Look Who's Talking -- On TV, That Is -- And Who's Shockingly Good At It

Don't look now -- or, rather, DO look now -- but there are some new TV talk show hosts in town, and they're unexpectedly fabulous. Almost shockingly so: William Shatner? Elvis Costello?

Yes, and yes. Big time.

Elvis Costello's new weekly hour-long series, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with..., is a Sundance Channel offering that mixes music and talk, but stresses the latter. And stresses, more than anything else, a detailed and passionate discussion of early influences and sometimes overlooked artists. It's an hour of discovery, and it's simply wonderful.

Tonight's opener (9 p.m. ET) features, as Costello's guest, Elton John, one of the show's producers. Each week, Costello and his band open by playing a song associated with that week's guest, and Costello and his guest close with a duet performance. Tonight, the closing number isn't an Elton John song, but their rendition of "Down River," by David Ackles.

If you don't know who Ackles is, this hour will tell you, as Elton John reveals, with infectious enthusiasm, the early influences on his songwriting and performance styles. Who knew that one of Elton's first piano-playing heroes was Leon Russell? Or that Elton, sidling up to the piano, could mimic Russell's heavy-handed piano playing perfectly? (And his Southern drawl, much less perfectly.)

If you're old enough to have them in your collection, this hour will have you digging out old albums by not only Ackles and Russell, but Laura Nyro, Van Morrison and The Band. More important, if you're younger and haven't heard of them, this hour may steer you in their directions.

"We're music crazy, both of us," Elton says proudly, and they're passing on their insanity like a religion. Their joint craziness -- Costello's pointed questions, Elton's unguarded answers -- makes Spectacle a very satisfying hour. Taped in front of an audience, but not pandering to it, this Sundance series is like eavesdropping on a late-night, post-show conversation among fellow musicians. What a joy.

Another new, stunningly good talk show is William Shatner's new weekly series on the Biography Channel network. Shatner's Raw Nerve premiered last night, with a double-bill of half-hour conversations -- one with Valerie Bertinelli, the next with Tim Allen. They're repeated tonight at 11 p.m. ET on Biography, and Saturday at 7 a.m. on A&E, and both are really, really worth watching.

It's astounding, really, how watchable a series Shatner's Raw Nerve is, and how simple. No audience. A rinky-dink studio set, with two plush chairs facing each other, pushed together at such an intimate angle that Allen jokingly calls them "a love seat." And Shatner has no tablet, no cards, no notes. He just leans in, and listens, and keeps pressing with follow-up questions.

What kinds of questions? That's what makes it so fascinating. With Bertinelli, his backyard neighbor, he wants to hone in on her concept of guilt and sin, and why she's more forgiving of others than of herself. With Allen, Shatner is most curious not about how Allen fell into addiction, but how quickly he crawled out of it.

Both conversations happen to touch on faith, and both get to childhood dreams and traumas, and securities and insecurities, whether as performers or in everyday life. Neither Bertinelli nor Allen seems to be remotely "on." No playing for the camera, no playing for time. No plugging of new projects.

It's just talk, and I'm flabbergasted at how good Shatner is at this right out of the box. It's amazing enough how many times this man has reinvented himself, from TV Golden Age young turk to Star Trek captain to over-the-top song stylist, all the way to self-ironic commercial pitchman and newly iconic Denny Crane.

But the week before Denny Crane says goodbye on ABC's superb Boston Legal, who would have thought William Shatner would have found yet another triumphant new line of work? Yet he has.

Shatner's Raw Nerve is no vanity project. It's a wonderful one.