Primetime Plus-Size Empowerment

We have yet to see a local news kicker story hailing fat as the new thin but Oxygen and Lifetime sure are putting their weight behind female-targeted shows about plus-size empowerment. Drop Dead Diva centers a skinny women inside of a plus-size attorney and Dance Your Ass Off encourages overweight contestants to embrace their inner sexiness. Will these shows change America's judgement towards the overweight? We already had a fat president (Taft) so at least that barrier has been broken.

Dance Your Ass Off [8 PM, Oxygen]

This isn't your momma's dance competition show. It is a weight-loss/dance hybrid. Each week, contestants learn their dance, perform it and then walk directly over to a scale, still wearing their dance costumes. In this week's episode, the contestants learn about the stripper pole while one player deals with a health issue. New episodes air on Monday.

Drop Dead Diva [9 PM, Lifetime]

It's Friday night, so you might have other plans, but if you can, watch the first fifteen minutes of this pilot episode to see some cost-effective producing. The way Deb (Brooke D'Orsay) and the way Jane (Brooke Elliott) are shot in this pilot episode, hit by an orange truck, ascend to heaven and return to life as one human was done entirely without anything more special than a crane shot. Margaret Cho co-stars.

Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-Up [11 PM, Starz]

If you're in the mood for sporadic laughs and the inherent awkward quotient of stand-up, tune into the fourth-season premiere of the Martin Lawrence-executive-produced-

program. Dick Gregory, Buddy Lewis and Nikki Carr perform tonight while Doug Williams hosts.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin [8 PM, USA]

History will remember this as Steve Carell's second breakout performance (Anchorman was the first), but the thing no one talks about is the presence of Catherine Keener adding a thin few layers to what would have just been one very long dude movie. They could have cast someone younger or blonder but Carell and Keener turned out to have above average screen chemistry.