Television: How to Survive Summer

The stars of your favorite network shows may be on vacation. But cable's are still working

Perhaps the only slogan more grating than NBC's arrogant "Must See TV" is NBC's patronizing "It's New to You." There was a very good reason why we missed Caroline's mother's visit to the city the first time around, thank you. So the cable channels, aware of the networks' prehistoric insistence on shutting down for the summer, use these months for their hype: HBO's Sex and the City (now), Showtime's Lolita (Aug. 2), the Discovery Channel's Shark Week (Aug. 9-16) and the Learning Channel's latest swimsuit documentary, Beauty and the Beach (July 11). The best viewing is hiding on obscure cable channels....

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