Enjoy a full week of premieres

First off this is the month Turner Classic Movies is celebrating Peter Sellers but I think they started off with the worst Peter Sellers films which incidentally were his earliest and he hadn’t really come into his own. There was something where he was in prison under a lenient warden and then a stricter one, and there was this early version of “Gone in Sixty Seconds” that didn’t do a thing for me and the only one I enjoyed was the one where he was a liberal priest in a conservative parish and they exiled him to the moon. As the month continues and they get into those swinging ‘60s more they’ve got more zany and madcap installments planned so I’m sure it will get better.

Bob's Burgers

All sorts of stuff is premiering this week. We’ve got “Bob’s Burgers” on FOX where Sterling Archer of the FX animated series “Archer” has really let himself go and is behind the lunch counter with his horrifying family. It’s got some creative connection with “King of the Hill” which explains the low-key ambition-free premise. Good luck everyone.

This American Life

“This American Life” is an American Public Radio production out of WBEZ Chicago starring Ira Glass. It’s also a television production which premiered years ago on Showtime but no one saw it because it was on Showtime.

Showtime seems to realize this is a problem. A heavily edited season of their high-profile serial killer series “Dexter” appeared on CBS that one time. Back-to-back marathons of a heavily edited version of “Weeds” have been airing on the TVGuide channel -- which apart from the Internet is my very least favorite way of watching anything. And Current TV has acquired episodes of the Showtime production “This American Life,” which is somewhere in your basic cable lineup way up in the hundreds. That premieres at 10/9c Monday night. Enjoy!

Men of a Certain Age, The Closer

“Men of a Certain Age” looks like it’s sending the boys on vacation for their second season finale. After Terry’s miserable struggles as an aging actor last season he’s been struggling with moderate success this season. Owen is coming to terms with the realities of taking over a business run for many years as a shady operation by his own father who seems like he’s getting out just in time, and Joe is raising teens and getting back into the dating scene.

Sounds like it’s heading out a little better than “The Closer.” After a nail-biter of a two-parter the crime drama bowed out with a tweaker who was pleading his victimhood all the while acting out in the interview room and turns out he’d murdered one girl and abducted another to buy some crack.

It’s rare for me to see the end and what’s coming in this show -- it happens occasionally and they sometimes telegraph the endgame terribly -- but in this case I thought he was the criminal from the beginning -- mostly because they wouldn’t even have brought up an abducted teen for me to feel sorry for as soon as they did. “The Closer” god bless ‘em does make some serious plays on the emotions and in this case it came at the expense of the writing. I think they put their A-game in that Croatian Christmas-themed two-parter and needed to take another pass at the finale.

That said, it was an episode of “The Closer” and therefore better than most everything else on the box.

Grey's Anatomy

Speaking of emotions, the rollercoaster was flying fast and furious around "Grey's Anatomy's" Seattle Grace Mercy West with a shooting at a community college. I guess the writers got bored of thinking of ways for Christina to still be on leave, and they sent her after some ambulances and got her instincts to kick in on saving a kid, who as it turned out was the shooter.

I have no doubt they’ll return to that. The halls were a madhouse of activity, all of us hate Dr. Stark and I don’t know what it is if it’s just their relationship or the fact that it’s a lesbian relationship but this whole rebuilding process between Callie and Arizona reminds me of that reconciliation scene between Tara and Willow in the sixth season of “Buffy.”

Except Arizona isn’t doing it right. She thinks she can go from “OMG I can’t believe you’re bumming me out so much buh-BYE!” in the waiting area of an airport to “Hi! I’m back! What’s for dinner?!” Callie is playing this correctly, and Arizona has pulled this crap in the past, but I still hope they get back together because right now Lexi and Marc have the healthiest relationship in the hospital and that’s still a little ew. Although big huge congrats to Meredith for saying something out loud to Derek during surgery this week. Well done.

"Off the Map"

Speaking of “Grey’s,” the new production “Off the Map” is premiering Wednesday, put together by the same production team. That’s the one where they’re all practicing medicine out in the jungle somewhere. From the previews it looks like it’s got all of the problems that “Private Practice” had -- an over-emphasis on wacky weird cases and romantic entanglements. Not that this differentiates it perfectly from “Grey’s,” but at least the team in Seattle practices the occasional bit of medicine.

