Look at the Hottie in the Tight Jeans
I watch a lot of television shows. The problem with television shows is that they continue from season to season, but new shows arrive every year to tempt you. I lost two shows this last year, but, er, I think I already filled their slots with other continuing series. I am, however, checking out three new shows this upcoming season: Pushing Daisies, Reaper, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Luckily, in this new age, I am able to preview them before deciding to make the commitment!
I'll put my remarks behind cuts to be gracious, but they're not spoilery! That's not how I roll.
Pushing Daisies, the show I was most looking forward to, is TOTALLY ADORABLE. Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, "Company Man") has a great track record with me, so it was no surprise that this was easily my favorite of the three. If you don't know the concept, it basically goes like this: Ned the Piemaker (Lee Pace from Wonderfalls) can touch dead people/dogs/strawberries and bring them back to life, but if he touches them again, they die. There's more to it than that, but that's all I really knew going in, and I said I wouldn't be spoilery. Well, he brings his childhood crush back to life. And now they're making googly eyes all the time but can't touch. And the ways they get around that are SO ADORABLE OMG. Also, Chi McBride, who I was fond of in his Boston Public days, is even more entertaining here; he and Ned had a good rapport. To top it all off, you have Jim Dale narrating the episode as if it were a fairy tale. It's all delightfully quirky (think Amélie), and I can't wait to see what they do with it. Check out winter_baby's picspam to see how pretty it is! It's so colorful!
I really didn't want to watch any of the CW's new shows, on principle, but Reaper looked too much like I'd like it not to check it out. I liked Bret Harrison in The Loop, after all, and I liked Tyler Labine from Jake 2.0 (LaFortunata). And Kevin Smith described it as Shaun of the Dead-ish. If you don't know the concept, it basically goes like this: Sam's parents sold his soul to Satan, and now, at age 21, this slacker has to capture escaped souls and return them to Hell. It's like Brimstone but funny. And it is pretty funny, though most of it is visual and physical, not in the dialogue. It has sort of a Dead Like Me sensibility to it, with the Guy Who's Done Nothing with His Life Now Given a Purpose, Satan handing him assignments like Rube (but more sinister, being the devil and all), and an appearance by Delores Herbig, as in "her big brown eyes." The love interest will be replaced with Missy Peregrym from Heroes, so that should be fun. Overall, I enjoyed the episode, especially for its taste in music: Beck, Arctic Monkeys, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Silversun Pickups? It's going to be one of those shows.
I wasn't going to check The Sarah Connor Chronicles out either, really, but then John Enbom and Josh got jobs there, so I bit the Summer Glau bullet and put it on my roster. If you don't know the concept...have you seen The Terminator and T2? There you go. The show ignores T3, basically creating its own post-T2 continuity. What this means, of course, is that killer robots are trying to kill John Connor. That's...pretty much the show, right there. And, you know, they're still trying to keep Skynet from killing everyone. The one original element is a cop that's after Sarah for having killed Miles Dyson in T2. I like his character because they introduce him by having him, like, repeat the plot of the movies in case someone hasn't seen them. It's amusing. Very little else about this show is amusing, which is one of its big flaws. It is VERY SERIOUS OMG. Like, there are opportunities to joke, and the characters don't take them. Look, you're in a show about killer robots bringing about nuclear apocalypse. Lighten up a little! The biggest flaw to overcome, however, is that Thomas Dekker and Lena Headey suck out loud. Practically. Okay, they're not awful, but they don't really cut the mustard, in my opinion. Part of it is that the character of John Connor is one who becomes awesome, but we only get to see him as a whiny teenager. And Lena Headey just projects this one-note toughness that, granted, is actually pretty unique for female television characters right now, but you never get the sense there's an actual person inside her. John and Sarah have these VERY DRAMATIC scenes, and you just want to cringe, especially with the way invasive music telling you how VERY DRAMATIC the scene is. The show has potential, obviously, since it has the Terminator mythology to pull from, but I have the feeling that a new guest actor doing the Terminator walk and shooting at John and Sarah every week is going to get old. It's going to have to find a new bag of tricks. Luckily, this is a midseason show (which is a bad sign, really, since it was obviously intended for fall, given that the dates in the pilot are in September), so it shouldn't get in the way of anything else. It sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. I liked it, and I will check it out. But I hope it improves.
So, here's what my 2007-2008 viewing schedule appears to be so far:
Sunday
Whenever the hell they are: Entourage, Dexter, Weeds
9 PM: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (midseason)
10 PM: Battlestar Galactica (January)
Monday
8 PM: Prison Break
9 PM: Heroes
Tuesday
9 PM: Reaper
Wednesday
8 PM: Pushing Daisies
10 PM: Lost (February)
Thursday
8 PM: Smallville, My Name Is Earl
8:30 PM: 30 Rock
9 PM: Supernatural, The Office
Friday
8 PM: Avatar: The Last Airbender
9 PM: Friday Night Lights
Saturday
And on the seventh day, Sunil rested. Unless he starts watching Torchwood again. And there's Doctor Who in the spring.
