Kimputer's Weblog

With all the new series reviewed, it’s time to get back to the regulars. And why not begin with the Nielsen ratings king, and well deservedly so. Still at the top every week, with some 10 point ratings and a 25 share, there’s no question about it.
Since last season’s finale (probably everyone’s favorite to this date), Tarantino’s legacy lives on. His fabulous setup, with some dark personal drama, carries over to this season, with some nice storylines branching off naturally (mostly forgotten during the previous season, not living up to its full potential).
And when you think with all the goodies going on, that it’s about to wind it down a bit, you’ll get served another movie-quality-like two-parter, nicely scheduled during the sweeps. Best season yet ? Probably (though last season’s finale will always linger in the back of your head, making you think season 5 could be the best).

Two months after the US network TV premiere, I finally got a solid schedule hammered out. I thought it was time to let you know, as I scratched my head when I saw some 50 files (some 15 GB of data) sitting in the Still To Watch folder (excluding the few movies still to go). So, if you’re also on a tight schedule, you’d better follow suit.

MUST-SEE:
CSI (season 4)
Alias (season 5)
Smallville (season 5)
Prison Break (season 1)
Lost (season 2)
South Park (second half of season 9)
Threshold (season 1)
King of the Hill (season 10)
My Name is Earl (season 1)
Commander in Chief (season 1)
Everybody Hates Chris (season 1)
Boston Legal (season 2)

The pretty good:
Everwood (season 3)
Kitchen Confidential (season 1)
Criminal Minds (season 1)
Grey’s Anatomy (season 2)
E-Ring (season 1)
Punk’d (season 6)

Was good, now on repeat-the-same-thing-one-more-time-and-I’m-going-to-axe-you-bench:
NCIS (season 3)
Joey (season2)
Numb3rs (season 2)
Ghost Whisperer (season 1)
Close to Home (season 1)

Late Nighters:
The Colbert Report (very regularly)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night Show with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (less regularly)
Late Show With David Letterman (almost never)

Canceled/Never had a chance:
Freddie, Out of Practice, The War at Home, Invasion, Surface, Just Legal, Head Cases, Killer Instinct, Supernatural, Reunion, Bones.

Weeew, you can see how tough life was 5 years ago (slow internet, no TV eps to download). Now, I pretty much have to dream of snow (the analog noise kind) when I sleep at night.

Literally a Daily Show spin-off (airing right behind it on the Comedy Central, and also produced by Jon Stewart), it’s Stephen Colbert on his own. While a bit in the background on the Daily Show, he made an impression (for instance, This Week in God segments), and a new half-hour show is just what he needs to fill his ego.
While Jon Stewart on the Daily Show can crack a smile on a regular basis, Colbert is downright hilarious. Following a bit on the same line with following current news stories and meshing in a bit of politics, Colbert’s fast paced own opinions and comments keeps it fresh and crackling with energy.
Interviews, just like the Daily Show don’t revolve around Hollywood actors, but lean more towards journalists and writers. And again, with the sharp tongue that he has, the interviews are never what you expect it to be.
With new segments being invented every day, and the quality it has proven over the week, this is one to watch daily, even more so than the more traditional shows like Jay, David and Conan.

Or rather, half an hour, as the new comedies I’m reviewing here are. They will be ordered according to quality (first one is the highest).

My Name is Earl (NBC): The freshest comedy of the new bunch. Starring Jason Lee as a recent karma believer, trying to do good with the rest of his life (with a $100.000 lottery winning backing him up). Following a (long) list he made of all the wrongs he wants to undo, it’s fast paced, with usually one mission per episode. This of course provides a fresh new episode every week, and that makes it a keeper for now.

Everybody Hates Chris (UPN): Superb opening on the somewhat limited UPN network, and the pilot deserved it (including record numbers for the network). Starring Tyler Williams as young Chris Rock, we get to see what his life was about during his high school years. Narrated by Chris Rock himself, the first episode was witty and sometimes sharp. Following episodes were a bit milder though (and a bit more predictable). The setting (usually at home or at school) offers little variation, so the future looks a bit grim. We’ll have to wait and see how they’ll keep the stories interesting and funny.