V

What else? Well, like I mentioned elsewhere, “Hoarders” is going out with a bang, and Sunday we’ve got the two-hour series premiere of “The Cape” on NBC, encoring Monday night, more on that later. “V” is back and now so is Jane Badler. It looks like Ana’s running a power play on her mom from the original series which would be more interesting if the show wasn’t constantly holding out “What the Vs are really up to” as some kind of it’s-still-a-mystery. When the red rain comes and Ana addresses the world saying “Oh, see, now, it’s to solve global warming” and it’s just to make us fertile breeding subjects for them at some point someone’s going to figure out what all this stuff actually is. Not to mention it’s just candy for conspiracy nuts and at some point that’s actually getting to be a little offensive, ABC.

Lights Out

Also premiering Tuesday is “Lights Out” on FX, haven’t seen enough about that yet to comment, but Syfy is showing classic “Green Hornet” episodes back to back in anticipation of the film.

Southland

“Southland” is still going strong and I promised I’d watch an episode of that so as to comment on it. Ben Sherman is established a little more now, he’s less of a rookie, and he’s encountering more screwed up situations. Like this week a gunman he was pursuing very calmly, very casually raised his gun to his head and took his own life, not a hint of warning, camera didn’t even blink. The show’s got a gorram snuff episode. His partner is suffering an addiction to painkillers and everybody’s a great big sexy law-and-order-type cop out wranglin’ the beat and screw you I’m a cop, dammit, all of you are little and petty and y’all just get in my way.

John Wells’ cop fetish is showing big time in this, especially when a woman cop takes down a perp twice her size and brings him in. Yeah they’re trained but think about what this perp did -- he’s a security guard who physically attacks women, duct tapes them, assaults them and hides them in the ceiling at his job. This is a guy with active hostility toward women so I bet he doesn’t just go down and stay down just because she’s yelling at him but oh well.

I’ve made it no secret I really don’t like “Southland.” When it’s promoted as being critically acclaimed I wonder who’s acclaiming it and why. It’s an OK cop drama but it has a “Law & Order” wannabe quality to it, and it tries too hard to impress its older big brother cop show. Same thing on “Blue Bloods” which is such a CBS cop show …

Oh my god, “Southland” did that CBS thing, where they were at the scene of a crime where the bodies of a couple teen rapists had been abandoned post some community-style justice and eaten at by some dogs, and the officer on the scene commented that the little dogs that had been eating on them are probably now back at home getting a tummyrub. And now Myrtle at home’s gotta wonder if her little Tiddles has been off snacky-wacking on the bad guys.

It’s a thing, when “Criminal Minds” suggests a teen was abducted from the mall or got a bad text message or just any damn’ thing, and I watch for that stuff because it’s pandering. Can’t say I was surprised to see it here.

Caprica

Finally, “Caprica” aired its final five episodes on Tuesday and it was a good conclusion to the prequel. I guess I’d have appreciated seeing the overly dramatic Sister Clarice get banged up a little more in the finale but getting all the Cylons stirred up and ready to take over the worlds was as good a place as any to end it. It laid in their fascination with monotheism and prophecy, and the purpose behind creating skinjobs in the first place, and I liked the Graystones going from terrorists to saving the world in an afternoon, even knowing the history and where it’s all going, it made perfect sense. Generally it was a good story and I thought they told it well.

Human Target, American Idol

FOX can stop showing “Human Target” in two-hour installments, but my guess is they’re trying to get rid of it so they can start showing the Only Thing They Show for Many, Many Months which is “American Idol.” This season, without Simon – and last season even with him – very dull. Who is going to take the talentless to task? I’m not even tuning in to the audition rounds that’s how little hope I’ve got well maybe once, but last year he was so unwilling to engage and there were so many people who just needed a firehose to the face for what they’d just done to a poor defenseless song. This year we’re probably going to see even less of that, but think about it. You see all those people in those big long lines and they all sing somewhere. Someone could make a lot of money just showing “American Idol” rejects and taking them on properly. As it is, not interested.

Wipeout

ABC’s winter installment of “Wipeout” is having a musical version Thursday, that might be fun. Lord knows “Big Bang Theory” is a repeat and I’ve lost almost all interest in “Stuff My Dad Says.” It wouldn’t be so bad if he occasionally said stuff but mostly the show is a very standard sitcom and it seems to be in a contest with “Better With You” for the title of “Who Was Less Terrible This Week.” Can’t recommend it, can’t believe it won an award.

Beyond that can’t really ... oh there’s a Denis Leary thing next Sunday on Comedy Central, and I’ve been having words with actual British blogger a_spod about “Primeval” and I believe he has currently increased his demands to 13 reasons why “Primeval” is a bad show but I’m not giving in.

Beyond that, have a wonderful week and … enjoy!