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Televisualist: Castle, Block and Breaking Rocks
Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.
Monday
Dancing With The Stars comes back for season eight (no, really). This season’s stars include Belinda Carlisle, Denise “Career Finally Dead” Richards, Lawrence Taylor and…Steve Wozniak? The guy who founded Apple? For serious? Apparently this is not a joke. Also, So You Think You Can Dance fans should note that, this season, Dmitry Chaplin, Chelsie Hightower and Lacey Schwimmer are all pairing off with “stars” who are quite possibly less popular than they are at this point. (ABC, 9 p.m.)Castle is a midseason ABC replacement, a dramedy about a hard-bitten but still sexy lady detective and an occasionally competent mystery novelist with a staggering resemblance to Nathan Fillion. They team up! They fight crime! There is romantic tension a la Moonlighting! And so forth. Hopefully this will not be the umpteenth television show starring Fillion to get cancelled, because he’s kind of awesome. Then again, Paula Marshall is kind of awesome too, and she is the kiss of death when it comes to successful teevee shows. Maybe this is a trend. (ABC, 10 p.m.)
Tuesday
American Idol enters into its finals with the top thirteen! Thirteen! It’s a shocking twist! Do you still care about Idol now? If not, next week’s episode will be broadcast FROM THE SURFACE OF THE MOON! What a twist! Anyway, this year’s “good singers who might actually win” are Danny Gokey, L’il Rounds, and maybe Michael Sarver. Everybody else kind of sucks. (Yes, Anoop Desai too.) But maybe instead of a Gokey-Rounds final episode, there will be another shocking twist! How will you not know about this if you don’t watch? (CTV, 8 p.m.)“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man.” Wait, haven’t you seen Unforgiven? What have you been doing with your life? (SunTV, 8 p.m.)
Wednesday
Speaking of So You Think You Can Dance alumni, incidentally, this season of Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew (which thankfully has just about zero Randy Jackson in it) featured the Quest Crew, which counts among its members Ryan Conferido, Hok Konishi, and Dominic Sandoval. Between the Quest Crew and the Beat Freaks (the best all-girl crew in this show’s history), it’s been an excellent season, and although the finale episode tonight is a rerun, it’s still a great watch for dance fans who don’t really want to see Steve Wozniak shake his butt. (Muchmusic, 7 p.m.)The Chopping Block is an American adaptation of an Australian reality show, wherein teams of two compete for the opportunity to own their very own restaurant. Well, the Australian version actually had teams of chefs from established, successful restaurants battling for culinary pride. And come to think, new restaurants have a failure rate that make bank officers wince. So really, this is not so much an adaptation as a “ruining.” (NBC, 8 p.m.)
Thursday
The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Viva Ned Flanders,” wherein Homer and Ned road-trip to Las Vegas and piss off everybody, including the Moody Blues. “I’ll have a Shirley…No, a virgin…No, a children’s…Oh, what the heck? You only live once. Give me a white wine spritzer!” (Comedy Network, 9 p.m.)In case you were wondering: Televisualist still refuses to watch Grey’s Anatomy. You have to draw the line somewhere. (ABC, 9 p.m.)
Friday
Battlestar Galactica enters its final mile, with part one of the two-part finale tonight, and with about a zillion plot points to resolve. What’s the deal with Starbuck’s resurrection? What’s going to happen with the Cylon civil war? Why is Hera so important? Is Boomer insane? (Okay, yeah, Boomer is probably insane.) And most important: is this a sci-fi series about humanity crawling back from the brink of destruction, or is it a sci-fi series about humanity’s end? If this were any other show than Battlestar, the answer would be obvious and the show would go for the happy ending. But because it is Battlestar, the chance that Ron Moore and company might just go for the extinction is not minute. And that’s why this show is great. (Space, 10 p.m.)Breaking Bad, which was easily one of the best new shows of last year, is back for a second season, following Bryan Cranston winning a relatively unexpected and entirely welcome Emmy for his performance as Walter, the fiftysomething teacher who, when he discovers he has terminal cancer, becomes a meth dealer so as to be able to put away enough money for his family before he dies. If you haven’t watched this show yet? Well, the first season was only seven episodes, so it’s easy to catch up on one of the darkest and best dramedies to come along in a very long time. (AMC, 10 p.m.)