Television

When I heard that a national law to ban loud TV commercials had taken force in December, I was skeptical. Why did we need a Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM), I wondered, when more urgent issues demanded action? There were nations to invade, marriages to prohibit, guns to enshrine. Loud commercials were just an itch - to scratch it would be like trying to pay the mortgage and replace a burned-out light bulb. If we can ignore global warming, we can ignore loud commercials.

Back when I was young and the world was new and only one kid we knew had a (very small, black-and-white) TV in his room, my cousins, my brother and I used to put on plays in the basement. We were big fans of "Night Stalker," so these were often quite violent plays, involving pentagrams, blood rituals and monsters constructed with whatever we had on hand - my mother's old hula skirt got a lot of use, as did her sheared raccoon coat, a ratty old "That Girl" wig and the fake blood we breathlessly purchased with Our Own Money from the back of comic books.

Amazon is turning to its consumers to help decide which of the new television shows premiering Friday to add to its programming lineup, democratizing a process that was once reserved for a rarefied group of network executives. The online retailer will post 14 TV pilots -- including a musical office comedy set in Manhattan, a live-action comedy about four U.S. senators who live together in Washington, D.C., and a show based on the cult film "Zombieland" -- ask viewers to critique them.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 14 -20, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES Fashion Star Im this new episode, the contestants must design an ensemble for a "big night out. " Louise Roe hosts. 8 p.m. NBC Nikita Amanda's (Melinda Clarke) mental conditioning process sends a drugged and restrained Nikita (Maggie Q) on a terrifying trip down memory lane, where she discovers Amanda's deepest secret.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel launched the first television attack ad of the runoff campaign Friday - accusing rival Eric Garcetti of hiding an investment in a company that established unpopular digital billboards and concealing a lease that gave his family drilling rights associated with an oil well at Beverly Hills High School. The ad comes a little more than four weeks before the May 21 election and with City Controller Greuel apparently trying to close a lead that City Councilman Garcetti enjoyed as of the first round of voting March 5. The 30-second spot shows images of digital billboards, which have annoyed many neighbors with their bright nighttime displays.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 21 -27, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES Smash It's opening night in this new episode and Ivy is nervous. 8 p.m. NBC My Big Redneck Vacation The Clampet family parties with Tom Arnold in Hollywood but must race home when Michelle goes into labor in this new episode, followed by a behind-the-scenes after-show.

"The Island President" (PBS, Monday, 10 p.m.). Comprising 2,000 pancake-flat islands in the Indian Ocean, with a mean elevation of about five feet above sea level, the Maldives will be the first nation to go, literally, when the oceans rise. Jon Shenk's documentary follows then-president Mohamed Nasheed on a mission to save his country, his people and maybe the world. A frequently jailed activist who once spent 18 months in solitary confinement in a corrugated iron shed, Nasheed hits the road to make his quixotic case for environmental responsibility.

After an edited clip from its animated series "Family Guy" was circulated online with a claim that it predicted the Boston Marathon bombing, Fox elected to pull the episode, "Turban Cowboy," from streaming sites, including Fox.com and Hulu.com. The clip making the rounds online showed series protagonist Peter Griffin explaining how he had won a race, which involved detonating two bombs. While the scenes in the clip all appeared in the same episode, the clip had been edited to appear closer to the events in Boston than the actual episode showed.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 21 -27, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies       SUNDAY Ask your doctor if a magic potion is right for you. Side effects may include singing, dancing and turning 30 years younger, as seen in "Lovestruck: The Musical. " Jane Seymour, Chelsea Kane and Sara Paxton star. 8 and 10 p.m. ABC Family Get a refresher course on the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, and the subsequent investigations, book and film, in "All the President's Men Revisited.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 14 -20, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES Community Annie (Alison Brie) secretly invites Professor Cornwallis (Malcolm McDowell) to Jeff's (Joel McHale) holiday gathering in an attempt to get into his good graces. Chevy Chase and Gillian Jacobs also star in this new episode. 8 p.m. NBC The Vampire Diaries Elena (Nina Dobrev)