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Fall 2011 Preview and Predictions: CBS

15 Sep

(In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13)

We’ll tackle CBS next, the ratings leaders behind their procedural powerhouses CSI and NCIS and unfortunate comedy stars Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory.  All their new shows start next week except for How to Be A Gentleman, which starts the week after.

2 Broke Girls – 9/19

No single preview has offended me more personally than that for 2 Broke Girls, in which Kat Dennings’s character makes a reference to Coldplay as a hipster band, amongst other things.  What Big Bang Theory does for nerds, it looks like 2 Broke Girls will do for hipsters.  Basically, it’s a show written to make fun of hipsters by people who don’t know what hipsters are, or it so it appears from the preview.  On top of that, I’ve disliked Kat Dennings since I saw Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last five years.

Verdict.  13+ – For some reason people claim to be liking this, and because it’s on CBS, every show might be renewed because people over the age of 50 just leave the TV on CBS and throw away their remotes, but boy I just can’t pick a show that looks this terrible to succeed in good conscience

How to Be a Gentlemen – 9/29

Ah!  Finally, a show that just looks really and truly terrible and has absolutely no reason to support it.  Wait – it actually has cast members who I kind of like?  David Hornsby, better known to me as Rickety Cricket from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia as the uptight Felix Unger roommate, and Kevin Dillon, or Johnny Drama from Entourage, as the crazy, slobbish, Oscar Madison roommate, along with Dave Foley, Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from 24) and Rhys Darby (Murray from Flight of the Conchords).  Cricket and Johnny Drama are roommates who are perfectly mismatched, have love-hate relationship, teach a little bit to each other, blah blah blah.

Verdict:  12- Boy, I like that cast, but boy that show sounds and looks terrible.

Person of Interest – 9/22

One of the more interesting sounding series of the new season, Person of Interest is something like Batman meets Minority Report.  Michael Emerson, otherwise known as the uber-creepy Ben Linus from Lost, is a reclusive billionaire who has developed a program which can predict information about violent crimes in the future, but with limited detail.  Linus hires an ex-CIA agent thought to be dead to do the legwork on stopping these crimes that his program picks up on.  Add all this to the fact it’s created by Jonathan Nolan, Chris’s younger brother, who co-wrote the screenplays to The Prestige and The Dark Knight and it sounds pretty promising.

Verdict:  Renewal – CBS is moving ratings giant CSI to get Person of Interest some viewers – if that’s not a sign of big-time network backing, then I don’t know what is.  On top of that, it apparently got legendary approval ratings for its pilot.

A Gifted Man – 9/23

Patrick Wilson is quite literally a man constantly bringing gifts to small children.  No, if only.  This is actually far more insane. Wilsonis a materialistic, selfish, scrooge-ish but extraordinarily talented surgeon working and dabbling amongst the upper crust exclusively.  That is, until his dead wife comes back in ghost form and starts trying to make him a better person, having him run the free clinic that she apparently ran before they died (how did they get along when they were both alive with such disparate interests?).  Oh, and Julie Benz (Rita from Dexter) plays his sister.

Verdict:  13+ – Jonathan Demme directed the pilot, which is probably good news, but this seems like it could get awful predictable awful fast.

Unforgettable – 9/20

Gimmicky procedurals are right in CBS’s wheelhouse, and Unforgettable fits right in with The Mentalist.  Unforgettable stars Poppy Montgomery as a woman with a rare medical condition, which means that she quite literally can not forget anything.  A former detective before the show begins, her former boyfriend and ex-partner (the same person) ask her to come back to help solve cases using her rare ability.  On top of that, we’ve got a long-term plot based on the only thing Miss Unforgettable can not remember:  The mysterious circumstances behind the murder of her sister!  Bum bum bum!

Verdict:  13+ – I’m sure it won’t be bad, but I have a hard time believing it will be that good either.  It just sounds so unbelievably generic.  On CBS, it’ll get viewers, but CBS expects more too, and one of these dramas has to not deliver

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Fall 2011 TV Review: Ringer

14 Sep

The first episode of Ringer was  a set up episode .  First we learn that Bridget Kelly is a small time criminal and drug addict who has agreed to testify against a big mob honcho in exchange for having the charges against her dropped.  She’s got a sponsor, and a cop, Nestor Carbonell who’s in charge of making sure she gets to court and protecting her from the mob.  Afraid of repercussions from the gangsters, she bails for New York where her identical twin sister Siobhan resides.  The twins haven’t seen each other in six years.

