Your TV dates for fall. Here's your guide to the new-season premieres of all your old favorites as well as the 37 new network shows making their bows between now and ... December?!

Planet Work. The second part of this look at the globalization of work on "Livelyhood" airs tonight on many PBS stations (check local listings). One story follows Geekcorps to Ghana. Another profiles businesswoman Gigi Wang as she commutes between California and Asia. Host Will Durst travels to Italy to report on the Slow Food Movement, pays an amusing visit to a trade show for selling international rights to television shows, and talks with Jo Soares, Brazilās David Letterman, about what aspects of comedy can cross borders. Network newsmagazines like "20/20" and "Dateline" could learn a great deal from how this show uses humor and weaves several stories throughout the hour.

Out of Sight. USA is showing this excellent film version of Elmore Leonard's novel tonight at 9 p.m. It stars George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Albert Brooks, and Don Cheadle. Many of the techniques that director Steven Soderbergh later used in "The Limey", "Traffic", and most likely his upcoming "Ocean's 11" made their debut here. So I'm suggesting that you not watch the commercial filled edited version that will be on cable tonight. Instead, buy or rent the DVD. It has an informative commentary by Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank (who was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar), several deleted scenes, and a fairly pedestrian behind the scenes doc made for HBO. And if you don't have a DVD player, find a friend who has one. Seeing this DVD might finally convince you to buy one.

Dive into Cartoon Network. "Adult Swim", a new grown-up-oriented programming block on Cartoon Network (10 p.m. - 1 a.m.) has an encore presentation of its Sunday debut tonight. The highlights include temporal physics in relation to seafood on "The Brak Show", a thoughtful look at race relations, classic literature, barbecue sauce, and Erik Estrada on "Sealab 2021", and a vintage episode of "Space Ghost Coast To Coast", guest starring Randy "Macho Man" Savage. The evening is wrapped up with an hour of "Cowboy Bebop", a Japanese import that blends Old West bounty hunting with sci-fi space travel, along with healthy doses of comedy and tragedy.

Over on tvbarn2: "Specialty programmers aren't run by anyone who gives a damn about the niche they are catering to. In fact, in the cases of (Cartoon Network) and Sci-Fi, they are being run by people who have an open disdain for their core audience."

Cheetahs, Foxxes, and Gorillaz, oh my. Last year at the MTV Video Music Awards, Britney Spears singlehandedly created a phenomenon at the Metropolitan Opera House. This year, her scheduled performance of "I'm A Slave 4 U" already has people up in arms, over the possibilities of simulated sexual activity, the use of live cheetahs, and of course, bad spelling. (Not neccessarily in combination or in that order.) Other performers scheduled to appear include Staind, Jennifer Lopez, Linkin Park, and U2, as well as a video tribute to the late singer/actress Aaliyah. The 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, hosted by Jamie Foxx, airs tonight at 8 p.m., preceeded by the VMA Opening Act arrival show at 6:30 p.m.

"Jeopardy" doubles its money. Those $500 questions don't go as far as they used to -- so America's favorite quiz show has doubled its prize money for the new season, which started Monday. Even more controversial, host Alex Trebek shaved his moustache during the summer break.

V-chip deja vu. At first I did a double-take: "Kermit the Frog has himself a new gig. The famed amphibian ... will now be put to work boosting the awareness of the so-called V-Chip ..." The Reuters reporter should've done an archive check -- this is the second time in as many years that old Kermie has been pressed into duty promoting the show-blocking technology. Not that it did much good the first time: A recent survey found that only 7 percent of parents use it, even though a majority of parents were concerned about television content and their kids.

Remote control gets the runs. Yet another article detailing the impending arrival of the 500+ channel universe in Canada. Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star discusses which networks will be worth reviewing (from her TV-critic perspective) and which won't. A selection of the new channels will be trickling in on the Digital Tier on cable ExpressVu and StarChoice.

The right language. On Tuesday, I received an email with the subject: Urgent Advisory to NewsMax.com Readers. Newsmax is a conservative site, so I thought it might be about protecting Bush's tax cut. Turns out they were alarmed by a New York Times article, "As Cable Applies Pressure, Network TV Spouts Expletives" (registration required), on plans by broadcast networks to push the envelope even further this season. The Newsmax email included two articles, Networks Plan on Blaspheming God ö Most Shocking TV Season Ever by John Edwards and The Network Executives Can 'Stick It' by Chris Ruddy and a link to send email to the FCC protesting the plans. A few more articles have been added to the site since.

