Don’t plan your weekly TV schedule until you’ve read my effusive review of Firefly – come along for the fun, and bring a change of pants.
Not much new for me to add: I’ll be watching Firefly to see if it manages to go anywhere interesting.
I liked Life With Bonnie’s pilot a lot more than I’d expected, but unfortunately it’s on at the same time as Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I can’t watch it (as wonderful and terrifying as my TiVo is, I can’t get it to record two shows at once).
And Birds of Prey could be interesting, but I have lower-than-low expectations. I just know if I don’t give it a chance I’ll be in the same situation I was with Smallville, kicking myself for not getting in on it from the beginning.
I can tell you the shows I was interested in but will definitely not be watching:
“Do-Over” – the premise could have been made funny, but it was just bitter, predictable, and mean-spirited.
“John Doe” – the pilot episode alone managed to hit every single pet peeve I have about TV.
“The In-Laws” – I’ve seen a season’s worth of the show just in the incessant ads for it. I like Jean Smart, too, so I guess I’ll just have to watch Kim Possible and The Oblongs.
“Monk” – another series with great potential that settled into predictability faster than anything I’ve ever seen. The second and third episodes had me saying, “Is this even the same series?”
“The Twilight Zone” – yeep. Not good.
“The Dead Zone” – Anthony Michael Hall’s eerie transformation notwithstanding, there’s nothing interesting about this show. More wasted potential; it could’ve been genuinely intriguing but somehow every episode manages to feel like “21 Jump Street” with ESP.
I’ll try *Birds Of Prey, Firefly,*and maybe Less Than Perfect or BoomTown. Possibly that show with Paula Marshall, if I can remember the name, but just to see her. Yum! Nothing else seems to catch my eye. CSI: Miami will probably wind up being rerun with the first one on TNN soon, not that I watch it much.
I tried Push, Nevada; John Doe, and that Bonnie Hunt thing. Was left cold by all three shows. Apparently I’m immune to her comedic charms that have been winning people over on talk shows for years. Plus, it has her AND David Alan Grier - that’s the double kiss of death for a network show.
My couch potato being long over, my regular TV time is going to be sparse this season.
First off, the obvious choice, NFL Primetime (a great show for someone who doesn’t have a dish network or all day Sunday to watch football). I’ll probably watch at least some of this year’s baseball playoffs, although I don’t have the patience to watch anywhere near a full game.
Cartoons. Hoo boy. Believe it or not, there was a time, not too long ago, when there were a plethora of animated works that I was passionate about watching. There was the wickedly funny Duckman (and far better at satire than the horribly overrated load of dreck Beavis and Butthead), The Simpsons when it still made me care, The Critic, always entertaining, the wild and wonderful Animaniacs…oh yeah, and the PJs, one of the few race comedies that was actually good. Now there’s The Powerpuff Girls, which won’t have any new episodes until next summer, and I Am Weasel is in limbo. Samurai Jack lost me for good with that execrable #17. So that leaves…hmm, Dexter’s Lab. At any rate, I really, really wish Cartoon Network could create at least a semblance of a regular schedule.
I make it a point to watch the final season of a show I liked at any point (no matter how far it’s fallen), so I’m definitely catching the last days of Friends. It’s ironic that, after all the screaming bloody murder about how this sixsome spent so much time in a cafe and weren’t shown working and taking responsibility and facing the consequences etc. etc., that when they finally get their lives mostly squared away, that’s when the show runs out of steam. Should be an entertaining finale, in any case. I’d also like to catch the final season of The Simpsons, but apparently we still don’t know when that is.
Ooh! One more…JAG! Which has, completely unexpectedly, become my must-watch for prime time. What can I say, it’s compelling, tense, action-packed, thrilling…great watching.
Lastly, I’ll be watching (and recapping on this board, of course) the third Amazing Race, which, quite frankly, is the only one of the current crop of reality programs that’s the least bit compelling. The fact that these teams can trust no one but themselves, are continuously in direct competition with everyone else, and are always on the move, puts it leagues ahead of anything else right now, including Survivor, which is practically a drawn-out lottery these days. (Oh yeah, I’m also watching Survivor, but I don’t expect to be excited.)