Kitchen Confidential (Fox): As the title suggests, mostly kitchen stuff. Headed by Bradley Cooper, who has a convincing track record in drama (Alias and Jack & Bobby). Comedy isn’t a feat he can’t handle convincingly either, having proven to be able to play characters convincingly and differently without breaking a sweat. There might be a slight chance the restaurant business might be a limiting factor, but for now, the acting and character development is enough to keep it served warm.

And now it goes downhill. Here we have the typical sit-coms with studio filming and live audience with a laugh track as added bonus.

Freddie (ABC): Geared towards the youngsters, it’s about Freddie (Prinze Jr.) and his friend (Brian Austin Green) living pretty much an easy life (with money pouring in from the shower or something, considering it looks like they don’t work), and being single, the main subject will be hunting women. Not very original, but since it just started, I’ll give it a few more tries.

Out of Practice (CBS): Family oriented sit-com, with divorced parents (Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing) and their 3 grown up children all following in their medical footsteps (we won’t see any hospital scenes or something though). Usually at home or in the restaurant, they miraculously keep meeting each other (even though they all live on their own), all the way up to abnormality. It’s not that original (cliche story lines), and it’s pretty inconsistent (personality changes when the scripts warrants it). Delivering non-funny lines after which a roaring laugh track takes over is pretty annoying too. Stockard Channing’s facelifts make her look like a clown, and since it’s her sole expression, it looks like she’s always laughing at her own jokes (and think of how the “drama” scenes play out with that concrete smile on her face).

The War at Home (Fox): This one, I’d wouldn’t even have greenlit for production, on such a poor pilot script. Using the audience talk technique, it’s another family-based sitcom, that looks like sketches stitched together. Poor unhilarious dialogue (and again, the always present laugh track) makes your toes curl. Really makes me feel sorry for Michael Rapaport (pretty good drama actor, but funny according to a sloppy script he’s not).

And the third sci-fi invasion type series to premiere this season on ABC (along with NBC’s Surface and CBS’s Threshold), and it’s clear CBS is the winner of this round. This one is slow, slow and oh wait, very slow. Pretty much nothing happens, so you might think there’s enough time for character development or deepening the story. No such luck. Maybe the message is, when THEY finally come, they will bore us to death. Now, that’s a scary thought.

With NBC’s The West Wing in ratings crisis, ABC saw an opportunity for another to hit back with a female version of it. Starring Geena Davis as the President (also co-exec producer) it has all the elements you’d expect. Expectations created by her being the first female President, the dubious rising to the spot as an independent and family matters for extra complications. Nicely dividing familial drama with tough political warfare between the various factions (Democrats, Republicans, press, backstabbing Senators and Governors) while the internal workings of the White House are trying to settle to the new situation (school, security, chief of staff, press secretary). It’s definitely a crowded show, but with a keen sense of focus, it delivers fine drama and suspense.

CBS is still THE network to plant a new crime series, and this year, there’s another bunch coming in. Criminal Minds is a series focused on the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, so pretty much another Profiler like show. Compared to Fox’s offerings of lately (The Inside, Killer Instinct), this one definitely has the upper hand. Decent actors and decent storylines combined with decent psych profiles (though sometimes it’s still a bit predictable). It’s not really must-see (they’d have to improve the character design and interaction for that) and , but it’s not a bad time killer either.

It’s been done several times in the past years. First was Haunted on the UPN (axed after only a few episodes) and Tru Calling (canceled after one season) on Fox. Ghosts of dead people, whom only the star of the show. Then comes the crime solving part, followed by a confrontation of the non-believer. Then all ends well, including the proving part (telling something only the dead person would know) where the unbeliever becomes a believer.
So too does this one follow the same steps. It makes it a pretty mildly entertaining show, mostly due to the inevitable predictability. While the show doesn’t focus on crime, but more on closure, it hence has more opportunity for mushy tear jerking scenes. But with no special twists (like Tru Calling had with the time jump) and no real character development (save for some flashbacks) to be seen, it’s a whisper that might well be lost in a crowded schedule. For now, I’ll hang on (at least Jennifer Love Hewitt isn’t a pain to the eyes), since a few shows got canceled already, but come mid-season replacements, who knows.

