2012 Fall TV Thread

i think i started this thread last year w/ a big list of new & returning shows but this year's slate is even less inspiring than usual so i don't have the energy, will discuss shows as they come i guess

my on-demand menu has The Mindy Project's pilot, it's not bad so far.

I watched it last night. It could be okay, but if it's just going to be her dating a string of different guys in an effort to find the right one (which is how it's set up), it will get old quickly.

Already assuming Fox's other new one will be canceled, so I didn't even watch the pilot.

The monster promo blitz that ABC is doing for Last Resort almost assures that it will be a bust (poor Andre Braugher). Its main rival on the blitz front is NBC and Revolution (which I liked initially but like less every time I see a commercial for it).

Heard Ben and Kate is good

That's the other one I was talking about. You heard it was good? I may have to watch it now.

I've heard it's the only one that's good, actually. Even then I think it was more about promise than a good pilot. Apparently the creators were really good at the TCAs.

pretty much only looking forward to The Last Resort as far as new stuff goes.

I'm still ticked off that The Firm and Awake are toast - seriously guys I'm afraid to invest myself in promising new shows at this point

wow someone got attached to The Firm? will wonders never cease.

Ben And Kate dude was funny on Party Down, also wrote that Clooney movie with Jim Rash, so I will give it a chance.

I liked The Mindy Project but that's partially because of the music choices

Matthew Perry's pilot was more promising than I expected, animal hospital show was even dumber than expected. Ben and Kate is cute but I probably won't watch it.

haven't seen the Perry pilot but i am still pumped for GOON TUESDAYS

http://www.promicabana.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Matthew-Perry-Go-On.jpg

How many times are nbc going to try to make Matthew Perry happen? How many sitcoms is this?

well this is his third post-Friends show and one was a drama and another was on ABC. but yeah it's getting a little sad.

out of that whole cast, I feel like Matthew Perry is the one who really, really HATES Jennifer Aniston's success

My wife and I have decided to dump our satellite service and get everything over the internet, so now I don't even know what new shoes are coming or when they start. I may not even watch any new shows and just tear through my Netflix queue.

Probably the best strategy tbh.

well this is his third post-Friends show and one was a drama and another was on ABC.

Huh, for some reason I thought Mr. Sunshine was on nbc.

If it was on NBC, it would still be airing. ABC has higher standards for viewership. (Mr. Sunshine was actually a good show.)

nothing could be as painful as Studio 60

GOON TUESDAYS HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED!

http://www.promicabana.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Matthew-Perry-Go-On.jpg

show is actually not bad. sappier than Mr. Sunshine but possibly also funnier.

so Mob Doctor (reposting because I raised it on the wrong seasonal thread)

Anyone watchin' Revolution tonite?

Undecided

It seems very Jericho/Falling Skies, neither of which I ever got into

It's super high concept, which the networks seem unable to wrangle in the long term.

I'm sure it will be garbage just like every other drama on NBC in the last 10 years.

Which was better: The Event, Persons Unknown, or The Cape.

pass

next question

Which was better: Chase, Harry's Law, or Love Bites.

god, NBC is really a black hole for drama

Which was better: Outsourced, Whitney, or The Paul Reiser Show

*cries*

Anyway the answers are The Cape, Chase, and Outsourced. lol

Mr Veg liked Outsourced. I couldn't even be in the same room when it started

I thought it was impressively terrible, whereas the other two were just sad and boring.

The Cape just looked straight up lolsy from the getgo

It was terrific/awful.

I think I have some kind of acquired genetic aversion to that kind of tv - I can't get any enjoyment out of much bad tv these days

I only watched the first episode but then I read all the recaps.

Journeyman was great, the first half of the first season of Heroes, Southland, and Prime Suspect were too. NBC hasn't been able to sniff around a winning drama in well over a decade, as three of those four were canceled and Heroes was milked beyond it abilities.

