TV: 5 shows worth watching tonight: Sept. 17
Andrew Ryan's picks
DRAMA Bones Fox, Global, 8 p.m. Back tonight for its eighth season, this low-key series is the Fox Network’s longest-running scripted drama series. Creator and executive producer Hart Hanson has kept viewers engaged by steadily advancing the relationshipbetween the central characters of FBI agent Booth (David Boreanaz) and forensics whiz Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel). Why, last season they even had a baby together! Tonight’s season opens with Brennan falsely accused of murder and on the lam with infant daughter in town. Her baby-daddy Booth is frantically trying to clear her name, which connects to the murder of a high-school guidance counselor. Sixties TV icon Ryan O’Neal resumes his guest role of Brennan’s father, Max.
REALITY Who Do You Think You Are? CBC, 8:30 p.m. Some TV ideas just keep coming back. Launched with great fanfare by CBC for the 2007-2009 broadcast season, this homegrown take on a popularBritish series ran one short season before it was pulled, presumably due to low ratings, and then shelved until tonight. As with the recent successful NBC spinoff, the format follows famous people as they track their the roots, which allowed Canadian viewers unprecedented insight into the family trees of Don Cherry, Randy Bachman, Margaret Trudeau and Mary Walsh, among others. The second season opens with a profile of Don Cherry, whose genealogy has presumably evolved since the first series.
DRAMA Franklin & Bash Bravo!, 9 p.m. If you’re looking to add a legal drama to your regular viewing regimen, make it this show. Hailing from the U.S. cable channel TNT, the premise revolves around the cases handled by two slick legal eagles. Film veteran Breckin Meyer is perfectly cast as Jared, the self-assured son of afamous trial lawyer, while Mark-Paul Gosselar (best known as Zack on Saved by the Bell) plays his best friend legal partner, Peter. Both men work in the snooty law firm of Infield Daniels, which is overseen by the imperious Stanford Infield, played by Malcolm McDowell. In tonight’s second-season episode, Peter and Jared lend their legal expertise to a high-profile custody case involving Stanford’s shrewish ex-wife Evanthia, played by Cybill Shepherd.
DRAMA Revolution NBC, Citytv, 10 p.m. Can you imagine a world without electricity? Therein lies the premise of this dark sci-fi drama co-executive produced by Lost creator J.J. Abrams. The story opens with tonight’s pilot in which all electricity on earth is inexplicably turned off and the world is thrust into the dark ages—literally. The story shifts forward 15 years to a not-so-brave new world with the focus on the scrappy young survivor Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos), her brother Danny (Graham Rogers) and their quirky uncle Miles (Billy Burke) trying to evade the ragtag militia army run by Captain Tom (Giancarlo Esposito). The apocalyptic premise is a little close to the recent series Jericho, but it’s still scary stuff.
MOVIE Lies My Father Told Me Vision, midnight The Canadian film industry was virtually non-existent in the seventies, with the notable exception of this heartfelt 1975 film that won a Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Film. Based on a story by the late Canadian writer Ted Allan, the plot focuses on the Herman family, who are struggling to survive in working-class Montreal, circa mid-twenties. While the dreamer Harry Herman (Len Birman) works on his get-rich-quick schemes, his son David (Jeff Lynas) eagerly absorbs Jewish culture through the stories told by his grandfather Zaida (Yossi Yadin) during their horse-drawn rides through the neighbourhood to collect junk. The competition for the boy’s affections reaches fever pitch when secular Harry tells David that his grandfather’s stories are fanciful lies. The fine Canadian actress Marilyn Lightstone is luminescent in her first film role as David’s mother, Annie.