BTW, CSI: Miami sucked. All of CSI’s weaknesses, and then added even worse actors to the mix.
I used to try and catch every pilot… I’ve outgrown that, I’ll see as we go along.
I’m pretty jazzed up for ** Firefly ** , and that’s about it. I was considering ** Good Morning Miami ** , but only because I wanted it to be another ** Will and Grace ** (made by the same folks, I understand). But that’s not really a good reason to waste half an hour of my precious time (ha, ha, ha). So it’s just ** Firefly ** for me.
Well, I’m pretty much out of touch - I haven’t heard of most of the shows mentioned here. Then again, I’m a hardcore HGTV junkie. When I’m not on line.
Well, watched The In-Laws last night, and what a steaming pile of oysters that was! I love Jean Smart, but not even for her will I suffer another 30 minutes of that show.
I pretty much agree with everyyone else about Life with Bonnie: ditch the dull, tired family crap and stick with the workplace locale.
I missed the beginning of The In-Laws.
What was the reason the young couple had to live with her parents?
Who didn’t see the joke of Jean Smart confessing to crashing the beloved car (in addition to the daughter) coming a mile away?
Pee-yew, what a stinker.
The new Bonnie Hunt show was also less than expected.
I’m just waiting for Scrubs and ER to start up again.
Frasier was pretty good.
Add me to the Firefly list and I still watch Monk. Granted, Monk has quickly become formulistic but at least it’s still interesting.
And what’s Cathy Rogers’ new show again?
Well, the pathetic existence that is ME will not be viewing too much new stuff this year because…all the good ones are on at 9:00 and I’M IN BED BY THEN. Ohmygawd…I never thought I’d be this old at such a young age. I’ve tried to stay up for the NEW CSI, NYPD BLUE, and THE WEST WING, but didn’t make any of 'em. Woe is me…
Is there any reason you can’t tape them? I spent a couple of days over the summer catching up on the things I’d taped over the previous two or three months and hadn’t watched yet.
I never watch sitcoms, but I will give Boomtown, Without a Trace and Robbery Homocide Division a try. The NYT had good things to say about RHD and WaT, so maybe I’ll finally have a replacemnet for the lamented Homocide:Life on the Street.
I’ve seen Firefly (I’ll give it another chance), John Doe (bleah) and Haunted (maybe if there’s nothing else on) so far.
Monk isn’t all that bad. Ok, maybe it is, but I like it anyway.
Saw a few minutes of In-Laws, and even though I love Jean Smart, that will be the last time I watch it. Wouldn’t Jean make a great “cousin” of Samantha on Sex In The City!
Hidden Hills is another that I watched for a few minutes - only needed to see a father and little girl in “Indian” costumes going to some trumped up “Girl Scout-ish” meeting…SO lame. All they needed was a trip to “Burger Barn” afterwards to complete the cliche.
I am actually looking forward to mid-season replacement, “My Big Fat Greek Family” - how’s that for a sad commentary on the state of sitcoms.
If you only watched a few minutes of Hidden Hills, you must have missed the part about the neighborhood Porn Mom, which was very funny and not cliche at all. I am going to watch this one again, I think it might have promise.
Let me rephrase:
Hack. Story lines sound ludicrous and cheesy, but David Morse, Andre Braugher, and George Dzundza are three of my favorite actors.
I unexpectedly watched Without a Trace last night, which certainly wasn’t bad. I didn’t really warm to any of the main cast, but the premise worked. The blond woman on the search team looks really familiar–any idea what she’s been in before?
That’s Poppy Montgomery…the only thing I know her from is the short-lived " Glory Days" from last season. I’m glad that she and Emily VanCamp have new shows since they brightened that rather silly show. She’s the only person on Without a Trace who is familiar to me besides Anthony LaPaglia- who is twice the man he was in Empire Records and Mixed Nuts. I barely recognized him in this and House of Mirth.