Mercy (M-Net Series, Monday July 5, 21:30)

There was a time when actor James van der Beek, was considered one of the most famous and handsome men in the world, based on the success of his TV show “Dawson’s Creek”. Apart from a few lack-lustre movies and guest appearances in other TV shows, he more or less dropped off the showbiz radar. Now he’s back in a new medical series created by NBC to fill the space left open by the ending of that the long-running hit “ER”. The title “Mercy” relates both to the name of the hospital, and to the emotions and impulses of the medical staff, in much the same way that “ER” combined the personal and professional aspects of their lives. Van der Beek plays Dr. Joe Briggs, the new ICU chief, who likes the ladies but he who harbors a dark secret. We are introduced the characters in the hospital by a newly employed nurse,  Veronica Callahan, played by Taylor Schilling, who has left the army after spending a tour of duty as a nurse in Iraq. Working with her are Chloe (Michele Trachtenburg) and Sonia (Jaime Lee Kircher) and these three women become the focus and sounding board for the events. Can it match the ever-splendid “Grey’s Anatomy”? Who knows, but check it out and see.     

Home Made (Home Channel, Monday July 5, 20:00)

If you missed the first episode of this excellent Australian show, catch up with it because it is the most taxing home-makeover ever attempted.  “Home Made” is the biggest renovation competition ever attempted on television. Ten talented designers from around Australia will compete for a $100,000 cash prize and their task is to completely make over two suburban family homes every week. No just a room or a garden or a façade, but two houses in one week. The contestants can bring in family members and of course they have the various specialists – plumbers, electricians, etc. – but everything must be paid for out of their very frugal allowance. The teams are huge and hugely competitive, and DIY junkies should have notebooks handy, because when you have to do two houses in the same week, there must be a system and a set of techniques that will define the winner.

Isn’t She Great? (M-Net Stars, Wednesday July 7, 19:30)

Bette Midler dominates the screen in this racy biography of author Jacqueline Susann, the woman who stopped the American censors in their tracks when she wrote “The Valley of the Dolls”, a sexy expose of the wanton ways of Hollywood and it’s stars. Her book became a mega-million-dollar, best-seller that allowed Susann to live a flamboyant life-style, but behind that façade, there was more pathos than passion. Her marriage to her husband and agent, Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane), was more of a business partnership than a love affair. She had a child but he was born autistic and she could not face the issue, so she hid him in a care centre and sometimes did not see him for years at a time. She also had to deal with breast cancer while she was churning out her best-sellers and traveling the world on her famous book tours. Jacqueline Susann had been born poor and now that she was rich, she was going to live her life to the fill, cancer or no cancer. It’s hard to decide whether she is a feisty survivor or a monstrous egotist whose every move was made to her benefit. Bette Midler is great in the film, as is Stockard Channing as her honest and brutally frank best friend. The mix of arrogance, trash and bravado will not be to everyone’s taste, but it made Jacqueline Susann an American icon

Steel Magnolias (e.tv, Thursday Nov.8, 20:00)

This film has become iconic in the history of women’s movies. The films of 1980s were very macho with the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” series, “Beverley Hills Cop”, “Top Gun” and “Platoon” and dozens of films about wars and street-crime. But through the hectic pace and all the violence a few women’s movies emerged, that not only notched up the big box-office dollars, but they also nabbed all the big awards. They were “On Golden Pond”, (1981), “Terms of Endearment” (1983), “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) and, of course, “Steel Magnolias” (1989). Based on an Off-Broadway play, the film is centered around a hairdressing salon where a bunch of Southern belles gather, no longer in the bloom of youth, but they are not ready to be written off. Truvy (Dolly Parton) is the owner of the salon, and she is the earth mother to the women of the town. In her shop all the gossip is gathered and re-distributed. The cast is dazzling – Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Darryl Hannah, and in a small role Julia Roberts who was at that time still a struggling young actress. The dramatic focus of the story is the death of a child, which gets all these women rallying around their friends, but it is seasoned with barbed comedy, huge emotions and one of the sweetest, saddest endings a movie could ever have. After 21 years it still retains a charmer.  

84 Charing Cross Road (TCM, Thursday 8, 21:00)

Have you noticed that there’s a thin dribble of new titles in the TCM channel? It’s not just
“Gone With the Wind”, “Casablanca” and “Quo Vadis” every day. There are other, newer films like the 1987 hit “84 Charing Cross Road” which features a trio of great Oscar-winning actors: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench. It’s the true story of a correspondence rather than a relationship. Just after World War II when London was struggling to get back on its feet, when food was rationed and luxuries unknown, an American woman Helene Hanff, started buying books, by mail, that she could not find in America, from a bookseller at 84 Charing Cross Road. The bookseller (Anthony Hopkins) went out of his way to find her the books and their relationship grew warm and close. The bookseller had a wife (Judi Dench), and Helene Hanff often sent the struggling family money and treats from America that were still not available in England. Their correspondence relationship was warm and generous and it lasted for years. I don’t want to tell you how it ends, because it spoils things, but it is a gentle, witty, charming film that will touch any book-lovers heart. 
 

CSI New York: Series 6 (M-Net, Thursday July 8, 21:30)

It’s a strange idea to start the sixth series of “CSI: New York” with the title “Epilogue” but it relates to a sentimental wake for a dead comrade. This first episode sees Mac and his CSI team in a pub, having a wake for a lost comrade. While they are there, the bar-window is shattered by a hail of machine gun-fire. Were the shooters on a random killing spree or are they looking for one single person? Danny Messer is struck by a bullet that hit his spine, leaving him partially paralysed and confined to a wheel-chair. A women tells Danny she thinks her brother is involved and but pretty soon she is also dead. This lethal gang starts taunting the police, using billboards to send this message “Do we have your attention? Pay us and we’ll stop” and of course Mac and his CSI will not allow that to happen. It’s a nicely twisted opening for a new series in which most of the cast are still intact but a few of them are considering some inappropriate relationships. The show is as sleek and glossy as ever and it should keep the fans happy.