Shark Week: 'Shark Feeding Frenzy'

True story: Two years ago I went on vacation to Belize. We took a snorkeling expedition as part of the trip, which involved taking a boat to a small island off the coast, in the Caribbean. After snorkeling for a couple of hours, there was a picnic lunch set up on the island by our guides. At noon exactly, a lemon shark started circling in the shallow waters off the island.

Why? Because the guides were in the habit of feeding the shark the leftover chicken from the picnic. The tastes of the gourmet shark had reached such a level of snobbery that the shark would eat only the chicken that was slathered in barbecue sauce -- and, dangit, it wanted its lunch promptly at noon. (Travel advisory: Do not coat yourself in barbecue sauce before snorkeling in Belize.)

So it was with great fascination that I watched Tuesday night's "Shark Feeding Frenzy" on Discovery, during which "Survivorman" host Les Stroud tried to ascertain what gets the digestive juices flowing on the critters.

'Big Love': The one we'd all be talking about

Last week, HBO promised that this week's "Big Love" would be the one we'd all be talking about. And, in spirit, it delivered on its promise: In the closing moments of Monday night's episode, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), the conniving so-called Prophet and the closest thing the series has to an archvillain, was gunned down by the unhappy wives of a rival polygamist family.

Roman's shooting was certainly unexpected, but offing major characters has become a bit of an old standby for HBO. "Sopranos" kicked it up a notch when Tony capped Big Pussy in its second season. And remember Nate's death a few episodes from the end of "Six Feet Under"? Just once wouldn't it be great for HBO to promise a shock and then really deliver something unexpected? You know, like an alien invasion over Utah, or maybe the entire family contracts a flesh eating supervirus, or even a special appearance by Donnie and Marie Osmond.

We still don't know for certain if Roman is truly gone from the show -- we last saw him lying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk -- but I've learned that unless you actually see the body in the coffin, no death on TV is a done deal. If he is gone, it's just as well. The rivalry between Roman and his son-in-law, Bill (Bill Paxton), had pretty much run its course. There's no way their infighting would have ever resulted in anything more than a smashed window and hurt feelings.

(Photo courtesy of HBO)

'Hell's Kitchen': Moms know best

Who saw this coming -- Bonnie is in the final!

This, after all, is "blond Bonnie," the nanny that chef Gordon Ramsay has spent much of the series ridiculing. (Remember the time she was trying to cook on the stove, sans any actual heat?) But here she is, going toe-to-toe with Rock, an executive chef. Jen may have won Monday night's challenge, when the contestants' moms had to blind judge their high-falutin takes on comfort food, but she ended up on the chopping block anyway after a so-so dinner service performance. Good riddance. She was getting annoying with her falsetto-speak confessionals.

We'll soon see if the newly bolstered Bonnie can follow through on her threat to Rock: Watch out, she said, I'm gunning for you.

--Rene Lynch

(Photo courtesy Fox)

'My Boys': Friends with growing pains

Last season, TBS premiered the comedy series “My Boys,” a show with a light-looking plot about a tomboyish but beautiful young woman who lives in Chicago, covers the Cubs for the sports section of the Sun-Times and has a lot of guy friends, including a brother played by popular stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan.

The show was surprising in the entertainment it delivered in spite of its fluffy, “Friends”-like premise: there was no laugh track, which made some of the more absurdly funny lines stand out. For instance, in an episode from last season, P.J. (Jordana Spiro) criticized best friend Stephanie’s (Kellee Stewart) boyfriend for carrying a cane. When Stephanie explained that he needed it to walk, P.J. asked, “OK, but what about the top hat?”

It was promising to see good comedic writing too for female characters, as women still tend to be delegated the straight-man role in mixed-gender sitcoms.

The show arrives in its second season, with an appropriately more high-profile ad campaign (it helps that Gaffigan has made himself a regular guest on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” with his “Pale Force” cartoon shorts).

The expectations are higher, though, for the second season, and the first two episodes illustrate some of the struggles that its writers might be having as the show tries to really figure out what it’s all about.

Shark Week: 'Top 5 Eaten Alive'

Yeeesh! Everyone did see the parental advisory warning at the top of the hour, right? Right?!

