Fall tee-vee
I think the season finale of Saturday's Hell on Wheels* marked the end of all the summer series** I was keeping up with this year. Now it's all returning fall faves and seeing which new fall series may become new faves.
*I say season finale and I hope that's what that last episode was, because it was an odd choice for a series finale. The writers put in a lot of effort setting up a new direction for the show to take if they get a fourth season. But if they don't, it's not going to be a satisfying finale.
OTOH, it was better than the way The Glades, Copper, and The Killing all ended on huge cliffhangers, only to be canceled. Waaaah! And there still hasn't been official word about Longmire, which would be another unsatisfying finale if it doesn't get a third season. Fingers and toes crossed!
**And technically Strike Back’s third season started airing in August, but goes to the end of the month, then it picks up with the six-part prequel, Strike Back Origins starring Richard Armitage and Andrew Lincoln. I’m so there! I got into this show thanks to this pimp post by agt-spooky, and proceeded to mainline 2-1/2 seasons in two weeks, thanks to the magic of on-demand. Now I’m up to date and watching real time.
So far my hands down favorite new fall series is Sleepy Hollow on FOX. The relationship between Ichabod Crane and Abbie Mills is charming and adorable with so much natural chemistry that made everything else about the show instantly fall into place. Orlando Jones's Captain "Irving" (see what they did there?) holds a lot of unspoken promise, and Abbie's sister Jenny has a very obvious part to play too in the apocalypse to come. It's also fun the way they play with historical events and characters to tie them into what's happening in the present - like in last night's episode, with Crane’s “Destruction of the tea” becoming the “Boston Tea Party”. *snerk* ;)
FOX has already renewed this show for a second 13-episode season (yippee!), which means the first season is also only 13 episodes. Apparently FOX is attempting to change some (or eventually all?) of it’s programming strategy to mirror the cable networks with shorter seasons. This may be the beginning of the big four networks' future, particularly if they want to compete with the better programming on cable anyway that has been kicking their asses for years.
ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a lot to live up to, and while I do sort of like it, I certainly don’t love it yet. I think it needs some tweaking and Joss Whedon’s more hands-on approach - hopefully once he gets done with his movie commitments. But I think it has potential, and I’m willing to give it a longer leash than most series. And I already like it a lot more than Dollhouse, which is the only Whedon project that was a total dud with me.
The Originals which airs opposite S.H.I.E.L.D. at 8 pm is another one I’ll give a little more leeway to because of The Vampire Diaries, which I’m still watching. But the spin-off is going to have to try a lot harder to make a more definitive mark, and the official premiere episode that aired Thursday after TVD was a flop in that respect, being simply an extension of the backdoor pilot that aired last year. I’ll give it a few more episodes.
If it wasn’t for James Spader, I don’t think NBC’s The Blacklist would connect with me. I don’t really care about any of the characters other than Spader’s Reddington, even Elizabeth and her possibly nefarious hubby problems. And when Spader isn’t on screen, I find my interest waning. I also don’t think there’s much mystery as to why Reddington is interested in Elizabeth. At least, it seems super obvious to me. So this has become one of those shows I put on as background noise while I read. Not totally into it, not “must see”, but it’s watchable if nothing else is on - but, again, primarily for James Spader.
Last night The Spousal Unit and I finally caught up on Showtime’s newest series, Masters of Sex, and the second episode rather than the first convinced us to keep up with it, though naturally I can see it’s a lot more melodramatic than the actual facts. We did a google search to see what the relationship between the real Masters and Johnson was and/or became. But, quite honestly, if it wasn’t for the character of Virginia Johnson, we might give the series a pass, because William Masters is kind of an asshole, psychologically abusive of his wife, and the way he’s portrayed in the series, has so many sexual hang-ups that his “study” looks more like a chance for him to feed his own fetishes than the pure science Johnson believes it to be.
But, hey, it’s certainly better than the hot mess that Dexter was the last three seasons. That show began slipping fast after the first four seasons, obviously losing all its really good writers. And the series finale was just awful. So pretty much anything Showtime puts on in its place now looks golden.
The new fall series that I tried once or twice, but gave thumbs down to include:
ABC: The Goldbergs, Trophy Wife, and Super Fun Night, though The Goldbergs is actually cute enough for background noise, but I’ll have other things to catch up with when it’s airing, so not cute enough to go out of my way to watch.
CBS: Hostages and The Crazy Ones.
NBC: The Michael J. Fox Show and Ironside.
FOX: Dads (but only because it came on before Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I want B99 to be better, and I think it’s getting there, so I am still trying to catch this comedy on-demand or off the dvr each week, but it hasn’t become something I feel like I have to keep up with yet.***
***I watch a handful of comedies fairly regularly (The Big Bang Theory, Parks and Recreation, The Middle, Modern Family, and The Neighbors) but I don’t list them in the “must see” column because half-hour comedies don’t command the same sense of my viewer loyalty that hour-long dramas do. They always get bumped to dvr or on-demand viewing in lieu of any hour-long program airing opposite them.
