What’s Your Sign? Design
Home & Garden Television Saturday, July 1, 9 p.m. ET/PT
HGTV is looking to the heavens to put a new spin on the home makeover genre with What’s Your Sign? Design.
With help from the Zodiac, host Steve Lee, interior designer Nicole Facciuto and astrologer Greg Tufaro try to bring home décor harmony to couples and roommates.
In the premiere episode, viewers are introduced to Derek, an adaptable Pisces, and domineering Scorpio Spencer, whose animal domains dominate their living room. Consulting his charts, Greg finds that both have Capricorn in their houses, making them “all about family.” That helps shape Nicole’s redecorating choices.
Are there enough viewers who see astrology as a makeover guiding light, or are willing to learn about how signs reflect style preferences? Smartly, HGTV.com — which will show a sneak-peek June 26 — provides some of those answers. —Mike Reynolds
Psych
USA Network Friday, July 7, 10 p.m. ET/PT
USA Network has come up with Monk for the MTV generation with Psych.
This time, the quirky detective is a handsome slacker who bamboozles authorities into believing he has psychic powers. Shawn Spencer (James Roday) has a gift for keen observation, a skill honed by his father, a cop (Corbin Bernsen) who hoped his son would follow in his footsteps. While Shawn fights conformity, he ends up in quasi-police work anyway, attracted by easy money.
The pilot is clever, as Shawn works his way out of a jam with detectives by using overheard conversations, casual observations and some help from his friend Gus (Dule Hill, late of The West Wing), a pharmaceutical rep.
It’s the TV equivalent of a beach read. Time will tell whether the premise is sustainable. —Linda Haugsted
True Caribbean Pirates
The History Channel Sunday, July 9, 8 p.m. ET
Just in time for this summer’s theatrical release Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The History Channel’s True Caribbean Pirates covers some of the most infamous cutthroats to ever wield a cutlass.
The documentary traces the evolution of piracy from early French and English adventurers, who raided Spanish settlements, to state-sponsored privateers to the outlaws who would become legends. Subjects include: privateer-turned-pirate Sir Henry Morgan, the murderous Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts and the most famous of all pirates, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
The doc utilizes History’s standard style of talking heads interspersed with live-action reenactments and animations packing a lot of trearue into two hours. —Eric J. Smith