Not that you can expect anything named 'Top 5 Eaten Alive' to be quiet and contemplative, but the sight of someone's calf muscle being ripped off their fibula by a shark in shallow water is an image that won't soon be forgotten. And, if you missed it, no doubt someone is uploading the sequence this very second to YouTube.

Shark Week: 'Deadly Stripes: Tiger Sharks'

There are some things in life that I feel don't need to be said. For instance: "Sharks are not our friends."

Majestic creatures, sure. Awesome in the original definition of the word, as opposed to the surfer definition of the word, definitely. But friendly? No. It's almost a joke worthy of Gary Larson's "The Far Side": You can just imagine some poor schlubby guy heading down to the corner bar for a quick drink with his new pal, a shark. (The bar, of course, would be called the Bait and Switch.)

In "Tiger Sharks," the first hour of Discovery's original shark programming on Monday night, South African shark scientist Mark Addison attempts to show that sharks and humans are capable of a connection beyond the predator-prey relationship.

'John From Cincinnati': Wait, where's Naomi Watts?

In the closing minutes of last week's episode, John told Cass that Shaun would soon be gone.  Gone how?  Dead gone?  Gone surfing?  Gone fishing?   Gone to Sea World with his porny mom to escape the rest of his whack-job family? Because, at least in the short term, that's where Shaun has gone off to.

In Sunday's episode, however, John manages to spread the word of his premonition about Shaun -- and causes panic in the process.  In something straight out of 2002's "The Ring," John creates an Internet video that gets pushed to the websites and the dreams of Clan Yost and their hangers-on.  The video is a loop of John sitting in front of a black sheet with a half-drawn stick figure chalked on it in white.  John repeats over and over that Shaun will soon be gone.  And that's it.  (Instead of the video causing death, of course, it makes viewers wish they were dead, I guess.)

'Jericho': For the fans

There were no grand announcements at the Comic-Con International "Jericho" panel, but there were plenty of thank-yous.  After all, the Sunday session never would have happened if CBS hadn't resurrected the series from cancellation following passionate fan response.

Moderator Craig Tomashoff of TV Guide kicked off the love-fest by announcing that the hour would give the panelists their first chance to thank the "people responsible for keeping you on the air."  Series stars Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James and Ashley Scott and producers Carol Barbee, Karim Zreik, Dan Shotz and Jon Steinberg repeatedly expressed their gratitude while fielding questions and presenting clip packages of season one highlights (set to the Killers' "All These Things That I've Done") and early behind-the-scenes footage from season two (set to Eminem's "Without Me").  The latter ended with even more fan appreciation from cast and crew.

As for their brief flirtation with the TV graveyard, Steinberg recalled, "Even up until the day before [the renewal announcement], I thought there was no way we were coming back on CBS."  Scott joked that she kept waiting for Ashton Kutcher to show up and tell her she was being punked, even during her first day back on the set.  And Barbee reasoned, "We're better off that we got canceled."

Shark Week: 'Ocean of Fear' -- the worst shark attack ever

Duhdum. Duhdum. Duhdumduhdumduhdum. Da da da!

Yep, it's Shark Week again, the Discovery Channel's annual frenzy of all things toothy, murderous and freaky.  It's the 20th anniversary of this week of special programming, and with it the cable channel will unfurl eight new shows in prime time -- and I'll cover 'em all.  Get into the spirit and eat some tuna sashimi in front of the tube with me.

For all these years, the goal of Discovery's programming has been to blend the interest in the horror-story appeal of sharks -- the "Jaws" effect, if you will -- with the very real need to educate the public about conservation of the critters.  Sunday night's entry, "Ocean of Fear," weighs heavily on the shock and ewwww angle, exploring the real-life tragedy of the USS Indianapolis, which sank in shark-infested waters in 1945.

'Mad Men': Too much pretty Betty

I hate to say it, but the effervescent buzz “Mad Men” had in last week’s premiere went just a smidge flat with this second episode. Who let the fizz out? Draper’s wife. Although January Jones’ performance is appropriately muted, with hints of complexity to come, our time with Betty, a fragile, wide-eyed blond whose pretty little hands have been seizing up for no apparent reason, felt a little bit forced. Essentially, Matthew Weiner yanked us out of the Mad St. bar and pushed us onto the 5:15 back to the 'burbs before we had a chance to slurp down that third martini.