Fall shows are wrapping up their allotment of pre-writers strike episodes and reality shows will be taking over.  Here’s what I liked, and what I didn’t. In descending order of goodness.

The Good:

Chuck

I’d need to be a mutant freak to have enough thumbs to rate this one. I love this show. Consitently the best new show of the season. Great cast, funny and fun. Pokes fun at the superspy genre without being condescending. Over the top, but smart. Zachary Levi is perfect as Chuck.

Pushing Daisies

The pilot was the best episode of TV ever. The rest of the season has been very, very good. Quirky, funny, unique and very very cute. Little bits of extraordinary cleverness makes this a blast to watch.

Reaper

Way geek cool. I worry a bit about it becoming a demon of the week show, but so far, very good. The pilot was really, really good and while the rest of the season has been below that level it’s still better than nearly everything else.

Dirty Sexy Money

I’m surprised how much fun the show is. Donald Sutherland is fantastic as the patriarch of the Darling family and the show hits the right level of trash and intrigue. Better so far than Desperate Housewives ever was.

Samantha Who?

Proving that cast is everything this show is mediocre writing and an appealing cast. Christina Applegate is great and aside from her mother (played too broadly by Jean Smart) I like everyone else. Cute as a button pretty much sums up the show.

Journeyman

Didn’t think I’d like this much but it’s pretty good. The most surprising thing for me was when the writers didn’t manufacture tension by making Kevin McKidd’s character Dan Vasser lie to his wife about seeing his former fiance in the past. Instead they make him a good father and good husband. Imagine that. The things he does in the past are pretty ordinary but the toll it takes on his family and the interactions in the present work really well.

Aliens in Amercia

Funny if a bit formulaic. Justin acts like a teenager and does something stupid that alienates him from Raja. At some point he realizes he’s been an idiot and that getting along with Raja is really important even though Raja’s extreme goody-goodyness and weird religion makes that hard. Awwwwwwww. But it can be really funny, and you can’t help but like the kids.

Life

Haven’t watched much of this (I’ve got to draw the line somewhere) but for a cop show it’s pretty good. Mostly because the lead character is allowed to be unpredictable and kinda funny. Still a procedural cop show, though.

The Kinda OK Shows

Bionic Woman

It’s OK at times. Not nearly funny enough and takes itself really seriously. They’ve improved the goofy fast running a bit (mostly by cutting down on the effects) but mostly just kind of plods along. Some bits of fun (such as Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff) but a couple of episodes were plain bad and what was good wasn’t THAT good. They tried to make an edgy show but didn’t cast any edgy actors (again Katee Sackhoff would have been FAR better as THE Bionic Woman instead of the OLD Bionic Woman.) As silly as Chuck without the self-awareness that makes it work.

Moonlight

A vampire show where they took out all the complications of being a vampire. See it’s all a myth, they’re super strong and they can walk around in daylight as long as they wear sunglasses and don’t go too far. Should be darker, should be scarier and they should have worked a bit more on their mythology. It’s not Angel, it’s not Buffy it’s not much of anything.

Back To You

It’s not the ratings bonanza Fox hoped, but that’s probably because it’s not all that good. Grammar is Frasier and Heaton is annoying. Still like the the young news producer, though.

Private Practice

Warm, sunny and vapid. Tries to keep up with Grey’s Anatomy and despite the excellent cast, doesn’t succeed. Just kinda there, TV. Not bad, not good, just there.

The Bad

Cavemen
Really like Nick Kroll and pretty much dislike everything else. Occasionally chuckle worthy but mostly just dumb.

The Big Bang Theory

Stuart Levine of MSNBC thought this was a highlight. Whatever. For a show about smart people this one is as dumb as a fence-post. Only sporadically funny and over-broad. Makes fun of dorks without making them people. Gotta have actual characters, show.

