Thu May 21, 2009 — by Mike Gold

Upfronts Day Four: Some Cable Stuff

The Palin Kid's Latest Spin-Off

On the heels of the broadcast network’s fall announcements comes the never-ending trickle of cable commitments. As is their wont, many of these shows will debut in the summer months (like, June) when broadcast network series are on hiatus.

TNT will be showing us a hospital series starring Jada Pinkett Smith called Hawthorne, Jerry Bruckheimer’s got a cop show called Dark Blue that stars Dylan McDermott, Mark Burnett’s got a new reality series called Wedding Day, and this December a series with an impressive pedigree called Men of a Certain Age starring Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula.

truTV has a bunch of “reality” shows that fit square into their format: a behind the scenes show called NFL Full Contact– the sort we used to call a “documentary,” Conspiracy Theory with Governor Jesse Ventura, U.S. Special Ops: Declassified – a program that outs our nation’s terrorist hunters, and Full Throttle, another behind the scenes look at Ballard's Full Throttle Saloon biker bar in Sturgis, South Dakota.

TBS has some inexpensive stuff lined up: a talk show starring George Lopez, an animated sitcom about suburbanites who used to live “down below” called Neighbors from Hell, and, of course, they’ve picked up Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns and The Bill Engvall Show.

MTV has a new series ripped from today’s political headlines called 16 & Pregnant. There hasn’t been a teevee series with a more self-descriptive title since The Jack Paar Program.

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