Fall TV Line-Up
I recall just a couple of weeks ago I was so looking forward to the return of some real TV for a change. I know there are some decent things on some of the cable/satellite shows during the summer, but most of those that are good are generally far and few in between. Of course the big thing I was looking forward to is my normal three or four standbys, but there were more than a couple of new series that had my interest. That lasted for about the first commercial break on of them, though a couple of them pretty much lost me after about five minutes…
Okay, I will admit that the last few years I have watched a bit more television that some past years. An aside, several years in there with horse board, medieval stuff, and a full-time job I did not even have a television. That being said I had thought at some point I should really scale back the amount of the boob tube that I watch to let me get a little bit more done of those things that really matter. I followed that thought up with something like, yeah, I will do that right after the new season starts to wind down or at least starts into the repeats.
Looking down the new season, it was fairly easy for me to cull more than a few right from the get go. Whitney was one such show, which for the most part had previews commercials that just looked dumb. Another was the cop show with Maria Bello. I really do not care for her as an actress and trying to pull off the light weight petite woman as the tough ‘guy’ role just does not work. Several old standbys had gotten kicked to the curb last year – the CSI guys of New York were just getting weak and before they went stupid like the Miami version. The regular CSI, yeah, I have hung it out despite to Grisam, but I am about to be done with it – the characters and writing is just not what it was and I can only take so much of trampling on science the way they do. Similarly, though I was at best a casual watcher of Gray’s anatomy, that one lost me last season as well.
Of new shows out there, and kind of new giving the big changes, I was willing to give Two and Half Men a shot, Two Broke Girls, Up All Night and New Girl. I was also going to give chance to Person of Interest and the one with the former Buffy star playing twin sisters, mostly because my wife was interested in them. In addition, my favorites of How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory were definitely on the watch list.
That seems a little bit like a big list of shows to watch and would have likely kept something from getting done. Thankfully, the networks have, in my opinion at least, failed miserably. Both girl shows just got really dumb by the midpoint in the second episode, actually before that, I was just given them a chance. The one got so dumb I turned it off during the show and erased both my programmed DVR settings. I was disappointed that the baby show with Christina Applegate, which I was really looking forward to, did pretty much the exact same thing for me.
Men is still funny in that odd sort of way, even with the switch out of Sheen, but it is not as funny. I have not put my finger on it, but I think the two characters are two much alike – just not sure. I may watch another episode or two, but I am thinking of dropping it off the DVR programming as well. The Buffy show, well, I can not remember the name of it, so that should give you an idea of just what I think of that one. It was way too predictable and seemed like a plot that was just forced a bit two much – but the wife is watching it.
So, I am pretty much at two shows from last season and the one standout of the new season, Person of Interest. I am not sure why this one seems to have caught my interest other than the computer tie in and the fact that I do really like Caviezel. I am not sure I would continue to watch it if my wife was not also interested in it, but it seems to be to me the one show that stands out of the new season. So, like I said, my heart-felt thanks to the networks for limiting my time with the tube.
Of course, just today I did flip back and forth most of the afternoon with different football – but that is usually only about half of my interest – the other half doing some computer work. I was glad to see the release over on PBS tonight of the first of three parts of the Ken Burns production about prohibition by that name. Of course there are a couple of others show from PBS I record and watch most of the time. Go figure that higher quality more likely to be educational in nature shows are the ones that really get my interest. Then again, you can not really go wrong with Ken Burns and PBS either, can you?
