I’m afraid of Americans

USA continues to crank out its female-friendly dramas with this new series about a soon-to-be divorced therapist who finds financial and professional fulfillment head shrinking a team of unruly professional football players. It’s a novel-enough concept, the pro-sports setting should provide some interesting footage, and USA has basically perfected the brassy-yet-vulnerable female protagonist between “Covert Affairs,” “Fairly Legal” and “In Plain Sight.” This time it’s Callie Thorne (“Rescue Me,” “E.R.,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “The Wire”) as Dr. Dani Santino. She is brought in to help fix self-destructive athletes after she has a one night stand with the team’s trainer (played by Marc Blucas, pretty-but-dull Riley from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). Also starring Mehcad Brooks (“Desperate Housewives,” “True Blood”) and Scott Cohen (“Gilmore Girls”).

 

If you like completely messed-up cartoons like “Archer” or “Futurama,” you might like this very adult animated series, returning for its second season. “Ugly” creates a Manhattan where humans live side-by-side with all manner of supernatural creatures. Vampires, zombies, demons, living brains, warlocks, yetis, robots, koala people, Croatians. It goes on like this. The lead character, Mark, is a human social worker who works to integrate these assorted freaks and monsters into society. He’s also sleeping with his half-demon boss, who is dating Mark primarily to piss off her hellraiser of a father. Rounding out the cast are Mark’s trustafarian zombie roommate, his pervert wizard co-worker, the delightful Twayne the Bone Raper, and a woman with 11 breasts and a face where her crotch should be. I told you it was messed up.

 

America is a weird place. We begat Snooki. People are trying to argue that Sarah Palin’s totally bonkers version of the Paul Revere legend is the “true” story. Millions of middle-aged women are getting the vapors over sparkly vampires and a prepubescent tween. Look around you: Are you sure we have not somehow slipped into “The Twilight Zone”? It would explain a lot, truly. To celebrate our nation’s birthday Syfy airs a weekend full of creepy-programming marathons, including Rod Serling’s Cold War-era masterpiece of paranoia and mind-buggery. (The marathon also runs Sunday 9am-5pm.) If you’re looking for televised fireworks, NBC and CBS are both scheduled to air big-budget displays Monday night.