Summer TV is not a complete wasteland

Mad Men (on AMC) will be back on July 27th - hallelujah! I can't wait!!!

http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/

Mad Men is so damn good that I'm considering checking out another period program - Swingtown, set in the 1970s, which is more of a character-driven drama than the soft core porn fest that it's been positioned as. On CBS no less.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/swingtown/

And I thoroughly enjoyed the new show on USA, In Plain Sight, with Mary McCormack, who freakin' ROCKS as a Federal Marshall who works for the witness protection program. It's certainly formulaic, copying the basic format that cable programs apply to shows about women (see Saving Grace, The Closer, both on TNT) - good at her job, miserable in her personal life. But the show is witty and fast paced, and Officer Mary Shannon takes absolutely no shit from anyone and looks completely credibly doing it. It's not as surreal as Grace and not as grim as The Closer - seems to fit my tastes much better than those. And ya gotta love the strong secondary characters, played by actors like Fred Weller and Paul Ben-Victor (recognizable, but you don't know from where), and the highlight - Leslie Anne Warren as Mary's loopy mother, Jinx. (The show also features delicious Chilean soap star Cristian de la Fuenta, who had American audiences swooning this spring when he appeared on the 6th season of Dancing with the Stars, where, despite tearing a tendon in his arm, he made it to 3rd place with his dancing partner Cheryl Burke.)

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/inplainsight/