A look at some noteworthy television this week:
The Kill Point (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., Spike TV) The debut of a hostage drama miniseries starring John Leguizamo as a leader of a group of bank robbers who’s plans went wrong and Donnie Wahlberg as the Pittsburgh Police negotiator tasked to deal with them.
Saving Grace (Monday, 10:00 p.m., TNT) Another cop show with a twist, this time Holly Hunter stars as an Oklahoma City Police detective who has a real guardian angel looking after her, and we don’t mean the Curtis Sliwa type.
Just for Laughs (Tuesday, 8:00, p.m., WABC 7) A Canadian rip-off of Candid Camera makes it to the states. If American networks want to import Canadian programming, why not something good like say The National?
Nova: Science Now (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13) Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts the PBS science magazine show that this week takes a look at a pregnant dinosaur bones, a cryptic sculpture at CIA headquarters, a physicist who may be a challenger to Einstein, and a new genetic theory.
Wide Angle: The Sand Castle (Tuesday, 9:00 p.m.) One of the summer’s bright spots has been the PBS documentary series Wide Angle. This week the show goes to the United Arab Emirates and follows Norwegian architects who are making a bid to design the new capital city.
Damages (Tuesday, 10:00 p.m., FX) In this new drama from FX, Glen Close plays a high powered lawyer, and Rose Byrne plays the newbie lawyer at the firm going after an Enron type company. Ted Danson plays the head of that company who and decides to go after them. Amazingly Danson winds up doing something that he hasn’t done in his last few TV outings, not suck and Glenn Close is amazing in the pilot. We hope the rest of the series keeps it up. An added bonus is that the show is set and filmed in New York.
The Next Best Thing: Who Is the Greatest Celebrity Impersonator? (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., WABC 7) This awful show finally ends.
Hairworld: The Pursuit of Excellence (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13) This documentrary follows the American team at the International HairWorld Championships in Moscow. What is the International HairWorld Championships? Think of it at the Olympics of hairdressing.
American Masters - John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) A look at the life of legendary nature artist John James Audubon. If you have no idea who he is you should really watch.
Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest (Thursday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13) A look at popular music and its political impact along with protest songs it has generated, from the early 20th century to today.
Who Wants to Be a Superhero? (Thursday, 9:00 p.m., Sci Fi) This fakeality show returns for a second season. (Who even knew there was a first?) Contestants have to prove there superhero mettle to comic book master Stan Lee. The prize? The winner gets their own comic book and action figure. It sounds so bad it may wind up being good.
Mind Control With Derren Brown (Thursday, 10:00 p.m., Sci Fi) Derren Brown is a British mentalist who uses what can be best described as some parlor tricks to get inside people’s minds, or at least appear to.
Reel New York Film Festival (Thursday, 10:00 p.m., WNET 13) Four short films from New York filmmakers are on offer this week, and three of them are heavy on the Coney Island:
Bicycle Gangs of New Yorkis filmmaker Cheryl Dunn’s look at the bicycle gangs of the city. Think more tricked out Schwinns and hard core cyclists than The Warriors.
Coney Island, 1945 is Jeremiah Zagar’s multimedia look at Coney Island’s past through the lens of a man’s memories.
Avenue X is Phil Roc’s tale of two hearing impaired young men and their adventures trying to take a day trip to Coney Island.
Carnival Fantasy is an experimental film by Sol Rubin taking a look at Coney Island at night.