Siobhan appears glad to see her sister and the two bond and try to make up for lost time.  On a boat trip with just the two of them though (note: who else was enjoying watching how they kept fooling around with the camera angles to best shoot Gellar as both characters on the boat) Siobhan mysteriously disappears, and Bridget makes the split second decision to take Siobhan’s life for her own.  What’s the point of being twins if you can’t pass for the other for identity theft purposes anyway?

We the viewer and Bridget then go on to quickly learn that Siobhan’s life is not as perfect and simple as it seems.  Siobahn’s (but now Bridget) is married to Andrew, a businessmen, but sleeping with Henry, her best friend Gemma’s husband.  Gemma suspects someone is cheating, but hasn’t figured out that it’s Siobhan yet.  We also find out that Siobhan is pregnant, with either Andrew or Henry’s baby, but of course Bridget is not, a ticking time bomb of a secret bound to come out into the open eventually.

Oh, and at the end Bridget is attacked, pretending to be Siobhan, tries to convince the attacker that he has the wrong twin, shoots and kills the attacker after a brawl, and then finds out the attacker was going for Siobhan after all.  At the very end of the episode right after the fight we find out that Siobhan is alive and well in Paris and this is all part of some grand plan that we’re not privy to yet, but that something’s gone wrong on Siobhan’s end (maybe the attacker was supposed to kill Bridget as Siobhan?).

All and all, it was a decent start.  It’s hard to ask for too much out of these long convoluted mystery shows in just one episode, aside from a mood and some parameters, and I’m not sure we really have parameters at this point, but we definitely get some serious basic plot.  All we really know in the big picture is that both Bridget and Siobhan seem to have their share of problems.  It’s undoubtedly convoluted, but with no supernatural elements which I’m certainly thankful for.  Gellar is great, and I still think the premise is as intriguing as it was before I watched, which is a good thing.  I’m not yet sure what the percentage will be of soapy drama versus action/intrigue and I’m also not sure what percentage I’d prefer yet but I suppose it’ll take a couple episodes to figure out which direction it goes in and if that direction works.

Will I watch it again?  Yes – it’s sort of cheating to earn another episode on the strength of still not really knowing what’s going on, but it’s also unfair to ask everything to be explained in one episode.  It didn’t blow me away by any means, but I’m interested enough to at least continue a little further down the road.

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Fall 2011 Preview and Prediction: NBC

14 Sep

(In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13)

NBC is the only other network (aside from the CW) debuting shows this week so we’ll take them on second.  Up All Night and Free Agents start tonight, everything else in coming weeks.

Up All Night – 9/14

Failed sitcom all-stars Will Arnett (Running Wilde) and Christina Applegate (Samantha Who, though I’m being harsh since it somehow ran two seasons, as did the late ‘90s Jesse) unite as a couple having possibly hilarious difficulties managing their work and professional lives.  Maya Rudolph and Nick Cannon co-star.  Going for it is a modicum of positive buzz and the claim that Will Arnett has managed to tone down his Will Arnett character which he perfected in Arrested Development and honed as a recurring guest star in 30 Rock.  Going against is it is the fact that I still don’t have a ton of confidence in Arnett as a leading man and the previews didn’t look particularly funny.

Verdict:  13+ – they’re backing it too hard for anything less – it honestly has a good shot at renewal, and if it’s actually hilarious I’ll instantly want to change my opinion, but I’m maybe unfairly having trouble seeing it succeed

Free Agents – 9/14

Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn star as public relations employees who end up in bed together and struggle to maintain professionalism at the work place.  It’s based on a British show of the same name, and carries over Anthony Head as the cocky boss character, who has apparently taken the “Stewart” out of his name since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It also features Apatow-movie that guy and former The State member Joe Lo Truglio as a security guard.  Some people like it so far, but it’s going to need more than that to survive on what might be the wrong network for it.

Verdict:  12- – outside of The Office, I feel anecdotally at least that these British adaptations tend to struggle (Worst Week, Coupling, Life on Mars) and aside from me wanting to see Giles from Buffy back on TV, something’s got to go, and I don’t feel like the network has too much riding on this one

The Playboy Club – 9/19

One of two series set in the early ‘60s, inspired by the successful use of that time period in Mad Men, The Playboy Club seems the less interesting of the two (Pan Am on ABC being the other).  Starring Amber Heard as a new playboy bunny who enters the family, it promises as much sexploitation as you can get on network television.  That seems like about it, though.

