‘Hit Me’ offers variety of top songs
For the second night in a row, NBC offers viewers a musical showcase.
The new series “Hit Me Baby One More Time” (9 p.m., NBC) presents veteran musical acts performing their greatest hits as well as fresh covers of contemporary hits. Viewers will determine the night’s “winner” by phone vote.
Vernon Kay hosts the three-episode series, which originated on British television. Featured artists include Arrested Development, Flock of Seagulls, Loverboy and Tiffany.
Viewers in search of more peculiar musical diversions are in luck.
“Dan Finnerty & The Dan Band: I am Woman” (11 p.m., Bravo) is a far, far cry from “American Idol.” A bracing combination of stand-up comedy, performance art and some really talented musicianship, “Woman” offers hilarious adaptations of female power ballads, hip-hop-diva numbers, campy classic off-Broadway ditties, ice-skating music and more, all performed by Finnerty and his two-man chorus.
You may have seen The Dan Band in the screen comedy “Old School,” in which the group played a raunchy wedding band, or as a sleazy bar mitzvah ensemble in the “Starsky & Hutch” remake.
Finnerty is the last guy you’d expect to sing “Ring My Bell,” “I Am Woman,” “Muskrat Love” or “I’ve Been to Paradise (But I’ve Never Been to Me).”
He looks like a demented version of a young Dennis Hopper doing a Bruce Springsteen imitation. His chorus consists of two very straight-laced men in glasses, jackets and ties.
I highly recommend this odd cabaret act, but beware – Finnerty’s routine includes a torrent of obscene language that will keep Bravo’s censors on the bleep button, making “Woman” even more bizarre.
I also encourage curious viewers to at least sample a few moments of Ashton Kutcher’s social experiment “Beauty and the Geek” (9 p.m., WB), which replays tonight. Like the best and worst reality television, “Geek” has elements of scripted comedy.
One myopic geek seems like the comedy reincarnation of Woody Allen’s “Bananas” character, Fielding Mellish. And the bevy of “beauties” reminds me of the Miss America figure who testifies against Mellish in that movie’s surreal courtroom scene.
One wonders how hard Kutcher had to search to find “Beauties” so spectacularly dim. And one also fears that he didn’t have to go very far.
One gal estimates her IQ at “like, 500,” and another bristles at questions about rudimentary geography. When asked which state is farther north – North Carolina or South Dakota – she throws up her hands in a huff, insulted that she should have to worry her pretty little head with such details.
While we’re on the subject of the spectacularly dim, MTV now repeats helpings of the UPN show “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic” (10 p.m., MTV) on Thursday nights.
Other highlights
On back-to-back episodes of “The O.C.” (Fox), back to school angst (8 p.m.) and new kids on the block (9 p.m.).
Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu star in the 2000 adaptation of the 1970s series “Charlie’s Angels” (8 p.m., ABC).
Sharon Stone guest-stars as a therapist on “Will & Grace” (8:30 p.m., NBC).
New evidence roils the ranks of Grissom’s squad on “CSI” (9 p.m., CBS).
A squeaky clean nurse’s aide hides an explosive past on “Without a Trace” (10 p.m., CBS).
A cop’s teen son is forced to make a life and death decision on “ER” (10 p.m., NBC).
Cult choice
Sean Penn narrates the 2001 documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys” (6:30 and 9:45 p.m., Independent Film Channel), about the birth of Southern California’s skateboarding culture in the mid-1970s.
Series notes
Nursing a resentment on “Joey” (8 p.m., NBC) … Wrestling on “WWE SmackDown!” (8 p.m., UPN) … On back-to-back episodes of “Blue Collar TV” (WB), weddings (8 p.m.) and travel (8:30 p.m.).