Can’t stop the music (but you may try)
For the second night in a row, NBC offers viewers a musical showcase. The new series “Hit Me Baby One More Time” (8 p.m., NBC) presents veteran musical acts performing their greatest hits as well as fresh covers of contemporary hits. Viewers will determine the night’s “winner” by phone vote. Vernon Kay hosts the three-episode series that originated on British television. Featured artists include Arrested Development, Flock of Seagulls, Loverboy and Tiffany.
¢ Viewers in search of more peculiar musical diversions are in luck. “Dan Finnerty & The Dan Band: I am Woman” (10 p.m., Bravo) is a far, far cry from “American Idol.” A bracing combination of standup comedy, performance art and some really talented musicianship, “Woman” offers hilarious adaptations of female power ballads, hip-hop-diva numbers, campy classic off-Broadway ditties, ice-skating music and more, all performed by Finnerty and his two-man chorus.
You may have seen The Dan Band in the screen comedy “Old School,” in which they played a raunchy wedding band, or as a sleazy bar mitzvah ensemble in the “Starsky & Hutch” remake.
Finnerty is the last guy you’d expect to sing “Ring My Bell,” “I am Woman,” “Muskrat Love” or “I’ve Been to Paradise (But I’ve Never Been to Me).” He looks like a demented version of a young Dennis Hopper doing a Bruce Springsteen imitation. His chorus consists of two very straight-laced men in glasses, jackets and ties.
I highly recommend this odd cabaret act, but beware – Finnerty’s routine includes a torrent of obscene language that will keep Bravo’s censors on the bleep button, making “Woman” even more bizarre.
Tonight’s other highlights
¢ On back-to-back episodes of “The O.C.” (Fox), back to school angst (7 p.m.) and new kids on the block (8 p.m.).
¢ Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu star in the 2000 adaptation of the 1970s series “Charlie’s Angels” (7 p.m., ABC).
¢ Sharon Stone guest stars as a therapist on “Will & Grace” (7:30 p.m., NBC).
¢ New evidence roils the ranks of Grissom’s squad on “CSI” (8 p.m., CBS).
¢ A cop’s teen son is forced to make a life and death decisions on “ER” (9 p.m., NBC).