TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: July 10
A select viewing guide for Tuesday, July 10
COMEDY: Hot in Cleveland (CTV, 8 p.m.) Already renewed for a fourth season (starting next November), this old-school sitcom currently ranks as the highest-rated show on the U.S. cable channel TV Land, and pulls in a million-plus viewers each week for CTV. If you’re late to the party, the show stars ex-Frasier regular Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) and Valerie Bertinelli (One Day At a Time) as Joy, Victoria and Melanie, three former L.A. doyennes with a new lease on life in Cleveland. Added to the mix is 90-year-old Betty White as their feisty housekeeper, Elka. As per The Golden Girls, the show constantly enforces the notion that the four ladies have active love lives, as in tonight’s new episode in which Victoria dates a hand model (Sean Hayes), Joy dates a man of indeterminate age and Melanie dates a semi-nudist. Elka, meanwhile, has to deal with the ornery mother of her new boyfriend, Roy (John Mahoney).
COMEDY: Trust Us with Your Life (ABC, 9 p.m.) Don’t be deterred by the title or summer launch. This show has potential. Hosted by the inimitable Fred Willard, the concept harks back to the days of Whose Line is it Anyway?, when improvisational comedy was de rigueur on prime-time television. Filmed before a studio audience, the format involves a celebrity coming onstage and revealing a key moment in their life. Then the fun begins, as that same moment is re-enacted for laughs by a group of veteran improv players, including Wayne Brady, Jonathan Mangum and Canada’s own Colin Mochrie. Tennis star Serena Williams submits to the experiment in tonight’s series opener.
NEWS: Frontline (PBS, 9 p.m.) Remember AIDS? More than three decades after the discovery of the AIDS virus among gay white males, roughly one half of the one-million Americans infected with HIV are African-American men, women and children. The Frontline team explores the largely preventable health crisis by profiling several people stricken with AIDS. Meet Nel, a grandmother who caught the HIV virus after marrying a deacon in her church. Or the teen rap duo Tom and Keith, both born with the virus in the early nineties. The film documents the efforts of black AIDS activists, including Magic Johnson and Julian Bond, to raise awareness in the black community and fend off a looming epidemic.
REALITY: NY Med (ABC, 10 p.m.) Welcome to New York Presbyterian Hospital, where medical miracles are performed daily. Debuting tonight, this new eight-part series was filmed over the past year at the world-class health facility. Special attention is paid to the attending surgeons who save lives with what appears to be a mix of medical brilliance and old-fashioned luck. Standing out in the crowd is Dr. Mehmet Oz, better known for his daily talk show and appearances on Oprah, who routinely performs heart surgeries at the hospital. Get out the handkerchiefs for tonight’s opener in which the surgeons deal with a brain tumour and a young patient with a serious heart defect.
MOVIE: Of Human Bondage (TCM, 11:15 p.m. EST; 8:15 p.m. PST) Based on a novel by Somerset Maugham, this 1934 drama remains a powerful tale of romance gone terribly wrong. Leslie Howard plays the cultured, club-footed artist Philip, who abandons his artistic ambitions and returns to London to become a doctor. His studies suffer, however, when he falls hard for the crass tearoom waitress Mildred (Bette Davis). After Mildred rebuffs his marriage proposal in favour of an oafish salesman, Philip takes the hint and eventually finds true love with the winsome Norah (Kay Johnson). And then Mildred returns, pregnant and destitute.