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July 06, 2008

What to watch this week

THURSDAY

The only downside to the first season of AMC's Mad Men last summer was that it overshadowed another terrific debut, the spy comedy Burn Notice.

It returns for season two at 9 p.m. CT on USA. Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) is still stuck in Miami, still helping out the small fry while waiting for an answer to his big question: Why did his bosses dump him here? Packed with action and spy-genre cliches (goofy accents, outsized weapons, omniscient phone callers), the show works because of Donovan, who never loses his cool and always sounds like a guy on the phone with his wife, giving her step-by-step instructions for programming the VCR. The voice of Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica joins the show, bolstering a super-smooth ensemble that includes the smokin' Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless as the Mom he hasn't been to see all week.

SATURDAY

For once, somebody working for PBS came up with an original idea -- make an animated sitcom based on fictional versions of the brothers Magliozzi, co-stars of the long-running NPR radio advice show Car Talk. Well, semi-original, anyway. Unfortunately, KCPT's schedule is already tighter than a Boston two-laner in rush hour, so viewers here won't see Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns until 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday. Slightly more Americans are having gallstone operations than are watching public TV at that hour.

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