Problem is, Edwards' article isn't accurate. He writes, "ABCās 'Philly' is planning on using the word "Sh--" ö which has never aired before on an ABC program." On March 22nd, Ted Koppel used the full length version of b.s. (though last night it was bleeped for some reason when an ordinary citizen said it on "Nightline"). Edwards also claims that "the 'F' word that has never been uttered on broadcast TV." In addition to Charles Rocket's famous use of the term on "Saturday Night Live", I heard it as recently as the first XFL game. And some documentaries and British imports on PBS regularly and refreshingly don't bleep expletives. The networks using more realistic language does not constitute a "culture war" and will not, as Ruddy writes, "destroy the last vestiges of traditional American culture." No child is going to hear those words for the first time on broadcast TV and the republic survived Mark Harmon saying "s---" on "Chicago Hope" a while back. The strange thing is conservatives want the FCC to intervene on language, but remain hands off when it come to massive media mergers which are far more obscene. See Cynthia Cotts very different look at the FCC in the Village Voice and Salon's excellent series on media consolidation.

Bensonhurst to Hollywood in one leap. Even if "Bob Patterson" crashes and burns, it's launched at least one career -- an improbable one at that, reports Bernie Weinraub in the New York Times (registration required). James Guidice is a 17-year-old high school senior in New York who recently answered a casting call for the Jason Alexander sitcom along with 200 other actors. An acting novice, he was called in after his final audition and told by Alexander, "Your life is about to change."

TiVo in trouble. Even though 225,000 subscribers -- from Howard Stern to the Howard family of Denver, Colorado -- love their TiVo personal video recorders, the future of the company is uncertain, according to Business Week. TiVo hooked David Letterman after a guest raved about the machine on his show. But free advertising and word-of-mouth does not a company make. The magazine reports that unless TiVo gets more funding, it will burn through the rest of its money by February of next year.

Milking the reality cow dry, then selling it for magic beans. Tonight on "Big Brother 2" (CBS, 9 p.m.), the remaining houseguests duel against "Survivor" castaways Gervase Peterson and Susan Hawk. It is unknown if Hawk will show up in a broken-down hearse. If the hearse does show, I'm sure it'll be carrying the wedded bliss of houseguest Nicole and her husband. (That's what we call a tease for a developing story...)

Sincerest form of television, cont'd. Jason Snell at Teevee.org writes, "Hey! 'The Zap2It.com Dead Pool.' Great idea! (See item below. -- AB) And a great name, too. And I say that from experience. Because we've been doing a Dead Pool contest on TeeVee, too! For five years." UPDATE: Zap2It's Brill Bundy fires back, "Your sarcasm is noted and well-placed, as I have been a fan of your site for several years myself and subscribe to your mailing list. While I am indeed perfectly aware of your own Dead Pool, I have absolutely no compunction about doing one of our own since the Dead Pool concept (and name) is not exactly a new one, although the wild, wacky world of the Internet has definitely made them much more elaborate and viable." (Read both letters.)

Scheduled for a suh-uh-mer ni-iiii-ght? An '02 remake of a '78 movie about the 1950s with actors in their 20s playing high school students. The BBC reports "ABC is to make an update of 'Grease,' which starred Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta."

So, tvbarn2 readers ... have those unrelenting banner ads on Yahoo made it sufficiently clear that this is Pax TV premiere week?

And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers. Garry Jaffe has just about had it with The History Channel and their factual screw-ups. Recently he heard a narrator give the wrong burial place for General Patton; another documentary gave out the wrong date for Japan's surrender. The network won't return his e-mails. "These are really stupid errors as they are easily obtained info. Don't these people have historians on staff, let alone fact checkers?"

Over on tvbarn2: "These docs are made by independent production companies, not at the History Channel. ... There's rarely anyone there with any training in history or, sometimes, any particular interest. At best they have someone like me, a researcher, to dig up the facts and check everything as they go along."

Bamm! You're cancelled! Zap2it.com has opened a "dead pool" where you can guess which new TV series will be the first to be cancelled or placed "on hiatus." Will "Bob Patterson" disappear as quickly as Michael Richards and George Wendt did'? "Emeril" has to be the favorite. Cast your vote for a chance to win valuable prizes. (Is there a "prohibitive favorite" category? I just watched the overhauled "Emeril" pilot. -- AB)

A very special "Smackdown!"- In a showing of beautiful corporate synergy, the WWF has moved its Thursday workhorse "Smackdown!" to a live Tuesday showing for ONE NIGHT ONLY... so as not to interfere with the ratings demographics for Viacom stablemate MTV's "Video Music Awards" (which airs Thursday). I guess the potential of Britney Spears trying to outdo last year's performance pretty much destroys any chance of people tuning in to see what hijinks Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Hurricane Helms, Stephanie McMahon, and Flex Kavana have in store. "Smackdown!" airs live tonight from the Air Canada Center in Toronto on UPN at 8 p.m.