NBC's a disaster across the board.

southland and prime suspect were both great -- southland still is, just not on nbc

elementary pilot wasnt bad, im gonna keep watching

Journeyman 4 life!!!

Mob Doc isnt bad so far

RAPPAPORT

mindy project was decent, always nice to see anna camp.

revolution was dumb but watchable, lol at the usb drives that also happen to look like sacred amulets

it's really too bad they blew through a quarter season's worth of plot in the pilot. so much world building to be done in the trek to chicago, the search for the brother, the unveiling of the archer-guy's treachery. maybe the most rushed drama pilot I can recall?

yeah i think one of the (many) persistent problems with all these high concept post-Lost shows is how they never seem to know how to dole out the story or how much to show in the pilot to hook you.

I was kinda theorizing that the post-lost shows focused so much on the forced world-building and lazy character cliches without giving plot out directly (b/c they didn't have any, only a concept) that this pilot was trying to create a contract with the audience. Look! We have tons of plot! And more reveals than you can imagine! Without realizing how hacky and convenient it all would feel.

The Cape just looked straight up lolsy from the getgo

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, September 17, 2012 7:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have great news for you. Mrs. D. and I watched the "Revolution" pilot on Hulu a couple of weeks ago, and when they finally revealed the bad guy, I said, "Is that the douchecanoe who starred in 'The Cape?'" And it is!!

the whole thing with "nate" the sexy double-crossing archer guy was so rushed and silly. and in the promo for next week's episode the main girl says "is your name even nate???" and he broodingly says "no," like this revelation means something and has any impact whatsoever.

ok so what's worth watching that's coming up? Forgot that the Mindy Kaling thing had started so that, s3 of Boardwalk Empire I guess, next season of Homeland. Is there an AV club rundown of promising pilots yet?

Mob Doctor was surprisingly good!

x-post the big relevation that General Whatshisname was the guy the hero was driving with the nights the lights went out is the kind of reveal that would have come several seasons into Lost.

Revolution was okay. Robin Hood Jericho Hunger Games.

sepinwall just did best/worst summary of the new broadcast shows.

Looks plausible, will check the first two anyway.

That's heartening to hear about Last Resort, as that's the only show on the fall slate that I've been looking forward to.

the biggest thing with Revolution is the medieval schtick just raises so many mundane questions, I get more lols out of it than anything. I laughed out loud at the furniture in the General's quarters in the final scene. Did they raid the local Civil War museums?

I'll admit to kinda liking Billy Burke tho, so I will keep watching.

Nashville sounds good, I will give it a try.

Wait, there is seriously a new Beauty & The Beast where the beast isn't even ugly? Lol.

i believe he transforms into a beast occasionally

There was this movie last year, I guess it's kind of a thing?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152398/

Re: Revolution, I thought the actress that plays Charlie was terrible.

Minor detail that sticks in my craw about shows like this: Miles made a big point about that bottle of single malt Scotch being the last one in the area, and he obviously loves Scotch, but when he gets up from the bar to leave with them, he leaves it behind! Pour the damn Scotch in the glass back in the bottle, and take it with you!

Will continue to watch, though.

yeah Charlie was kind of annoying

Pour the damn Scotch in the glass back in the bottle, and take it with you!

I said this pretty much verbatim to my friends.

Fun from RichJuz

http://gawker.com/5944295/tvs-fall-haul-revolution-and-the-mob-doctor

As Charlie and her crew (which includes the woman her father was banging before he was killed) search to find her uncle so that he can help them find her brother, music that sounds like it's coming from a shitty RenFair Game of Thrones cover band (they have one song: the theme) plays.

*kicks dirt* well I liked it

i totally forgot Mob Doctor was that show with Jordana Spiro. I guess I'll give it a shot

yeah i like jordana spiro, my boys was kinda the quintessential watchable crappy summer sitcom

Matt Saracen QB is the boyfriend
William Forsythe
Michael Rappaport!

it's no sopranos, more like a Rizzoli Isles kinda show without the cutesy stuff. which I'm okay with. Reminds me a bit of that Chicago cop show from a couple of years back?

the one that had Jennifer Beals in it

Flashdance (Cop Version)?

