Occupational reality series appear to be a dime a dozen these days, with the recently launched Ice Road Truckers, veteran Deadliest Catch, and now newcomers like Confessions of a Matchmaker, A&E’s new series which follows the workings of “America’s Toughest Matchmaker,” Patti Novak, as she turns the city of lonely hearts aka Buffalo, NY around.

The episodes provided for review featured a 50-year-old bar-hoping party mom, a thirty-something poet (and not a very good one) and a middle aged woman with a full page list of criteria any guy must meet. The latter produces some of worst cringe moments in recent TV history as her 1981 hairstyle and sexual jokes make you sick to your stomach.

Still, this is good entertainment in the reality field as the normal are predictably boring and the more outlandish the client is and the worse they act with the cameras rolling the better your ratings.

Novak is described as the Simon Cowell of the dating world, and that can be seen in most episodes of the show. She tells it like it is, instructing customers how to act, and what to say on their dates to mixed results.

The series plays out like a non-syndicated version of Blind Date with a judging panel rating how well you did on your date, all that was missing was sly little graphics and pop up tips to complete the emulation package. Its an entertaining show, just not a completely original premise, and it remains to be seen how many people will jump in to something that will most likely be less risqué than its syndicated cousin.

Damages’ writers Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler, and Daniel Zelman put together one of the year’s most sharply written, well acted, and generally engrossing drama series that hides under the veil of being a litigation-like series instead borrowing heavily from series like Prison Break with a lightning fast story that throws enough twists and turns at the viewer to make them think twice, trust no one, and question everything. It’s almost as if The X-Files were reincarnated into Law & Order.

The overall story arch of the season concerns an Enron-like white collar business man, Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) having his employees invest heavily the company before the bottom drops out, with him selling all his shares prior. The employees of the company hire Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) to represent them, and along with new associate Ellen Parsons (Rose Bynre) things start off clean and smooth and eventually flip you so upside down by the end of the first hour you’re clamoring for more.

The show is actually told in flashback; with the present day events the big mystery of the show as Ellen appears in a police station bloodied and not talking (this is all provided in the on-air promos, so no spoiler warnings here). Still, there’s so much to the series, and its serialized nature that the viewer will be coming back week after week for extra servings.

While the story is the aspect of the pilot that may get the most attention, the acting is top-notch as well, providing a memorable canvas to bring the written word to the screen. Glenn Close brings her A-game once again to the small screen after her Emmy-nominated portrayal of Captain Monica Rawlings on fellow FX series The Shield in 2005.

Rounding out the top billed cast is a sliver-haired Ted Danson who has come a long way from Three Men and a Baby. Danson really sinks into the roll of the corrupt business man doing what ever it takes to avoid a trial and huge settlement with Frobisher and his lawyer Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek) in a game of words and actions with Hewes, with the viewer left guessing who has the upper hand at any given time.

The rest of the line-up in no way plays second fiddle to Close’s Hewes, but it’s so hard to escape from the shadow of the character. Rose Bynre, late of theatrical 28 Weeks Later, shows that she has the cockles to stand up to Hewes by turning down her initial interview, only to have Hewes show up, at a wedding she wasn’t invited to, with a glass of bourbon and a purpose.

The series itself is deadly serious, but there are times of laugh out loud bickering between characters, one happens early in the pilot on the courthouse steps, that certainly shows aspects of Hewes’ character. She can go from happy-go-lucky to firing an employee back to asking if you like sushi in ten seconds flat, and that makes her a character to watch, because her unpredictability makes her more than some cliché “strong-woman-bitch” character you see spread around the industry. She has everyone in the palm of her hand, and a plan for everything that she does.

Damages is easily one of, if not the best drama premiere this year, cable or otherwise. Even after only seeing the pilot the potential of the series and its intricate network of characters and their interaction leaves the door wide open for more than a few twists and viewers guessing which way is up.

American society has been fascinated with martial arts for as long as there has been an influence in our culture of the predominantly Asian fighting style, maybe it’s the ability to kill or severely injure another man with just your bare hands and feet, or the fact that the human body’s ability to move so fast and anticipate so much intrigues the imagination. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Jason Statham all resonate with moviegoers because of the explosive moves and training.

The History Channel delves deep into this with Human Weapon, a new series focusing on the many different schools and techniques of martial arts and the ability to turn a man into a human weapon, with the ability to inflict serious damage and even death on your opponents.

The show’s structure takes its two hosts, Jason Chambers, and accomplished Total Fighting Challenge fighter and Bill Duff, former football player and accomplished martial artist, to the major locals of each of the traditional fighting styles and pairs them up with masters of each craft, teaching them the basics and pitting them against the trainers champion in an end battle. It plays out similarly to several other reality/edu-tainment series, only the first two acts of the episode are focused on training and history of the style rather than personal lives or how much the host’s girlfriends are complicating their lives.

The use of the traditional interstitial graphics and maps brings another dimension to the series allowing the audience to see a 3D representation of the fighters hammering it out, and providing explanations on why certain techniques work so well based on physics.

