Total Number of Ratings: 6
Talk Amongst Ourselves: Early TV Season Surprises Fall 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009 5:24 PM
It's time for another intermittent installment of Talk Amongst Ourselves where I ask a question and you answer it!
The Question: What TV shows have surprised or disappointed you this Fall?
Why I'm Asking: I started with a big stack of shows at the beginning of this TV season. I even picked up a few extra that managed to pull me in with promos during other shows. I thought I had a pretty good read on my fall lineup. I thought I knew what was going to stick around and what was going to get ditched fairly quickly.
Two weeks into the new season and I've already had a few surprises.
Dollhouse completely stunned me with its season debut to the point that I've bumped the episodes I haven't seen to the top of my Netflix queue. In all that chatter about how full of Joss/BSG people the show was, nobody mentioned that Helo was one of the main characters. I suppose I should have known, but the "end" of Dollhouse and the start of BSG missed each other by almost 6 months or so at my house. I had no idea.
I tried to resist The Vampire Diaries, but I had to know how bad it truly was. It turns out it wasn't! This may not have happened if True Blood ran during the Fall, but the appeal of TVD is so great that even though my Thursdays are booked solid, I'm seeking it out online when my DVR runs dry mid-week.
Similarly, Eastwick has some serious flaws, but is intriguing and entertaining enough that it will probably get cancelled before I remove it from the lineup. I had expected it to be the first casualty, but like TVD, the story is just enough of a twist on the cliches I can't get enough of that I want to see where it goes.
In contrast, there's Bored to Death. It isn't doing it for me at all. I thought the ensemble would be enough to overshadow that thing about Jason Schwartzman that grates on me, but they aren't. At all. It bought itself a third episode by having Oliver Platt as a guest star, but unless something miraculous happens, it's going to be the first casualty.
Those are just the shows that defied my expectations. Mad Men just keeps getting better. FlashForward had the strongest pilot of anything I've seen in years. The two-hour season premiere of House was strong enough that it's back on the list after a 2ish year hiatus. As a result, How I Met Your Mother got squeezed out before it even started. Castle and Bones both benefited from a break and came out swinging. I'm not sure about Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, or even Gossip Girl, but sometimes not being on the elimination block is a win. Speaking of, I'm still enjoying Top Chef and Project Runway, even if they have to hang out until Monday to be viewed.
So what about you? For better and worse, what shows have thrown you in their first weeks this season?
I'm really enjoying Glee. I'm just so glad it exists. (But you're not off the hook for this Conor! I'm just too busy for a new show! Of course it appears I have plenty of time to post comments to Murmur and iFanboy.)
I watched the first episode of Community, and it was okay, funny, but I've found I don't have an overwhelming need to watch it, and thus I'm just not going to. The Office has a good chance of falling off my radar as well - mean its fine, but I don't have time for fine.
Heroes is gone from my list! I originally dropped it after the 1st season (just not strong enough), ignoring the show for the whole of the 2nd season, then for some reason I picked up the 2nd season DVDs from the library, caugh up just in time for the 3rd season to start, and watched the whole 3rd season. This show reminds me of a comic book which has been around for decades, and writer after writer has come in and "updated" or "re-imagined" the characters and situation and universe. I mean, this is the fourth season, and who are these people? It's kind of like, hey everything you know is wrong, again, and again, and again, and not in a good way. The X-Files was a show which did this sort of thing much better.
I watched Lie to Me last season, and it was okay, but again, it wasn't much beyond okay. I'll probably give it up.
I don't have cable, so Mad Men is a DVD experience for me. In fact, if it's not on Hulu, then I'm pretty much not going to see it.
So I guess I'm watching Glee with glee this season. (Oh, that pun just keeps getting better and better!)
Granted, I haven't watched all of the new shows yet (like FLASHFORWARD -- I'll get to it tomorrow!) but my vote for the Season Premiere That Was, Surprisingly Better Than Most Other Shows (try engraving that on a statue) was FRINGE. Man, that first episode was excellent.
One of the biggest early surprises for me was that Fox has announced they picked up GLEE for a full season. I'm really excited about this because I really wasn't expecting it to last passed the holidays.
It's certainly better than Heroes and more fun than House. For a country with such a health care mess, we sure love watching doctors on TV.
@fiver i think i'll be able to catch up with HIMYM during reruns, and things that my husband and I both want to watch take precedent over things only I'm interested in.
@conor apparently at&t u-verse will let me tivo up to 4 things at once, but despite being blocks away from a central office, my block doesn't "rate".
Community is an amazing show. It's only been two episodes but I haven't laughed hard at a live action comedy in a long time. Possibly because I am in a community college as of this post and it's so dead on what it's covering. It's also Chevy Chase's finest preformance in I don't know how long ago was his last good preformance.
Modern Family was also impressive although it isn't a gutbuster like Community. It has the tone of 'The Office' or just a very dry sense of humor. But I love the cast involved and the dad with the three children reminds me so much of my dad. It isn't the best so far, but it's a nice surprise to ABC.
Bored To Death is TOTALLY doing it for me. I think the writing is great, the dynamic with Scwartzman and Galifinakis is very funny and relatable at least to me. If you can't rock with hipsters, you can't rock with the show (not a hipster at all although im moving to Astoria, Queens - what's up Josh).
Glee certainly surprised me as far as me being able to stay on it. The moment in the last episode where Kurt comes out to his dad...you just don't see that on TV especially played out like it was. Also Curb Your Enthusiasm has had a great start and has potential to be legendary with the upcoming Seinfeld storyline.
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I have to be honest here, and admit something I really don't want to...
You know, I forgot to mention that The Colbert Report has been really slipping out of favor with me. For a short while now I'm felt more like this is something I make myself watch, instead of wanting to see it. I've always had difficulties with the one-man-band aspect of the show with the kind of character he has created. And rarely do I gain much from the interviews. I still eagerly jump to see new Daily Show episodes, but really Colbert is just becoming something I make myself view afterward.