Emily Riemer

CHICAGO – What would you do if you just didn’t give a crap anymore? This question seems to be the theme of Showtime’s new series “The Big C,” starring Laura Linney, Oliver Platt, and recent Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe.

CHICAGO – Yes, it is summer on cable: The season of soapy plotlines and unimaginative writing. Unfortunately, TNT’s new summer series “Rizzoli & Isles” falls prey to that. It’s based on the characters of best-selling author Tess Gerritsen, but is co-written and co-executive-produced by Janet Tamaro. And though Tamaro’s résumé includes one episode of “Lost,” it also includes the popular but campy “Bones” and the formulaic CSI franchise, “CSI: NY.”

CHICAGO – Summer is the time for fluff. And that’s what “Hawthorne” is. It’s a drama that crosses the genre boundary into the realm of soap opera. Having said that, the second season premiere of “Hawthorne” is not nearly as melodramatic as TNT’s on-air promos might have you believe with their “she’s all woman” tagline.

CHICAGO – “I don’t even know what to do on this show. We just talk?” asks comic Bobby Slayton in episode four of the new Showtime series “The Green Room with Paul Provenza.” Yes. And therein lies the problem.

CHICAGO – Not exactly for history buffs, Showtime’s “The Tudors” has always been more about bodice-ripping and political intrigue than about straightforward historical facts. Still, in its first three seasons, with a combination of multi-dimensional characters and inspired casting choices, the “Desperate Housewives” of sixteenth-century England was a guilty pleasure not to be missed.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

ATLANTA – Sometimes human tragedy hits dramatically, but other times it subtly, imperceptibly, alters the intrinsic fibers of everyday life in undetectable ways. That is the premise behind Scott Hicks’ film “The Boys Are Back.” It is the story not of death, but of the strategy human beings devise to cope, to defend and to protect themselves against pain and loss.