The premiere episode travels to Bangkok and teaches the “science of eight limbs” Muay Thai with future episodes focusing on Eskrima, Judo, Karate, Savate, Pankration, and Krav Maga.

For any student or fan of the martial arts, Human Weapon is a great look into the aforementioned disciplines, albeit brief, there’s a lot to be learned about the development and evolution of hand to hand combat through the ages.

In the same vein as The Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch comes Ice Road Truckers on The History Channel, a chronicle of the yearly trucking trials and tribulations faced in the great white north. The series focuses on the few weeks a year the ice is hard enough across many of Canada‘s lakes to allow for semi’s packed with supplies to make runs to outposts which would otherwise be inaccessible, including a De Beer’s diamond mine.

The ice is a treacherous place, and the first few episodes go into detail on some of the many problems facing truckers stemming all the way from moisture freezing in airlines to frostbite from failed heaters in the cabs. Its almost a thankless job, but full of pride as we get to see a stable of regulars gunning for each other, topping the number of runs laid down by comrades, and aiming to be the best of the best.

The series is shot in a quasi-documentary style focusing on the dynamics of trucking across the ice roads, how the roads are maintained and safety checked, and how the truckers are able to survive in the harshest environments on earth. On the flip side it also focuses on a handful of actual truckers and their issues with trying to complete runs and dealing with common problems like a broken pin in a transmission. Problems that would be easy to fix in the standard climates most of us are used to, but under the urgency of supply runs and the bid to make as much money as possible, become life threatening ailments.

A particularly interesting segment deals with how sunken truckers are rescued by a specialized squad of divers responsible for submerging themselves in the below freezing water to save lives. It becomes very obvious that this is not an easy, infinitely rewarding, or safe manner to make a living, but as the old saying goes, someone has to do it.

The limited run series is unique, although maybe not the best placed series for The History Channel, it is, nonetheless, an interesting and entertaining series and a welcome change to the typical occupational-reality fare focusing more on the interesting aspects of the industry rather than the overly dramatic lives of its participants.

Ice Road Truckers debuts Sunday, June 17, 2007 on The History Channel.

The Starter Wife, a limited run mini-series, starring Debra Messing and premiering Thursday, May 31 on USA Network is an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller of the same name by Gigi Levangie Grazer. The series takes a cynical look at the Hollywood underbelly and social circle memberships which are vied for by all based on who you are and who you’re married to and how divorce in this life could mean your end, if you let it.

The adaptation is a great melding of drama mixed with clever writing creating a black comedy tone throughout including a forecasting dream Molly Kagan taking place on the yellow-brick road complete with an evil wizard in the form of Molly’s soon-to-be-ex Kenny (Peter Jacobson). There’s definitely some substance to the comedy here with more than a few laugh-out-loud moments propelled by Messing’s abilities.

Debra Messing is the real star of the series in the scenes USA provided for preview as her experience in comedy, starring in Will & Grace, truly shines her as she embodies the role of Molly and her never falter, keep-your-head-up mentality as she struggles with the reality that she is, in fact, a starter wife and sees her life disappear around her. This doesn’t’ stop her, however, from living.

The supporting cast also performs admirably including Joe Mantegna, Judy Davis, and Miranda Otto among others in the little bits available for preview. Unfortunately the screener provided doesn’t show a wide range of the supporting characters, instead focusing on Messing’s centerpiece.

It seems almost unheard of, after reading the premise of the series, that a twentysomething male editor would find something to like in The Starter Wife, but the script is tight and if the scenes previewed are any indication, the six-hour series has a lot to offer both sexes.

The Starter Wife premieres Thursday, May 31 at 9/8c on USA Network.

Star Wars long ago evolved from a modest budgeted space story to verifiable billion dollar franchise, but as the well-aging series reaches 30 years young this year a new development is being brought to the attention of the common movie fan. For years Star Wars parallels to the classic Greek stories, Joseph Campbell’s definition of a hero, and to even the Bible have been constant fodder for film history classes around the globe. After all, how many high school students can identify Shakespeare over Lucas?

There’s so much to this franchise, from the classic archetype characters to the way even the most minor character inherits major rolls in the end that there’s no better way to celebrate the birth of the space opera than a Memorial Day special. The History Channel’s Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed brings this information to the non-film historian, and just like the series that inspired it, its an entertaining run around the galaxy.

Presented in the standard, clips & talking head format, The Legacy Revealed focuses on all six movies in the Star Wars saga via interviews with some of the biggest geeks in Hollywood (Kevin Smith), political figures (Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi), comedians (Stephen Colbert), and film experts as they talk about personal experiences relating to the events of Star Wars and its tragic hero who comes full circle to die a righteous death in the end. How the sins of the father transfer to the son and how the classics come alive with a lightsaber and a dash of influence from all over the globe.

For a viewer who has never experience a history lesson detailing how Star Wars can be interpreted so many different ways, the two hour program is an engaging, informative look at just how deep the saga truly goes. Whether Lucas intended for the series to really be analyzed so perfectly when he wrote out the movies, or whether or not the imagery used is mere coincidence or something bigger may never be known, but regardless of how it came to be, this franchise has spawned a rabid fan base and a plethora of analysis.

