modest ratings, NBC is making so much money from Ford by having KNIGHT RIDER on the air that Ben Silverman would be an idiot in these tough economic times to give up such a lucrative deal just because the show is bad. Making money with crap like that is what allows NBC to keep airing low-rated stuff like CHUCK and 30 ROCK.” 

Of course this TV Addict would be remiss if I didn’t point out to Mr. Kubiceck that (a) I’m not sure we know exactly how much NBC is getting to keep the super-sized Ford commercial that is KNIGHT RIDER on the air. And (b) CHUCK is no stranger when it comes to insanely intrusive SMALLVILLE levels of product placement [See: Recent sales pitch story-line featuring Michael Strahan and MADDEN '09.]

I’m still confused over your assertion that IN TREATMENT has been cancelled. Please clarify. — Marisa

The TV Addict: Now this may come as a shock to some, but it turns out that this TV Addict isn’t perfect. I mean who knew that sitting in front of a buteiful high defanition flatt screen for houres on end wuld be detrimental to my smarts? [TV Addict Note: Unlike my usual poor uses of spelling and grammar, the previous sentence of typos was purely for comedic effect.]

Which is why I’m here to apologize to fans of IN TREATMENT everywhere. All ten of you. Embarrassingly enough, I’ve been confusing IN TREATMENT’s cancellation, or lack there of, with TELL ME YOU LOVE ME. So to clarify, a second season of IN TREATMENT is officially moving forward with Hope Davis on board to play Mira, a high-powered malpractice lawyer and FRASIER’s John Mahoney signing on the dotted line to play Bill, a CEO who finds that life is passing him by.

Please tell me that this is some sort of sick joke and that Ben Silverman did not just pick up KNIGHT RIDER for a full season? — Dave

The TV Addict: If it helps, things could be much worse. Ben Silverman could have taken a page from Showtime’s playbook and renewed KNIGHT RIDER for two seasons. Now I know what you’re thinking, Showtime’s playbook? Well in case you haven’t heard, America’s favorite serial killer DEXTER was just renewed for two more seasons. [See Press Release] Which aside from TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES full season pick-up is some of the most gratifying news to come from the world of television in quite some time.

Who is Luke Grimes? — WalkerFan42

The TV Addict: Luke Grimes won this week’s casting lotto by beating out Jason Ritter [among others] for the role of long-lost Walker brother Ryan Walker. Coming in a close second is SMALLVILLE’s John Glover. Who according to Michael Ausiello, robbed Victor Garber of the perfect ALIAS reunion by nabbing the role of Saul’s love interest for an upcoming three episode story arc.

I can’t help but notice that you seem to, some might say gratuitously, plug Michael Ausiello quite a lot on theTVaddict.com. Yet Ausiello has yet to give your site a much deserved shout out. What’s the deal? — Jake

The TV Addict: Yes Mike [Can I call you Mike?] what is the deal? Especially when you had the perfect opportunity to mention theTVaddict.com alongside your answer to Anne’s question about the possibility of PRIVILEGED getting a full season pick up.

For future reference, rather than simply mention that you “heart Joanna Garcia… the CW has ordered additional scripts… and things are looking good for a full-season pickup.” You could have further championed PRIVILEGED by tacking on to the end of your answer that just yesterday showrunner Rina Mimoun revealed to theTVaddict.com [optional: in a highly entertaining and comprehensive interview] that EVERWOOD star Gregory Smith will very likely be dropping by Palm Beach should PRIVILEGED get that full season pick-up. See how that works Mikey! Quid pro quo.

What can you tell me about HBO Canada? — Northofthe49

The TV Addict: Not only can this TV Addict barely contain my excitement that HBO is [finally] coming to Canada [as part of the TMN subscription package] starting on October 30. I can do one better by pointing you towards November’s HBO Canada schedule [three cheers for REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER!], which you can check out by clicking here.

KNIGHT RIDER, are you F*ck**g kidding me! — SilvermanSucks

The TV Addict: Hey, Don’t shoot the messenger. Because seriously, if this TV Addict ran a television network. Things would be different. Namely EVERWOOD, JACK & BOBBY, THE WEST WING, GROSSE POINTE, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL would all still be on the air. KNIGHT RIDER would be roadkill. Keri Lynn Pratt and Liza Weil would have their own hour long Amy Sherman-Palladino project in development. And networks with procedural dramas ‘ripped from the headlines’ would be limited to two per week.

And now for Ask the Addict Lighting Round. Actual queries that readers have typed into Google to find theTVaddict.com.

“Daokes’ Fate”
Not Good

“HBO or Showtime”
Showtime

“Who is playing Old Christine’s Mother?”
TVGuide recently did something very out of character by breaking the news that British acting vet Brenda Blethyn has been cast as Christine’s mom for an episode set to air in November or December.

