USA: Master of the Summer Season

USA Network has moved aggrerssively over the past few years to capitalize on the "summer season" for television, during which the major networks priarily run ru-runs of thei existising programming.

Check out all of these programs which are all well written and well acted:

Burn Notice (Thursday)
Psyche ( (Friday)
Monk (Friday)
The 4000(Sunday)
The Dead Zone (Sunday)

These are all exceptional shows, some of which have won emmy's Obviously Burn Notice and the 4400 are my favorites of those above, since they involved conspiracies, etc. Burn Notice expertly handles the tedium of what a spy really does duing inner monologueo ver the dos and don'ts of spycraft in teh form of a lecture. This show obvisously caters to our collective yearning to learn what our spy agencies are up to while the rest us of live in sweet bliss

The 4400
The 4400 is interesteting because it's gone all meta on us this season. First The 4400 were sent collected along the timeline, given powers through genetic engineering (or some type of synaptic manipulation) and sent back to prevent and unspecified disaster for the human race. However, last season primarily was about Isabel Tyler who was a special arrival on earth with special powers and the , and who made the number of returnees officially 4401. Isabel fell under the sway of one of the "the marked" and became convinced her purpose was to eliminate the 4400. To this end she cooperated with the former head of NTAC (basically DHS under another name) leaving under a shroud of disgrace for his plan to kill the 4400, only to emerge working for Defense Department Contractors manufactring promycin, the miracle drug that allows anybody to acquire 4400 abiliites. His plan was thwarted when the promycin was acquired by a radical 4400 splinter group called Nova (a reference to the sun as a star) that it begarn being distributed to anyone who asked.

This season began with the implied resurrection of Jason Collier (J.C - Jesus Christ - the messiah's reappearance - only reinforced when we see him emerging from a lake covered in water - evoking the image of Christ's baptism) season is about a group of 10 indviduals from the future who are part of a movement to stop the timeline changes the 4400 were sent back to change. Their faction is satisfied with their existing status quo and don't want any changes because it will wipe out their existence and accomplishments. This is the same faction (presumably) who sent Isabel and are referred to as "The Marked" - as revealed in a 4400's film that claimed to expose the conspiracy before he was "gotten too."

The conspiracy within conspiracy within conspiracy leads one to wonder which is true, which is lie, and which is somewhere in between Gotta love it. Tonight we get to find out whether JC truly is good or whether he is still manipulative and desiring only to accomplish his own ends.

Burn Notice
Burn Notice is about a spy who gets black listed or "burned" and dropped in his homw town with few resources and only two reliable contacts, one of whom is playing double agent for Michael and the FBI. It's a fun romp, with Michael and his motley crew echoing the A-Team, but less formulaic and more interesting because of the ongoing, overreaching story arc ( a la Veronica Mars's first season). I highly Nip/Tuckrecommend it.


Fox and F/X virtually invented the summer season. The first with the summer seasons of Beverly Hills 90210Melsose Place
and latter with the first few seasons of Nip Tuck and Rescue Me, as well as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

TBS has been trying to break into the summer season market with their programs
My Boys

And let's not forget SciFi Network with their summer series' Flash Gordon and Eureka.