No more new shows to debut or old show to return as of tonight the Monday primetime line up for each network is in full swing.

Prime Picks

Arrested Development (Fox): I really just started watching this show last week because it used to be on Sunday night. It actually is one of the best comedies on TV right now and almost no one is watching. The TVaholic will be tuning into tonight, will you?
How I Met Your Mother (CBS): Of the three new Monday night comedies this seems to be the one with the most long-term potential. It was very funny and had the best surprise ending any show has had in a while.

Prison Break (Fox): This show continues to hold my attention. The elaborate plan seems to be back on track with the Warden coming to a last second bit of conscience. What will go wrong now? And who is the woman on the phone? These and many more questions I want answers to.

CSI: Miami (CBS): More stuff blows up or gets shot up or both in this version of CSI. Tonight it is a boat that catches fire and later starts sinking. Don’t worry Horatio and the team our on the case.

Solid Selections

The King of Queens (CBS): Tonight Carrie and Doug go to marriage counseling and look to one of their neighbor, but he makes things worse.
Kitchen Confidential (Fox): Hopefully this week’s episode will actually be funny, last week not so much but I still liked it for some reason.

Las Vegas (NBC): This show is pure escapism and on tonight’s episode Ed tries figure out who is behind the counterfeit chips. While Danny at the behest of his accountant looks into selling his father’s house and is referred to an attractive real estate agent.

Medium (NBC): Well she is dreaming again so things should get back to creepy normal again.

Other Options

Surface (NBC): Of the three alien invasion shows to debut this season this one finishes in third place but if you are not watching football or looking for a laugh then what else are you going to watch?

Two and a Half Men (CBS): The dynamic between Sheen and Cryer make this show worth watching. This show is also consistently funny.
Out of Practice (CBS): The premise this show is built on while funny in the first episode, I believe will not last very long before it wears really thin.

I would just watch the early edition of the nightly local news broadcast. Not much else in the third hour.

Cable Choices

Emeril Live (Food Network): It is a Harvest Windfall tonight when Emeril cooks up some foods inspired by the autumn season.

WWE Monday Night Raw (Spike): Get your head smashing, chair throwing, loud screaming rants fill with two hours of big time wrestling tonight.

Notes

Each section above has the best idea for each hour of primetime. If you are looking for the best show idea for the second hour of primetime then according to the Prime Picks above that would be Prison Break. The second best selection for each hour is found in the Solid Selections. Other Options are usually the best opposite option from the Prime Picks. In this case since Prison Break is a drama the best comedy option in the second hour is highlighted here, namely Two and a Half Men.

Too much good stuff, plenty to watch and even more to record, take a look at tonight’s viewing variety.

Prime Picks

Cold Case (CBS): On tonight’s season premiere Rush and Valens look in to a case of a girl’s ancestry and a man who died that was assumed to be her father and the squad gets a new member.

Desperate Housewives (ABC): What will happen Next on tonight’s season premiere? Does Zach shoot anyone? Why are the new people on Wysteria Lane so secretive? Watch tonight and maybe we will find out. Also note that this episode runs a minute past the hour. I hate when networks do this.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC): Tune into tonight’s season premiere to see how Meredith deals with the revelation of the wife. Everything was looking pretty good for her so you new that something had to go wrong, it is a drama after all.

Solid Selections

The West Wing (NBC): We know who the candidates are, now lets see them run. In the season premiere in its new timeslot Josh can’t believe that some political commentators think that Leo as a vice presidential candidate is not the best idea.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC): Tonight on the season premiere Goren’s nemesis is back, Olivia d’Abo guest stars as the twisted murderer that always seems to get away.

Crossing Jordan (NBC): The season premiere starts you off this year with the team trying to get used to the interim chief medical examiner and his inflexible new rules.

Other Options

The Simpsons (Fox): Just thinking about chicken pox makes me itchy and maybe even a little scratchy. Maggie gets chicken pox and Homer throws a pox party.
The War at Home (Fox): If you watched The Simpsons you might as well watch this until the next hour of primetime starts.

Blue Collar TV (WB): Tonight’s season premiere of this funny show focuses on Bad Habits.
Blue Collar TV (WB): This rerun from last season is built around the topic of Health.

You can always watch your early local news cause there really isn’t anything worth recommending as an Other Option tonight in the third hour of primetime.

Cable Choices

Emeril Live (Food Network): Well Bam! Emeril celebrates his 1500th show. I am sure that he has kicked it up a notch for this milestone.

Raptor Island (Sci-Fi Channel): Spend two hours watching a rescue team come upon deadly dinosaurs while trying to retrieve a kidnapped scientist. Sounds like some good old B-movie sci-fi.

Show: Out of Practice
Episode: Series Premiere
Originally Aired: Monday, September 19th 2005
Rating: 1½ out of 4 stars

Quick Synopsis: A relationship therapist deals with his patients and his family of all doctors.

Long Synopsis: A man whose marriage is falling apart and whose parents are divorced is a relationship therapist. He is not a doctor but everyone else in his family is. His mother is a surgeon, his father a gastro something or other, his brother is a plastic surgeon and his sister is an ER doc. He feels that he is the Rodney Dangerfield of his family; he gets no respect for what he does. None of his family really gets along especially his parents.

Review: Believe it or not of the three new comedies that debuted on Monday night, I laughed the most at this one. Yet it is not the best of the bunch. While it provided more laughs, this show looks like a one trick pony. Which doesn’t bode well for its future. It is built on a weak foundation, which I think after a few episodes will no longer be that funny.

The one positive of this show could be at the office. While the main character here is no Bob Newhart, the possibility for humor in wacky relationships that he tries to help could be funny. The problem is that this doesn’t seem to be where the show is going to have its focus. It looks like it is going to revolve around his family of doctors and how they relate to each other. This is the one trick that while funny in the first episode, once you’ve seen it a few times will no longer be that impressive and leaves the pony with nothing else that we want to see.

Saturdays are not great for a TVaholic. Commercial interrupted movies and crime time replays abound. Good thing I have a few recordings from earlier in the week yet to watch.

Prime Picks

Shrek (NBC): Two hours of the funny animated adventures of and Ogre and his ass, I mean Donkey.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC): Repeat episode where Stabler and Fin look into the case of a raped and then murdered. The leading suspects are a group of teens thought to be acting out scenes from a video game.

Solid Selections

Cold Case (CBS): On tonight’s repeat, bones are discovered at a now closed down prison which was the scene of a deadly fight and murder 36 years ago.

Without a Trace (CBS): In the second hour we find a repeat episode where they begin a frantic search for a woman and her kids after the yacht they were on is found in New York Harbor with no one but the dead captain aboard.

48 Hours Mystery (CBS): Watch the mystery unfold at a trial of an accused serial killer when it is interrupted by one of the assumed victims showing up.

Other Options

Catch Me If You Can (ABC): Three commercially interrupted hours of fun watching an FBI agent played by Tom Hanks go after Frank Abagnale Jr. playerd by Leonardo DiCaprio who is a con man and forger that takes a variety of identities.

Cable Choices

The Showbiz Show with David Spade (Comedy Channel): A half-hour of David Spade skewering celebrities and such. Well 22-minutes if there were no commercials.

Path of Destruction (Sci-Fi): Some good old-fashioned B-movie science fiction with self-replicating nanotech robots that overwhelm everything in their wake.

Notes

Don’t forget about MADtv tonight for some fun lampooning of daytime talk, baseball and steroids and of course the Emmys.