“Who is Jensen Ackles Dating?”
Why do you care?

Flipping through this week’s fantastic issue of Entertainment Weekly featuring a sneak peak of J.J. Abrams STAR TREK re-boot, this TV Addict couldn’t help but notice an advertisement for Lifetime’s SEX AND LIES IN SIN CITY, starring Mena Suvari. Begging the question: What happened to the young actress who broke onto the scene with scene-stealing turns in AMERICAN PIE and AMERICAN BEAUTY? And more to the point, how sad is it that Mena Suvari is now seemingly relegated to C-list Lifetime Movies of the Week that we’re fairly sure Tori Spelling passed on?

Was anyone else surprised, nay, disappointed as to how fast Robin returned from her stint in Japan on last night’s installment of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER? I mean don’t get me wrong, this TV Addict is all for the further development of Robin and Barney. I was just hoping that Barney would be the one to literally suit up and bring Robin back from the Land of the Rising Sun himself. For some inexplicable reason, I can’t help but smile every time I imagine Barney surrounded by millions of dark-suited Japanese people.

Does FOX’s full season pick-up of FRINGE officially get them off the hook for the early cancellations of such TV Addict favorites like KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, UNDECLARED, DRIVE, FIREFLY and REUNION.

Who are you — as Frank would put it — gayer for? 30 ROCK’s Jamie [Val Emmich], UGLY BETTY’s Jesse [also played by Val Emmich] or LIPSTICK JUNGLE’s Kirby [see our interview].

Which Mitch Pileggi character-of-the week would you like by your side in a bar fight? Grandpa Winchester on SUPERNATURAL, SONS OF ANARCHY’s White Supremacist Leader Ernest Darby, or Kevin’s BROTHERS & SISTERS boss Browne Carter.

Is ‘free’ still too high of a price to pay for the new MTV Series Paris Hilton’s MY NEW BFF on iTunes?

When NBC President Ben Silverman first announced the re-launch of the KNIGHT RIDER franchise, this TV Addict was more than prepared to cut him a little slack. I mean who can blame the neophyte Peacock President for wanting to generate a few splashy headlines, cash in on America’s seemingly never-ending love affair with 80’s nostalgia, not to mention, grab, what surely amounted to a huge pile of cash from Ford [Three cheers for vertical integration!].

That said, following the train-wreck, err… auto collision that was February’s two-hour movie [see review here], Ben Silverman is officially running on empty.

Last night’s season premiere of the re-tooled KNIGHT RIDER series was quite literally unwatchable. And believe me, this TV Addict tried. Twice! After only managing to get through twenty minutes of the pre-air premiere courtesy of iTunes, I made the unfortunate mistake to take a second shot last night thinking the show couldn’t possibly as bad as I was making it out to be.

Unfortunately, it was.

Not only does Justin Bruening have, as NJ TV Critic Alan Sepinwall so brilliantly put it, “all the screen presence of an IKEA nightstand.” The show itself is an incoherent mess of cheesy one-liners, ridiculously cheap looking special effects and a story so pointless it will have you wondering how much money Ford really ponied up to get this show on the air.

Hand down, the worst new series of the season and if the ‘Proverbial Powers that Be’ have any sense, the final nail in Ben Silverman’s coffin.

The News: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’S Paul Campbell [Billy] will be joining the cast of KNIGHT RIDER as the head research tech at Knight Industries.
The Lowdown: Finally giving us a reason to tune in after February’s uber-disappointing two-hour car commercial.
[Source]

The News: Ex-FRIEND Matthew Perry has signed on to headline Peter Tolan’s [RESCUE ME] Showtime pilot THE END OF STEVE. A dark comedy revolving around Perry, who will play a local TV anchor who’s real-life personality is somewhat different than his cheery on-camera one.
The Lowdown: Could we BE anymore excited for the return of Matthew Perry to television? Umm… no.
[Source]

The News: Madchen Amick is returning to Central Park West, or more accurately, the Upper East Side to play a possible MILF for Nate [Chace Crawford].
The Lowdown: Already spoiling May’s finale tease that ‘S’ and ‘N’ might have lived happily ever after, at least for a little while. Way to go EW.
[Source]

The News: ALL MY CHILDREN’s Leven Rambin will join TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES this season as Riley, a new school friend of John Connor.
The Lowdown: And by friend, we naturally assume love interest. So place your bets now, Riley is (a) an undercover Terminator sent from the future, or (b) Terminated by a Terminator, thus kick-starting John’s transformation from brooding teenager to leader of the revolution!
[Source]

