New Shows that Fill in the Programming Gaps

New Shows that Fill in the Programming Gaps by Roxanne McDonald

It’s that time of year when finales of favorite shows leave us wanting, yearning, begging for the new season line-up to begin and dreading what we will do in the down time.

I have a whiteboard calendar, a two-foot blank four-week board I write in my TV-viewing lineup for each day. A few weeks ago, the board held the names of about seventy shows, the majority of them reality-based.

This week, it is with a tear in the eye that I erased more than I left alone or replaced: “Age of Love,” “On the Lot,” and “Hell’s Kitchen” are long gone from the Mondays. “America’s Got Talent,” “Pirate Master,” and soon, “Big Brother 8″ had/have to be removed from Tuesdays. You get the idea. So what does one do while waiting?
Sure, during the interim, between seasons, we get to catch up with TiVoed shows, watch sports galore [which pre-empt our staple shows such as Seinfeld, argh], or indulge in some repeats on the LMN, Lifetime Movie Network that are ironically about women who are battered, beaten, lied to, challenged, and whacked.

The options are not all that exciting. But the alternatives are less than appealing, as well.

Let’s see. “Kid Nation”. Now that promised to be a lawsuit in the making. “The Two Coreys.” Yeeuh. The Two Snoreys, is more like it. “The Pick-up Artist.” Eh, a well-intended spinoff of the geek-themed shows, but more obnoxious a “mentor” and more humiliating for the participants.

And the latest substitute television will bring us amateur psychics competing to become America’s number one

psychic. “Psychic Challenge” will air in October, though, so even that will not sate our needs in these long September cabin-feverish nights.
What I’m waiting ever-so-patiently for is the return of “America’s Next Top Model” [cycle 9 premiering September 19th]; the newest edition of “Survivor,” “Survivor China,” and, though the wait will be way too long, “Big Brother 9”!
“Big Brother 8” has only a week or so left, and already I am checking the calendar for what will sufficiently, satisfactorily take its place. I am afraid I will be disappointed if I rely on the newer programming, and am already working on ways to get through the one or two weeks when virtually dead airtime will drive me back to—heaven forbid—having to read a book or something.

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