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Networks Begin New Fight For Ratings With Stiff Competition On Wednesdays

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2007

As the first week of the 2007-08 television season continues, we find that it's a battlefield in TV land on Wednesday nights.

The main event tonight is at 9, when 'Bionic Woman' on NBC will try to flex her muscles against the sexy doctors on ABC's 'Private Practice.'

Also new to tonight, rich folk get in and out of trouble on ABC's 'Dirty Sexy Money,' and a gonzo cop tracks bad guys on NBC's 'Life.'

Here's my take on what to watch:

•At 8, the best bet is Fox's new 'Back to You,' with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton as bickering news anchors. It's followed at 8:30 by Brad Garrett's mugging and complaining on ''Til Death.' These two better-than-average sitcoms offer the best laughs of the night.

Also at 8, reality fans can check out CBS' it-takes-a-village social experiment 'Kid Nation' (I'd put it on the DVR). Over on NBC, Howie Mandel is back with the mindless game show 'Deal or No Deal' for those who don't really want to have to think about what they watch.

The CW continues 'America's Next Top Model' with Tampa contestant Janet Mills. She looks like she really could win this thing.

ABC offers the results show of 'Dancing With the Stars' (which is mostly filler until the final five minutes). Next week, ABC's 'Pushing Daises' debuts in the 8 p.m. time slot.

•At 9 is the major matchup of the night, and I'm going with 'Bionic Woman,' starring British actress Michelle Ryan.

This remake of a somewhat cheesy but beloved 1970s action thriller has been brought into the modern age with some nifty special effects. Ryan plays Jamie Sommers, a bartender and surrogate mother to a hearing-impaired teen.

Jamie's life changes after a near-fatal car wreck and $50 million worth of lifesaving bionic surgery courtesy of her scientist, top-secret spy and doctor boyfriend. Equipped with powerful artificial body parts, Jamie becomes a lean, mean fighting machine who apparently is being stalked by a nasty-tempered bionic rival (Katee Sackhoff of 'Battlestar Galactica').

A second choice at 9 is the 'Grey's Anatomy' spinoff, 'Private Practice,' on ABC. Kate Walsh stars as the new doctor at a Santa Monica wellness clinic, where there's more sexual hanky-panky than actual healing.

On The CW, the network will court teens and young female adults with 'Gossip Girl,' a drama set at a posh Manhattan high school where an all-knowing, all-seeing snarky blog keeps track of everything. The kids are a little too smug, rich and lacking in ethnic diversity for my tastes.

Fox serves up a new reality competition at 9, Gordon Ramsay's 'Kitchen Nightmares.' Having him in your kitchen would be scary, but on this series, the hot-tempered, foul-mouthed chef will try to turn around failing restaurants.

On CBS, 'Criminal Minds' (which usually wins the 9 p.m. time slot in the ratings) returns with more gruesome murders. Mandy Patinkin, who suddenly resigned from the series during filming this past summer, will appear in only the first few episodes.

•At 10 p.m., CBS' hit cop show 'CSI: NY' returns with more kinky murders in the Big Apple.

But the show I'll be watching is ABC's new drama 'Dirty Sexy Money.' Peter Krause ('Six Feet Under') stars as a lawyer who gets sucked into working for the rich, powerful and corrupt Darling family, headed by the slick and manipulative Tripp Darling (a wickedly good Donald Sutherland).

The Darlings have a lot of skeletons and need a lot of legal help - from covering up the escapades of son Patrick (William Baldwin), whose political career is in jeopardy over an affair with a transvestite, to bailing out spoiled siblings Jeremy (Seth Gabel) and Juliet (Samaire Armstrong).

Krause's character, Nick, wants to maintain a moral compass, but he can't escape the Darlings' clutches.

Also new at 10 is NBC's 'Life,' a cop drama with a twist. Damian Lewis stars as a police detective who returns to the job after being wrongfully imprisoned. He comes back with a new, somewhat reckless attitude because he has millions in the bank from a settlement. He also has faced a life sentence and survived.

In addition to bringing down bad guys, he also wants to unravel the unsolved crime for which he was framed.

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