Fall Preview 2003

Fall Television Calendar

Look ahead: The Hottest Shows | Homeland Security | Daily Calendar

PLAN YOUR WEEK

SUNDAY

K Street This “semi-reality” series (George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh produce; Soderbergh also directs) has political consultants real and fictional, including James Carville and Mary Matalin, wheeling and dealing with actual pols. Premieres September 14 (HBO, 10:30 p.m.).

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself Antonio Banderas plays the turn-of-the-last-century Mexican guerrilla in a comically postmodern take on the world’s first filmed revolution. Premieres September 17 (HBO, 9:30 p.m., website).

The Boys of 2nd Street Park Middle-aged men who grew up playing basketball on a Brighton Beach court reminisce about the game, the borough, and their lost fifties childhoods in an affecting documentary. Premieres September 28 (Showtime, 9 p.m., website).

Cold Case Kathryn Morris, as the only female detective on a homicide squad in Philadelphia, finds herself most at home in the morgue of the past, reopening old wounds (CBS, 8 p.m., website).

Carnivàle HBO may have another original, offbeat hit. Read more.... (HBO, 9:00 p.m., website).

MONDAY

Two and a Half Men Charlie Sheen’s Malibu bachelor pad is invaded by his freshly divorced younger brother and his son—both of whom cramp his style. (Not a reality show.) Premieres September 22 (CBS, 9:30 p.m., website).

Skin This Jerry Bruckheimer production updates Romeo & Juliet in L.A. (though, sure, Baz Luhrmann got there first), casting Juliet as the daughter of a porn-media mogul (Ron Silver) and Romeo as the son of the D.A. crusading against him. Premieres October 20 (Fox, 9 p.m.).

Las Vegas James Caan plays a casino security chief (a good guy!) . Read more.... (NBC, 9 p.m., website)

TUESDAY

Whoopi The show takes on race and terrorism—from a Bowery hotel. Read more.... (NBC, 8 p.m., website)

Navy NCIS The best of the newfangled lot gets to be half CSI (all that lab stuff) and half JAG (all those uniforms), while Mark Harmon, David McCallum, and several younger harder-bodies run around after only those spies and terrorists with some connection to the Navy or the Marines (CBS, 8 p.m., CBS, website).

I’m With Her Writer Chris Henchy turns his real-life marriage to Brooke Shields into a sitcom about—what else?—an ordinary Joe married to a beautiful star. Premieres September 30 (ABC, 8:30 p.m.).

Happy Family John Larroquette and Christine Baranski (Chicago, Cybill) play a blasé couple facing the ultimate parents’ nightmare—three grown kids simultaneously failing at life. Premieres September 9 (NBC, 8:30 p.m., website).

The Mullets The season’s guiltiest pleasure features the brothers Mullet, who share the same white-trash tastes and “business in the front, party in the back” coifs. Premieres September 11 (UPN, 9:30 p.m., website).

WEDNESDAY

It’s All Relative Gives the queer-TV trend yet another twist. Read more.... (ABC, 8:30 p.m.)

Threat Matrix The eponymous matrix claims to be an elite task force of FBI, CIA, and NSA operatives created by the Homeland Security Act to do whatever they want to anybody who deserves it, especially if you’re Middle Eastern–looking (Thursdays, 8 p.m., ABC). Jake 2.0 The folks at 2.0 are merely NSA, but they’ve got Christopher Gorham on their side, as a computer geek who mistakenly swallows some nanotechnology and becomes superpowerful (UPN, 9 p.m.).

The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire Just another sitcom about three fat, middle-aged siblings obsessed with hockey. Read more... (CBS, 10 p.m., website).

Karen Sisco In the best of the traditional shows, Carla Gugino is a definite wow as Sisco, a federal marshal in Miami with a big mouth, a bigger temper, and a medium-size private-eye father (Robert Forster) (ABC, 10 p.m.).

THURSDAY

Wide Angle: A State of Mind Given rare access inside the pariah state, documentarian Dan Gordon follows two North Korean girls preparing for the nation’s fiftieth-anniversary salute—the hyperathletic, Hitler-rally-style Mass Games. Premieres September 11 (PBS, 9 p.m.). Tru Calling Working late nights at the New York City morgue, Tru Davies (played by Buffy’s Eliza Dushku) hears dead people, then finds herself thrust back in time, Quantum Leap–style, with twelve hours to save a would-be corpse. Premieres October 30 (Fox, 8 p.m.).

Coupling Think of Coupling as that other NBC sitcom—with skin. Read more.... (NBC, 9:30 p.m., website)

FRIDAY

Luis Perpetual supporting actor Luis Guzmán (Traffic, Out of Sight) finds his own sitcom vehicle, playing an East Harlem doughnut-shop owner with a sassy ex-wife and a daughter with a deadbeat white boyfriend. Premieres September 19 (FOX, 8:30 p.m.).

Miss Match Alicia Silverstone remains surprisingly unchanged from her Clueless days—playing Daddy’s little plucky divorce lawyer, who moonlights as a matchmaker while negotiating prenups in her father’s New York firm. Premieres September 26 (NBC, 8 p.m., website).

Find! Power antiques dealers and Antiques Roadshow hosts Leigh and Leslie Keno drop in on midwestern farmhouses and Soho showrooms in search of valuable lessons in style—or just valuables. Premieres October 17 (PBS, 10:30 p.m.).

The Handler Joe Pantoliano trains rookie FBI agents to go so far undercover in Los Angeles that they don’t know whether they’re stopping crime or starting it (CBS, 10 p.m., website).