"Saturday Night Live" from 1975 with Host George Carlin and More TiVoWorthy TV for the Week of June 29

 

Premiere. If you love movies in which seemingly idyllic families crumble during crises, this combustible drama is for you. Based on the best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult, Tenth Circle tells the story of the family Stone: Mom Laura is a teacher at a local college in their Maine town, dad Daniel is a comic book artist and daughter Trixie is a 14-year-old student who puts in motion a sequence of events that tears all of their lives apart when she accuses her ex-boyfriend of raping her. The ex-boyfriend’s shocking reaction lands the Stones at the center of a high-profile murder investigation during which Laura and Daniel learn that they have each kept powerful secrets from each other. Kelly Preston and Ron Eldard star.

 

A mortally wounded messenger from King Richard dies in Robin’s arms – but not before telling Robin that the king needs him to return to the Holy Land. He also mutters a mysterious name: “Lardner.” Jonas Armstrong and Lucy Griffiths star.

 

Premiere. Recording artist and Nashville Star judge Jewel is interviewed at the Stephenville, Texas, ranch she shares with rodeo superstar Ty Murray. She talks about her upbringing on a remote ranch in Alaska, her move after high school to San Diego, where she worked in a computer store and at a coffee shop while writing songs, and the influence that a bootleg copy of her music had in jump-starting her career. Also, Jewel performs a selection of songs from her new album, Perfectly Clear.

 

Season Finale. Finalists Jonathan and Artist must each groom seven dogs in ten hours. At stake: The $50,000 grand prize. Jai Rodriguez is the host. You may catch up on the entire season with a special marathon beginning at 2 p.m. today or on animalplanet.com.

 

NBC tonight will pay tribute to the late George Carlin with this special repeat telecast of the first-ever SNL episode, which he hosted. It debuted on October 11, 1975, and if you remember watching it that night (as I do, on a small black and white television set) and realizing that something about broadcast television was changing right before your eyes, you won’t want to miss this opportunity to savor some significant nostalgia while once again enjoying Carlin at his best. If you are too young to have seen it the first time around, take advantage of this rare chance to watch the legendary Not Ready for Primetime Players -- Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain, Larraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris and the late Gilda Radner and John Belushi -- performing for a national audience for the very first time. You’ll also see musical performances by Janice Ian and the late Billy Preston, an unforgettably weird comic set piece by the late Andy Kaufman and vignettes featuring a batch of Muppets. (For those too young to remember, a number of Muppet characters were featured on SNL during its first year.)

 

 

 

 

Steve Schirripa (The Sopranos) and Sara Evans are the celebrity players.

 

Series Premiere. Dancing with the Stars alumni Joey Fatone and Melanie Brown host this new singing competition series in which surprised office workers at different companies perform impromptu singing auditions in front of their colleagues. The five best singers from each office are whisked to Hollywood to perform in choreographed song and dance numbers.

 

As Lifetime’s early-summer hit continues, Roland is offered a job as a high school counselor, Denise befriends a soldier who encourages her to ride a motorcycle she received as a gift from a patient, Joan informs her troops of her pregnancy and Trevor stops a civilian attack and becomes a hero. Kim Delaney, Catherine Bell, Sally Pressman and Drew Fuller star. Seamus Dever and Terry Serpico are the guest stars.

 

Series Premiere. Four disinterested small town factory workers muddle through the drabness of their everyday lives in this improvised situation comedy produced and directed by and starring Mitch Rouse, the co-creator of Strangers with Candy. In tonight’s opener a work-related fatality creates a very desirable new job opening at the factory and has the guys sabotaging each others’ efforts to nab it. Michael Coleman, Jay Leggett and David Pasquesi co-star.

 

Premiere. Alain Robert, the daring (and some would say crazy) free-climber who has scrambled up and over more than seventy of the world’s tallest man-made structures including the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Taipei 101, Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers, London’s Canary Wharf and, most recently, the New York Times building, is the subject of this documentary.

 

 

 

 

 

Wendy isn’t even a full-fledged operative yet, but in tonight’s episode she must rescue her boss and martial arts master Sensei Ping after they are abducted by a band of Lucha Libre wrestlers. Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales star.

 

Live. Blake Shelton is the celebrity performer. Also, the contestants receive visits from family members.

 

Premiere. Two Hours. As someone once asked in a Monty Python sketch, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?” The answer, as it happens, is a substance of critical importance to historians in determining details of our past behavior and that of our animal friends. It’s pretty darn important to scientists and doctors, too, and is crucial to the full understanding of evolution. Dung is also – we kid you not – the source of the world’s most expensive coffee. (That detail alone should intrigue you enough to tune in.) Host Monty Halls travels to Oregon for an up-close look at a 14,000-year old pile of poop that challenges basic conclusions about the first people to walk the soil of North America and to India, where housewarming rituals include the utilization of cow flops as offerings of good luck.

