- I have to face it, I'm just not that into Prison Break. It's a fairly entertaining show, I suppose, but the whole storyline of Michael returning to prison forced me to face the fact that I actually don't care about what happens to him. (Caring is crucial to me. Once I become even slightly invested in a show, I have to follow it through despite terrible writing or acting. My inability to tear my eyes away from utter trainwrecks has lead me to watch every episode of Studio 60, October Road and The Best Years, of none of which I am proud.) I'm not too broken up about leaving Prison Break, as it frees up some of my Monday for...
- NBC. I think NBC may be on some kind of roll with quality shows. Their lineup of new shows for the fall isn't entirely mind-blowing, but it is pretty solid. (NBC's online player has gotten much better, also, which works in their favor. One of the most frustrating things early last year was trying to get into Friday Night Lights with NBC's patchy player.) Chuck seems cute and strikes a pretty good balance of espionage and humor - kind of like what Alias might have been had it been a show about Marshall. I wasn't really planning on watching Journeyman or Life, but procrastination and online availability won out and both outperformed my somewhat low pre-season expectations. I don't think I'll become particularly attached to either, but they seem pleasant enough for the time being - no egregiously bad writing or acting. Bionic Woman was a bit meh - some critics I've read seem to think that Michelle Ryan doesn't have enough fire, and I think that's true. I'll stick with it, at least for a little while, as a Battlestar Galactica fan who loves Katee Sackhoff's sassy way of delivering cheesy lines.
- I'm excited about my Wednesday nights, as I think that I may now have some kind of "trashy rich people being awesome" block going. As an unabashed lover of primetime soaps, (I own DVDs of Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place) I had high hopes that Gossip Girl and Dirty Sexy Money would honor the memory of the late, great Aaron Spelling. I was not disappointed. Gossip Girl makes me truly happy in a way that only a really sharp, well-executed book-to-screen representation can. Dirty Sexy Money seems to have a great cast, and I wanted to watch the pilot again right after it ended. Hopefully, both do well enough ratings-wise to stick around and make my Wednesdays awesome.
- The rest of ABC's new dramas leave something to be desired. Private Practice is one big meh. I don't think that the substitution of Audra McDonald for Merrin Dungey was a good thing, and the sing-song dialogue of Shonda Rhimes is really starting to get on my nerves. No matter how many times I try to wrap my head around it, I just can't understand how we got from the stellar Season 2 ender for Grey's Anatomy to uncalled-for character assassination on that show and this lukewarm spinoff. Their other new drama (besides Pushing Daisies, which premieres next week) is Big Shots, which has a premise that doesn't give viewers much to sympathize with, character wise, and has some really terrible dialogue. I went back and forth with myself about whether my love of Michael Vartan (from Alias) extended far enough to include Big Shots. I don't believe that it does. However, I'm not quite ready to give up on it for a few reasons. One, I'm intrigued by Nia Long's character (actually, I wish that there was a show about a character like that instead of this one. The travails of a black female executive seem like they would be much deeper than the superficial problems that are the focus of the show.) Two, Rob Thomas from Veronica Mars is allegedly coming in to revamp scripts and make the show better, which gives me hope that it might one day suck much, much less.
Ahhh, the new fall season. I already can't wait for November sweeps.
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