Dancing With Your DVR: What To Watch Tonight

We just hung up from the woman we refer to as “mom,” and she provided us with the three-word theme for tonight’s viewing: drama, drama, drama. It’s not all drama, but the phone call put us in that mood. Here’s how we’re rolling:

Real Time With Bill Maher: (HBO, 11 pm) One of America’s most provocative political pundits, Maher returns for a new season tonight – and just in time for the presidential elections. Why let Fox News have all the fun?

Psych: (USA, 10 pm) We weren’t really into this show, or rather aware of this show, until we began watching on Fancast, and you know what? It’s good. Tonight’s is a new episodes featuring beautiful guest star Kerry Washington. Watch for the credits: Joanna “Mrs. Seaver” Kerns from Growing Pains directs tonight’s episode.

Monk: (USA, 9 pm) Here’s another show that like psych we watched occasionally until we began perusing episodes on Fancast, and now we’re hooked. Monk is a great character, a man of our times, and tonight he’s joined by guest star Howie Mandel, who plays a freakazoid cult leader suspected of murder. Naturally he and Monk get along. Inside joke: Monk(on TV) and Mandel (in real life) are both out-of-their gourd neurotics.

Friday Night Lights: (NBC, 9 pm) Football season is reaching fever pitch, and we are DVRing this.

Framed: (IFC, 7:30) Actress Brittany Snow (she’s thinking, thank goodness for the extra T and A in that first name instead of the E — we’ll resist other T & A jokes) made an interesting documentary of young tennis star (and world #3) Jelena Jankovic. This is part of a Reebok-produced series taking viewers behind the scenes of big name sports stars.

How To Look Good Naked: (Lifetime, 9 pm) The networks biggest hit, the show, thanks to Carson Kressley, is an upbeat hour of self-empowerment that following its terrific debut episode had us stripped down and running through the neighborhood screaming “look at me! I’m naked!” The cops weren’t impressed, but we’ll be watching tonight. It’s a mother-daughter team.

That’s probably going to do it for us. But we are having a tough time decision whether or not to mention one more show as the night is really packed with quality fare. The runner-ups for quality time viewing include Moonlight (we are getting into this show and its attractive cast), Las Vegas, and Numb3rs.