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. Finding them can require not only keen summer-surfing skills but sometimes a DirecTV satellite. But hey, it's either that or spending another Monday night watching Caroline misplace a family heirloom, right after that visiting-mom episode. The choice is yours.
ANIMAL PLANET Unlike those PBS documentaries on cheetahs that high school kids have long enjoyed watching while stoned, the programming on this network is high concept. There is still, however, some gnarly stuff. Crocodile Hunter tracks the boyish-yet-bad-ass Steve Irwin and his wife through Australia, where they pick up snakes and outrun emus. Even those who don't like animals--in fact, especially those who dislike animals--can enjoy Emergency Vets, a cinema-verite take on a Denver veterinary office. Rover and his owner dealing with a run-over paw make great TV. And perhaps the network's cleverest idea of all is The Pet Shop, a talk show with pet jokes in the monologue, pet skits and celebrities who are interviewed with their pets. Animal Planet does feature too much new Lassie and Flipper, but the rest of the original programming demonstrates how broadly appealing a special-interest channel can be.
GAME SHOW NETWORK If this fin-de-siecle thing means anything, the game show will soon return in all its glory. And while we're rutted in the suburbanized '90s version of the genre--Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!--this station reminds us of all that game shows can be. The original programming can be stunningly bad (in particular, avoid the "comedy" show Faux Pause), but the repeats are groovy. The best stuff, of course, comes from Chuck Barris. The Gong Show is topped only by the short-lived Three's a Crowd, "the game that determines who knows a husband best, his wife or his secretary." Match Game is always packed with bawdy jokes ("I said 'buns'!") and the best of those '70s stars who seemed to exist solely on game shows. Where have you gone Charles Nelson Reilly, Jo Anne Worley, Brett Somers, Nipsey Russell, Arte Johnson and Jamie Farr?