New series that I want to try that haven’t premiered yet include:
ABC: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (even though I’ve lost interest in the mothership, which has become “background noise to read by”)
CW: The Tomorrow People
FOX: Almost Human
NBC: Dracula (I think Jonathan Rhys Meyers will easily make a far more convincing Dracula than he did a Henry VIII)
And I know there are probably a couple of new cable series that I've forgotten about that I wanted to try. I'll mention them as they air.
Last season the only new network shows that made my "must see" list were the CW's Arrow, which has become my favorite CW show. I'm interested to see how The Tomorrow People pairs with it. ABC's comedy The Neighbors which TSU and I thought would be so stupid, and ended up being so utterly charming and heart-warming. We were pleased it got a second season, even airing on Friday, but the ratings are still not there, and it's not likely to be renewed again. So we'll just enjoy what we get.
The only other new network series that TSU and I both absolutely LOVED aired late spring/summer, and that was NBC's Hannibal, which was so psychologically dark and artistically brilliant that we were shocked it aired on any regular network, much less NBC, and even more shocked that NBC gave it a second season limited-episode run. This is really the kind of show that should have been picked up by one of the pay-cable networks, and I applaud NBC for sticking with quality over Nielsen quantity for once. Though I think what really helped get Hannibal a second season was the way the show exploded on social media.
I think the brilliance of Hannibal is another reason The Blacklist pales in comparison with me.
I wasn't as immediately charmed by Elementary as I wanted to be last year, but I finally caught up at the end of the season and over the summer, and added it to my "must see" list this season.
The Spousal Unit and I saw Gravity on Sunday, in good old fashioned 2-D, because, as I’ve said before, it’s not worth the price of an IMAX or 3-D ticket for me to spend the movie throwing up in the bathroom. TSU wants to go back and see the flick in 3-D with The Boy, and if I could hack it, I have to agree it’s a very cool movie to see in 3-D. But it was pretty excellent in 2-D as well.
Other movies we’ve seen recently since the last movie I posted that I’d seen, which was World War Z, include Pacific Rim, Elysium, The World’s End, and Rush - all flicks we enjoyed a lot. So we managed to see every movie we wanted to see this summer and so far this fall. The only movie that was originally on our list that we passed on was The Lone Ranger. The reviews were atrocious, and I believe with very good reason.
*I say season finale and I hope that's what that last episode was, because it was an odd choice for a series finale. The writers put in a lot of effort setting up a new direction for the show to take if they get a fourth season. But if they don't, it's not going to be a satisfying finale.
OTOH, it was better than the way The Glades, Copper, and The Killing all ended on huge cliffhangers, only to be canceled. Waaaah! And there still hasn't been official word about Longmire, which would be another unsatisfying finale if it doesn't get a third season. Fingers and toes crossed!
**And technically Strike Back’s third season started airing in August, but goes to the end of the month, then it picks up with the six-part prequel, Strike Back Origins starring Richard Armitage and Andrew Lincoln. I’m so there! I got into this show thanks to this pimp post by agt-spooky, and proceeded to mainline 2-1/2 seasons in two weeks, thanks to the magic of on-demand. Now I’m up to date and watching real time.
So far my hands down favorite new fall series is Sleepy Hollow on FOX. The relationship between Ichabod Crane and Abbie Mills is charming and adorable with so much natural chemistry that made everything else about the show instantly fall into place. Orlando Jones's Captain "Irving" (see what they did there?) holds a lot of unspoken promise, and Abbie's sister Jenny has a very obvious part to play too in the apocalypse to come. It's also fun the way they play with historical events and characters to tie them into what's happening in the present - like in last night's episode, with Crane’s “Destruction of the tea” becoming the “Boston Tea Party”. *snerk* ;)
FOX has already renewed this show for a second 13-episode season (yippee!), which means the first season is also only 13 episodes. Apparently FOX is attempting to change some (or eventually all?) of it’s programming strategy to mirror the cable networks with shorter seasons. This may be the beginning of the big four networks' future, particularly if they want to compete with the better programming on cable anyway that has been kicking their asses for years.
ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a lot to live up to, and while I do sort of like it, I certainly don’t love it yet. I think it needs some tweaking and Joss Whedon’s more hands-on approach - hopefully once he gets done with his movie commitments. But I think it has potential, and I’m willing to give it a longer leash than most series. And I already like it a lot more than Dollhouse, which is the only Whedon project that was a total dud with me.
