Blue Glow

Salon's TV picks for
Weekend, July 9-11, 1999

Published July 9, 1999 4:00PM (EDT)

Series

The new food-quiz show Taste Test (6:30 p.m. Sat., Food Network) premieres. Epicure David Rosengarten hosts. The dead parrot. The Ministry of Silly Walks. The lumberjack song. The Piranha Brothers. Yes, Monty Python's Flying Circus (11 p.m. EDT/8 PDT, Sat., A&E) returns to TV in a weekly one-hour package of classic reruns. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you ought to watch. True Hollywood Story (8 p.m. Sun., E!) chronicles Rock Hudson's tragic struggle to stay in the closet. The X-Files (9 p.m. Sun., Fox) reruns the two-parter where a mysterious incident near Area 51 results in Mulder exchanging bodies with a smarmy government operative (Michael McKean). The new sitcom Movie Stars (9 p.m. Sun., WB) stars Harry Hamlin and Jennifer Grant as Hollywood actors trying to raise their family as normally as possible. Carrie reunites with the commitment-phobic, but so hot, Mr. Big (Chris Noth) on a new Sex and the City (9 p.m. Sun., HBO). On a rerun of The Practice (10 p.m. Sun., ABC), Helen is ordered by her boss to humiliate an innocent man in court in order to damage a political rival.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Specials

Talk about extreme sports: It's time for the annual Running of the Bulls (1:30 a.m. Fri., ESPN2), live from Pamplona, Spain. And now for the running of the teenage girls: Backstreet Boys in Concert (7 p.m. Sat., Disney Channel) spotlights the teen dreams onstage in New York City. Jimmy Smits, Jennifer Lopez and Edward James Olmos head the cast in director Gregory Nava's 1995 drama My Family (Mi Familia) (8:30 p.m. Sat., ABC), the story of three generations of a Mexican-American family. The premise of the 1996 TV movie Deadly Pursuits (9 p.m. Sat., NBC) can be summed up in just six words: Tori Spelling as a lap dancer. In Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker (11:15 p.m. Sat., HBO), the excitable comedian tells some truth in a performance taped last month at Harlem's Apollo Theatre. Attention "The Spy Who Shagged Me" fans: Want to know where Mike Myers got the inspiration for Mini-Me? Watch Marlon Brando and dwarf actor Nelson de la Rosa in the staggeringly bad 1996 thriller The Island of Dr. Moreau (8 p.m. EDT/7 PDT, Sun., TBS). The four-part Savage Seas (check local times, Sun., PBS) is the latest in a series of documentaries on gnarly natural phenomena (the others were "Savage Skies" and "Savage Earth"). In this offering, we get up close and personal with tidal waves, cyclones, killer sharks and other ocean perils. The new cable movie The Hunley (8 p.m. Sun., TNT) is the true story of a dangerous mission undertaken by the Confederate crew of a makeshift submarine -- the first military sub -- during the Civil War. Armand Assante and Donald Sutherland star.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Sports

Baseball:

Red Sox at Braves (7:35 p.m. Fri., 1:05 p.m. Sun., TBS)

Mariners at Dodgers (10 p.m. Sat., FX)

Cubs at White Sox (8 p.m. Sun., ESPN)

WNBA:

Comets at Mercury (8 p.m. Fri., Lifetime)

Mystics at Shock (1 p.m. Sat., NBC)

Women's World Cup:

Brazil vs. Norway, third place game (1 p.m. Sat., ESPN)

China vs. U.S., championship game (3:30 p.m. Sat., ABC)

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Talk

Rosie O'Donnell (syndicated) Mariah Carey (rerun)

David Letterman (CBS) Jimmie Walker, Lucinda Williams

Jay Leno (NBC) Bill Bradley, Natasha Lyonne, Goo Goo Dolls

Charlie Rose (PBS) Judi Dench (rerun)

Dennis Miller (HBO) Bob Costas

Politically Incorrect (ABC) Emma Samms, Jarvis Cocker (rerun)

Conan O'Brien (NBC) Chris Rock, Jennifer Esposito


By Joyce Millman

Joyce Millman is a writer living in the Bay Area.

MORE FROM Joyce Millman


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Television