The best laid plans of mice and men ...

Right now my DVR is filling up with the first two seasons of “The Tudors” starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a young King Henry VIII -- that is, a heavily edited version of that show appearing on the BBC America.

I’ll have more to say about this later but I don’t know why they’re airing these marathons today and tomorrow, when they’re planning to air the series in primetime Wednesday nights. I’m guessing it makes sense to someone. Anyway, I caught a peek at the series premiere and I thought it got the story off to a good start.

As I noted last week, “The Tudors” is just the latest series Showtime has released to basic cable, probably to recoup a few of the expenses that were clearly lavished in the making of it. Whereas god love it “True Blood” could be costumed from a rummage sale and set in the producer’s back yard, the brilliant costuming of the Royal Court in 16th century England took some investment, even if they did cast it with people who are all so physically magnificent no one would’ve had anything to do back then except paint, embroider, sculpt and lay in woodcarvings at court in dazzled awe of the physical attractiveness of everyone in sight and no one at all would’ve bothered with clothes.

Lights Out

This week saw a few midseason premieres and one of them disappointed me deeply. Darn you, FX, I didn’t want to like your premiere of “Lights Out” and I mean at all. I wanted it to be a dumb retired boxer I couldn’t make myself care about even a little, and I could safely ignore it. I tried not really paying attention to it while it was on. I tried dismissing it as every tired cliché it brought into play.

Nothing worked.

I’m not saying I have a new favorite show here. But “Lights Out,” following the misadventures of Holt McCallany -- yep, there’s a name right there -- Holt McCallany as palooka Patrick “Lights” Leary and his financial instability, his family, his uneasy retirement and naturally there’s some medical issues – has gotten off to a good start, even if the main character is in a bad place. The IRS are investigating him, the star power of his personal appearances has dried up to nothing after five years away from the ring, he’s on the brink of losing everything -- although it sounded from the opening sequence like his wife was about to have a pretty solid income as a doctor or something -- and he’s been forgetting stuff. An MRI showed he’s got pugilist’s dementia which could lead to Alzheimer’s maybe in a year or two, maybe never.

An interview indicated he’s still got some anger issues that are coming out in his day-to-day life. A moneylender calls on him to do some collection work, a couple insults at a bar turn into a beatdown in the parking lot. He’s kept his training up and he’s still a big man so it’s not ... well, his opponent from five years back is on television trash talking for a rematch, and there’s a multimillion dollar purse at stake, he figures it’s a way to provide for his family – who he hasn’t quite broken the news about being broke, yet.

While the presence of little daughters and a preteen nephew who wants Lights to help with his training, suggests this will occasionally be a bit of a family show, the MA rating demands otherwise. There’s some graphic violence and McCallany’s personal charisma ranks him immediately among the FX lineup of dramatic leading men -- Timothy Olyphant’s Marshal Givens in “Justified,” Denis Leary’s Tommy Gavin in “Rescue Me,” Ron Perlman’s Clay Morrow in “Sons of Anarchy” -- and there’s some nice family tension with Leary’s wife freaked out at the idea he’s planning to get into the ring again although I think Catherine McCormack is the only woman with a British accent I’ve ever found actively annoying. I guess it didn’t seem necessary and if it is, lord knows Rhona Mitra’s available. That “Gates” thing was just awful.

Off the Map

One show that conformed to my prediction of being super easy to miss is “Off the Map,” the latest production from the team that brought us “Grey’s Anatomy” and its spinoff “Private Practice,” which still doesn’t do a thing for me despite the presence of Kate Walsh but I guess someone must be watching it.

“Off the Map” is young, gorgeous doctors in South America somewhere. They all have deep, dark, compelling personal stories and were selected from hundreds of applicants to practice medicine in the jungle. Their first day they encounter some outrageous cases, such as a family refusing to take medicine for their tuberculosis, a man hanging from his mangled arm on a zipline, a guy who received a transfusion from a green coconut and my favorite was a man who had the tail of a stingray through his foot.

No, I don’t know how that would happen even if he were, say, waterskiing because waterskiing happens on the surface and stingrays hang out on the sea floor. And it’s a spiny tail but usually maybe some barbs will break off if the stingray is defending itself. In general it’s not stabbing itself lengthwise through someone’s foot. That seems like a situation where the person and the ray will pretty much both die, and the person would surely pass out from the pain.

I wasn’t able to pass out from the pain -- looks like a guy is being compressed by a constrictor in some future episode and while it’s killing him, it’s the only thing keeping him alive, can’t say I’m too impressed by that. And one of the docs, Lily, had asthma medicine for herself which she gave to a patient and the patient was so grateful she gave her a chicken.

