Season 4 of “The Closer” on TNT (July 14 9/8c)


Season 2 of “Saving Grace” with the excellent Holly Hunter (July 14 10/9c)

Season 7(!!!) of “Monk” on USA (July 18 9/8c)


Season 3 of “Psych” on USA (July 18th 10/9c)

In the summer, many channels schedule marathons and reruns to fill up those empty blocks. Holidays and warmer weather create significant drops in viewership, which leads to less advertising dollars. Thus, networks can be more creative with the schedule.

There is the new trend of showing smaller budgeted shows during the summer as mid-season or summer only programs. I’ve discovered quite a few gems during this so-called down period like “Burn Notice”, “Mad Men”, “Eureka”, “Weeds” and “In Plain Sight”. As you may have noticed, mostly cable network or premium channels can so freely funnel money into summer shows, since you have to pay to see those channels anyway.

Here’s a list of reruns, premieres and marathons for July:
“Burn Notice” - Season 2 premiere on July 10th, 10pm (mini marathon on July 3rd)
“Weeds” - Season 4 already up and running, Mondays on Showtime at 10pm
“Mad Men” - Season 1 marathon on July 20th at noon, Season 2 premiere on July 27th (Thanks Whitney for the heads up!)

“Eureka” - Season Premiere on July 29th, 9pm (watch reruns online here)
“Supernatural” - Season 3 encore, Thursdays at 9pm
“Rescue Me” minisodes started on Tuesdays on F/X, but you can catch them online as well at Crackle.com

Don’t waste the day away in your sofa hammock, stay cool and catch up on all that great tv you missed earlier in the year.

Last summer, I stumbled across USA’s dramedy “Burn Notice” and ended up loving it. It stars Jeffrey Donovan as the burned CIA operative, Michael Weston.

A job went bad and in the blink of an eye, he was disavowed and shut out. The government marooned him in Miami, Michael’s hometown that he left in the wind many years ago. Since he basically doesn’t exist, a consequence of working black ops, Michael has no work history, money or home. Thus, he’s forced to depend on his ex-girlfriend Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), his mom (Sharon Gless), and his friend, Sam (Bruce Campbell) for help.

Spies really hate asking for favors, so most of the humor of the show is him learning to interact with his family and the real world again. All the while, he takes odd PI jobs to make ends meet while desperately working to reclaim his CIA status.

The season 1 dvd is in stores tomorrow (source: TV Squad).

Catch the season 2 premiere on USA on July 10th (10/9 central).