The New Season: Wednesday Heats Up

• Sep 26, 2007 02:49 PM ET
• by Matt Roush

First, an important public-service announcement: Tonight on The War, we relive D-Day, a momentous turning point in military history brought to vivid life by those who lived through it, courtesy of Ken Burns' masterful way with documentary narrative. I know this is premiere week, and Wednesday is the most competitive night for new shows this season, but I wouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't remind everyone that this is TV you not only shouldn't miss, but it's an experience you'll never forget. (The reality, though, is that PBS is giving viewers multiple opportunities to see these episodes, and I can't think of a better gift DVD for holiday season.)

Back to the network game, where only one of the nine new series being launched on Wednesdays is MIA: ABC's marvelous Pushing Daisies, its premiere pushed back a week by the tsunami-like launch of Dancing with the Stars, which once again is turning out to be the ratings monster everyone expected. (And the men, by and large, had a blast on Tuesday night's show, especially the charming race-car driver and exuberant male model who I bet half the audience had never heard of before the show began. On the other hand: the billionaire and the Las Vegas legend? Too creepy for words.)

This is the night that asks us to choose, in the same hour (9 pm/ET), between a spin-off (ABC's ditsy, disappointing Private Practice) and a remake (NBC's forbiddingly glum Bionic Woman). Both should be considered works in progress. Both are up against a teen-cult guilty pleasure (CW's Gossip Girl, which I'm embarrassed to admit I'm anxious to check out again), a bona fide crime-drama hit (CBS' gruesomely popular Criminal Minds, which tonight bids adieu to Mandy Patinkin) and a foulmouthed reality contender (Fox's Kitchen Nightmares, with Gordon Ramsay spreading his profane charm and undeniable expertise to needy eateries across the land). The real battle here may not be between the two bionic women (and everyone already knows that Katee Sackhoff steals the pilot out from under Michelle Ryan), but between those who like their flawed heroines goofy or gloomy. This time period is so chock-full of dramas that Fox had to move Bones out of the way to Tuesdays (which I find a win-win, to be honest).

Before we continue the Wednesday discussion, can I just say: Glenn Close and Ted Danson finally shared a scene together on FX's Damages Tuesday night, and it was awesome. Turned out to be a dream sequence, but this show has fooled me every time with that device, and this one was smashing. At a gala where Patty (Close) has just spoken, her nemesis Frobisher (Danson) approaches her on the dance floor and they spar, at first wittily, as they dance, until she finally lets him have it. "I want you disgraced," she says, smiling sweetly, as she wishes him nothing but shame and ill fortune, peppering him with accusations as he staggers away in horror. Which makes him wake up. After which he has his way sexually with the coach who's training him for his courtroom showdown with Patty. Frobisher? Not a good guy. And Patty? We're still learning more about her behavior on the day weeks later when all of this ends badly (the framework for the show), and the shot of her falling apart for reasons we don't yet know was shattering. I'm sorry for those who missed it. Thanks to Damages and AMC's just renewed (yay) Mad Men, which returns Thursday with another knockout episode, cable continues to outpace network TV, at least critically speaking.

Back to Wednesday, and to a recommendation for those who'd like something to laugh with, as opposed to at: the second episode of Fox's Back to You improves on the first, with several running gags that remind us how much we've missed the sort of physical and farcical humor that used to a staple of the sitcom format. In the 8 pm/ET hour, that's my top pick. The Dancing with the Stars results show is never meant to be watched live; it can be played back in 10 minutes: 15 if you're a Dolly Parton fan, I suppose. But if Dancing stomps all over Kid Nation's second episode, it will be worth it. What a dull and clumsily manipulative show that turned out to be. (My thoughts on the Kid Nation premiere can be read in the Dispatch I filed a week ago.)

At 10 pm/ET, two new shows duke it out with CSI: NY, which is never as easy to vanquish as it deserves to be. ABC's Dirty Sexy Money is the trendy choice, capitalizing on the season's niftiest title with a seductively entertaining glimpse into a fractured family of filthy rich flamboyants (my fave so far is Glenn Fitzgerald as a hilariously vindictive Episcopal priest) which needs Peter Krause's coolly contemptuous lawyer to sort out all their messes. (Krause's father, whose death triggers the pilot, was the family lawyer before him.) Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh as the family's blue-blood leaders are simply swell-elegant.

And then there's NBC's Life (worst title of the new season), a crime drama that has produced some of the most polarizing reaction of any new show this season (at least among those I work with). You either love this one or hate it, because you'll either find its central character adorably intriguing or skin-crawlingly annoying. I'm in the latter camp, although the actor is beyond reproach: British star Damian Lewis, who was so terrific in Band of Brothers and PBS' Forsyte Saga remake. He plays Charlie Crews, a cop unjustly jailed for a heinous murder, who is freed then made sinfully rich (a trend this season) from a civil settlement. He's back on the job and promoted to detective, though his boss wants him out. While behind bars, Charlie became hooked on Zen (between beatings from inmates, we're led to believe), and now he's a bundle of wacky tics: chomping on fruit at inappropriate times, grinning and spouting offbeat aphorisms like a stoned Cheshire cat, and (this being a TV show) having unusually acute insights into the generic crime of the week. I didn't buy it for a minute, but then my idea of an hour in TV hell is being forced to watch Vincent O'Onofrio hamming it up on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, easily the worst show yet from that franchise (one which, by the way, has been shipped off to USA Network this season).

Wednesday is an especially critical night for ABC and NBC this fall. I'm fascinated to see where the chips will fall.