Thursday TV: Men at Work Series Premiere, Rookie Blue S.3 Premiere, Awake S.1 Finale & More

News & Notes

Last night the regular TV season for 2011-12 officially came to an end and tonight is the start of the summer season. While a few reality type shows have started or will be starting soon on the networks, the scripted cable offerings are still a week or two away for the most part.

Tonight, ABC has the series premiere of Duets and the third season premiere of Rookie Blue, The CW has a Perez Hilton All Access: Lady Gaga special, FOX has the ninth season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, and NBC has the first season finale of Awake.

Over on cable, TBS has the series premiere of Men at Work and TLC has the series premieres of On the Fly and Tattoo School.

Prime Picks

The Big Bang Theory (CBS): Repeat. “The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition” from this past season, where Sheldon gets jealous after Stuart from the comic book store ask Amy out on a date.
Rules of Engagement (CBS): Repeat. The “Audrey is Dumb” episode from this past season replays, where Jeff has a little fun with Audrey’s inability to talk after throat surgery. Starts a minute after the half hour and runs 29 minutes.

The Vampire Diaries (The CW): Repeat. “The Hybrid” from this past season replays, where Damon and Alaric go along with Elena’s plan to find Stefan.

Awake (NBC): Season Finale. Britten’s realities are threatened as he fights in both of them to prove the conspiracy that was behind his accident.

Other Options

• Men at Work (TBS): Series Premiere. The show follows four friends that work together at a magazine, but spend most of their time helping each other with whatever problems they are facing. Two episodes play tonight. In the first, one of them gets dumped and the rest of them try to help him get over it. In the second episode, the same guy gets a little too involved in writing his first feature for the magazine after advice from his friends. This show is not good. The attempts at jokes are terrible and you don’t really buy them as longtime friends. Maybe after a few episodes the chemistry will come around. But, after watching both of tonight’s episodes, it is the writing that would need to greatly improve for this to be even close to worth watching.
• Rookie Blue (ABC): Season Premiere. Andy has to face the tribunal after her three month suspension. William Shatner guest stars as the grandfather of a missing child. I’ve seen a grand total of three episodes of this show. Each of the season premiere episodes, including tonight’s episode. The stories and dialogue are weak and the acting isn’t much better. It just doesn’t grab me, but for the next few weeks there isn’t much else on.

Sports Notes

• ESPN has NBA Playoff action tonight.
• MLB Network has a game tonight.

TV Marathons

gmc has five episodes of The Waltons today.
Discovery Channel has seven episodes of MythBusters tonight.
Oxygen has 12 episodes of Roseanne today.
TV One has 12 episodes of Half & Half early.
USA Network has five episodes of Burn Notice followed by eight episodes of NCIS.