Cable channels offer a season of great shows
By Ed Bark
Knight Ridder News Service
A wealth of daringly distinctive cable series premiered in mid- or late-summer and are overlapping into autumn.
So if you haven't caught them yet, you've been missing a lot. Namely, HBO's "Carnivale" and "K Street," FX's "Nip/Tuck," ESPN's "Playmakers," Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," Comedy Central's "Reno 911!," Spike TV's "Joe Schmo," Showtime's "Freshman Diaries" and A&E's "MI-5."
Any or all are well worth watching in a fall season where most of the broadcast networks' 37 new series are equipped with safety nets. Here are some other notable cable attractions coming your way in the next few months:
• "Fake Out" (Wednesday, Court TV) — Wits and skill are deployed by contestants who try to figure out whether their competitors are lying or not. Hosted by former FBI interrogation expert Jack Trimarco.
History Channel
• "Extreme History with Roger Daltrey" (SUNDAY, The History Channel) — The lead singer of The Who visits harsh locales to show how people existed way back when. By the way, he pities us fools who have to write about his show. "I'm incredibly fortunate not to be working at General Motors," Daltrey recently told a batch of TV critics. "I just feel sorry for you poor (expletives) ... Having to watch TV all day. It doesn't come any worse than that, does it?"
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, visits harsh locales to see how people existed way back when in "Extreme History" on Sunday.
• "A Tale of Two Wives" (Oct. 11, Oxygen) — Cheryl Hines of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" stars in the channel's first original movie. Her husband, played by Peter Gallagher ("The O.C."), is a marriage counselor who secretly has a second spouse.
• "The Maldonado Miracle" (Oct. 12, Showtime) — Oscar nominee Salma Hayek ("Frida") makes her directorial debut in this fable-istic film about a young boy whose arrival triggers a revival of a downtrodden California town.
• "D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Terror" (Oct. 17, USA) — Charles S. Dutton stars as Montgomery County, Md., police chief Charles Moose in a dramatization of the killing spree that dominated news coverage last winter.
• "Kid Notorious" (Oct. 22, Comedy Central) — Flamboyant film producer/womanizer Robert Evans is cartoonized in this off-color animated series about his larger-than-life life.
• "Mix It Up" (Oct. 22, We: Women's Entertainment) — "Friends" star Courteney Cox Arquette and her eccentric husband, David Arquette, co-produce a makeover show in which mates with clashing tastes are shown how to co-exist peaceably.
• "Angels in America" (December, HBO) — Adapted from Tony Kushner's Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this six-hour production is dripping with class. Mike Nichols directs and Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson head a sterling cast.
• "Battlestar Galactica" (December, Sci Fi Channel) — Edward James Olmos takes command in a miniseries drawn from the failed 1978 ABC series of the same name that had Lorne Greene at master control.
• "Stealing Sinatra" (December, Showtime) — William H. Macy and Arquette star in a drama about the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr.