 

Premiere. Travelers beware! This documentary chronicles the harrowing ordeal of Schapelle Corby, a 27-year-old Australian whose dream vacation to Bali took a dark turn after customs officers discovered ten pounds of marijuana in one of her bags. As it happens, drug trafficking is a capital offense in Indonesia, and despite mounting questions about Corby’s actual guilt she found herself detained for several months in a squalid cell in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison. (Corby maintains that she did not put the pot in her luggage and was victimized as an unwitting drug mule.) During the trial that followed the local news media dubbed her the “Ganja Queen” and mobs of angry protesters marched outside the courtroom demanding her execution. You’ll hear both sides of the case dissected in great detail and learn the shocking verdict, which was televised live on Australian television. Documentarian Janine Hosking filmed this production over a two-year period and interviewed all parties involved.

 

Season Premiere. Perhaps this edition of the National Geographic series Locked Up should be viewed on a double bill with HBO’s Ganja Queen. This time the focus is on an American named Cullen Thomas, a college graduate from New York who was lured by the promise of tropical travel and easy money into smuggling hashish into Korea. He got caught and spent 3 ½ years in prison.

 

Continuing with the theme of the evening, Nancy gears up to make her first international drug run! Mary-Louise Parker stars.

 

Premiere. Joel McHale and his talented team of producers on The Soup have put together another batch of shows featuring highlights from their outlandishly funny Friday night franchise. The first of four debuts tonight.

 

 

 

 

Series Premiere. How to feel old: Watch a television series in which ‘80s teen icon Molly Ringwald portrays the not-entirely-engaged mother of a conflicted teenage girl. Her daughter, Amy, is actually the central character in this show, and with good reason – as the series opens, high school student Amy learns she has gotten pregnant after her first sexual encounter and is so overwhelmed she decides to not to share the news with her family. Comparisons to Juno are unavoidable, given the timing and all, but there is little similarity between the two. Juno’s babydaddy was a nice-guy dork, while Amy’s is a notorious player. And Juno’s father and step-mother weren’t nearly as self-absorbed as Amy’s ‘rents. Amy’s sex life isn’t the only subject covered in this show – the loves and lusts of her friends and classmates also drive the drama. Shailene Woodley stars as Amy. Look for John Schneider (Smallville), Josie Bissett (Melrose Place), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) and Steve Schirripa (The Sopranos) in recurring roles.

 

The auditions continue. How will anyone top the awe-inspiring Russian Bar Trio?

 

The gang torments Tommy after he reveals details of his disturbing sex dreams. If you missed last week’s minisode, about Sean’s fast and Lou’s donuts, you can check it out at AOL Video.

 

An emotionally fragile young woman who lost a friend to gunfire and is now an ardent opponent of gun ownership moves in with a good-natured gun collector and his son in a small town in Ohio, where she grudgingly takes a job at a local gun shop and nervously learns to shoot.

 

Premiere. Here’s something else to get upset about: The cold-blooded killing of gorillas in Virunga National Park in Africa. What kind of sick bastard would do such a thing? Photos of the slaughter by photojournalist Brent Stirton last summer left people outraged, but it wasn’t until National Geographic for the first time since the murders sent Western journalists into the gorilla sector of the park that the full horror of the region came into focus. You can read all about it in the July issue of National Geographic magazine or you can watch this disturbing hour of fearless reporting tonight. Or both.

 

 

 

Two Hours. The Top 14 dancers compete. Cat Deeley is the host.

 

Tonight’s topics include an assessment of the risk factors in genetic testing for serious illnesses, the utilization of computer algorithms to determine fake paintings from masterpieces, the development of a new means of pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the work of Harvard geneticist Pardis Sabeti, who tracks the evolution of the human genome by day and plays in a rock band by night. Learn more and enjoy a sneak preview here.

 

The stylists must create sexy short hair cuts. Warning: Some of those annoying women from The Real Housewives of Orange County are clients in the elimination challenge! Jaclyn Smith is the host.

 

 

 

Seventies porno legend Harry Reems (Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones) is the guest star in this episode, in which Susan defies Bruce and attends a free speech fundraiser at the Deckers’ home to benefit the legal defense of the star of a controversial film. Grant Show, Molly Parker, Jack Davenport, Lana Parrilla, Josh Hopkins and Miriam Shor star.

 

Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) directed this chiller about a rookie cop (played by Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men) ordered to spend her first night in the precinct watching over a serial killer known as The Eater.

 

 

 

 

Live. Jimmy Smits hosts live coverage of the annual Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C., which culminates in a spectacular fireworks display. Huey Lewis and the News, American Idol Season 5 winner Taylor Hicks, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brian Stokes Mitchell and the National Symphony Orchestra will perform. You can get more deets from Smits himself.

 

Live. Kenny Chesney, Natasha Bedingfield and American Idol Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks and Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee perform during NBC’s live coverage of Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular. Natalie Morales and Tiki Barber are the hosts.

 

Live. Craig Ferguson hosts CBS’ live coverage of the 35^th annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular at the Charles River Esplanade in Boston. Country music superstars Rascal Flatts and The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra will perform. The final 23 minutes, featuring the breathtaking fireworks display over the river, will be telecast commercial free.

 

Series Premiere. Comedian Tom Mabe – who is known for comically tormenting telemarketers, God love him – stars in this new hidden camera prank show.