Friday, September 26, 2008

TV season start up week

Many of the TV shows premiered this week and there's a noticeable lack of new shows so far. The returning shows were split in their quality. How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, House, and Grey's Anatomy all returned with excellent premieres. Good fun, excellent stories, and continued quality. Two and a half men, CSI: Miami, and Ugly Betty were all disappointing. Bones started out really disappointing (the whole British story was dumb) but has really picked up . And there have been two new shows that have good pilots and have promising plots - Fringe and The Mentalist. Fringe I already wrote about, and it's gotten better since. It's definitely the worthy successor to The X-files, but it's funnier and by being a little silly is easier to believe their unbelievable stories. The other new show, The Mentalist is a drama, the story of a former fake psychic (like Psych) who goes to work for the cops after a serial killer takes his family for using him as a publicity stunt. Our cop (Something New's Simon Baker) can look at all the things in a family's house and figure out who killed the victim. He's funny, irreverent, and almost the cliche for cop dramas, but still pretty good. Robin Tunney also adds a little bit of the straight man to his loose cannon. We'll keep watching for a bit. Haven't seen Heroes yet, but I'm very hopeful.

Addendum: Oh yeah, I also watched and loved The Office and ER (yes, I'm still watching - I took a break for about 6 years, but I've been watching for a few seasons now). Both had really terrific season openers. Surprising, satisfying, and made me cry.

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5 comments:

Cat said...

I hated the Bones premiere, so I'm glad to hear it's picked up since then. Maybe P. and I will catch up online. I still haven't seen the Grey's premiere, and I haven't in the past watched HIMYM live, but since I am actually caught up this year, maybe I will. When does it air? Grey's is going to be my guilty pleasure study break later in the day. That show just makes me feel good. I'm sad to hear that Ugly Betty was disappointing, though unsurprised since the writers' strike really hurt its last season, I thought. Can you say without too many spoilers what made UB lame this time out?

Jess said...

How I Met your Mother is on Mondays at 830 (they move it around with Big Bang Theory, so either 8 or 830).

Ugly Betty was just sort of sad. Betty returned from the summer (wont' say where she went) with all these plans and we just watched everyone crap on them, and it was just painful (some in the embarrassing way of Ugly Betty, and some in the mean way). However, Lindsay Lohan's premiere was actually good. She's not a terrible actress. Hope that helps.

I can gush some more about Grey's. Many shows really don't need a 2-hour premiere (cough, Bones, cough). But Grey's really did a good job of not being boring or just over the top. Plus, the guest stars were terrific. Hooray for Bernadette Peters!!

Rachel said...

JAM forever! I was so happy when he proposed. I thought it would take at least half the season before he'd do it.

Jess said...

YES! I was soo surprised they finally got that going properly. I'm glad they didn't wait forever.

Cat said...

I'm still scared they will screw it up. Got to keep their Ross and Rachel apart somehow! (bah_