Vote for your Favorite Lead Actress in a Drama Series
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
Pterodactyl (Sci Fi Channel, 9 p.m. ET)
Premiere. Dinosaur eggs hatch inside a long-dormant volcano and guess what pops out? (Hint: See title.) Throw in a Special
Ops military unit to battle the hungry winged beasts and you have the ingredients for yet another good-naturedly goofy Saturday night diversion on the Sci Fi Channel. Cameron Daddo, Amy Sloan and rapper Coolio star.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28
The 21st Annual MTV Video Music Awards (MTV, 8 p.m. ET)
Live. The Man Currently Known as Diddy hosts this year's MTV Video Music Awards extravaganza, telecast live from
the American Airlines Arena in Miami. Performers include R. Kelly, Ludacris, Shakira, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Green Day, Mariah Carey and the Killers. MTV's live pre-show coverage will begin at 6 p.m. ET.
Beach Girls (Lifetime, 8 p.m. ET)
Miniseries Finale. The trials and tribulations of 16-year-old Nell Kilvert and her friends in the small Northeast coastal town of Hubbard's Point come to an end, as does the mystery surrounding Nell's late mother Emma
and Emma's two closest friends in the conclusion of Lifetime's six-hour summer serial. Oh, and Aunt Aida's battle to stop the highway expansion on her property takes an unexpected turn. Based on the best-selling
novel by Luanne Rice. Rob Lowe, Julia Ormond, Chelsea Hobbs, Chris Carmack and Cloris Leachman star.
Rome (HBO, 9 p.m. ET)
Series Premiere. The latest entry in HBO's long line of unique, top-quality adult dramas takes on nothing less than the history of ancient Rome circa 52 B.C., four hundred years after the founding of
the Republic. The city was at the time the world's wealthiest and most influential; the resulting excess and corruption that destroyed the Republic and brought forth the Roman Empire provides the dramatic back-drop for this series, in every way a literate, complex, sometimes campy, thoroughly
engaging serial. At the center of it all is the battle for power between two former friends, Gaius Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus; the friendship of Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, both soldiers in Caesar's 13th legion; and the scheming, seductive machinations of Caesar's unflinchingly evil niece, Atia of
the Julii. Polly Walker, who portrays Atia, could become the most talked about prime time super-bitch since the glory days of Joan Collins' turn as Alexis Carrington Colby on Dynasty. The series itself, a massive co-production between HBO and the BBC, will undoubtedly prompt much
intellectual conversation about its accuracy to period detail and a good deal of juicy buzz about its unrelenting violence, unflinching gore, graphic sex and full-frontal nudity. Rome is instantly addictive.
The 4400 (USA Network, 9 p.m. ET)
Season Finale. Another government conspiracy? What is this, The X-Files? Tom and Diana race to find a cure
for the deadly disease plaguing the 4400 — a side effect of an inhibitor that the government secretly administered to them upon their return from the future to suppress the emergence of their superhuman abilities.
Beyond the Moon: Failure is Not an Option II (History Channel, 9 p.m. ET)
Premiere. NASA Mission Control veteran Gene Kranz recalls thirty-five years of NASA triumphs and tragedies following the Apollo era in this sequel to the History Channel special Failure is Not an Option. Included:
the cancellation of the final Apollo missions, the repair of the space station Skylab with a telephone-company tree branch trimmer, the successes of the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Stations, the horror of the Challenger and the Columbia disasters and details of possible future plans, including
a lunar solar energy project. Scott Glenn narrates.
MONDAY, AUGUST 29
Prison Break (Fox, 8 p.m. ET)
Series Premiere. Two Hours. Wentworth Miller — the young actor who delivers such a powerful guest performance as the dead soldier in the series premiere of CBS' upcoming supernatural drama Ghost Whisperer &mash; stars in this gritty action drama about one man's efforts to
free his brother from death row by getting himself incarcerated in the same prison and orchestrating a complicated plan to break them both out. Michael, the brother with the plan, is convinced that Lincoln, the brother scheduled to die, did not commit the crime for which he was convicted: The
assassination of the brother of the Vice President of the United States. Rescuing Lincoln isn't the only impossible task on Michael's docket — there's also the little matter of the vast nationwide conspiracy that led to Lincoln's imprisonment. If the idea appeals to you, start watching tonight, because Prison Break is one of those shows you really should get with from the beginning. Filmed on the location at the historic Joliet prison outside Chicago. Dominic
Purcell (John Doe) co-stars.
