The month of May, and the last of the 09-10 sweeps periods, is done and gone.  We wave a fond farewell to 24, Lost, Heroes, and Law & Order (OF)*.  But for those of you who may be tempted to swallow your remote, turn blue, and slip into a summerlong coma … don’t go gently into that long, televisionless summer of darkness just yet.  There yet remains a reason to stay indoors during all that warm weather, avoiding the harsh, cancer-inducing sunlit days of June, July and August.  September seems so very far away, but I am here to offer you a lifeline … a “cable”, if you will.

Buck-up, fellow worshippers of The Almighty HD.  Television still loves you.

First, lets dispense with the reality shows in general.  I won’t blame you for watching So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).  Young hotties of various genders and persuasions cavorting about on stage in remarkably revealing states of dress (or undress) … hey, that gets my vote.  The rest of it … meh.  Last Comic Standing returns, if you like the (occasionally) funny, or Wipeout if you just admire the pain and/or humiliation our fellow humanbeings are willing do endure for our amusement.  But if you’re even slightly attempted to watch Losing It with Jillian (as in Jillian “Manthing” Michaels) … just go ahead and eat that remote as originally planned.  Now there’s a diet.  Also making my avoid-at-all- cost-lest-mine-eyes-bleed list: The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Downfall, True Beauty, Dating in the Dark,  Big Brother, Wife Swap (really, this is back?), Bridal Bootcamp, America’s Got Talent (uh … no … we really don’t), and Dance Your Ass Off.

Whew.  I feel so … unclean.  Excuse me a second …

That’s better … sorry about that.  I feel much, much better … though we may want to call in a haz-mat team.  I wonder if that’s what Jillian means by “losing it”.  I must have just lost a good two pounds …

Well, with that painful nonsense behind us, let’s take a quick peak at television which might actually be worth watching (and won’t induce violent regurgitation).  A few highlights returning on your local networks in June: Lie to Me; Friday Night Lights; Flashpoint; Past Life; and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (sort of).  Throw in a few new shows we might like: The Good Guys (recommended!); Persons Unknown; Scoundrels; The Gates, and Rookie Blue.  One might even suspect that the ‘nets haven’t totally given up on summer programming after all.  Still, that list is pretty damn thin.

Fortunately, the landscape is a little less arid once we leave the big boys behind.

Leading the pack (as is often the case of late) is the USA Network with several solid returning series, plus a new show or two: White Collar (season 2); Covert Affairs (new!); Psych (season 5); Burn Notice (season 4); and Royal Pains (season 2).  Really, you can’t lose with any of those.  And note that In Plain Sight and Law & Order: CI will air on USA for a few more weeks yet.  TNT remains a major contender for summer viewers returning several very good series: The Closer (season 6); Hawthorne (season 2);  Dark Blue (season 2); and Leverage (season 3).  New from TNT this June is Memphis Beat (akaDelta Blues) followed something called Rizzoli & Styles in early July.

Other cable networks are also in the game this summer.  ABC Family has a solid enough Monday block with The Secret Life of the American Teenager (season 3), Huge (new!), and Make It or Break It (season 2).  Also from ABC Fam, Pretty Little Liars is a new drama that looks intriguing.  It will air through August when it will be replaced by Melissa & Joey … which looks anything but.   FX, once Justified leaves the air later this month, steps in with the return of Rescue Me (season 6) which will be paired with Louie (new!) on Tuesday nights.  Amid a whole pant-load of their usual reality crap, A&E is offering us a new cop drama called The Glades.

Styffy (aka SyFy) offers some appealing summer viewing options as always.  Leading off is Eureka (season 4) which will be paired with the newcomer, Haven.  Later in July, Warehouse 13 (season 2) returns.  Did I fail to mention Ghost Hunters?  Good.  They also gots wrasslin’!  AMC (which still stands for American Movie Classics as far as I know) returns Madmen (season 3) to Tuesday nights and gives that critically acclaimed program a potentially equal partner with Rubicon.  While I’m likely to tune in for one or both, I’m really just killing time until The Walking Deadpremiers in October.

