Every year at this time, I complain about the dreck the TV networks throw on during the summer. And this year, after the agony of a long WGA strike and the threat of an actors' walkout, the diet of boring repeats ad inane reality is even worse (with the possible exception of CBS' "Swingtown," which debuted this week).
This is when I usually turn to HBO and Showtime, and British series on DVD. But with gas now selling for $4.69 a gallon in my neighborhood (to think I'm now missing the $4.29 price point I was bitching about last week)...
...this is turning into the Summer of No Disposable Income. I had to cancel my beloved HBO and Showtime. This year, there will be no "Entourage," "Weeds" or the intriguing looking "Diary of a Call Girl." I've laid down the law on those expensive British DVD's from Amazon.co.uk ... and the Netflix queue is now crammed with the shows our daughter misses from HBO Family.
There is a silver lining: The folks running our Basic Cable networks have taken a page from the HBO playbook and are offering some fine original programming during the summer doldrums (even hiring the same people who used to work on those HBO hits). Lifetime's "Army Wives" just returned for a second season, and USA Network is getting good reviews on "In Plain Sight," its Witness Protection drama starring Mary McCormack.
One of my favorites from last year was "Mad Men," and it's returning to AMC next month in all its cigarette-tinged, space-age bachelor pad glory. Other basic cable series returning in July are "The Closer" and "Saving Grace" (on TNT) and Burn Notice (on USA).
There isn't a lot of comedy on that list. Thank goodness for TBS, which has two funny sitcoms returning for their second season tonight.
I did not catch any episodes of Bill Engvall's self-titled series when they aired last summer (I guess I was too busy watching Vinnie and the Boys on Entourage), so the screener the network sent my home was my first time. I was pleasantly surprised: I liked it. I even laughed. Aloud.
Having toiled behind the scenes in TV comedy (which left me with a kind of funny bone immunity), that is saying a lot.
Engvall is a standup comic with a huge likeability factor. He anchors this very traditional family comedy with support from veterans like Nancy Travis as his wife, and former SNLer Tim Meadows as his best friend. The writing and producing team are also veterans, including Mark Kunerth ("Friends") and Heide Perlman ("Cheers").
I didn't need to view the screener for "My Boys," the second half of TBS' comedy hour. I was a fan of the series from its first episode, which introduced Jordana Spiro as PJ, a female sports writer who has been "one of the boys" for so long that she's forgotten how to be "girly" (that is the assessment of her one girl friend, a very girly magazine writer named Stephanie).
Spiro is a charming presence, as are all the "boys," especially the amiable Jim Gaffigan as PJ's goofy older brother. This show is a little more to my taste than Engvall's family oriented humor. It's a bit more adult, a bit more like "Friends" -- but not as sexy as "Sex and the City, "although in one episode they managed a pretty good send-up of Carrie Bradshaw & Co. They've also paid homage to films like "The Natural" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," which gives the series a richness that other sitcoms lack.
Last season ended with a cliff hanger: Who is the mystery man P.J. invited to use her extra plane ticket to Italy? The one who upgraded her to First Class? I have my own idea of who that will turn out to be... I'll just have to wait until tonight to see.
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