"Camp Rock" with the Jonas Brothers and More TiVoWorthy TV for the Week of June 15

 

 

Robin is determined to locate the Great Pact of Nottingham, which will provide written proof of the Sheriff’s treason, and he intends to use lovelorn knight John of York in his plan. Meanwhile, Allan-A-Dale is revealed to be a traitor. Jonas Armstrong stars.

 

Premiere. Fresh off his triumphant appearance on the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, in which he reteamed with Awards host Mike Myers for a rockin’ Wayne’s World sketch, Carvey stars in his second solo comedy special for HBO. Taped at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA, Carvey revives some of his most popular impersonations, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, John Travolta and Tom Cruise. (BTW, after watching the MTV Movie Awards we gotta say, Wayne and Garth haven’t aged a day since their excellent reign in the early ‘90s.)

 

If you’re missing first-run editions of Mad TV, check out one of our all-time favorites: A rude, crude, riotously funny take on the musical preferences of today’s kids.

 

Similarly, if you’re in Saturday Night Live withdrawal, you can enjoy classic bits on Hulu anytime – like the side-splitting Cork Soakers, starring Janet Jackson and Jimmy Fallon.

 

 

 

 

Live. Three Hours. In what promises to be an atypical Tony Awards telecast, two performances from long-running musicals (Rent, with its original 1996 cast, and The Lion King, marking its tenth anniversary) and three performances from current musicals that are not nominated this year (Young Frankenstein, The Little Mermaid and A Catered Affair) will be included in the show, along with numbers from the nominated productions of Cry-Baby, Grease, Gypsy, In the Heights, Passing Strange, South Pacific, Sunday in the Park with George and Xanadu. Whoopi Goldberg is the host. Presenters include Gabriel Byrne, Alec Baldwin, Kristin Chenoweth, Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr., John Lithgow, Liza Minnelli, Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Patinkin, David Hyde Pierce, Daniel Radcliffe, Brooke Shields, Lily Tomlin and John Waters. Telecast live from Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

 

Premiere. Here’s something else to worry about: The honeybees are disappearing. So what, you ask? Consider this: Honeybees play a key role in human survival, because almost every fruit tree and vegetable species is entirely dependent on bees to produce, and there is no artificial replacement for natural pollination! Massive bee die-offs have led to emergency international research, but to date nobody really knows what’s happening. Some say a disease is killing the bees, others assert that radiation from cell phone towers is the cause. Get the latest on this mounting crisis in tonight’s edition of Nature.

 

Premiere. Vanessa Williams hosts the sixth annual TV Land Awards, taped at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, CA. Among the highlights: Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, Henry Winkler, Jack Klugman and Dick Van Dyke offer a tribute to legendary writer, producer, actor and director Garry Marshall, the recipient this year of TV Land’s Legend Award; Icon Award winner Lionel Richie performs a medley of his greatest hits; Robin Williams presents the Pioneer Award to Jonathan Winters; the cast of Roseanne (including both Beckys) is honored with the Innovator Award; Steve Carell presents the Pop Culture Award to Golden Girlsstars Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Betty White; Ed Asner and William Shatner present the Future Classic Award to the cast and producers of The Office; Justin Timberlake bestows the Legacy of Laughter Award on Mike Myers; and Williams sings I’m Flying while classic TV stars including Barry Williams, Gary Coleman, Jerry Mathers, Dawn Wells, Ron Palilo and William Katt fly over the audience.

 

Two Episodes. Discovery’s six-part documentary series about the history of the NASA missions continues tonight with Landing the Eagle and The Explorers. In Landing, the Apollo program suffers a tragic setback when a fire breaks out in the pressurized capsule of Apollo 1, resulting in the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Later, the Saturn 3 rocket carries three astronauts into deep space for the first time. Also, NASA moves ever-closer to landing men on the moon. In Explorers, NASA faces its biggest crisis when the damaged Apollo 13 must be returned safely to earth, launches a number of successful moon missions and sends Skylab, America’s first space station, into space. Skylab suffers significant damage by the time it reaches orbit, though, and must be repaired by astronauts who work outside the ship to save it.

 

Series Premiere. Energetic environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio is an executive producer of this documentary series about the rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, the town that in May 2007 was almost entirely destroyed by one of the largest tornados in history. The residents of Greenburg, 1500 of which were displaced by the tornado, decided not simply to rebuild their town, but to rebuild it as an eco-friendly community.

 

Series Premiere. Many of history’s most compelling dogfights are re-created by pitting restored aircraft from every era of aerial warfare against each other in faux combat in this ten-part series. U.S. Air Force Major Paul “Max” Moga of the Air Combat Command’s 1^st Fighter Wing is the host. Tonight’s premiere features a re-creation of the May 20, 1951 Korean War dogfight in which U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara flew his F-86 Sabre to his fifth victory over the Russian MiG-15.