Not to worry that Jerry Bruckheimer has a failed series over at the WB, as there’s another new one at NBC. One half is fast paced action, and the other half is top army decision making. Starring Dennis Hopper and Benjamin Bratt as a colonel and major in the Pentagon, it’s a mission based series, with only a very tiny bit of character development involved. For now, it seems there’s enough story material to keep the steam running for a few more episodes, but I already see a future danger looming where story and dialogue will repeat itself.

And another one goes down. Airing on the WB, this Jerry Bruckheimer production got the axe with one episode more under its belt than the similarly canceled Head Cases over at Fox. Also similar as in a strange pairing of two lawyers of different character. Pairing an aging (and expanding down under) Don Johnson with the geeky Jay Baruchel (Million Dollar Baby) is a risky choice, considering this falls out of the WB’s youngster target. Story-wise, it was an okay choice. Decent acting, decent stories, and a tiny bit of character development. You’d think that with the competition out of the way (only in a figuratively way, as it aired on another night), they’d give this lowly watched series a little bit more time to settle. Combine it with the fact the slot will be taken over by unregular scheduled programming, and you wonder what’s going on.

After Fox yanked The Inside from their summer schedule (which underperformed due to their own lack of pushing), they quickly replaced it with another procedural series, with almost the same outline.
This time the fancy name in question is Deviant Crime Unit, which basically uses the same CSI methods combined with basic profiling.
Cast has shrunk in size, with only 3 principal characters, but the depth seems to have shrunk with it. The lead star is one of the most stiff and unconvincing character currently on air, so that fact alone makes it unnecessary to have a killer instinct to kill off this show.

NBC’s take on sci-fi, with a sea monster as the starring role. Story is chaotically divided over multiple not interesting characters, with no real means to propel the story anywhere but the obvious. There’s no mystery, there’s no depth. There ARE loads of boring dialogue, there ARE loads of monster cliches, and there’s even MORE flaky special effects scenes.
This is going nowhere. Stay down, Nessie, you’re just not that interesting.

WB’s attempt at another high profile series, and therefore they attracted so called “talent” McG for this “supernatural” show. Starring Jensen Ackles (fresh off another WB’s show, Smallville) and Jared Padelecki (fresh off movies like House of Wax and Flight of the Phoenix) as brothers who lost their mother 22 years ago to what probably is a demon. Now they’re trying to find their father, and for now they won’t advance in that search very much, making the perfect excuse for a “monster (usually demons or wraiths or ghosts) of the week” formula. Added are also chick of the week, lie (“Hi, we’re from the FBI”) of the week, and small town (preferably with dark woods or scary lake) of the week. This of course will lead to a shallow series, with no depth or substance to pull you back.
The stars are obviously there to function girl magnet, while the chick of the week provides viewing pleasure for the young male demographics. Both of which I do not belong to. Guess that’s a goodbye for me.

Usually, I try not to judge too quickly and wait for reviewing after a few episodes. Fox however, only needs the ratings, and hence, the first axe has swung already after 2 episodes. It’s tough, being a new legal drama with so many already airing. It’s even tougher when there’s another new one with the same outline (two very different characters teaming up, see Just Legal on the WB).
This show has the sympathetic panic attack prone Chris O’Donnell teaming with the hot head Adam Goldberg. There’s a little bit of drama, and a little bit of comedy. And the writing is solid, though not too daring. Maybe there could be an overkill, but Fox’s next decision was to put back a reality show, without giving this one (it has six finished episodes) a chance. And that’s just too bad, because I’d rather have mild entertainment, than no entertainment at all.

Both TNT shows finish just in time to avoid the busy network schedule, and the timing is quite impeccable. Truth is, both show probably wouldn’t survive my schedule (probably 3 hours of network TV according to my pre-schedule). With The Closer winning over Wanted, both show miss that little bit of extra to make it special. If the next seasons start in the summer again (with network TV down on its ass), I just might watch it. Then again, maybe I’ve forgotten all about it.