That's doable, right? I mean, at least I'm not raelee.
I'll put my remarks behind cuts to be gracious, but they're not spoilery! That's not how I roll.
Pushing Daisies, the show I was most looking forward to, is TOTALLY ADORABLE. Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, "Company Man") has a great track record with me, so it was no surprise that this was easily my favorite of the three. If you don't know the concept, it basically goes like this: Ned the Piemaker (Lee Pace from Wonderfalls) can touch dead people/dogs/strawberries and bring them back to life, but if he touches them again, they die. There's more to it than that, but that's all I really knew going in, and I said I wouldn't be spoilery. Well, he brings his childhood crush back to life. And now they're making googly eyes all the time but can't touch. And the ways they get around that are SO ADORABLE OMG. Also, Chi McBride, who I was fond of in his Boston Public days, is even more entertaining here; he and Ned had a good rapport. To top it all off, you have Jim Dale narrating the episode as if it were a fairy tale. It's all delightfully quirky (think Amélie), and I can't wait to see what they do with it. Check out winter_baby's picspam to see how pretty it is! It's so colorful!
I really didn't want to watch any of the CW's new shows, on principle, but Reaper looked too much like I'd like it not to check it out. I liked Bret Harrison in The Loop, after all, and I liked Tyler Labine from Jake 2.0 (LaFortunata). And Kevin Smith described it as Shaun of the Dead-ish. If you don't know the concept, it basically goes like this: Sam's parents sold his soul to Satan, and now, at age 21, this slacker has to capture escaped souls and return them to Hell. It's like Brimstone but funny. And it is pretty funny, though most of it is visual and physical, not in the dialogue. It has sort of a Dead Like Me sensibility to it, with the Guy Who's Done Nothing with His Life Now Given a Purpose, Satan handing him assignments like Rube (but more sinister, being the devil and all), and an appearance by Delores Herbig, as in "her big brown eyes." The love interest will be replaced with Missy Peregrym from Heroes, so that should be fun. Overall, I enjoyed the episode, especially for its taste in music: Beck, Arctic Monkeys, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Silversun Pickups? It's going to be one of those shows.
I wasn't going to check The Sarah Connor Chronicles out either, really, but then John Enbom and Josh got jobs there, so I bit the Summer Glau bullet and put it on my roster. If you don't know the concept...have you seen The Terminator and T2? There you go. The show ignores T3, basically creating its own post-T2 continuity. What this means, of course, is that killer robots are trying to kill John Connor. That's...pretty much the show, right there. And, you know, they're still trying to keep Skynet from killing everyone. The one original element is a cop that's after Sarah for having killed Miles Dyson in T2. I like his character because they introduce him by having him, like, repeat the plot of the movies in case someone hasn't seen them. It's amusing. Very little else about this show is amusing, which is one of its big flaws. It is VERY SERIOUS OMG. Like, there are opportunities to joke, and the characters don't take them. Look, you're in a show about killer robots bringing about nuclear apocalypse. Lighten up a little! The biggest flaw to overcome, however, is that Thomas Dekker and Lena Headey suck out loud. Practically. Okay, they're not awful, but they don't really cut the mustard, in my opinion. Part of it is that the character of John Connor is one who becomes awesome, but we only get to see him as a whiny teenager. And Lena Headey just projects this one-note toughness that, granted, is actually pretty unique for female television characters right now, but you never get the sense there's an actual person inside her. John and Sarah have these VERY DRAMATIC scenes, and you just want to cringe, especially with the way invasive music telling you how VERY DRAMATIC the scene is. The show has potential, obviously, since it has the Terminator mythology to pull from, but I have the feeling that a new guest actor doing the Terminator walk and shooting at John and Sarah every week is going to get old. It's going to have to find a new bag of tricks. Luckily, this is a midseason show (which is a bad sign, really, since it was obviously intended for fall, given that the dates in the pilot are in September), so it shouldn't get in the way of anything else. It sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. I liked it, and I will check it out. But I hope it improves.
So, here's what my 2007-2008 viewing schedule appears to be so far:
Sunday
Whenever the hell they are: Entourage, Dexter, Weeds
9 PM: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (midseason)
10 PM: Battlestar Galactica (January)
Monday
8 PM: Prison Break
9 PM: Heroes
Tuesday
9 PM: Reaper
Wednesday
8 PM: Pushing Daisies
10 PM: Lost (February)
Thursday
8 PM: Smallville, My Name Is Earl
8:30 PM: 30 Rock
9 PM: Supernatural, The Office
Friday
8 PM: Avatar: The Last Airbender
9 PM: Friday Night Lights
Saturday
And on the seventh day, Sunil rested. Unless he starts watching Torchwood again. And there's Doctor Who in the spring.
That's doable, right? I mean, at least I'm not raelee.