Is It Real? Exorcism (National Geographic Channel, 8 p.m. ET)
Premiere. More than thirty years after the release of The Exorcist, the movie that terrified thousands and acquainted millions with demonic possession and the ancient religious rituals utilized to
cast out demons and evil spirits, Is It Real? takes an in-depth look at present-day exorcisms. Many experts today believe that documented cases of demonic possession that were treated with exorcisms were
actually aberrant behavior brought on by schizophrenia, Tourette Syndrome and epilepsy.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30
The Law Firm (Bravo, 8 p.m. ET)
Cable Premiere. Two Episodes. David E. Kelley's first try at an unscripted series lasted only two weeks on NBC's summer schedule before it was yanked due to low ratings. It gets another shot on the network's
cable sibling Bravo beginning with repeats tonight of the two episodes that aired on NBC. The six episodes that follow will be telecast on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET beginning next week. Working in different teams during each episode, twelve lawyers try real court cases with real clients in front of real judges and juries. Series host and famed trial attorney Roy Black sends one lawyer packing at the
end of each installment. The last lawyer standing at the end of the series pockets $250,000. Just taking a guess here, but maybe the reason this show tanked is because viewers weren't comfortable with the
idea of real cases involving real people being utilized in an entertainment program involving a cash prize?
Seconds from Disaster: Killer Quake (National Geographic Channel, 9 p.m. ET)
Premiere. The latest installment in this NGC franchise is an in-depth study of the January 17, 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. It lasted only 20 seconds, but it left more than 5,500 people dead; tens of thousands
injured; 250,000 people homeless; and almost 400,000 buildings in ruins. Eerily, this quake occurred exactly one year after the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31
MegaStructures: USS Virginia (National Geographic Channel, 9 p.m. ET)
Premiere. The USS Virginia &mash; the most advanced submarine in the world, the quietest sub ever built and the first to be designed entirely on a computer — is taken to sea and tested by its 134-member
crew, a team that lives on the Virginia for months at a time.
Buy Me (HGTV, 9 p.m. ET)
Series Premiere. Now this is the stuff of real drama: Watching people buy and sell houses in the current outrageous real estate market. Buy Me also focuses on friends, children, neighbors,
agents, contractors and home inspectors who are sucked into the vortexes created when buyers and sellers mix it up.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
Postman Pat (HBO Family, 8 a.m. ET)
U.S. Series Premiere. Postman Pat is an enormously successful animated series about the everyday activities of a neighborhood mail carrier that has been running continuously in the United Kingdom
since its premiere in 1981 and is now viewed in more than 100 countries. The United States has come late to this party. Better late than never. How hot is this franchise, you ask? Millions of Postman Pat books and videos have been sold outside of the U.S., and the latest batch of episodes that
debuted on the BBC in September 2004 attracted over 25 million viewers in six weeks.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
Encore's Big '80s Weekend (Encore, starting at 8 p.m. ET)
There isn't a lot of interesting programming available on this, the last big weekend of the long, hot summer of 2005, so Encore might have a hit strategy in play here. The network has scheduled 80 hours of '80s-related
entertainment beginning at 8 p.m. ET tonight and continuing through Labor Day consisting mostly of fondly remembered flicks from that decade. There will also be interstitial interviews with actors and other personalities of note from the era, including Ralph Macchio and Corey Haim. Original MTV VJs Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter — three
stars of the '80s in their own right — are the on-camera hosts throughout the weekend. It begins tonight with The Karate Kid at 8 p.m. ET, followed by First Blood at 10:15 p.m. ET and Private School at 11:50 p.m. ET. Awesome! Totally awesome!
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