I am officially going through withdrawals already with the TV season ending. I am really looking forward to the return of The 4400, Monk, The Dead Zone, The Closer and others over the summer. What summer series can’t you wait for any longer?

Prime Picks

Mona Lisa Smile (FOX): Julia Roberts stars as a 1953 professor at a women’s college that challenges them to think about the roles of women in society. Runs two hours.

NUMB3RS (CBS): The team searches for the person behind the tampering of over the counter medications that are causing seizures.

Solid Selections

What I Like About You (WB): Repeat of the season premiere from this past season, which was its last.
Twins (WB): Repeat of the pilot episode. Watch and see why this didn’t make it a second season.

Las Vegas (NBC): Repeat where Ed has to walk his wife’s dog at the dog show the Montecito is hosting. Also Monica gets stuck in her shower and Mike comes to her rescue.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC): Repeat where Stabler goes undercover as a sex offender to gain the trust of man in jail.

Other Options

Freaky Friday (ABC): Jaime Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in this body switching fun comedy. See what it is like to live like your teenage daughter and vice-versa. Runs two hours.

20/20 (ABC): ABC News investigative reports.

Cable Choices

E! News Special: Summer Movie Guide 2006 (E!): Get a look at all the big summer blockbusters coming to a multiplex near you.
Jaime Kennedy’s Blowin’ Up (MTV): New. Jaime gets a cameo on Law & Order: SVU so he can meet Ice T.

What Not to Wear (TLC): Repeat. A woman gets overhauled.

Monk (USA): Repeat. Monk looks into a dentist after Lt. Disher thinks he saw him commit a murder. New episodes return on July 7th.

Sports Notes

ESPN2 has Friday Night Fights. OLN has NHL playoff hockey. TNT has the second game between the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks.

Taylor Hicks!!! Well it was pretty much just like everybody thought. After the votes were counted the Soul Patrol had mounted an effective campaign to put an end to McPheever, at least as far as American Idol goes.

The season five finale itself was actually a pretty good show. They had quite the wide assortment of guest singers. Paris Bennett with Al Jarreau, Katharine McPhee with Meatloaf, Chris Daughtry with his favorite band Live, a Burt Bacharach medley of songs performed by the Top 12 with him playing the piano, and many others including two songs right before the results by Prince.

So by the vote of the American Idol fans the number one rank goes to:

1. Taylor Hicks – He had a better night and a better song which we heard once again as he sang the show out. He really is a good entertainer. In the middle of the song he gave shout outs to the rest of his fellow contestants, the soul patrol and everybody else and then went right back in and finished the song. Earlier in the show he came out harmonica blazing as he sang with the six guys from the competition. The guy sure knows how to have fun on stage. But will you buy his CD when it comes out?

Who did you want to win on season five of American Idol? Did America make the right choice?

Well it is that time of year once again. That’s right. If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you. Repeats abound tonight except for FOX kicking off their summer season early with a dance competition. What will you be watching on TV tonight?

Prime Picks

So You Think You Can Dance (FOX): American Idol for dancers returns for another season. Runs two hours.

Primetime (ABC): All about the woman who had a partial face transplant. They will have before and after pictures and interviews with the patient and the doctor who performed the surgery.

Solid Selections

Will & Grace (NBC): Repeat of the series finale.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS): Repeat of one of the better episodes of the season with guest star Faye Dunaway.

Without a Trace (CBS): A friend of Jack’s goes missing and the team searches for him.

Other Options

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (ABC): The cheeky sequel to the movie based on the TV show. Stars Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. Runs two hours.

ER (NBC): Repeat where Kovac and Clemente disagree.

Cable Choices

The Jake Effect (Bravo): Watch the first six of the seven filmed episodes of this 2003 brilliant but canceled, actually it never aired, comedy starring Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Greg Grunberg (Alias) and Nikki Cox (Las Vegas). The story of a lawyer at a big firm who gets tired of being a cog in the system and decides to quit and become a high school history teacher. Runs three hours.

Sports Notes

ESPN has Game 2 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals with the Miami Heat at the Detroit Pistons. ESPN2 has Thursday Night Baseball. OLN has an NHL playoff game.

The answer after last night’s final season five American Idol performances is most likely Taylor Hicks. Not because he was all that much better than Kat overall, he just ended better. Winning the coin flip and opting to go second was a great choice, especially when your performance comes off better.

They each started off by singing two songs from past performances and then finished with what their new single will be if they were to win. This is where things got a little bit bad as Randy put it the song Katharine had to sing was just “average.” It was a slow and meandering song that didn’t capture your attention like Taylor’s song did. Was it the song? Was it the singer? A little of each? Taylor’s song had an upbeat tempo and was a bit more fun. Up-tempo and fun beats slow and meandering every time.

How did the performances last night on American Idol rank:

1. Taylor Hicks – For his first song he sang, “Living for the City” and came off a bit better than Kat. For his second song he sang, “Levon” and didn’t sound as good as when he sang it previously. His final song was “Do I Make You Proud” and will be his first single should he win tonight. Simon put him ahead after song one and tied after song two. It was definitely down to the final songs and Simon thought his performance good enough to break the tie. I think he was right.
2. Katharine McPhee – I personally would prefer to see and hear her than Taylor Hicks but I don’t think she is going to win. While the sentiment of her final song “My Destiny” was nice and she sounded great it just wasn’t good enough. Her first song was “Black Horse and a Cherry Tree” and was not as good as her previous performance. Her second was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.,” which I thought was better than when she sang it last week. Yet I had them tied going into the final songs and Taylor had a better song to sing. If she had done better with her first song it might have been enough to make up for the last one.

I think that the Soul Patrol puts an end to McPheever as far as American Idol goes. Yet each I am sure will do fine no matter what happens and yet again this season we’ve seen anything can. Who did you vote for? Why? Who do you think is going to win?