I’ve been keeping busy so far this summer with the new television shows, and I’m loving it! “Rescue Me” on FX is my favorite. I know it’s not a new summer show, but I had to mention it. I’ve been watching “The Closer” on TNT since it began a few years ago. I think it’s an excellent show and extremely entertaining. Kyra Sedgwick is great in it playing deputy police Chief Brenda Johnson. All of her officers are very good in their roles – they’re sort of like the squad room guys in “Rescue Me” only not nearly as crude.

I watched the first episode of “State of Mind” on Lifetime and think it might be ok if they fix a few things. Lili Taylor plays a therapist whose marriage just fell apart. When she counsels couples, her husband appears in the scene – sort of an hallucination - and babbles the entire session. I find this very annoying as does Lily, so I’m hoping someone takes care of that before I watch it again. But that’s probably not going to happen.

I saw the first episode of “Damages” on FX and wrote on my blog about it. That’s going to be a very exciting and entertaining show. Glenn Close is so bad, but she’s so good at it that she makes it ok. You know she’s thinking of doing something rotten even when she’s smiling and sucking you in. And Ted Danson, as her opponent in a class action case, is evil.

I have always watched “Monk” on USA and think he is very funny. I love his OCD problem even though he goes to great extremes with it. I think all of us have a little OCD somewhere in us . . . I know I do.

I watched the first episode of “Mad Men” on AMC and found it fascinating! It takes you back to the “old days” where men were jerks and women were thought of only as secretaries or possible bed partners. Actually, things may have not have changed that much since then. This happens at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency whose client is Lucky Strike cigarettes. This all starts on March 1960. I noticed the date on the wall calendar as the “new girl” at the office was getting a pelvic exam from a physician so that she could obtain contraceptive pills. It was her first day at work, and in that amount of time, she realized the only way she might rise to the top was by sleeping her way up. What got me about this scene was that the physician was smoking while he conducted the examination! When she was being filled in by another secretary, she was told that “men are looking for something between a mother and a waitress, and the rest of the time . . . well . . .” She also shows her an electric typewriter and says “It looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough so a woman could use it.” That sounds a little bit like a Geico commercial.

Don Draper is Creative Director of Sterling Cooper and I got the idea he was a pretty good guy – not as crass or crude as the other men there. In nearly every scene, there would be a good case for sexual harassment these days, but back then it was standard operating procedure and the women went along with it. They actually played right into it, knowing their compliance might help their careers. And everyone smoked constantly! No matter what they were doing, they were smoking. At one meeting they were all smoking and coughing and thinking of ways to get around the Reader’s Digest and FTC reports on the hazards of smoking. It was actually quite funny!

Draper has a scene with his girlfriend who apparently has her own business, and they seem to get along like ordinary people. He asks why she has never married and she says because has never been in love. He tells her, “What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”

By the last scene I am still thinking of Draper as a pretty good guy until you see him driving up to his big house and going upstairs to where his beautiful wife is waiting for him! It was then I realized he is just an ordinary man like all the rest. And the new girl has a late knock on her door from a drunken ad man from the office who’s getting married in a few days. He says he just has to see her, so she lets him in. She just met him that day for God’s sake! A good thing she had seen the doctor that day – I hope she got the prescription filled – looks like she’ll need it.

I think when you watch this show you’re either going to be really turned off by the constant smoking . . . or you rush out as fast as you can to the nearest 7-ll and buy a pack. It should be a fun show to watch this summer.

I have seen many ads for “Saving Grace,” debuting on TNT, and have been completely turned off by the music played during the promo – the entire Amazing Grace song. That has never been one of my favorites, and I’m finding it very annoying. Grace (Holly Hunter) has apparently messed up her cop job in Oklahoma and finds herself in a terrible mess and asks for help. An angel named Earl comes to her rescue! Now come on . . . is this a fairy tale or what? I don’t think I can go along with that aspect of the show and may not like it at all. But I’ll give it a shot this week.