TVSquad

• At 8, ABC, CBS, and NBC have the Stand Up To Cancer benefit.
• FOX has two-hour season premiere of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8.
• The CW has a new Smackdown! at 8.
• PBS has a new Washington Week at 8, followed by new episodes of NOW and Bill Moyers Journal.
• At 9, NBC has an NFL Kickoff Special.
• USA has a new Monk at 9, then a new Psych.
• Discovery Channel has two new episodes of Discovery Project Earth at 9.
• At 10, CBS has the season (series?) finale of Swingtown.
• ABC has a new 20/20 at 10.
• Sci-Fi Channel has a new Stargate Atlantis at 10.
• History Channel has a new Shockwave at 10.
• Also at 10: Travel Channel has a new Most Haunted.
• At 11, HBO has a new Real Time with Bill Maher.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Our Monday morning roundup of a half dozen things TV Squad readers - and TV fans in general - will be talking about this week.

1. Season Premieres. Prison Break (tonight at 8pm on FOX), Gossip Girl (tonight at 8pm on The CW), One Tree Hill (tonight at 9pm on The CW), The Shield (Tuesday at 10pm on FX), Bones (Wednesday at 8pm on FOX), America's Next Top Model (Wednesday at 8pm on The CW), Top Design (Wednesday at 10pm on Bravo), Kitchen Nightmares (Thursday at 8 on FOX), Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? (Friday at 8pm on FOX), Cops (Saturday at 8pm on FOX), Football Night in America and Sunday Night Football (Sunday at 7pm on NBC), and Entourage (Sunday at 10pm on HBO).

2. Series Premieres. Raising The Bar (tonight at 10pm on TNT), 90210 (Tuesday at 8pm on The CW), Privileged (Tuesday at 9pm on The CW), Sons of Anarchy (Wednesday at 10pm on FX), Hole in the Wall (Sunday at 8 on FOX), and True Blood (Sunday at 9pm on HBO.)

3. Republican National Convention. Important for the usual reasons, but also because Hurricane Gustav might affect what goes on at the convention and who shows up. (All week on the cable news channels and CSPAN and Monday-Thursday at 10pm on the networks.)

4. Stand Up To Cancer. ABC, CBS, and NBC (though not FOX or The CW) join forces on one night to raise money. (Friday at 8pm.)

5. Swingtown season finale. Or is that the series finale? (Friday at 10pm on CBS)

6. U.S. Open Finals. Will it be Federer vs. Nadal again? We know it won't be a Williams/Williams women's final because they're in the same half. (Women's Final: Saturday at 8pm on CBS. Men's Final: Sunday at 4pm - or whenever football gets over - on CBS.)

The Simpsons is about to go some place it has never gone before: Homer Simpson's colon.

According to The New York Post, Homer is going to undergo a colonoscopy this season. Actually, it's not going to be part of the long-running FOX show, it's going to be part of the multi-network cancer benefit on September 5 titled Stand Up To Cancer. The Post even quotes a line from the segment that already has me laughing, from Marge: "There's his wedding band! He told me he was having it polished!" Which begs the question, do Marge and Homer even wear their rings?

Stand Up To Cancer is an ambitious telethon that will air on all four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX). The three network news anchors (Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, and Brian Williams) even went on the morning shows several weeks back to promote this rare display of unity between the networks.

Hopefully Homer will be clean as a whistle, despite 40 plus years of eating fried foods and donuts.

When it was revealed to the media recently that actress Christina Applegate had cancer, it was a shock. She is only 36 years old, but as anyone whose life has been touched by cancer, this disease touches the young and the old and everyone in between.

Today, the star of ABC's Samantha Who? was on Good Morning, America to explain what's happening with her, and Christina declared that she is now cancer-free. "Absolutely 100 percent clear and clean. It did not spread. They got everything out, so I'm definitely not going to die from breast cancer."

In an exclusive, candid interview, she revealed that three weeks ago she had a double mastectomy to remove all traces of breast cancer. She will have reconstructive surgery over the next eight months to replace her breasts.

I really admire Christina Applegate. I've liked her a lot on Samantha Who?, but to do what she did today makes me like her even more. She didn't have to face the media and talk about her cancer. It takes courage to share your story.

And having a positive diagnosis, to be able to say you're cancer-free, doesn't make it any easier to talk about the fear you face when you were told that you have cancer and must undergo a difficult surgery or chemotherapy or radiation.

Christina Applegate, star of ABC's Samantha Who?, is battling breast cancer. According to a statement released by her rep, the cancer was detected early and is not life-threatening. "Christina is following the recommended treatment of her doctors and will have a full recovery," Ame Van Iden said.

The news comes just weeks after Applegate earned an Emmy nomination for her work as an amnesiac trying to undo her past misdeeds on Samantha Who?. In addition to continuing to work on her series, Applegate is also scheduled to appear on the Stand Up To Cancer telethon on September 5th. The telethon, which will be simultaneously aired on CBS, NBC and ABC, will also feature Meryl Streep, Sally Field and Jennifer Aniston, among others.

Since the cancer was detected early through a doctor-ordered MRI and Applegate is continuing her work schedule, hopefully the cancer will be easily beat. Here's to a full and speedy recovery.