Catching Up: Summer Series

With all this Emmy hysteria and my race to finish both “Firefly” and the complete “X-Files” series before their respective film follow-up theatrical showings (“X-Files” review coming soon), I’ve neglected to review all the summer television I’ve been watching. While it’s not nearly as much as I watch in the fall, there’s still a good deal of shows that I’ll summarize here before starting to review them each on a weekly basis (possibly in an end-of-week digest format, but we’ll see). I won’t be reviewing all the episodes I’ve seen over the past few weeks, but I’ll pick up where I am and start reviewing from here on out.

I’ve just posted pilot reviews for Flashpoint and The Cleaner. I plan to continue watching “The Cleaner” starting with episode two tonight. I tried the second installments of both “Flashpoint” and In Plain Sight only to discover that they were just as bad as the first ones. I am happy to say that I opted to pick up Swingtown after my initial dismissal of the show and have now deemed it a proper guilty pleasure. As I mentioned a few posts earlier, “Swingtown” will be moving to the new timeslot of Fridays at 10pm.

As far as returning shows go, I decided to check out two sophomore shows which I had only seen the first few episodes of when they premiered last summer. I’m watching Burn Notice because of guest star Tricia Helfer (“Battlestar Galactica”), who is good on the show, though regrettably not quite as good as on BSG. It’s a quirky show that’s amusing at best and entertaining enough to sustain my interest, especially now that it doesn’t conflict with “Swingtown”. The other show is Saving Grace, which I think I’ve had just about enough of at this point. I never got into it, giving up last summer after only four episodes. Holly Hunter gives a decent performance but the show just doesn’t feel right. Watching it after The Closer also doesn’t quite give it a fair chance. Brenda Jonhson and the gang were back for a strong premiere last week and a good enough episode last night. I look forward to their continuing adventures, and I’m glad to see Phillip P. Keene (Buzz) added to the credited cast at the beginning of the episode. There’s nothing I hate more than a terrific ensemble that doesn’t credit all of its members accordingly (examples: see SAG nods for the casts of the movie “Ray” and shows like “24” and even “The Closer” in its first season).

Lighting up my weekend viewing are the Friday night USA offerings Monk and Psych, which premiered last week with amusing if not somewhat unsatisfying installments. “Monk” offered a fitting farewell to the late Stanley Kamel (Dr. Kroeger) and “Psych” managed to introduce Cybill Shepherd without overshadowing the rest of the cast. I think both of those shows will improve this coming week and throughout the rest of the season. I’ve heard some exciting news about some of the best characters from “Monk” returning for the show’s 100th episode this season.

In addition to this bunch, I’ve been doing my best to keep up on Showtime’s Monday night comedy pack Weeds and Secret Diary of a Call Girl without actually having the channel. So far, so good, though I’m pretty sure I’m watching the original British version of “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”. Billie Piper really runs that show all by herself, and she’s doing an impressive job. On “Weeds”, I’m finding Mary-Louise Parker rather irritating, as opposed to fascinating last season. Justin Kirk is really fantastic this year, and while I didn’t love Albert Brooks’ arc, he spun the story in a good direction. The show, despite a clever new opening bit each episode, has been getting off to a slow start, reorganizing all its characters in the proper way, but I think it should pick up soon enough. I haven’t yet seen last night’s episodes of either show, so I’ll start off my new reviews with thoughts on these two.

It’s weird that this summer is missing so many shows that really do feel right in the summer, such as “Entourage”, “Californication”, “Flight of the Conchords”, and especially “Rescue Me”. I’d even prefer to have the second season of “Damages” running right now rather than opposite a massive slate of programming in the spring. All of those will come in due time, I suppose. At least there is one upcoming positive: season two of the best reviewed-show in ages begins this Sunday at 10pm. Tune in to AMC for Mad Men. I know I will.

Reviews of upcoming episodes of all these shows and my thoughts on the whole “X-Files” series are coming soon. I will be reviewing “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” as soon as I get a chance to see act three.

Coming in the next few weeks: the 2nd Annual AFT Television Awards, honoring the very best in television this past season, in my opinion. I’m sorting through right now, finding eight great contenders in some categories and three in others. I’ll begin announcing categories soon; you won’t want to miss them.