 

 

 

 

Series Premiere. Matt Keeslar stars in the title role of a smart but dorky covert government agent engaged in an ongoing struggle against mad scientists, aliens and powerful supernatural creatures. In the series opener he recruits an improbable ally – an unflappable 22 year old art school graduate (played by Natalie Morales) who can barely hold on to even the most marginal temporary jobs but doesn’t flinch when confronted by monsters. This action-comedy is based on the graphic novels written by Javier Grillo-Marxauch, and it’s perfect lightweight summer fare, even if the dialogue is a little too Buffy-precious.

 

One act down, eleven to go. Trace Adkins is the special guest star. Billy Ray Cyrus is the host.

 

Premiere. Billions of years before the dinosaurs came to be, Earth was already teeming with life in the form of single-celled organisms in the oceans and creeping, crawling creatures in the soil. How did these tiny things evolve into animals and, eventually, humans? Was life as we know it triggered by a massive natural event or was it something more? A number of possibilities – many of them certain to offend the religious sensibilities of millions of people – are explored in this program, including theories that a bolt of lightning started it all and that aliens arrived on Earth inside a meteor and took over from there.

 

Season Premiere. Season 5 of this unflinching documentary series about people who are struggling with addictions and the efforts of their families and friends to help them opens with the story of Dan, a married 40-year-old alcoholic who suffered a childhood filled with physical violence and verbal abuse.

 

Series Premiere. Medium Chip Coffey and renowned psychologist Lisa Miller investigate children who are showing early signs of possessing psychic abilities in A&E’s newest reality series. Their mutual goals are to strengthen the kids’ abilities (if they are indeed gifted) and help them deal with any negative paranormal activity they may be experiencing. Tonight’s opener is all about Joel, a 14-year-old boy who insists that he sees spirits of people and animals on his family’s remote California ranch, and the two psychic children Chip and Lisa call upon to help them work with Joel.

 

Season Premiere. When we last left Nancy Botwin, the drug-dealing Queen of Bad Choices, she had torched her home to make certain that all evidence of her criminal activities went up in flames as the towns of Agrestic and Majestic were ravaged by fast-moving wild fires. As Season 4 opens, the fleeing Nancy, along with her kids and brother-in-law Andy, seek refuge at the home of Andy’s ailing grandmother in the town of Ren Mar, down near the Mexican border – only to discover that Andy’s ne’er-do-well dad Lenny is also mooching off the poor woman. Meanwhile, back home, Doug, Dean and Isabelle pin the entire grow operation on Celia, who winds up in prison. The invaluable Albert Brooks joins the cast as Lenny. Mary-Louise Parker, Justin Kirk, Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Nealon star.

 

U.S. Series Premiere. Fans of Doctor Who are in for a shock when they see Billie Piper, the actress who played sweetly innocent Rose during the first two seasons of the current Who series, in the decidedly different role of Belle, a legal secretary who leads a secret double-life as a high-end call girl and finds herself “working” with some very interesting clients. This R-rated series is based on the best-seller The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by the real-life Belle De Jour.

 

 

 

 

Premiere. Three Hours. It’s time once again for one of the most enjoyable television programs of the year: The annual countdown special produced by the American Film Institute. It’s three hours (including commercials) of clips from classic movies, and it always makes for a relaxing and entertaining evening. This year’s show is not the usual Top 100 countdown; instead, it’s comprised of 10 countdowns of the Top 10 movies in 10 different American film genres, each hosted by a different movie star. Clint Eastwood will host the Top 10 Westerns countdown, Quentin Tarantino is on board for the Top 10 Gangster movie list, and Jessica Alba will host the Top 10 Romantic Comedies. Also on hand: Cuba Gooding Jr. for Sports-Themed Movies; Sigourney Weaver for Science Fiction; Kirk Douglas for Epics; Jennifer Love Hewitt for Animated Movies; James Woods for Courtroom Dramas; Gabriel Byrne for Mystery Movies, and Sean Astin for Fantasy Adventures. Look for special appearances by Harrison Ford, Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Fox, Susan Sarandon, Steven Spielberg, Vanessa Williams and George Lucas, among others.

 

Season Premiere. Two Hours. NBC’s catch-all talent competition series returns for its third summer season, with Jerry Springer back as host and David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osbourne and recent Celebrity Apprentice winner Piers Morgan returning to the judges’ table.

 

In what promises to be a very long month, an avid hunter moves in with a campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and participates in PETA initiatives.

 

Season Premiere. Obsessive-compulsive house-flipper Jeff Lewis returns for a second season of this observational reality series, and he’s even more worked up this year, what with the housing market in steady decline and all. That wacky staff and his business partner are back, too.

