Monday Watch List: Crazy Roles Designed to Win Emmys!

Welcome to Watch List, where we identify five things on TV to watch while you stay at home and try to figure out if the new health care bill gives free coverage to your pet monkey, Geronimo. Oh, little Gerry. No longer will your monkey gout keep you from playing your beloved cymbals. LET’S GO!

UNITED STATES OF TARA – 10:30PM (Showtime)

Season premiere. Okay, so on this show, Tracey Ullman plays all these crazy characters. She even plays a man! That’s crazy! Wait, what’s that? This isn’t Tracey Ullman’s show? It stars Toni Collette and is produced by Diablo Cody? And it’s a dramedy? Ah, well then. Sorry about the mixup. Still, it kinda looks like Tracey Ullman’s show now, doesn’t it? All the multiple personalities and broad comedy and what have you. ANTICIPATION: HIGH! NO, NOW I’M SAD! NO, NOW I’M A DOG! NO, NOW I’M A COUNTESS!

DANCING WITH THE STARS – 8:00PM (ABC)

It’s the season premiere of ABC’s ratings juggernaut. And here comes Erin Andrews in a skimpy evening gown. This totally makes up for Jewel wussing out last season. Because that’s what “Dancing with the Stars” is really all about: seeing attractive female stars strut around in dresses with very high slits, and then becoming even more infatuated with the anonymous female dance partners of the male celebrities. I’m telling you, this show is its own soft core pornography industry. If your grandpa says he watches this show because he enjoys the dancers’ technical prowess, you call BS on that dirty old coot. You know and he knows he’s there for the goodies. ANTICIPATION: SKIN!

ANTHONY BOURDAIN: NO RESERVATIONS – 10:00PM (Travel Channel)

Tony goes to Provence and spends a few days having insanely good French chefs hand him one culinary treat after another. Is it possible to both love this man and want to knock him off so that I might assume his identity? I think so. ANTICIPATION: FOIE GRAS!

AMERICAN PICKERS – 9:00PM (History Channel)

According to my guide, a “goat man” has a collection of buses buried under weeds. I’m not even sure I want that clarified. It sounds like a Dylan song. Are these full sized buses? Very small buses? Shouldn’t a goat man be collecting other things, like goats? I’m fascinated and baffled all at once. ANTICIPATION: BUSES! AND GOATS!

HOUSE – 8:00PM (FOX)

A wealthy businessman insists that House treat his sick kid. Then he makes House his butler! KRAYZEE! (Last part not true) ANTICIPATION: CRANKY!

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