Before you know it, the summer will be upon us. For viewers, this is both bad and good news. The bad: The major networks resort to schedules filled with reality programming. The good: The cable networks rev up their schedules with original scripted programming. By the time July rolls around, AMC, FX, TNT and USA will be chock full of fan favorites.

For TNT, that means a new season of 'The Closer.' The network has just announced that season 6 will premiere on Mon., Jul. 12 at 9PM. Joining 'The Closer' on that evening will be the new drama 'Rizzoli & Isles.' Based on a series of Tess Gerritsen's novels, the show casts Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander as a Boston detective and medical examiner, respectively, who team up to solve cases. The series also stars Lorraine Bracco as Harmon's mother.

TNT has always excelled with shows featuring strong female leads. As long as the acting and writing is up to par on 'Rizzoli & Isles' it should have a long life on the network.

During his Emmy hosting duties the other night, Neil Patrick Harris sang an opening number that included the names of many TV networks. Not just the major ones but also several cable outlets. There's one particular network he forgot to mention though, and last night Chelsea Handler talked about it.

What an interesting summer for television. In general, the claim that television viewing reached an all-time high this summer doesn't really surprise me. After all, we're in what the media tells us is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. That means more people out of work and less money for everybody.

People out of work and unable to find work are going to be bored, so they're going to watch television. People with less money are going to stay home more often, so they're going to watch television. That part makes sense to me. The part that is a little surprising, but only a little, is that all of that record viewing went to the cable networks and not the big four.

There was not a single break-out summer success story on ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX. Every single show they put on the air either crashed and burned, or barely stayed afloat. But the story is so very different on cable. Week after week we got new stories about original series breaking records on almost every network.

Attention fans of Swingtown: your ratings-challenged show might actually have a chance to see a second season.

Even though the 70s-set drama isn't getting a ton of viewers (in its current time slot Friday at 10 or in its old Thursday at 10 time slot), there are execs behind the scenes at the network who like the show and would like to see it continue. The network is shopping the show around to cable networks to see if one of them will pick it up.

I would actually like to see this happen. As I've mentioned on these pages before, I have trouble with some of Swingtown, but at the same time I really want to see what happens to these characters, and there are a lot of other shows where I can't say that. I wonder if they'll pull an NBC and put it on DirecTV like we're seeing with Friday Night Lights, or maybe put it on Showtime. CBS has shown Dexter on the network so maybe Showtime can take Swingtown. That would certainly open up more plot possibilities for the show. And by possibilities I mean nudity and swearing.

NBC seems to have been at the forefront of promoting its fall shows on multiple fronts this year (given its fourth-place status last year, the effort is understandable). Not only were they the first to send pilot previews, but they made pilots available to Netflix users and make pilots available online. They've even invited some humble reporters to the set of their new drama Kidnapped (including me... more on this in a week or so). So it comes as little surprise that they are going to leverage NBC Universal corporate synergy to give their new shows as much exposure as possible.

According to TV Week, NBC plans on showing all of its fall pilots on its cable networks after they air. USA will show the network's dramatic pilots for an entire week at 11 PM, Sci Fi will show Heroes, and Bravo will show 30 Rock and Studio 60. I would imagine that these networks might also show the second runs of each episode, but those deals haven't been announced yet.

Now, this is the kind of cable package I want. Instead of having to pay a lot of money for one package that will have about 30 or 40 stations I never watch, what if we could pick the stations we want and pay for each one? Alex Beam at the Boston Globe says that this is what he wants too. Following Beam's lead, here is what I'd have:

Must Have: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, Comedy Central, Bravo, CNN, MSNBC, TV Land, Nick, both ESPNs, Travel Channel, Food Network, Tennis Channel

Wouldn't Mind Having: Game Show Network, HGTV

Don't Want: Lifetime, Golf Channel, MTV, FOX News, WE, Oxygen, Court TV, all the shopping channels

What networks would you pick if you could get them this way?