That “revolutionary” 2004 summer season certain broadcast networks were convinced would change the landscape of television forever? Turns out it’s actually Xeriscape: Dry, barren and really only succeeding in annoying the neighbors.

Now, there are few bigger advocates for annoying the neighbors than I (shut up your damned kids and dogs, I’ll take down the Vote Nader/Satan 2004 sign, fair enough?), but this summer tube season is seriously weak. At least The Only TV Column That Matters™ can fall back on the superior new offerings on cable, right? Not so fast ...

Stargate Atlantis (Sci-Fi; debuts Friday, July 16): They’re all freaks, but there are two distinct categories of Stargate SG-1 fans: The ones who’ve followed the galaxy-surfing saga for seven seasons since the Showtime beginning through the transition to the Sci-Fi Channel, and those who are a couple of years behind because they’ve only recently gotten hooked through syndicated reruns. The latter group always gets screwed when the local channel bumps those weekend SG-1s for exclusive college volleyball coverage; the former is absolutely wet over the arrival of Stargate Atlantis, the series’ first spin-off. All they need to know (this is not a newbie-friendly franchise) is that Atlantis is faster-paced, higher-tech and a tad more environmentally preachy than SG-1. Later Gateheads can clip and save this for when Atlantis reruns head to syndication and/or Al Gore’s sprouting network.

Entourage (HBO; debuts Sunday, July 18): Mark Wahlberg, the underwear artist formerly known as Marky Mark, can be a funny guy-watch Rock Star as a comedy instead of a serious indictment of the drug and leather-pants trades sometime, you’ll see it. Too bad his first production project Entourage, a not-autobiographical-wink-wink series about hot young Hollywood actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his posse of hangers-on and handlers, is longer on stilted “cool” than laughs. Even more puzzling, as a supposed rising star, Vincent exhibits all the on-screen charisma of a fern, made even more glaringly obvious when real celebs (Wahlberg himself, Jessica Alba) make Larry Sanders-style cameos. Best pilot-ep moment: Vincent’s agent (Jeremy Piven, Entourage’s saving grace) informing his fern that Colin Farrell has taken the $4 million role he declined in the sure-to-be-blockbuster Matterhorn (“It’s Die Hard at Disneyland-what’s not to love?”).

The Grid (TNT; debuts Monday, July 19): If we learn only one thing from TNT’s new counter-terrorism drama, it’s this: Don’t smoke while assembling sarin-gas bombs! That, and Julianna Margulies probably should have taken the gazillion-dollar paycheck they offered her to stay on ER. She and The Practice’s Dylan McDermott star as American Feds leading an international/interracial/interdenominational task force charged with stopping a global terrorist cell (if you’re still awake, you and your six online friends probably loved Threat Matrix). Everyone’s job title is at least a paragraph long, requiring a freeze-frame to display every time a new character shows up-without the freezes, The Grid’s two-hour pilot would clock in at about 28 minutes and still seem to drag. Apparently commitment-phobic, TNT is pimping The Grid as a “limited series,” freeing Margulies up for Ghost Ship 2. ... She’d be starting her 10th season on ER this fall, just sayin.’

Things I Hate About You (Bravo; debuts Tuesday, July 20): Give couples personal video cameras and have them record every little annoying tic they can’t stand about each other and see who wins, uh, something. This is such a recipe for double homicide, it ought to be on Court TV, not Bravo.

Rescue Me (FX; debuts Wednesday, July 21): Denis Leary stars as a hard-drinking/internally conflicted/basically effdup (new word, kiddies) New York City firefighter in an intensely graphic and raw series that promises to tweak the basic-cable content limits already stretched beyond recognition by FX’s The Shield and Nip/Tuck, if not those Ex-treme Dating reruns. Firefighters, cops, plastic surgeons-when is FX going to produce a gritty drama about booze-abusing, whoring, effdup, nonsensical-word-inventing newspaper television hacks? It’s the best idea since Matterhorn, and the title True TV is available for a quite reasonable price, just sayin.’