Now on to the real meat of the summer menu this year on pay cable.  Leading the pack (I know, I used this phrase already. But c’mon … they’re gonna have werewolves!) is HBO with True Blood (season 3), a bloody true pleasure every Sunday night.  Less inspiring is the follow-up pairing ofHung (season 2) and Entourage (season7), two shows I routinely miss and barely notice when I do.  HBO also has Hard Knocks, this year with the surprise of last NFL season, the New York Jets.  It is an exception to my general dislike of (almost) all reality programming … but only if you like football.  Showtime has Weeds (season 6) and The Big C (new!), a couple of oddball comedy/drama/comedy series that mine previously untapped sources of humor in the fun fields of drug-dealing and cancer.  Weirdly, it works.  Two more exceptions to my anti-reality-tv rules are the semi-reality comedies Penn & Teller: Bullshit (season 8) and The Green Room with Paul Provenza (new!).  I don’t know what to expect from this last one, also a reality show, The Real L Word.  I would occasionally catch The L Word (unreal version), but that was mostly for the hot lesbians and the nudity … interesting dramatic stories and characters were an unexpected bonus.  I might have to tune this one in just to see what the hell they’re thinking … and in case there are hot lesbians and nudity.

There you have it … the quick and dirty on what to expect during the Summer of 2010.  Expect a review or two, depending on how crazy life gets during the next three months.  Check out the Summer Series page for more info!

*OF = Original Flavor

Raise your hand if you’re shocked that a rich, powerful, entertainment figure was involved in a series of sexual indiscretions with younger women in the workplace.

I thought so.

Love him or hate him, Letterman did the right thing in calling this blackmailer out. He also did right in getting ahead of the story by telling it to America himself on his own show.

Do I agree with the behavior in question? No. Would I be above such behavior myself in his situation under similar circumstances? I doubt it. And the truth is, we really don’t know the exact circumstances.

But consider this: It was a third party making the threats and not one of the women involved. This is pretty telling, specially given how many women there might be. The few details I’ve read about would suggest that most (if not all) of this happened before Letterman actually got married–though likely while he was in a long-term relationship–and that the women involved were all consenting adults.

And none of it kept Dave from taking his usual shots at the politicians who have been in the media of late for much the same thing.

Get the full story at MSNBC.

Um … not really.

Science Fiction fans everywhere choked on their soylent green when they first heard the announcement from NBC Universal that the Sci-Fi Channel was going to be “rebranded” as SyFy.  Across the vast expanse of geekdom could be heard a collective, disbelieving chorus of “No … they wouldn’t … Would they?”

Yeah, they would.  They did.  Right on schedule on July 7, 2009, the Sci-Fi Channel was officially renamed SyFy.  On a Tuesday, even … evidently to correspond with the series debute of Warehouse 13 (which I think is where they will be mothballing all that now defunct Sci-Fi Channel merchandise).

I really thought someone somewhere would come to their senses and change their drug addled minds.  I understand it all has something to do with ‘branding’ and not being able to copyright Sci-Fi … but come on.  On what planet, including Bizarro World, did this sound like a good idea?

I’ll continue to watch good science fiction wherever I can find it (and no, I won’t be watching wrasslin’ on any network whatever).  In other words, I’m not going let sheer corporate stupidity change my viewing habits.  When TNN became Spike TV, it didn’t suddenly become a better network (possibly the opposite happened).  So Sci-Fi becoming SyFy doesn’t really change the fact that the network continues to be spotty at best.  Some great stuff, sure.  But for every great show, there’s a very good one they some how manage to bury or simply bungle.  Some that sure as hell could have been great too.  So I don’t expect this newly revisioned network to step up and rescue promising science fiction offerings dumped by other networks (as was once done for both Sliders and Stargate: SG1).  Sci-Fi opted out of that business sometime ago, choosing instead to simply rebroadcast recently canceled science fiction shows … as well as various programs that don’t resemble science fiction at all.  I’m surprised that Sci-Fi/SyFy can find room on the schedule for any original content at all anymore, unless it’s another big steaming pile of a “reality” TV show.

