Indy Countdown

0 days, 0 hours

Lego Indiana Jones Madness »»»

««« Song 03 Lucy's On Display

Midseason TV Report (Slash Which Shows Writers Deserve to Get Paid More)

Posted on Dec 19, 2007 - 12:32 PM

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.

Tagged:

, ,

RSS feed for article comments feed

I’m glad I’m not the only one that enjoys Dirty Sexy Money.  I don’t watch it every week, but when I do I like it.

Posted by macbezz  on  12/22  at  03:12 AM

That’s it, I need to get a Tivo (but I won’t, of course). I haven’t watched Pushing Daisies or Reaper in ages, and I still haven’t gotten a chance to watch Samantha Who? or Aliens in America. Sigh. So much good TV, so little time.

Posted by Aubrie  on  12/24  at  02:16 PM

As far as the shows that I’ve watched are concerned, I’ll agree.  Chuck is pretty much awesome.  Funny, fun, fantastic, fresh, and a lot of other f-words and maybe some that start with other letters too.  I also love Pushing Daisies.  These two shows are pretty much the best new shows of the season.  Despite my earlier reservations about Reaper, it has found it’s stride and is still very watchable and enjoyable.  Samantha Who? reminds me of My Name Is Earl, which isn’t a bad thing at all. 

I still have several episodes of Bionic Woman to watch because at some point during the November I lost interest.  Moonlight has it’s problems, but as far as vampire shows go, it’s about as good as you can get if Joss Whedon isn’t producing your show. 

I can’t bring myself to watch a show called DirtySexyMoney.  Not because of the implications of the title, but because it’s clearly a soap, and I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy because I couldn’t stomach that sudsy feeling I got after watching George and Izzy do it.  Ew. 

Speaking of Grey’s Anatomy, I hated the Private Practice semi-pilot and it’s good to hear that my decision to avoid it was wise.  I mean, a show about a fertility clinic?  Seriously?  How much serious medical mileage can you get out of that?  From what I’ve seen, very little.  And I thought Grey’s Anatomy was starting to stretch. 

I watched the first episode of Cavemen, and oddly enough, I didn’t hate it.  Though I never watched another episode.  The pilot had this sense that it wasn’t going for “Ha Ha” funny, but rather was more of a dark comedy about race relations.  The problem is, that can be funny for a half hour—that is, a single half hour-- but how can it make for a good series without relying on more cliched plotlines. 

I’d like to give a shoutout, however, to Viva Laughlin.  Though it barely aired two episodes before becoming the ONLY show this season to be cancelled, it was truly a show worthy of the Hall of Shame.  I want to know which television exec was sitting in his office clearly high on crack when Hugh Jackman strolled in and said in his Australian brogue “I’ve just had an idea.  Why don’t we make a series about a guy who opens his own casino, but instead of gritty drama, it’ll be a musical.  And we won’t write original songs, but we’ll have them sing to classical rock songs.  And instead of scoring our own versions of them, we’ll just play the originals and have the actors sing with them.  And the song selections won’t be very inspired either.  We’ll sing Viva Las Vegas at least twice in the pilot, a Blondie song, and when the main villain walks in for the first time, we’ll play Sympathy for the Devil—because that’s never been done before.  It’ll be great”

I hope that guy got fired.

Posted by Richard Teasdale  on  12/25  at  10:25 PM

FWIW Dirty Sexy Money is definitely a soap. But oh what a soap it is. If you are worried about Grey’s Anatomy style awww shucks moments, don’t, they’re not there. No Gizzie allowed on DSM. And the main character pretty much just tells everyone the truth and lets the chips fall as they may. I expected a Desperate Housewives knock-off but it’s way better.

Posted by Ryan  on  12/26  at  02:01 PM
Page 1 of 1 pages

Leave a comment:

Name:

Email:
(Required- will NOT be published.)

Location:

URL:

Comment:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below: