Louie
(Thursdays 10:30 ET, FX)
America’s best comedian brings us the third season of America’s most downbeat comedy. Louis C.K. (real name Louis Szekely—the C.K. is an approximation of his real name’s proper pronunciation) writes, directs, edits, and stars in Louie, a show that is basically a fictionalized version of C.K.’s life interspersed with bits of his standup routine. It’s the same basic idea as Seinfeld, but decidedly darker, and much less sitcom-like.
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The Newsroom
(Sundays 10:00 ET, HBO)
The newest show from West Wing creator/The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin does for cable news programs what The West Wing did for politics and his brilliantly flawed Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip did for Saturday Night Live. Sorkin spent months behind the scenes at various cable news shows to research the show, and as usual, his sense of realism is on the mark. His typical rapid-fire dialogue, and some excellent performances from Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer make up for the show’s occasional excesses. The show has already been renewed for a second season, so it’s guaranteed to fare better than Studio 60, which was cancelled after just one year.
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Breaking Bad
(Sundays 10:00 ET, AMC)
If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad yet, you need to do yourself a favor and watch seasons 1–4, because this season is the show’s last, and it’s going out on a high mark. Next to The Wire, its one of the best-written, best-acted shows of the last 10 years. Maddeningly, AMC is splitting up the final season into two mini-seasons, Sopranos-style, which means we’ll have to wait until next summer for the finale. Let’s just hope those rumors about a movie turn out to be true.
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Weeds
(Sundays 10:00 ET, Showtime)
Another show in its final season is Weeds, the show about America’s foxiest drug dealer, starring Mary-Louise Parker as the suburban mom gone bad. Unlike Breaking Bad, Weeds has overstayed its welcome and probably should have ended several seasons ago. It’s always been wildly uneven, never finding a consistent tone, and never seeming to figure out how to feel about its characters. Still, it’s always entertaining, mostly thanks to Kevin Nealon’s brilliant comic performance.
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Copper
(Sundays 10:00 ET, BBC America)
One of the most intriguing shows of the summer doesn’t debut until mid-August. But coming from the team of Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, the team behind Homicide: Life On the Streets and Oz (as well as The Beat, but we’ll pretend we don’t remember that one), Copper seems like it can’t miss. The show revolves around a police officer (played by British actor Tom Wetson-Jones) patroling the Five-Points neighborhood of New York City in 1860. Think Homicide meets Gangs of New York. We can’t wait.
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Falling Skies
(Sundays 10:00 ET, HBO)
Steven Spielberg's sci-fi drama about a post-alien-invasion society is in its second season and seems to be getting better as it gets darker. With an excellent cast that includes Noah Wiley and Moon Bloodgood, and an intriguing storyline about the scant remains of humanity (90% of the world's population were killed in the alien invasion) who form a resistance against the evil aliens, it's good enough to satisfy our sci-fi jones until the new season of Dr. Who premiers.
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