JPTV: What to Watch This Weekend

From left, Showtime’s Meadowlands and HBO’s Conchords

Work on an unspecified Big Fat Project has prevented me from cranking out many full-fledged reviews lately but I want to put in a word for Meadowlands, an eight-episode British import drama that starts on Showtime Sunday. It’s a dark, fanciful mystery about a tough guy and his family who have moved, through a witness-relocation program, to an idyllic yet sinister gated community that’s more than a little like The Village from the paranoid ’60s drama The Prisoner. I won’t say it’s in the same league as that show, but it’s a gloomy, involving, sometimes ultraviolent diversion. And no, it has nothing to do with New Jersey or Jimmy Hoffa’s burial place.

Also, I won’t expand on my earlier plug for the understatedly funny Flight of the Conchords on HBO, except to say that this week in TIME my editor, Belinda Luscombe, concurred with my praise. She’s Australian, and if this show can get an Aussie to say something good about two New Zealanders, you know it has to be good.

Chaddogg

James – I have to echo the praise for Flight of the Conchords – the pilot (streaming on HBO.com) is simply brilliant.

I’ll also offer a plug to the return of “The 4400″ on USA, which is to me the ideal example of successful summer TV entertainment – attractive cast, sci-fi subject matter, creepy kid, good vs. evil (albeit with a lack of clarity over who is who), a comfortable level of implausability, and enough reruns that you never need to see it at its designated time (although if you miss an episode, you generally can pick right back up without missing too much).
Susan Richardson

James, you must also tune into the History Channel to watch Ice Road Truckers. I saw the trailer at the movie theatre pre-movie. Amazing footage. Just a nudge to let you know…TV critics are recommending it, but didn’t see that you had it in your crosshairs.