The News: Television icon Mary Tyler Moore will be joining NBC’s LIPSTICK JUNGLE for a multi-episode arc next season, playing Brooke Shields’ mother.
The Lowdown: Casting coup yes. But in all seriousness, how many fans in the younger demographic NBC so dearly covets really has an attachment to 70’s TV icon Mary Tyler Moore?
[Source]

The News: Former star of THE PRACTICE, Michael Badalucco will be one of a rotation of grad students filling Zack’s position while he does the Hannibal Lecter thing behind bars.
The Lowdown: An old grad student. Sound hilarious! Assuming we didn’t already see the same gag on HOUSE and GREY’S ANATOMY last year.
[Source]

The News: The revolving door at County General continues as actors Shiri Appleby, Julian Morris, Emily Rose and Victor Rasuk join the cast of ER for its fifteenth and final season.
The Lowdown: News that would excite us had we not stopped watching ER the day a helicopter crushed Dr. Romano to bits.
[Source]

The News: Ex-MEN IN TREES star James Tupper will be joining the cast of SAMANTHA WHO for at minimum three episodes, playing a love interest for Christina Applegate.
The Lowdown: Can we start the healing process now MEN IN TREES fan? Or are we all still bitter? What’s that… still bitter. Rest assured, we at theTVaddict.com understand. Seriously, three years later, we still won’t shut up about EVERWOOD being canceled.
[Source]

At yesterday’s Global TV UpFront, the TV Addict got up close and personal with the Kitt.

And on a somewhat related note, I wanted to take a moment to highlight a reader comment that almost had my morning coffee streaming out of my nose.

Said reader EKI in response to star Justin Brueing revealing that when KNIGHT RIDER returns in the fall it will most likely feature different gadgets each and every week. “I think he forgot to mention the TOPP of the week (Tremendously Obvious Product Placement).”

Needless to say, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. If his short tenure at NBC has taught us anything, it’s that aside from spin-offs and ‘re-imaginations’ Peacock President Ben Silverman hasn’t met a product placement he doesn’t like!

It looks like the negative reaction that followed February’s two-hour KNIGHT RIDER movie may not have fallen on deaf ears after-all.

Talking to the Canadian media [including your very own TV Addict] at Global TV’s 2008 UpFront this morning in Toronto, KNIGHT RIDER star Justin Brueing had this to say when asked how the series returning this fall will differentiate itself from the underwhelming two-hour movie.

“Just as the original series was reinvented as a sequel for the two-hour movie, the new series will be reinvented again. Picking up six months after our little origin story, everything will be different. The car will have a different look and will be able to morph into a different attack mode each week. There’s also talk of different gadgets in every episode.”

Needless to say, this TV Addict thinks I speaks for everyone when I say, here’s hoping third times a charm!

With the Up Fronts behind us, you’re probably wondering what new shows warrant a season’s pass on your DVR/PVR come this fall? Well, wonder no more. Because all week long theTVaddict.com will be posting our Super Early 2008 Fall TV Preview. Offering up ridiculously early and ill-informed snap judgments on a whole slate of new network shows. Putting to rest those who say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover – or in this case a TV show by its one paragraph summary and cast photo.

SNAP JUDGMENTS

PROJECT GARY [CBS, 8:30PM]:
See precocious kid, see hot wife, see the once respected Jay Mohr sell his soul for what we assume is one really big paycheck from CBS.
>> Click here for a video preview

KNIGHT RIDER [NBC, 8PM]:
Oh now I get it. February’s dreadful KNIGHT RIDER movie was simply a brilliant plan on NBC’s part to lower expectations for the show’s phenomenal return this fall! Right?
>> Click here for a video preview

DO NOT DISTURB [FOX, 9:30PM]:
Okay, we won’t.

Before reading this TV Addict’s rant with regards to last night’s special two-hour KNIGHT RIDER movie there are three things you should know. Firstly, having missed the original series by a few years, I have absolutely no warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia for the original Hasselhoff’s vehicle. Second, I’m still angry at NBC Ben Silverman for his recent comments with regards to FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. And finally, I’m not ten years old anymore. Which would most likely explain why I may never tune into NBC on Sunday night ever again.

Two hours of AMERICAN GLADIATORS followed by what amounted to be a glorified car commercial for the Ford Mustang. My dear NBC…. what have you let yourself become?

Between the endless shots of KITT which had me wondering how much Ford paid for this infomercial, to the absolutely inane banter between the show’s reluctant heroine Sarah and the incredibly boring KITT (voiced by the snooze inducing Val Kilmer), this TV Addict spent most of the show’s second hour regretting my choice to record ABC’s BROTHERS & SISTERS.

Here’s hoping when NBC reveals their Fall 2008 lineup, fans everywhere are not stuck uttering the words, “They cancelled FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS for this?”