This Week in TV: 'Walking Dead' Awakens, Rosie Returns and HBO Gets 'Enlightened'

This Week in TV: 'Walking Dead' Awakens, Rosie Returns and HBO Gets 'Enlightened'

Published: October 10, 2011 @ 12:02 pm
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By Kimberly Potts

Here a look at what all the TV-loving kids will be talking about this week:

THEY'RE ALIVE!
One great AMC show ends (Sunday's "Breaking Bad" season finale), another one begins with the Oct. 16 season 2 premiere of "The Walking Dead."

The show weathered behind-the-scenes drama when showrunner Frank Darabont was fired by AMC in August. But the guts-and-gore action on-screen remains intact, so to speak, as sheriff Rick and the survivors head out on the highway towards Fort Benning and are met with some delays. Delays of the human-munching variety.

Also read: 'Walking Dead': Watch Every Season 2 Trailer (Video)

Sunday's season premiere will be followed by the premiere of "Talking Dead," the fan-aimed "Walking Dead" talk show hosted by Chris Hardwick.

ROSIE RETURNS
It's airing at a weird time (7 p.m., Monday-Friday), she's been away from TV since that disastrous stint on "The View" ended in 2007 and her personal life has overshadowed everything career-wise she's done since "The View." (In no small part because of her own incessant blogging about it.) Still, Oprah Winfrey seems to be putting much faith in Rosie O'Donnell and her new "Rosie Show" on OWN, even turning over her old Chicago studio to O'Donnell.

Oprah's cable network has failed so far to launch a show that stirred any real buzz, but "The Rosie Show" should at least grab some viewers curious to see what O'Donnell will do with her latest chat show venture.

Also read: Rosie O'Donnell Explains Larry David's 'Juicing' Episode on 'Curb' (Video)

The show will air live every day, and O'Donnell plans to open each episode with a stand-up comedy performance. First week guests include Russell Brand, Roseanne Barr, Wanda Sykes and Salma Hayek, and while O'Donnell says she doesn't want to get political, or be a stop for celebs just looking to pimp their latest project, she has invited Tom Selleck to appear on the show and smooth over their infamous gun control tiff from her first daytime talk series.

HIGH "FIVE" FOR LIFETIME
Lifetime has brought big names together in front of and behind the camera for "Five," an entertaining and informational anthology of stories about women with breast cancer. Jennifer Aniston directs and Patricia Clarkson stars in the line-up's best installment, about Mia, a woman whose discovery that she has breast cancer is told in reverse.

Also read: Wanda Sykes Tells Ellen DeGeneres She Had Breast Cancer, Double Mastectomy

The project, airing during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, also features segments directed by Demi Moore and Alicia Keys, and stories starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Holloway, Annie Potts, Jeffrey Tambor (as a male breast cancer patient) and Jeanne Tripplehorn, whose character ties all five stories together.

The movie premieres Oct.

Tags: breast cancer, Chelsea Settles, Enlightened, Five, HBO, Laura Dern, Lifetime, MTV, Oprah Winfrey, OWN, reality TV, Rosie O'Donnell, Television, The Rosie Show, The Walking Dead
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