The main event is Dr. Ben Keeton, played by Martin Henderson, and he’s so legendary and gorgeous and everyone’s so beautiful and all the established doctors are snobs and all the new doctors are idiots and everyone’s feeling things with their feelings -- there was a situation where the mangled arm guy wanted to dump his wife’s ashes in a bioluminescent lake and while he needed urgent care -- half his blood was green coconut juice -- the new doctor tending to him insisted he spend the three hours on the river to dump his wife’s ashes, rather than get airlifted to a hospital, because she was a widow herself. OK, fine. Maybe he gets airlifted, recovers from his injuries and then comes back, what say? His wife will be just as dead and maybe you can all make sure he survives as well, huh?

So yeah, that’s my impression of that. “Off the Map” airs Wednesdays on ABC.

Coming up

Some good news, by the way, I saw where Dana Delany’s “Body of Proof” opens end of March, but why we’ve got to wait til the end of March is beyond me. Couldn’t they be airing it anywhere they’re airing the winter installments of “Wipeout”? Much as I love the spectacle of people falling about hilariously, it’s a summer show – fluffy beach reading at best. Whereas Dana Delany as a medical examiner with a shady past is absolutely the right speed for our bleak midwinter – especially since they’re only showing the fourth season of “Damages” on Encore or Starz or something and … I don’t get those channels. Show me a hot redhead!

I guess a hot brunette will do. “Fairly Legal” premieres Thursday at 10/9c on USA, and I’ll have more to say about that after it airs. Also, “Royal Pains” returns Thursday for a third season at 9/8c on USA. When we left our heros, HankMed’s benefactor German nobleman Boris Keuster von Jurgens-Ratenicz had just accused Henry Winkler as Eddie R. Lawson of some sort of corporate espionage or embezzlement or something and you can tell his son, Hank Lawson, the Hank in HankMed, is so embarrassed.

Making even less sense is Divya’s somewhat pointless infatuation with a war vet on the eve of her arranged marriage on the heels of discovering her intended is an honorable man who cares for her. Can’t wait to learn more about that. And of course Hank is taking full advantage of the ambiguity of no-strings-attached land to pursue both Jill and Emily, and Evan is pursuing the heiress who hired him to pretend to be her boyfriend. Also returning for a third season is “White Collar,” Tuesday night at 10/9c on USA, which I guess someone must be watching and enjoying but that person would not be me.

Anyway, the FOX series premiere of “Bob’s Burgers” last week fulfilled my expectations completely. It’s horrifying and no one should watch it. That said, it’s hilarious and I completely understand why anyone would watch it. But you shouldn’t, because it’s terrible. That and the animation looks like a Mountain Dew commercial that escaped from Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network.

David E. Kelley’s latest legal dramedy “Harry’s Law” premieres Monday following the season resume of “Chuck” at 8/7c and an all-new episode of “The Cape” at 9/8c on NBC. I’ll probably have more to say about all of that down the road as well. A&E hosts the series premiere of “Heavy” Monday night at 10/9c where, well, you can tune in and check that out yourself, the promos have been a little outrageous.

Onion News Network

Comedy Central premiered a spoof of sports coverage called “The Onion Sportsdome” where a couple of blithe commentators highlight some reasonably accessible sports coverage which is pretty funny even for people who don’t really watch sports. I recognize those last few words there were in English, but it might honestly be impossible to understand that there are people out here who don’t follow sports. Suffice it to say we exist which is why I was weirded out that they would focus solely on sports. Initially it sounded like they were doing the cable version of their ONN online video series, but this works, too. In the pilot episode we got a peek at one of the sportscasters’ sordid past, there was some nice self-referential comedy, there was some relatively straightforward coverage of ridiculous stuff like new rules for basketball, escaped NFL retirees and then something I really enjoyed, coverage of crystal meth junkies battling their hallucinations. Fun stuff. New episodes premiere Tuesday nights at 10:30/9:30c.

Oh, OK, I see what I was … yeah, “Onion News Network, Enter the Factzone” premieres at 10/9c Friday night on IFC. That’s probably a little more general interest comedy news coverage. That should be fun.

“American Idol” premieres this week, that’s all I’ve got to say about that, and we have the series premiere of “Perfect Couples” at 8:30/7:30c on NBC. Speaking of premieres there’s something on The History Channel trying to figure out if the president has a secret spy ring stretching back all the way to Washington on Brian Meltzer’s “Decoded,” that’s Thursday at 10/9c.

Finally, “Fringe” returns with all new episodes at 9/8c Friday night on FOX, and that is my favorite show if anyone was wondering. Olivia has made a realization and a decision regarding Peter so that should be lovely.