Carpoolers

And I thought The Big Bang Theory was bad. With all the shows that DIDN’T make it, you’re telling me that THIS was better than everything else? This show proves that the networks really do have NO idea what they’re doing. Really, really, REALLY bad. Beyond bad. This is a putrescent pile of poop fermenting in a vat of vomit. I’m serious. It’s that bad. When Mr. Levine said The Big Bang Theory was a highlight, he must have watched it right after this. Only in comparison…

Never saw K-Ville, Women’s Murder Club, Cane, Big Shots, Viva Laughlin etc. I’ve heard that’s a good thing.

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Here is my third song and the first that is NOT any form of lovey-dovey song. Garageband has some pretty awesome clapping crowd noise… which I left out. Feel free to clap at the end in you mind/out loud to yourself. This is also the first time I’ve experimented with alternate tunings.

Lucy’s On Display

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The Kindle, Amazon’s new eBook reader that will change the world. They hope.

Hardly a new idea the Kindle is nevertheless an intriguing one. Initial impressions seem mixed, interestingly it’s the non-techies that seem to get Bezos’ vision. Most of the gadget geeks seem to fall on the side of meh. Those that use a cell phone only to make calls, a computer only to email and read the newspaper on paper every morning seem most intrigued. This is a device they can get behind.

The main innovation of the Kindle is that it is always connected. Like push email on a BlackBerry the Kindle will automatically receive the latest edition of a print newspaper such as The New York Times. Or magazine, or blog post. You can browse and buy books from Amazon’s web store from anywhere. More exciting is that there isn’t a monthly fee, at least for the wireless connection. You only pay for what you want, there’s no service fee or monthly charge. This, in and of itself, is surprising and a huge plus for the device.

It uses eInk technology, a display technology that uses small particles and electrical magic to display text in a way that has more in common with a paperback than a computer screen. It has no backlight, something that is seen as a good thing, and does not draw power unless the screen is redrawn. This means that it is no more fatiguing than reading a book, something that should appeal to a demographic that does not love LCD and CRT displays.

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I saw this a couple of days ago as an afterthought in a Salt Lake Tribune article entitled Paul Rolly: Vouchers help all Sudanese Hispanics.  (Check the very last paragraph, it’s there.) That, and a really brief mention on KSL, were it. Kevin Prusse, a principal at Muir Elementary in Bountiful Utah, misused the district email system to warn parents that the movie The Golden Compass is out to get their children.

The book the movie is based on is written by an atheist and contains anti-religious themes. Which, according to Prusse (and The Catholic League) means it must be banned.

It concerns me that a principal in a public school doesn’t think about how inappropriate it is to use his position for religious purposes. Even after the fact I doubt he understands it was wrong. The KSL article on it mentions that there was only one complaint and several thank-yous which sounds like justification. Just because most of your constituents agree with you (or just don’t care) does not mean it’s OK to push your view on others.

I expected to see more about this (maybe a real article) but nothing materialized. I assume that this antipathy is a product of the religious climate in Utah and the fact that people just don’t bother complaining when they should. The Catholic League is perfectly justified in pushing a boycott of this movie, the public school system is not. I plan on seeing this movie (it looks GOOD) and will probably check out the books as well.

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This is Huxley a Bichon Frisé / Poodle mix whom we adopted from the Humane Society last week.

He’s a year and a half old, house-trained and very, very snuggly.  This is good until you have to leave at which point he barks hysterically. He never barks otherwise. Unless the doorbell rings (on TV or otherwise.) Or he sees a rabbit… rabbits are awesome.

He’s a eunuch now, though he doesn’t know it and will happily try to take over the territory of another dog. He runs into issues proving his manhood when he walks, since he prances like a poodle.

He has yet to figure out that he’s my dog and follows my wife around adoringly. If I walk out the door he looks for my wife.  If she walks out the door he sits by it and whimpers softly.

He’ll play fetch but he won’t give you the ball; you have to take it. He does, however, throw the ball to himself by tossing it backwards over his back.

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