The Originals which airs opposite S.H.I.E.L.D. at 8 pm is another one I’ll give a little more leeway to because of The Vampire Diaries, which I’m still watching. But the spin-off is going to have to try a lot harder to make a more definitive mark, and the official premiere episode that aired Thursday after TVD was a flop in that respect, being simply an extension of the backdoor pilot that aired last year. I’ll give it a few more episodes.
If it wasn’t for James Spader, I don’t think NBC’s The Blacklist would connect with me. I don’t really care about any of the characters other than Spader’s Reddington, even Elizabeth and her possibly nefarious hubby problems. And when Spader isn’t on screen, I find my interest waning. I also don’t think there’s much mystery as to why Reddington is interested in Elizabeth. At least, it seems super obvious to me. So this has become one of those shows I put on as background noise while I read. Not totally into it, not “must see”, but it’s watchable if nothing else is on - but, again, primarily for James Spader.
Last night The Spousal Unit and I finally caught up on Showtime’s newest series, Masters of Sex, and the second episode rather than the first convinced us to keep up with it, though naturally I can see it’s a lot more melodramatic than the actual facts. We did a google search to see what the relationship between the real Masters and Johnson was and/or became. But, quite honestly, if it wasn’t for the character of Virginia Johnson, we might give the series a pass, because William Masters is kind of an asshole, psychologically abusive of his wife, and the way he’s portrayed in the series, has so many sexual hang-ups that his “study” looks more like a chance for him to feed his own fetishes than the pure science Johnson believes it to be.
But, hey, it’s certainly better than the hot mess that Dexter was the last three seasons. That show began slipping fast after the first four seasons, obviously losing all its really good writers. And the series finale was just awful. So pretty much anything Showtime puts on in its place now looks golden.
The new fall series that I tried once or twice, but gave thumbs down to include:
ABC: The Goldbergs, Trophy Wife, and Super Fun Night, though The Goldbergs is actually cute enough for background noise, but I’ll have other things to catch up with when it’s airing, so not cute enough to go out of my way to watch.
CBS: Hostages and The Crazy Ones.
NBC: The Michael J. Fox Show and Ironside.
FOX: Dads (but only because it came on before Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I want B99 to be better, and I think it’s getting there, so I am still trying to catch this comedy on-demand or off the dvr each week, but it hasn’t become something I feel like I have to keep up with yet.***
***I watch a handful of comedies fairly regularly (The Big Bang Theory, Parks and Recreation, The Middle, Modern Family, and The Neighbors) but I don’t list them in the “must see” column because half-hour comedies don’t command the same sense of my viewer loyalty that hour-long dramas do. They always get bumped to dvr or on-demand viewing in lieu of any hour-long program airing opposite them.
New series that I want to try that haven’t premiered yet include:
ABC: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (even though I’ve lost interest in the mothership, which has become “background noise to read by”)
CW: The Tomorrow People
FOX: Almost Human
NBC: Dracula (I think Jonathan Rhys Meyers will easily make a far more convincing Dracula than he did a Henry VIII)
And I know there are probably a couple of new cable series that I've forgotten about that I wanted to try. I'll mention them as they air.
Last season the only new network shows that made my "must see" list were the CW's Arrow, which has become my favorite CW show. I'm interested to see how The Tomorrow People pairs with it. ABC's comedy The Neighbors which TSU and I thought would be so stupid, and ended up being so utterly charming and heart-warming. We were pleased it got a second season, even airing on Friday, but the ratings are still not there, and it's not likely to be renewed again. So we'll just enjoy what we get.
The only other new network series that TSU and I both absolutely LOVED aired late spring/summer, and that was NBC's Hannibal, which was so psychologically dark and artistically brilliant that we were shocked it aired on any regular network, much less NBC, and even more shocked that NBC gave it a second season limited-episode run. This is really the kind of show that should have been picked up by one of the pay-cable networks, and I applaud NBC for sticking with quality over Nielsen quantity for once. Though I think what really helped get Hannibal a second season was the way the show exploded on social media.
I think the brilliance of Hannibal is another reason The Blacklist pales in comparison with me.
I wasn't as immediately charmed by Elementary as I wanted to be last year, but I finally caught up at the end of the season and over the summer, and added it to my "must see" list this season.
The Spousal Unit and I saw Gravity on Sunday, in good old fashioned 2-D, because, as I’ve said before, it’s not worth the price of an IMAX or 3-D ticket for me to spend the movie throwing up in the bathroom. TSU wants to go back and see the flick in 3-D with The Boy, and if I could hack it, I have to agree it’s a very cool movie to see in 3-D. But it was pretty excellent in 2-D as well.
Other movies we’ve seen recently since the last movie I posted that I’d seen, which was World War Z, include Pacific Rim, Elysium, The World’s End, and Rush - all flicks we enjoyed a lot. So we managed to see every movie we wanted to see this summer and so far this fall. The only movie that was originally on our list that we passed on was The Lone Ranger. The reviews were atrocious, and I believe with very good reason.