The special works incredibly well by breaking down each section with a great degree of focus and analyzes sidekicks, comic relief, the mentor, the hero, and the damsel as each one of these components, combined together, creates the classic story you may even realize you know.

As director Peter Jackson puts it in the program, “You don’t even have to ask, ‘Will it stand the test of time?’ It has and it will.” Who knows what we’ll be looking at in retrospect when Star Wars turns 60 as we zoom around in our flying cars and dream of Star Destroyers orbiting the planet. Did Lucas write our history and direct inventions and technological advancement for decades to come? We’ll find out over the next 30 years, but until then, the classic story of a hero is well embodied in the most popular space opera ever written.

For the History Channel’s next special, after The Dark Ages earlier this year, Sherman’s March returns to one of the biggest and still most polarized wars to take place in the United States, the Civil War. At the heart of the war was the ideals between a sectarian branch of the country who believed one way, and the rest of the union failing to acknowledge the ability to withdrawn from the union.

One of the biggest men during this was not the immediately identifiable Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee but that of William Sherman, a man still held in contempt in the South to this day, nearly 130 years after the final shots range out in the bloody war. He’s viewed as a hero in the north, the man who allowed Grant to successfully pin Lee and lead to his surrender, but it wasn’t necessarily his prowess on the field of battle that gave him his advantage, is the way he conducted his entire campaign across Georgia, to Savannah, and north through the Carolinas to deliver one of the final blows to the rebellion.

The special, debuting tonight on The History Channel, takes a historical view of the campaign and analyzes the tactics of foraging for supplies, and engaging in total war across Georgia, and the destruction of South Carolina as he marched. Sherman‘s march across the south has taken a life of its own over the years with many stories of destruction being attributed to the man, even though he was hundreds of miles away on the days the supposed melee occurred. It’s interesting to see just how different historians see the unconventional, but ultimately effective, methods that Sherman engaged in and the cold blooded nature in which his campaign was met by members of the rebellion.

The show’s somewhat cheesy tagline says it all; The Civil War was anything but Civil. Sherman‘s March shows you why that statement is entirely true.

The recreation begins with a warning about some dramatization in the historically accurate presentation, and most of these events can be pointed out easily. The screener copy provided lacked some of the booming sound effects you would expect during some of the bigger battle recreations and the gunshots throughout are not very well done. The acting, or over-acting for that matter, of those involved in the recreation does lead to a few laughs here and there, but ultimately it’s the information you’re here to see, and like The History Channel is known for, there’s a great deal here and its presented in the standard commentary format that has worked so well for so long.

Like most of these specials, the core audience is aficionados of the individual conflict, but since most viewers are familiar with Sherman‘s march from high school history classes, and the supposed “Scorched Earth policy” there’s a nice refresher her for anyone with two hours to spare and an interest in what really happen on the march to the see.

The History Channel, known for its specials, once again steps up and brings us into The Dark Ages, a time in human history filled with turmoil, death, and personal triumph in the face of the civilized world after the fall of Rome and the Western Roman Empire. Like the specials before it, the narrative is told through the use of reenactments, still paintings, historical retellings from academia, and use of computer graphics.

The term Dark Ages seems to be a misconception among scholars around the world, having picked up a rather harsh stigma because of the near universal suffering (at least in our eyes) after civilization fell into disarray. The world, as played out in countless literary texts over the years, has reverted back to an earlier lifestyle one filled with hardship, disease, but a common existence with only the will to survive to keep them going.

The special, premiering Sunday, March 4^th, starts with the fall of the Western Roman Empire after the city of Rome was sacked and a string of inept Emperors doomed the “Mother of the World” to death. A major point focused on by the programming is the rise of Christianity from a backroom, banned religion to the driving force of some of the world’s most powerful men, culminating with the battle against the Islamic movement who were bent on taking over territory in Europe after the fall of the Empire.

Surprisingly there is little focus on the most well known event of the Dark Ages, the Black Death (aka Bubonic Plague) that whipped out nearly 100 million people across the continent, that’s nearly 50% of the population in Europe. I did find it strange that the programmed did only touch on the plague’s ravages across the civilized world, but it was only a small part of the roughly 600 year span from the mid 5^th century to the beginning of the 11^th. The program ends with a looking at the daring and vicious raids by the Vikings into the British Isles and the rest of Europe taking treasure and murdering all that opposed them.

Writer/Director Christopher Cassel uses the same techniques employed in his excellent debut, Rome: Engineering and Empire, to bring the life of the early middle ages to the viewer. Some of the reenactments are regrettably low budget (and it shows) but the use of computer graphics presents the historical data like never before, something history books could never present in today’s society.

With the nomenclature’s place in popular culture The Dark Ages is an engaging experience showcasing the little known events that compose this dark time in history not related to the Bubonic Plague. While the material is not as exciting, or impressive as previous History Channel programs like Engineering and Empire or weekly series Digging for the Truth, there’s enough material here to truly appreciate Cassel‘s work and the drive to educate and entertain.

The Dark Ages premieres Sunday, March 4, at 9/8c on The History Channel.