Picking through the TV listings

By SHARON FINK, Times Staff Writer
Published January 27, 2008

Today

Screen Actors Guild Awards,8 p.m., TNT and TBS

This could be the season's only awards show with big-name stars and, for better or worse, scripted banter. The striking writers guild is letting its people work the show and won't set up picket lines because the actors union is one of its great supporters (SAG has contract talks coming up with the studios this year). And if this still matters, the mostly Oscar-snubbed Into the Wild leads with four nominations.

Monday

Series premiere: In Treatment, 9:30 p.m., HBO

HBO takes a stab at the telenovela format. This half-hour scripted drama about a psychoanalyst (Gabriel Byrne) and his patients airs Monday through Friday for the next nine weeks. The gimmick is that the same patient is featured on the same day each week. Monday through Thursday is Byrne's Dr. Weston doling out therapy. Friday has Weston receiving it from his therapist (Dianne Wiest) because he's worried that he's losing patience with his patients.

Thursday

Season premiere:Lost, 8 p.m., WFTS-Ch. 28

A reported eight episodes were completed before the writers went on strike. And the fanatics who ask TV writers questions that begin like "Team Darlton promised they'd deal with the four-toed statue this season" can already tell you what will happen in all of them.

Series premiere:Eli Stone, 10:02 p.m., WFTS

From the creators of ABC's hit Brothers & Sisters, this much different drama is about a shark lawyer (Jonny Lee Miller) who starts having hallucinations that turn him nice but could mean he has a potentially deadly brain aneurysm. This show has gotten good buzz since ABC picked it up last spring, and if you need another reason to watch, Miller was Angelina Jolie's first husband.

Information from Times wires was used in this report.

[Last modified January 27, 2008, 00:02:32]