Verdict: 12- – I’m probably being harsh, there’s enough network support to get it through midseason probably, but I just don’t have a lot of hope for it – if a series has to move on from the early ‘60s, I’m putting my money on Pan-Am

Whitney – 9/22

No series has gotten as much advertising push behind it for NBC, and no series has made a worse impression in my mind due to the constant terrible advertising.  From Whitney’s rant about how stupid we men are to wear jerseys even though we’re not on the field, we can relate to just how much Whitney doesn’t understand men, but in a comical and observational way.  Maybe I’m being harsh, but it looks bad and the buzz doesn’t sound a whole lot better.

Verdict:  13+ – Far too much press for it to fade away after only a couple of episodes, it looks to me like this year’s Outsourced – NBC will really, really try to make it work, but it just won’t – it’s a bad fit for the Thursday night block

Prime Suspect – 9/22

Mario Bello stars in this police procedural also at least loosely based on a British show of the same name which starred Helen Mirren.  I don’t really see the hook other than it’s a female cop in a bureau dominated by men and she’s full of attitude and vigor and whatnot.  Honestly, it looks pretty generic to me, but I’ve read a surprising amount of positive press and I really like Maria Bello, so I’m going to grant it some leeway, not every show need be innovative to be good.

Verdict:  Renewal – something on NBC has to get renewed before Smash comes around in February, and hey, police procedurals seem to be working out pretty well for CBS

Grimm – 10/21

As The Playboy Club is one of two new series set in the early ‘60s, Grimm is one of two new dramas dealing with fairly tales (Once Upon A Time on ABC the other).  The main character is an Oregon homicide detective who learns that he is descended from a long line of “Grimms” or hunters whose mission is to keep humanity safe from supernatural fairy tale baddies which came through stories to inhabit our world.  Wikipedia describes it as a “fantasy/mystery/crime drama.”

Verdict:  13+ – I really wanted to use the line that it’s chances for survival are Grimm, but this is probably the NBC show I have the least basis for taking a stab at, I have absolutely no idea what to expect, which leads me take the easy way out and guess in the middle

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Fall 2011 Preview and Predictions: The CW

13 Sep

For most people, it’s spring that breaks the long winter, but even though television has become much more of an every season affair than ever before, it’s still fall that is the most exciting time for hardcore TV fans.  As the temperatures drop to cool and comfortable levels, all throughout New York City (and across America, I assume) posters advertising new series adorn every bus, bus stop, and subway interior.  We are excited as anyone else and will start our Fall 2011 festivities with an overview of all the new network shows debuting this fall.

In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13

CW is one of two networks debuting shows this week, and has the first debut with Ringer tonight (The Secret Circle debuts on Thursday as well) so we’ll start with them.  It’s just those two shows and Hart of Dixie which debuts on Monday in a couple of weeks.

Ringer – 9/13

 

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays twin sisters, one of whom is on the run from the mob in this mysterious drama, which I think may actually my most anticipated new show of the season.  The sisters have been out of each other’s lives for years, but as the one is on the run their lives become entwined again.  It sounds convoluted, but hopefully convoluted in a good way – TV has dropped the bomb on most of the big attempts at convoluted mystery series in recent years, spawned by Lost, including The Event and Flashforward amongst others.  I’ve missed Gellar since the days of Buffy, and I’ve read  a fair amount of good buzz, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Verdict:  Renewal – I may be being hopeful, but I feel like CW doesn’t expect the type of ratings other networks do and might give the show some leeway, that is if the plot and ratings don’t both spiral out of control.

The Secret Circle – 9/15

 

Based on a series of books by the same author as the Vampire Diaries, the series sounds pretty much Vampire Diaries for witches (Witch Diaries?).  A teenager learns that she is from a family of witches, unraveling lots of family secrets along the way, some good, and some bad, and some helping her solve the mystery of her mother’s recent death.  She joins the title circle at some point, a group of six family witches.

Verdict:  Renewal – the perfect show on the right network for the right time slot, unless it’s out and out terrible, it’s been set up to succeed.

Hart of Dixie – 9/26

From the Saving Grace school of title creation, Hart is Dr. Zoe Hart, portrayed by Rachel Bilson, a big New York doctor who moves down to small-town Alabama for a job.  Co-created by Josh Schwartz, of The O.C. and Gossip Girl fame (who made Bilson a star to begin with in The O.C.), the show has some pedigree and will be getting the solid Gossip Girl lead in, creating a Josh Schwartz block.  The show also co-stars Scott Porter, best known as Jason Street in Friday Night Lighs which gives it some points.  That said, it really doesn’t sound incredibly appealing.

Verdict:  13+ – I think it’s more likely to get renewed than to get cancelled fast, but not everything can make it, and I’m not sure if it will be able to generate an audience.  It just seems so bland.

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