So, Battlestar Galactica is no more.  Both Stargate series are gone (but living on in perpetual rerun hell).  The Dresden Files (one of those shows that certainly could have been great) have disappeared and the legendary days of Farscape are all but forgotten.  The glory days of Sci-Fi have come and gone.  Welcome to SyFy.

And wrasslin’.  Don’t forget the wrasslin’.

Would you buy insurance from this man?

There it is … right after football … the (mostly) traditional CBS Sunday Night line-up.

• 60 Minutes
• The Amazing Race
• Cold Case
• The Unit

These are all returning programs, specially 60 Minutes (aka “Grandpa’s Favorite Show”), which has been around for a century or so.  Well, maybe not a full 100 years, but I’m pretty sure Andy Rooney has been at it at least that long.  In fact, I think Andy may have died back in the 80s … they just dig him up once a week, muss up his come-over, and prop him up in front of a teleprompter.  Seriously, over at CNN, Larry King has often been heard to say “Damn … that Rooney guy is old!”

Nothing 60 Minutes is doing this year is going to knock any of the dust off their old trusty stopwatch.  I only hope somebody is taking care of that thing because I’m pretty sure they don’t make stopwatches like that anymore.  Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley are gone, but a change of faces doesn’t change the basic format and content of this long running news program.  You always know what to expect and get exactly what you expected … which may explain why 60 Minutes continues to do well in the ratings.  Or maybe Grandma just hasn’t figured out her remote control yet.

The Amazing Race is into it’s 13th season.  If the show manages to keep my interest this year, I may actually contribute a longer piece on it in the next couple of weeks.  It seems that something new is added each season, but I’ve yet to see what that may be this time around the world.  There’s the usual mix of teams, though I didn’t see any gay couples this year and the token octogenarians have already been eliminated.  It should be noted that the “blondies” team this year, aka the Southern Belles, seem dimmer than usual and unlikely to last long.  Fortunately, enough general hotness remains among the other contestants.  There is already some potential inter-team steam being generated between one of the brunette gals and exceptionally buff guy name Dallas.  It remains to be seen if that is going anywhere, particularly with Dallas’s mommy making up the other half of his team.

Cold Case is steady as always, with the clear intention this year to get Lilly (Kathryn Morris) involved with Eddie (guest star Bobby Cannavale) as your ongoing subplot.  Usually, all that hormonal stuff is nothing more than a distraction from the current case the team is working.  But I sort of like Bobby, though I wonder if he can play any other role than his usual cop/fireman type badboy.  Cold Case has become one of those shows I’ll watch if nothing else is grabbing my attention.  Though I continue to ask myself why the badguys are always so damn eager to confess once the jig is up.

I’ve been watching The Unit since it started three years ago.  I’ve been a fan of Dennis Haysbert since he was President (on 24) … this guy has nearly sold me insurance several dozen times.  The rest of this cast is very good as well.  While these guys are all clearly heroes, they are also very human.  I like that they’re not above knocking off a team member every once in a while.  I imagine there are actual people like this in the world and I thank God they’re on our side.  This season is taking a very dark turn with a major terrorist plot in play to bring down the highest levels of our government.  Past seasons have seen the team fighting against government insiders and bureaucrats; it’s nice to have a more traditional kind of bad guy for a while.  I recommend this one, though I personally think it sucks that The Unit has landed on Sunday night.  Who knows … it may fit right in with the rest of the CBS Sunday line-up.

The CBS Sunday Line-Up starts with 60 Minutes at 7/6c.