Premieres & Notables for Jan 8-14.

Lots and lots of stuff this week. The wife and kids will be back in 20 mins, so I'll get through as much as I can now and post the rest later.

Firstly, I missed the announcement of one of my (and my kids') favorite shows season premiere: Jack's Big Music Show started airing new eps yesterday. Noggin will trickle them in along with the 10 eps from the first season throughout the next few weeks. If you have preschool-age kids and the Noggin channel, this is mandatory viewing.

I love kids shows that don't talk down to them (or resort to bodily noises to get laughs), and Jack is great. Jack and his friends get together and discover music (right up my kids' alley) and let their imaginations run wild. For a "puppet show", it's pretty darn good.

And since I'm on a roll, check out The Upside Down Show on Noggin. This show rules. It's for kids, but adults will like the humor. And those of us who watch lots and LOTS of TV should be able to see the genius of Shane Dundas and David Collin's performances. Those dudes (along with whoever the genius is behind the camera) do amazing physical "stunts". And as I watched more and more episodes, I noticed many of the scenes are done in one take. It's wild. I'll never get to a "best performances of 2006" list, but Shane and David would definitely be on it if I did.

And something else I missed: HBO is reairing the first season of ROME all week. This is a show best watched in 2-3 hr blocks. I almost gave up on it after the first two eps, but it really clicked as it headed toward the final episodes. Just as many HBO and BBC America shows work, this is one story, beginning to end, that takes over the whole season. It just kept building and building until Titus Pullo exploded in violence when he was to be executed (in one of the most brutal, yet satisfying sequences I've ever seen on TV) and all the way to the finale, where the bodies just kept lining up (including the Julius Caesar-- I knew the dude was gonna die, but I thought they'd hold it off a bit longer). With half the cast dead after the first season, I don't know where season 2 (the final season, beginning next Sunday) will go. I can't wait.

Okay, on to this upcoming week:

Monday, 1/8:

Want to see a great performance by a young actor? Check out the episode on Desperate Housewives that airs on Lifetime at 6 pm (CST). Andrew confesses (to a priest!) how he's going to ruin his mother, Bree. It was a major shock.

The SciFi Channel finally begins its run of Star Trek: Enterprise. It'll air in four-hour (why not six, so I can fill a whole tape?) blocks every Monday from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm CST. It's a very underrated show that did have it's problems, but the third season was one of the most ambitious (and best) seasons of any show I've watched. And the fourth (and final) season took what came before (in the series as well as the other Trek shows) and closed up the show with some phenominal stories. Plus it stars one of the best TV actors out there: Scott Bakula.

Quick hits:
Ellen's Acres; Cartoon. 8:30 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Show for preschoolers about a 5-year-old who lives in a hotel.
Lincoln Heights; ABC Family. 6 pm & 9 pm. Series Premiere.
An L.A. cop moves his family into the inner city; into a community who hates police.
Gay, Straight, or Taken?; Lifetime. 7 pm. Series Premiere.
A dating show where women must pick who is gay, straight, or taken. Isn't this one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse?
No, wait, this piece of crap is:
I Love New York; VH1. 8 pm. Series Premiere.
One of the losers (in more ways than one) of Flavor of Love gets her own "finding love" show.

[teameck's note: I'm really sorry I keep including VH1 and MTV shows in this blog. I try to be thorough, so I'm forced to. But I won't be including them anymore. This is the last straw. I'm not even mentioning the other VH1 premiere tonight about white rappers going after a $100G prize. I'm done. If you watch this garbage, go to vh1.com or mtv.com and find out for yourself what's on. I am completely against censorship of any kind, but typing what's on VH1 and MTV makes my head and fingers hurt-- and I'm afraid too many people will bypass actual decent shows to watch these shows which are about the equivalent of watching stool get flushed down the toilet..

If, by any chance, there is actually something that sounds remotely good on either network, I will include it. Otherwise: I'm DONE with this claptrap.]

Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence; PBS. 9 pm (but check your local listings). Special.
This documentary looks at the growing anti-Semitism in the world. I don't get it. This is the Twenty-First Century, for cryin' out loud! We're supposed to be hating gay people now. Don't you listen to Darth Bush and his Christian coalition?

[That was a joke, you idiots... Hate for any religion/color/sexuality should not be tolerated. It's time to wipe bigotry off the face of the earth. Hate the jackass you work with, or the one who broke your heart, or the prick that stole your car. But don't hate someone because they believe in a different God or because their skin is different color than yours, or because they fall in love with people you never would. Until we as a society can abolish bigotry, we'll never be at the pinnacle of civilization.]

Okay, my family's taking longer than I expected, but I've gotten a little heavy (but real), so how 'bout I take a break and finish out the week in a bit?

Later.