“Battlestar Galactica: Revisited”
Thursday 10pm, Sci-Fi Channel
This half-hour special gives you everything you need to know about the critically acclaimed sci-fi show, conveniently airing before its fourth and final season begins next week. Countless critics (myself included) have praised “Galactica,” and it really is a fantastic show. People get spooked by the “sci-fi” banner, and that’s understandable; who wants to be branded a geek? So perhaps I can appeal to your more prurient interests: In addition to great writing and acting, this show is stacked with stone-cold foxes. For the gents, Canadian model Tricia Helfer provides sex on a stick as the Cylon Six, while Katee Sackhoff does the hot tomboy thing as ace pilot Starbuck. For the ladies, both Jamie Bamber (Apollo) and Tahmoh Penikett (Helo) fill out their flight suits nicely. So, whether you’re smart or horny, this show is for you.
“State of the Union”
Sunday 10pm, Showtime
America is a pretty stupid place, and it’s only fitting that a refugee from our mother country should point out all of our various faults and foibles. Comedian/impressionist Tracey Ullman is something of an acquired taste—you either roll with her shtick or think it’s the stupidest goddamned thing you’ve ever seen—but there’s no denying her track record. She’s had two long-running sketch shows (Fox’s “Tracey Ullman Show,” which gave birth to “The Simpsons,” and HBO’s “Tracey Takes On…”) and scored some other notable gigs, including the starring role in John Waters’ most recent flick, A Dirty Shame. She comes to Showtime with a whole new crew of characters to lampoon our country’s obsession with celebrity, sex, Jesus, food and so on.
“Flavor of Love 3”
Monday 9pm, VH1
As VH1 has done with so many of its past successes—“Behind the Music,” “I Love the [fill in the blank],” “The List”—the supposed music network has finally driven its “Celebreality” programming block into the ground. This is most evident by the fall of the network’s one-time savior, ex-Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav. Flav became an unlikely cash cow for the net after parlaying his bizarre “Surreal Life” hook-up with Brigitte Nielsen into “Strange Love,” which then led to the hugely successful “Bachelor” rip-off, “Flavor of Love,” in which Flav winnowed through several dozen classless broads in order to find his Ms. Right, all of whom inevitably dumped his ass by the reunion. The first two seasons of “Flavor,” and its many spin-offs (at least five, including “Rock of Love,” “Charm School” and “I Love New York”), are responsible for some of the most addictive reality TV ever aired. But in this third go-around, everything’s just sad and tired. Flav is clearly there for a paycheck. The ladies are clearly there for exposure. There hasn’t even been a surreptitious elimination ceremony dookie or weave-pulling catfight. There are still some cheap laughs to be had, but Flav, your time is up.
