TVSquad

It's another holiday, and that means more TV marathons and specials! Here's a handy guide to the 4th (and the 5th and 6th).

July 4

• AMC has Planet of the Apes movies all morning, then the Jaws movies starting at 10:30am.
• At 6am, USA has a Walker, Texas Ranger marathon.
• TMC has episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (80s version) at 6, then Hitchcock movies all day.
• At 7, ESPN2 has coverage of Wimbledon Tennis.
• At 8, A&E has a marathon of Paranormal State.
• Biography has a City Confidential marathon starting at 8.
• There's a Twilight Zone marathon starting at 8 on Sci-Fi.
• At 9, TruTV has a Beach Patrol marathon.
• FX has a King of the Hill marathon at 9.
• At noon, NBC has more Wimbledon.
• At 2pm, TV Land has an I Love Lucy marathon.
• At 3, HGTV has a Design Star marathon.
• At 8, PBS has A Capitol Fourth.
• At 9, NBC has the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular.
• At 10, CBS has the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular.

We've been telling you about NBC Universal and News Corp's new YouTube-esque video service for awhile now, and today The Hollywood Reporter has news that the service has added the following channels to its lineup:

• Fuel TV
• Sundance Channel
• Oxygen
• Speed

• At 8, NBC has new, supersized episodes of The Office and 30 Rock, then new episodes of Scrubs and Andy Barker, P.I.
• CBS has a new Survivor at 8, then new episodes of CSI and Shark.
• FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8.
• TBS has four good Friends repeats starting at 8.
• USA has the first round of the Masters golf tournament at 8.
• At 9, TLC has a new American Chopper.
• HGTV has a new Divine Design at 9.
• At 10, ABC has a new October Road.
• Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 10.
• Also at 10: Bravo has the special The World According To Whoopi.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Showbiz Show with David Spade.

Check your local TV listings for more.

(S01E07) Everyone has a list of fears, and being buried alive and waking up during surgery are both very high on my list. People have awoke during surgery before -- it's rare, but it does happen. Stephen King based his short story "Autopsy Room Four" on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in which a man is paralyzed in a car accident and pronounced dead, despite being very much alive. To his horror, he's taken to the autopsy room to be hacked into, but he manages to save himself by crying a single tear to show he's still alive.

As King writes in a note after the story, a tear is nice and all, but he wanted his protagonist, Howard Cottrell (Richard Thomas) -- who gets paralyzed by a snake bite while golfing -- to demonstrate a different way of showing he was still alive. So King has him get a huge boner while the older sexier doctor is handling his junk. That's very King-like, and it works on paper, but I knew it was going to be difficult to portray that on television and not have it seem trite or silly. In King's story, Howard is single, but in the televised version he's married and suffering from occasional impotence due to an old war wound. The backstory makes Howard's eventual "rise from death" seem a little less gauche, but it's still kind of goofy.

Yesterday I listed the best sports to watch on television. Here's my list for the worst.

1. Fishing: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Can golf be funny? Well, Caddyshack proved that it could. At least, it proved you could use a golf course as a kind of stage for great comedic performances. In The Sweet Spot, Bill Murray returned to the game that birthed his famous Caddyshack character, this time taking three of his brothers (Brian Doyle-Murray, Joel Murray, and John Murray) along for a faux-reality series in which the siblings compete on different golf courses for bragging rights.

The show could be best be described as really bad, but charming. Bill is clearly the most recognizable of the siblings, but Joel and Brian have had plenty of great roles in both television and movies. John, also a producer for the show, has been in front of the lens before, but not to any significant degree. It's fun to see them all together, but even with the gags, skits, and fantasy segments, it still felt like watching home movies that were more entertaining to the people making them than the people watching. Somewhere in Hollywood someone must have an idea for a really great show that could bring these brothers together, but The Sweet Spot just wasn't it.

• At 7:30, Cartoon Network has Superman: Brainiac Attacks, followed by new eps of Naruto, One Piece, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, and IGPX.
• At 8, ABC has the movie Lady and the Tramp, followed by a new episode of The Evidence.
• CBS has repeats of CSI: NY and 48 Hours Mystery.
• NBC has Hurricanes/Oilers Stanley Cup action at 8.
• Over on FOX at 8, a new ep of Cops, followed by a repeat ep, then a new America's Most Wanted.
• TBS has the Cheaper By The Dozen remake at 8.
• FX has the Busch Series Meijer 300 NASCAR race at 8.
• Emeril has a "Summertime Party" at 8 on Food Network.
• Also at 8: AMC has Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.
• At 9, TBS has Signs.
• At 10, the Golf Channel has U.S. Open highlights.
• Just after 11:30, Encore has The Bourne Supremecy.

• Has TiVo dumped Netflix for Blockbuster?
• Yahoo buys Meedio.
• Cyrus Farivar takes the iTunes Multi-Pass for a test drive.
• What happens when golf screws up your recordings?
• The hell with buying something, why don't you just build your own PVR?

• ABC has Forrest Gump at 8pm.
• CBS has a repeat Numb3rs at 8, a repeat Cold Case, then a new 48 Hours Mystery.
• NBC has The Olympics.
• FOX has a new Cops at 8, then a repeat, then a new America's Most Wanted.
• TBS has Cradle 2 The Grave at 8, with Jet Li and DMX.
• The History Channel has Jaws at 8. Um...The History Channel??
• ESPN2 has drag racing at 8.
• Cartoon Network has a new Zatch Bell at 8, followed by a repeat Naruto, a new Naruto, a new One Piece, a new Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo, then a new Justice League Unlimited. 
• Also at 8: Spike has the first Austin Powers flick. 
• At 9, HGTV has a new My First Place.
• Daredevil is one of the most underrated movies of the past 10 years. It's on FX at 9.
• It's not the holiday season, but you can catch Steve Guttenberg and Crystal Bernard in Meet The Santas, on Hallmark at 9.
• At 10, HGTV has a new Design on a Dime.
• ABC Family has Risky Business at 10.
• At 11, USA has more coverage of the Chrysler Classic golf tournatment from Tucson.
• If you missed Real Time With Bill Maher last night, you can catch the repeat at midnight on HBO2.