Televisualist: Holmes, Mosque, and 30 Rock

Monday

BBC Canada is airing the old Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes series again. Now, Televisualist wants to criticize BBC Canada for its bold strategy of "air only old shows that everybody already knows about instead of the new daring stuff everybody wants to see," but in this case it's kind of halfhearted because Murder Rooms—which is actually about Dr. Joseph Bell, the inspiration for Holmes, and his mystery-solving adventures with a young Arthur Concan Doyle—is a pretty good show. However, this does not mean that BBC Canada is off the hook for rerunning decades-old episodes of EastEnders and pretending it is a special treat. (9 p.m.)

Oh, and some time ago The Bachelor started up again, in case you all missed the most misogynistic show on teevee. (CityTV, 9 p.m.)

Tuesday

Debuting tonight: Pushing Daisies, which has garnered almost the same reaction from every critic who has seen the pilot, and Televisualist concurs: yes, it's a brilliant forty minutes of television, absolutely perfectly executed, but are they really going to be able to get a series out of this concept? (Which, if you did not know, is "Guy can bring people back to life with a touch but if he touches them again they die so he uses his power to solve mysteries and also he has brought back his true love to life with his power and so they can't do it.") Oh well: at least Chi McBride is in it. (CTV, 8 p.m.)

ABC airs possibly the worst hour of television to come down the pike in a very long time indeed: Cavemen at 8 p.m., followed by Carpoolers at 8:30. This would be a show about racial tension in America except replacing all the black people with cavemen (right down to the use of the new word "'Magger" as a replacement for the N-word), followed by four guys driving to work together whining about their wives and their work. Highly recommended if you want to feel superior to Hollywood-level writers.

CBC, in an absolutely brilliant scheduling move, is debuting all its new shows the week after most of the American networks do. Memo to CBC: if you want a quality show like The Tudors (airing tonight at 9 p.m.) to have a shot at getting serious viewership, debut them before the Americans wheel out all their new shows, mmmkay? If Fox could figure out to do this ten years ago surely that wisdom has filtered through to CBC HQ by now, right?

Wednesday

The second season of Little Mosque On The Prairie kicks off tonight, with Yasir and Baber trying to purchase a cemetery so they can put their Muslim dead to rest according to religious tradition. This could actually end up being pretty funny if the writers and CBC decide to relax just a bit about being uber-respectful of every culture represented in the show and instead toss in a good dead body joke or two. Which means it probably won't be that funny. (CBC, 8 p.m.)

AMC has Young Guns AND Young Guns II. Back to back! All the Lou Diamond Philips you could ever want! (8 p.m. and 10 p.m. respectively)

Thursday

30 Rock returns! This episode: Alec Baldwin will be stupid and funny, Tina Fey will be smart and funny, and Tracy Morgan will be crazy and funny. Presumably there will also be a plot or something. (NBC, 8:30 p.m.)

OLN's "Excellent Adventure" series is winding down, having gone through the B-list of British celebrities (Minnie Driver, Vinnie Jones) already and now working its way down to Harry Enfield, who is somewhere on the D-list of British comedians. So, this less impressive Kathy Griffin's excellent adventure will be...retracing the Nazi invasion of Russia! Hilarity will no doubt ensue. (8 p.m.)

Friday

Friday Night Lights, which is the best show on television by fucking miles, returns for its second season despite the fact that all you horrible people with no taste aren't watching it. However, you can redeem yourselves by going out, purchasing the first season on DVD (it's only thirty bucks, people! Thirty bucks for twenty-two episodes is a good deal), watching the whole thing, realizing how absolutely amazing and brilliant this show is, then watching the second season debut episode. Televisualist doesn't think it's asking too much here. (Global, 9 p.m.)

History Television has a two-part serving of the second series of Mob Stories tonight, and it's a pretty good infotainment production about Canadian mob bosses, so check it out—if only because it's not frigging CSI: NY, which has nothing to do with history, History Television! (8 and 8 p.m.)

And...Air Farce Live. Oh god please no. Someone please put Luba Goy and Don Ferguson out of their misery. Hell, put them out of my misery. (CBC, 8 p.m.)