TV Daily

Weekend Pick

Photo: Fox

If you're fascinated by the pseudo-real surrealism of MTV's "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County" but put off by its shallow California girls with no discernible aspirations beyond winning over the cutest boy in town, then you won't want to miss Fox's "Nashville" (premieres Friday at 9 p.m. EDT). Created by the same team behind "Laguna Beach," this reality soap tries to amplify its down-home authenticity by focusing on aspiring country stars -- but only the young, pretty ones, of course. In fact, today's reality soap producers are just like the boy band producers of yesteryear: Find a handful of hopelessly good-looking, reasonably talented young people, assign a tragic flaw to each and watch as the teenyboppers swoon. This show may not be a keeper on your weekly lineup, though. Aside from a strummy guitar-playing moment here and some record label interest there, the same shallow trigonometry of "Laguna Beach" applies, effortlessly turning a loose collection of singles into love triangles. But then, maybe backstabbing girls and charmless players are running through the same repetitive heartbreak rituals nationwide. We shudder to think!

-- H.H.

Also…

On Friday night, the season finale of "Monk" airs (9 p.m. EDT on USA), followed by the season finale of "Psych" (10 p.m. EDT on USA). On Sunday night, National Geographic's "Inside the Living Body" premieres at 8 p.m. EDT, and the season finale of USA's "The Dead Zone" airs at 10 p.m. EDT.

On the talk shows -- Friday

Contributors: Megan Doll, Matthew Fishbane, Heather Havrilesky, Eryn Loeb, Amy Reiter

• Looking for Thursday's listings?
• Bookmark http://salon.com/tv_daily/ to get the new TV Daily every day.