Many happy returns
Your favorite cable shows are coming back this week.
This will be my last chance ever to trot out this joke, so bear with me, OK? Here goes:
“The Sopranos”? Fuhgeddaboutit!
Yep, Tony Soprano and the gang are leaving the stage this weekend. But this is hardly cause for concern.
June is traditionally high tide for cable TV, and this year is no exception. In the next two weeks, four of the biggest dramas not seen on broadcast TV are returning for their new seasons. They include television's highest-profile lead female character (Kyra Sedgwick, “The Closer”) and the actor most likely to succeed James Gandolfini as our favorite malcontent (Denis Leary, “Rescue Me”).
Here's a quick guide to the four big returning shows:
“Kyle XY,” 7 p.m. Monday, ABC Family. It takes a good ear and some luck to create a TV show like “Kyle XY,” which debuted last season and did a remarkably good job of balancing heartfelt family drama with “X-Files” spookiness. This season, the story moves to a new level, as Kyle (Matt Dallas) reconnects with a person who knows about his secret past, and this knowledge fundamentally alters his relationship to his “normal” host family, the Tragers.
In another one of those experiments that I think is mostly designed to provide a budget-conscious network with some cheap weekend filler, ABC will reair this episode at 7 p.m. Friday.
“Big Love,” 8 p.m. Monday, HBO. The comedic drama about a Mormon ménage-à-trois returns with a two-hour episode clearly designed to bring uninitiated viewers into the fold. When last we saw the Henrickson clan, Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) was dealing with the shame and humiliation of being exposed as a polygamist's wife just as she was about to be named one of Utah's leading mommies. Meanwhile, the unwelcome public exposure has added one more thing to husband Bill's (Bill Paxton) already full plate.
Once again, HBO will try to train its audience to watch its original series on a night other than Sunday, as “Big Love” moves to Monday nights this season. If you already have a big love for this show, then go to HBO On Demand now, where there are three little vignettes that visit key moments in the characters' past (think Tripplehorn in a '90s hairdo).
“Rescue Me,” 9 p.m. Tuesday, FX. The fourth season of this underrated series, starring Leary as a fireman in freefall, opens with an 11-minute sequence that manages to shoehorn everyone and everything I love about this show.
As you may recall, Tommy Gavin (Leary) was last seen lying semi-conscious in a burning house. The fire was lit by his then-girlfriend Sheila (Callie Thorne), who overreacted -- that's a nice way to describe premeditated arson, isn't it? -- to the news that Tommy had decided not to retire from New York's bravest.
“Rescue Me” continues to sit in the crosshairs of the decency police, who argue that Upstanding Americans shouldn't be forced to pay for FX's “smut.” Never mind that the show is plainly labeled “TV-MA” at every break and that surveys have found that most parents already know they can block shows they don't want their kids to watch. If the Emmy voters would finally recognize that “Rescue Me” is one of the best things on TV today, they might be able to douse this fire being set by the religious right. (After all, wildfires tend to spread.)
“The Closer,” 8 p.m., June 18, TNT. Unlike “Rescue Me,” no one is overlooking “The Closer,” one of the most talked-about cable programs to come along since, well, “The Sopranos.” Sedgwick has already picked up a Golden Globe and is the odds-on favorite to capture the Emmy this year for her endlessly watchable work as LAPD case-cracker Brenda Johnson.
“The Closer” proves how deceptively easy it can be to create a hit show. Here is what looks, on paper, to be a standard-issue detective show with two minor alterations. First, it stars a woman instead of a man. This woman, however, isn't some stereotypical street-smart cop; she's a Southern belle who's a master at knowing when and how to turn on the charm when it suits her.
Second, every episode ends with a long interrogation scene. But it's much more than that. In effect, “The Closer” has brought the high drama of a courtroom closing argument into the squad room. Brenda routinely pulls out all the stops to obtain a confession, and her theatrics make the ending of any “Closer” episode possibly the most riveting 10 minutes on TV today.
As the new season begins, Brenda's boss (JK Simmons) presents her with an ultimatum: Give me the names of your best cops to reassign to anti-terror duty. And we all know how well Brenda takes direct orders.
If you're a big fan, and the ratings say a lot of you are (“The Closer” is said to be the most-watched basic cable program in history), you don't have to wait another eight days to get a taste of the new season. Sedgwick is James Lipton's guest on “Inside the Actors Studio,” 7 p.m. this Monday on Bravo.
