Mysterical-E

Mysterical-Eye

On TV

The broadcast networks have just announced their pickups for Fall 2013, and summer programming starts this week (May 20). Quite a few shows have caught my eye.

Beginning Thursday, May 23, ABC will air the Canadian crime drama MOTIVE, starring Kristin Lehman and Lauren Holly. Viewers are shown up front who the victim and the culprit are. As the show unfolds, their connection and the motive come to light. The first episode, "Creeping Tom", previewed May 20, and I thought it cut too abruptly between flashbacks of the crime being committed, the detectives collecting evidence, and the culprit trying to escape. Future episodes may play with the show's concept more artfully.

Thursday, June 6 at 9:00 P.M. the seventh and final season of BURN NOTICE begins on USA. It will be followed at 10:00 P.M. by GRACELAND, a darker show from WHITE COLLAR creator Jeff Eastin, about various federal agents living together and working undercover. Daniel Sunjata stars.

Monday, June 10 at 10:00 P.M. TNT premieres King and Maxwell, based on David Baldacci's thriller novels about former Secret Service agents-turned-private investigators. Developed for television by Shane Brennan (NCIS: LOS ANGELES), the show stars Jon Tenney (THE CLOSER) and Rebecca Romijn.

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Mondays this fall, James Spader returns to series TV in NBC's THE BLACKLIST (10:00 P.M.). Spader plays most-wanted former FBI agent Raymond Reddington, who suddenly turns himself in and proposes to work with a rookie profiler to bring in criminals of the highest order.

Tuesdays, ABC will pit its much-anticipated MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D against CBS's ten-year-old, still top-rated NCIS at 8:00 P.M. CBS, meanwhile, will move PERSON OF INTEREST in at 10:00, following NCIS: LOS ANGELES, airing TV's three most-watched dramas back-to-back.

Wednesdays at 10:00 P.M., NBC will try an update of IRONSIDE, starring Blair Underwood as the wheelchair-bound detective. Where the original series was set in San Francisco, the new one is set in New York City.

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In mid-season, FOX will air the futuristic crime drama ALMOST HUMAN Mondays at 8:00 P.M. Starring Karl Urban (STAR TREK, DREDD) as a damaged human cop partnered with a lifelike android (Michael Ealy, late of USA's COMMON LAW).

Also on FOX Fridays at 9:00 P.M., TV host/actor Greg Kinnear will star in RAKE as a brilliant, yet self-destructive defense attorney. Based on an Australian show of the same name.

Finally, on ABC, Tricia Helfer (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) will star as Molly Parker, the only female Texas Ranger, in a series that seems to blend KAREN SISCO and IN PLAIN SIGHT.