'History IQ' no more. The History Channel has cancelled its quiz show "History IQ," and Steve Beverly for one is irked. He calls it "yet another blow struck against game shows which have a touch of class. Teachers have used History IQ as an instructional tool across the nation. ... People who played the game did not have to have an offbeat story about how they met their spouses ... In addition, this show insisted on a dress code for its players---two words which are not even in the vocabulary of most television series of any kind today, including newscasts."

"SNL," older than its host. Sayeth NBC: "Fresh from this summer's sleeper comedy hit 'Legally Blonde,' Reese Witherspoon hosts the 27th Season Premiere of 'Saturday Night Live' on September 29 (11:30 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. ET) with Alicia Keys performing as the musical guest."

I want my ... Bernie Whalen asks, "Does this mean you won't be offering the links to the stories by TV critics? I thought that was the best feature of your new layout."

I agree it's a great feature. And it will return to the front page. As will the Yahoo TV headlines. But I am currently rethinking how to organize the various elements of my front page while incorporating the new contributions from readers. It's a semi-complex undertaking -- and I need to finish up my fall preview package before I can devote my full attention to the task. So bear with.

In the meantime, my robot is still gathering daily headlines from the nation's TV critics. You can view them on the standalone TV critics' page.

More Morrie. Nightline is also running the three shows they did on Morrie Schwartz again (with some updated material) starting tonight (the series Aaron writes about below airs Friday and September 11th -14th). Unless there is major news, the rest will air over the next two Mondays.

As Executive Producer Tom Bettag says in Nightline's latest email newsletter, these are the most requested episodes of the show. Mitch Albom's book Tuesdays With Morrie is still a best seller (he also has real audio of his conversations with Morrie up on his site). And a television movie starring Jack Lemmon aired in 1999 on ABC.

Nightline's email newsletter is well worth subscribing to. They are always written by one of Nightline's producers and read like short essays on that evening's topic. And they often give insight into how the news is covered. Plus, it helps remind viewers that most of the people who create the news programs they watch never apprear on camera. And while you're signing up for email from ABC News, the daily newsletter from Peter Jennings (which he actually writes unless he is on vacation or traveling) and the World News Now newsletter are also worth getting.

AARON BARNHART: Heartbreaking `Nightline' series isn't to be missed: "The ABC newsman travels to deepest Africa to tell a story that will make the plights of well-scrubbed Westerners with perfect teeth seem grotesquely trivial."

A confession. As I plow through Entertainment Weekly's TV preview issue, I find that I am not immediately dismissing the possibility of watching Amazing Race. Quick, somebody throw water in my face.

"Independent View." About twenty PBS stations around the country are picking up KQED's program on independent film, "Independent View."
The first episode features film critic B. Ruby Rich interviewing Robert Redford about the Sundance film festival and his career. The rest of the shows have two interviews and a segment where San Francisco video clerks suggest several movies on a theme (such as Cinema Verite documentaries and low budget films).

The fourth episode is the strongest because it has more of a behind the scenes feel while the others are interviews mixed with clips. It was shot during Spike Lee's production of Roger Guenveur Smith's A Huey P. Newton Story which aired on Black Starz in June and will air on PBS next summer. Other people interviewed include Ang Lee, John Waters (while getting his first manicure), Allison Anders, Roger Ebert, Barbara Kopple, and Danny Glover.

There are descriptions of all 17 episodes from this season and an archive with full transcripts (and short video clips) of interviews from last season and this season along with the video store segments.
KCET in LA has been airing the 30 minute show on Saturdays at 7:30 pm since July. It begins airing tonight on Dayton's WPTD at 9 pm and on Miami's WPBT at 12:30 am. WNET in New York will be showing it on Sundays at 7 pm beginning September 16th. Stations in Dallas and Atlanta will start showing it in mid-October. San Francisco's KQED continues to show it on Thursdays at 7:30 pm. There is a list of stations showing Independent View, but it isn't complete and doesn't include times and dates.

If your local PBS station isn't scheduled to show it, contact them and ask them to pick up Independent View. --Steve Rhodes (reprinted from our old Weblogger page)