For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

FUN FINDS: 'Hidden' shows

Vintage (and not-so-vintage) shows are showing up in the strangest places. TV Guide Network, Reelz, Centric, Gospel Music Channel and other unlikely archives are airing encores of faves from the '80s to last year. Since there's nothing we love better than digging through the listings rubble, here's the result of our latest exercise in TV archaeology . . .

Curb Your Enthusiasm and Ugly Betty are the biggies at TV Guide Network, which knows its days of scrolling listings must end in favor of actual programming.Betty encores three times weekdays (noon, 5 and 6 p.m. ET), with weekend afternoon marathons. Curb is even cooler. Because the episodes run long for commercial TV -- HBO's original airings didn't have to leave room for ads -- TVGN has gone the extra mile to air each episode in an hour slot, Monday-Thursday at 10 p.m. ET. They've produced new interviews and cast conversation delving into Larry David's world of manic misanthropy.

Reelz is now supplementing its feature-film news/clips/commentary with two 2000s bellwethers -- newsradio reelz.jpg NewsRadio (7 and 7:30 p.m. ET daily) and Ally McBeal (3 and 4 p.m. ET weekdays).

Centric rolls out the '80s with the fashion-forward cops of Miami Vice (most days at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. ET) and the live-action cartoon The A Team (a crazy quilt of times, but check daily listings at 4 a.m., 7 a.m., 9 p.m. and midnight ET).

GMC is less gospel music these days than vintage family-friendly shows like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (weekdays at 4, 5, 6 and 7 p.m. ET), Highway to Heaven (weekdays at noon and 1 p.m. ET, changing the week of Aug. 30 to 9 and 10 a.m. ET and 1 and 2 p.m. ET), Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye (weekdays at 3 and 8 p.m. ET, changing Aug. 30 to 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET), and Early Edition (weekdays at 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET).

For that matter, did you know IFC is spotlighting Judd Apatow's 1999 fave Freaks and Geeks (Monday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET, Sunday 10 p.m. ET, with a Sunday marathon Aug. 22 noon-4:30 p.m. ET)? [Photo at top.]

In other words, check out those interactive listings from your cable/satellite/phone TV provider. You never know anymore where you'll find some TV worth watching.

2 Comments

Angela said:

Who would have guessed? I used to check the 100 plus extra channels I get until I became...well, cynical, I guess. I just assumed there wouldn't be anything on worth watching.

All but IFC. It's my go-to channel for good quirky movies on the weekends, that I could never see anywhere else. But to tell the truth, I even forgot about that channel sometime ago.

My Mom loves Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, so I'll let her know. She's also technophobic, but I did tell her about, and send her the link to your site and she said she likes it very much. That's saying a lot for my Mother who has been struggling with or against learning computers for about 10 years now.

[Diane here: Thanks for the referral! That's what we're here for -- helping people find shows they otherwise might not. We love doing it.]

August 27, 2010 10:48 AM

Patrick said:

"Sue Thomas - F.B. Eye" also airs on the little seen ALN (American Life Network.) That channel also runs "MTM" spinoffs "Rhoda" and "Phyllis", and the original "Mission: Impossible". Their stock in trade, however, is NBC's 80's classics "St. Elsewhere", "L.A. Law" and "Hill Street Blues." Those are run in three hour blocks Monday - Thursday nights. Twice.

[Diane here: I know! I wish I had access to ALN. So few cable/satellite systems carry the channel, and that's too bad.]

September 7, 2010 1:58 PM

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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