Chaka Khan pays visit to Method & Red’
Celebrities and their discontents are high among America’s obsessions, and you can get a double dose by turning to Fox at 9:30 for “Method & Red.”
Rapper Method Man was quoted widely last week as being “frustrated” by Fox’s efforts to keep the show from getting too “ghetto.” He said Fox was trying too hard to appeal to middle America with “lame jokes.” And he even complained about the laugh track.
He’s probably right. Check it out for yourself.
And the fun part is, the two rappers have some star problems on the show tonight, too, with guest stars playing themselves. To honor Method’s mom’s 25th anniversary at the toll booth, Red promises to get Chaka Khan to sing at her party. This rope-in-a-celebrity premise has been a sitcom staple since “I Love Lucy.” But then the power goes out, and Kenny Loggins gets involved — the horror, the horror.
Highlights
ABC at 8: An hour of “My Wife and Kids” repeats, an hour of new “Drew Carey Shows” and an hour of “Ultimate Love Test.” They’re just begging you to watch something, anything else.
“60 Minutes,” CBS at 8: Charlie Rose talks to Dennis Hopper, and David Martin profiles a wounded soldier home from Iraq.
“That ‘70s Show,” Fox at 8: Repeat. Mitch tells Donna a secret about Eric that changes things between them. And Red and Hyde see a side of Pamela they will never forget. With Seth Green as Mitch and Brooke Shields as Pamela.
“Next Action Star,” NBC at 8: The remaining 12 wannabes face a love scene and a “leap of faith” fall. The judges watch the screen tests and decide who will get a call back — and who will go home.
“Josie and the Pussycats” (2001), WB at 8: Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson are the Pussycats, a bubble-gum band who have to kick some butt when they find out their music is being used to spread subliminal messages.
“Quintuplets,” Fox at 8:30: Patton doesn’t make the basketball team, but he finds his true calling as a cheerleader. Dad, of course, is not hip to this, at least until he sees a financial benefit.
“King of Queens,” CBS at 9: Back-to-back repeats, the first with guest Jon Favreau as Doug’s high school nemesis.
“Simple Life 2,” Fox at 9: The girls get new jobs making sausages.
“Law & Order,” NBC at 9: Back-to-back repeats. In the first, a motivational speaker gets croaked. In the second, it’s a prosecutor who turns out not to be who everyone thought.
“Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America,” KSPS at 9: Two back-to-back episodes, focusing on the war in the South and the decisive victory at Yorktown.
“48 Hours Investigates,” CBS at 10: A nurse steals a surgeon away from his wife. But who killed him?
Family Fare
“Rookie of the Year” (1993), Family Channel at 8: A boy’s broken arm turns him into a star pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.
Cable Cast
“Spider-Man” (2002), HBO at 6:30: The first Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst installment, followed by a preview of “Spider-Man 2,” which opens in theaters tonight.
Baseball, ESPN at 7: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees, and I think even those of you on the Left Coast know what that means to us up here in the Northeast. Blood feud is not too strong a phrase.
“Sucking Amps,” Discovery Channel at 8: Just came across this repeat of an April show about some guys “reinventing” the electric car. Cool title, right? And it’s followed by another guy-friendly April repeat, “Mega-Excavators,” about the world’s largest Earth-moving machines.