The Week Ahead – The Tony Awards and the end of the world

The summer season is getting under way now. Here’s a handy guide of what’s to come:

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

• It hasn’t even debuted yet and I’m already annoyed with NBC’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I say get them all out of there, and off my screen before the two-hour premiere. (Mon. 8pm)
• But if you can’t get enough of Heidi Montag and Spender Pratt, you can flip over to MTV and see “Speidi’s Wedding Unveiled” in a special presentation of The Hills. (Mon. 11pm)
• Scare tactics are alive and well on ABC’s Earth 2100, which takes a speculative look at how we might just wipe ourselves out in the next 100 years. It WILL happen. Bob Woodruff says so. (Tue. 9pm)
• The following night NBC takes us into the Presidency with Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports. I wonder if he’ll ask how we’re going to avert oblivion in the next century. (Wed. 9pm)
• Just in time for Land of the Lost, find out how Will Ferrell would really fare in the wild as he takes it on with Bear Grylls in a special Man vs. Wild on Discovery (Tue. 10pm)
• The NBA Finals kick off with a Jimmy Kimmel special on ABC before the Orlando Magic take on the Los Angeles Lakers. (Thu. 8pm)
• It’s The Tony Awards in HD for the first time on CBS, and it’s hosted by NPH himself, Neil Patrick Harris! (Sun. 8pm)
• Worst Week is back to burn off its remaining episodes on CBS (Sat. 8:30pm)

PREMIERES & FINALES

• Saying goodbye to NBC, Medium has Patricia Arquette facing a vision of losing her entire family in the season finale; she’ll be on CBS Fridays next year. (Mon. 10pm)
• NBC is replacing a medium with a telepath as The Listener features Craig Olejnik saving lives with his own gift. (Thu. 9pm)
• You can also look for the 75-minute bow of Royal Pains, a comedy about a young doctor who takes a gig being a “concierge doctor” making house calls to the rich in the Hamptons. (Thu. 10pm, USA)
• Comedian Daniel Tosh is given a shot on Comedy Central with Tosh.0 examining the Internets on a weekly basis. (Thu. 10pm)
• Other premieres include USA’s Burn Notice (Thu. 9pm), Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels on A&E (Sun. 9pm), Lifetime’s Army Wives (Sun. 10pm), The Next Food Network Star (Sun. 9pm), Animal Planet’s Whale Wars (Fri. 9pm),
• Saying goodbye for … well … good is According to Jim after eight long, long years on ABC. (Tue. 8:30pm)
• Heading into its twentieth season, it’s the nineteenth season finale of the granddaddy of the whole franchise, Law & Order on NBC. (Wed. 10pm)
• Also bowing out for the year are Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (Wed. 9:30pm, TBS), The Whitest Kids U’Know (Tue, 10:15pm, IFC), The Cougar (Wed. 10pm, TV Land) and Nanny 911 on CMT (Sat. 8pm)

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on Jun 01, 2009 @ 15:30 EST5EDT