 

Season Premiere. With their son Liam in tow and baby Stella on the way, Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott ditch the bed and breakfast and resume their lives in Los Angeles as Season 2 begins. It doesn’t take long for the dramz to kick in, as Dean begins taking scuba lessons from a sexy instructor and Tori lets her jealousy make her sick – literally.

 

Season Premiere. Crab fishermen from The Deadliest Catch sit down with Dirty Jobs host and Catch narrator Mike Rowe and a group of fishermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts, to swap stories about their most harrowing adventures and dish about their captains and crewmates in this five-part series.

 

 

 

 

Michelle Obama will be a co-host today alongside Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Sheperd.

 

Two Hours. The Top 18 dancers compete. Cat Deeley is the host.

 

Series Premiere. truTV gets into the observational adventure-reality game with this series from Thom Beers, the creator of Discovery Channel’s The Deadliest Catch and History’s Ice Road Truckers, about the wild work of West Texas oil workers, including Matthew McConaughey’s brother, Rooster. Get a jump on the action here.

 

 

 

 

Trina shakes up Susan’s house-warming party. Two words: fondue dipping. Molly Parker, Jack Davenport, Grant Show, Josh Hopkins, Lana Parrilla and Miriam Shor star.

 

Here’s a storyline that will fray your nerves: Following a near-death experience, a nice family man finds that he has switched bodies with a serial killer and winds up behind bars, worried that the killer (who is now in the family man’s body) will prey on his wife, son and daughter. Colin Ferguson (Eureka), Clifton Collins Jr. and Josie Davis star.

 

Season Premiere. Mario Lopez returns as host, with JC Chasez, Lil Mama and choreographer Shane Sparks as judges for Season 2 of this dance competition series in which the contestants are existing crews. Viewers vote for their favorite crews after each episode.

 

Season Premiere. Las Vegas headliners Penn Jillette and his professional partner Teller return for a sixth season of exposing what they consider to be the bogus science behind widely accepted notions. Tonight’s topic: Pornography! Subjects clobbered in the coming weeks include green living, Eastern medicine, world peace and sensitivity training courses.

 

U.S. Series Premiere. This Canadian clone of the super sexy British serial Footballers Wives is all about the hunks on a professional hockey team and the women who love them, and it wastes no time getting its narrative in gear: Five minutes into tonight’s premiere episode, the team captain accidentally falls to his death, leaving his widow and daughter surprisingly penniless. Their troubles quickly intensify when the team owner briskly diverts the captain’s insurance policy into funding needed to pay for the season’s No. 1 draft pick. Lucas Bryant, Kristin Booth, Deborah O’Dell and Peter Miller star. This episode will be repeated tomorrow night on ABC immediately following the Daytime Emmy Awards.

 

 

 

 

Premiere. Disney’s deluxe Camp Rock Weekend begins tonight with the television premiere of the movie on Disney Channel and a simulcast on Radio Disney. (We’re guessing that ratings for this tween dream starring Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers will far exceed those sister network ABC will enjoy tonight from the Daytime Emmy telecast.) Camp Rock will also be seen on ABC Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET and on ABC Family Sunday at 8 p.m. Monday will bring the online premiere on Disney.com, while Radio Disney will debut the movie’s soundtrack Saturday at 7 p.m. ET during Planet Premiere. Rock isn’t as polished as the High School Musical movies, but it’s grand fun for the young ones just the same, and we can safely assume it will be the television event of the summer for kids, in particular tween and younger teen girls. In those demo groups, nothing else is going to come close. The storyline, by the way, centers on Mitchie Torres (Lovato), a girl who attends a prestigious music camp where her mother works as the head cook and tries to pretend that she is the daughter of a wealthy family so that she can fit in with the “cool” girls. Further complicating her already complicated camp life is her growing attraction to rock star Shane Gray (Joe Jonas), a former camper forced by his label and his band-mates (Nick and Kevin Jonas) to return to camp to bring his raging ego under control. Maria Canals-Barrera, Alyson Stoner, Jasmine Richards and Julie Brown co-star. It won’t be long until the Jonas Brothers fans in your home know the words to This is Me, Gotta Find You and Play My Music, if they don’t already.

 

Live. Cameron Mathison (All My Children) and Sherri Shepherd (The View) host this year’s Daytime Emmy Award extravaganza, telecast live from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. It can be argued that the big winner tonight, regardless of category outcomes, is NBC’s Days of Our Lives, which picked up four acting nominations after being virtually ignored by Emmy nominators for several years. Our picks: Outstanding Drama Series: One Life to Live. Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Christian LeBlanc, The Young & the Restless. Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Maura West, As the World Turns. Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Brian Kerwin, One Life to Live. Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Gina Tognoni, Guiding Light. Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series: Van Hansis, As the World Turns. Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series: Jennifer Landon, As the World Turns. Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment: The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment Host: Ellen DeGeneres.