SALON'S TV PICKS
Thursday Aug. 21, 1997_|_BY JOYCE MILLMAN
S E R I E S Seinfeld (9 p.m., NBC) reruns the Emmy-nominated "Yada, yada, yada" episode. A rerun of Turning Point (9 p.m., ABC) looks at paparazzi and the celebrities they chase. A special Thursday edition of 3rd Rock from the Sun (9:30 p.m., NBC) is the one where Harry fills in for Dick's secretary and Sally relives the Earth childhood she never had. On a rerun of ER (10 p.m., NBC), Benton goes into Carla's patient file to see what's wrong with their baby. 48 Hours (10 p.m., CBS) reports on new drug therapies that supposedly improve the conditions of disabled children. S P O R T S Exhibition football: Redskins at Dolphins (8 p.m., ESPN). S P E C I A L S ABC reruns the news special Freeloaders (10 p.m., ABC), in which John Stossel goes around scolding people who try to take advantage of others. T A L K Janine Turner and Bonnie Raitt guest on David Letterman (CBS); Paul Reiser and k.d. lang appear on Jay Leno (NBC); Conan O'Brien (NBC) hosts Mira Sorvino; Tom Snyder (CBS) talks with Cathy Moriarty; Rep. Maxine Waters is a panelist on Politically Incorrect (ABC). ETC. A&E has announced it will begin airing twice-a-day reruns of Northern Exposure on Oct. 6. The quirky CBS comedy-drama about a New York doctor serving a residency in a remote Alaska town tanked in its first round of syndication on various local channels, but A&E programmers believe the show's tone is perfect for the cable network's audience. Cable syndication is becoming the norm for one-hour dramas, which have
always been a notoriously hard syndication sell to local stations. A&E
already airs Law & Order reruns; FX just began syndication runs of
The X-Files and NYPD Blue; MTV has the syndication rights to
My So-Called Life; Lifetime is showing Homicide every night.
So maybe there's hope for other short-lived cult faves, like Shannon's
Deal, John Sayles' great series about a debt-ridden lawyer with a
gambling problem that aired briefly on NBC in the early '90s. Or Almost
Grown (does anybody remember this?), which aired in the late '80s on
CBS and tracked a couple (Tim Daly and Eve Gordon) in flashback over a
30-year period from high school to divorce and had a terrific rock 'n' roll
soundtrack. And, you know, I'd kind of like to see Twin Peaks again
...
All times are EDT unless noted. Check local listings. BLUEGLOW FOR Wednesday, Aug. 20, 1997
Illustration by Henrik Drescher, an illustrator living in Auckland, New Zealand. |
