New This week, Fear Itself & Charlie Jade

This week sees the debut of two shows, one a new anthology series on NBC, and the other an "acquired series" on SciFi that has aired in most of the rest of the world.

NBC Has nothing to fear, but Fear Itself (and low demographics)
Fear Itself is the new horror anthology series on NBC featuring top line horror directors and writers and some recognizable actors in the starring roles. If it seems like a familiar concept, it is. The majority of the people involved behind the scenes were also involved with Masters of Horror, which aired for two seasons on Showtime. As you might expect, Fear Itself will be subject to broadcast TV standards and will thus not have near as much nudity, violoence, gore or language as Masters of Horror could get away with on pay cable (although expect there to be special unrated DVDs released eventually). Here's the specifics on the first four episodes airing on Thursday nights at 10 pm ET/PT starting this week.

Premiering June 5, "Sacrifice" has a screenplay written by Mick Garris ("Riding the Bullet," "Amazing Stories") from a story by Del Howison ("Dark Delicacies") . Breck Eisner ("Creature from the Black Lagoon") directs. When four criminals find themselves stranded in an old, snow-covered fort, they slowly discover both the fort and the seductive trio of sirens who reside there are filled with deadly secrets. Jeffrey Pierce ("The Nine"), Jesse Plemons (NBC's "Friday Night Lights"), Stephen Martines ("Port Charles"), Rachel Miner ("Californication" ) and Mircea Monroe ("Drive") star.

Airing June 12, "Spooked" is directed by Brad Anderson ("The Machinist") and written by Matt Venne ("White Noise 2: The Light"). While on a stake out in a haunted house, a private eye (Eric Roberts, NBC's "Heroes") is made to confront the demons of his past. Jack Noseworthy ("Judging Amy"), Cynthia Watros ("Lost") and Larry Gilliard Jr. ("The Wire") also star.

Debuting June 19, "Family Man" is directed by Ronny Yu ("Freddy vs. Jason," "Bride of Chucky") and written by Dan Knauf ("Carnivàle," "Supernatural" ). This action-charged, psychological thriller focuses on a likeable family man (Colin Ferguson, "Eureka") who switches bodies with a serial killer (Clifton Collins Jr., "Star Trek") after a near-death experience. Now, he must fight from behind bars to keep the murderer from adding his wife (Josie Davis, "Ghost Whisperer"), son (Gig Morton, "Psych"), and daughter (Nicole Leduc, "Kyle XY") to his long list of victims.

Debuting June 26, "In Sickness and in Health" is directed by John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London") and written by Victor Salva ("Jeepers Creepers"). On her wedding day, a beautiful bride (Maggie Lawson, "Psych") receives a mysterious note that reads: "The person you are marrying is a serial killer." James Roday ("Psych") stars as the groom. Christie Laing ("The 4400"), Sonja Bennett ("Eureka") and Marshall Bell ("Hamlet 2," "Tales from the Crypt") also star.

It will be interesting to see how much of an audience NBC is able to get for the show and if they stick to the entire 13 episode run. Since their primary group of advertisers will be movie companies, as long as they keep the demographics up, it might stick around for the rest of the summer. If not, they can always burn them off on SciFi or Chiller TV.

For more details, check out the NBC website for the series or The Futon Critic's show page.

SciFi Gets Jaded, Finally.
SciFi will be adding Charlie Jade to their SciFi Friday lineup this week, airing it at 8 pm ET/PT as a lead-in to Doctor Who. The series debuted in Canada in 2005 and at the time SciFi passed on it. It has developed somewhat of a cult following, though. As usual, since it is an acquired series, SciFi is doing their minimal promotion for it. They do have a web site for it at SciFi.com. You can also read more about the series at Space's mini-site for it . There's also a good writeup at Wikipedia . Unfortunately, the powers that be that controlled the official show website at http://www.charliejade.com/ have opted not to keep that site going, however, it does appear you can still look at it via archive.org .

In any case, the series does a good job handling three parallel Earths and a multitude of characters with a limited budget. Jeffrey Pierce does well as the title character (and his variations). The big question is if enough people will tune in to keep the show on Friday nights, or will SciFi decide they can do better with SG-1 repeats.