TelePhillyist

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week.

Driving Force (Mon; 9PM-9:30PM; A&E) - In this episode of the new reality series about a drag-racing family, John is concerned that his girls - what with their out-of-control credit card spending and all - are taking the good life for granted, so he takes them on a trip to see the trailer he grew up in in the hopes of teaching them an important life lesson. We bet unintentional humor will abound. (Official site)

Stan Lee's Lightspeed (Wed; 9PM-11PM; Sci-Fi) - Comic book legend Stan Lee has made a movie for the Sci-Fi Channel, and sure it will almost certainly suck on many levels, but it might also be fun! It's about a guy who gains super powers (big surprise there) after getting blasted with radiation (another surprise!) by a snake-like terrorist who calls himself Python. Apparently, the powers he gets from the radiation are, he can move really fast. So...he basically becomes the Flash. Huh. The movie features Lee Majors and Nicole Eggert, although sadly neither of them plays the main character; that honor goes to Jason Connery. (Official site)

Who Wants to Be a Superhero? (Thu; 9PM-10PM; Sci-Fi) - Stan Lee's on Sci-Fi again! This time he's offering folks a chance to star in a comic book, and play a guest role in a Sci-Fi movie, if they win this reality show, in which they must invent their own superhero alter ego and compete against others in various challenges - in tights, of course. (Official site)

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (Thu; 10PM-10:30PM; Sci-Fi) - Here's an interesting, postmodern sort of concept: instead of just being a hospital drama, this show is an author's memories of a 1980s hospital drama. And somehow it ends up being a horror-comedy. In this first episode - or rather, in the episode within the episode - a new employee at the hospital has a paranormal experience. Frankly, we are mighty intrigued. (Official site)

Amazing Screw-On Head (Thu; 10:30PM-11PM; Sci-Fi) - We mentioned this show in a Whiz column last week, and we're still pretty excited about it. It's an animated Lovecraftian horror-comedy about a steam-punk alternate history US in which Abe Lincoln's top agent is a robot with a detachable head (well, really he sort of is the head), and he's fighting a super-villain named Emperor zombie with henchmen that include vampires and a machine gun-toting monkey. Could that description be more awesome? If so, we're not sure how. (Official site)

Monk (Fri; 9PM-10PM; USA) - We've mentioned some of our favorite TV show cliches in the past; this week's "Monk" delivers another one. It's the inevitable episode in which the main character goes temporarily blind. In this case, it happens because the murderer of a firefighter tosses solvent in Monk's face. Of course, Monk tries to solve the case anyway. (Official site)

Image Credit: WhoWantsToBeASuperhero.tv