Maybe I'm just getting older but there are precisely zero new shows I'm looking forward to. I'm going to watch Last Resort and probably some of the comedies "just to see" but I recorded Revolution last night and I can't bring myself to watch it.

xpost COPDANCE yes

I still miss Chicago Code. I think it was actually moving in a good direction when it got axed.

that's what it was called! thank you. yeah I really liked it.

...but I recorded Revolution last night and I can't bring myself to watch it.

It's probably skippable, and that's coming from someone who liked Jerico. As noted above, the reveal of Monroe and Nate, and the closing scene (which hasn't been mentioned here), seem premature for a series like this. It's almost like the producers know the series won't last and have a 13-show full arc planned. I am only continuing because I love the premise, and the show time doesn't conflict with anything else I watch.

I am only continuing because I love the premise, and the show time doesn't conflict with anything else I watch.

That's the only reason I kept watching Awake last season and then it turned around and puked in my face with its final episode.

Inclusion of Giancarlo Esposito also makes it less sucky than it could be

pretty psyched for last resort though i have no idea how they can make that work as a Andre Braugher/Scott Speedman series rather than a Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds movie

lol i meant to write ryan gosling, but same diff

last resort just seems like such a weird idea for a tv show

curious to see how that plays out

yeah i assume they get off the sub eventually, they can't just spend three years down there going "NO, LISTEN TO US, MR PRESIDENT!"

"a very special submarine episode"

ohhhh i see, according to wikipedia they go to an island and start a nuclear-armed family robinson

also apparently they're trying to prove their innocence, but if they're on an island i can assume that means lots of INTERNETS and maybe some phone calls

I think there's a drag race with a rival submarine gang in season 2

It is Shaun Ryan of The Shield/Chicago Code/Terriers, so I'll give it a go.

Plus Braugher.

i'm in the great-credits-but-doomed-to-failure camp

Yeah I was pissed about how Awake ended too

yeah ryan plus braugher means i might check it out though i don't know how they strech an updated version of the bounty mutineers into a tv show. stoked for jennifer jason leigh on revenge.

Revolution is cheesy as fuck, but I really like the premise. A couple thoughts beyond the scotch thing:

1) I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but literally the first person they talk to in the first place they walk in is the guy they are looking for? GTFO.

2) These guys are maddeningly inconsistent wrt the overgrowth after 15 years. There are tons of industrial areas and warehouses around O'hare that wouldn't have completely just vanished, foundations and all, in just 15 years. Same goes for Wrigley, there'd at least be scattered foundations right around it.

3) Main archer girl has totally taken the Marissa Cooper school of acting classes.

watched bits of revolution and mob doctor. loved that for all the set-up and special effects and etc etc of revolution, Mob Doctor was more involving in 90 seconds thanks to just a screwdriver in a skull and some flip dialogue.

Honestly I can't even tell why Revolution got made, it's such a flat mash-up of cliches. All for Zak Orth getting a paycheck though.

and giancarlo esposito!

^^^

1) I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but literally the first person they talk to in the first place they walk in is the guy they are looking for? GTFO.

tbf her father did tell her to go to that specific hotel

"we haven't talked in years...but...*cough*...he'll be tending bar..."

though maybe they both had access to magic apple IIe internet machines like the lady with the inhaler

also hilarious that he was all "YOU LEAD THEM RIGHT TO ME!" Like that hotel bar was cloaked in secrecy.

Honestly I can't even tell why Revolution got made, it's such a flat mash-up of cliches. All for Zak Orth getting a paycheck though.

― da croupier, Wednesday, September 19, 2012 12:17 AM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think we have at least 5 more years of networks salivating to be in The J.G. Abrams Business before they stop buying these expensive-ass pilots

also if all the bad guys have visible arm tattoos/brands, why not have a policy of checking everyone's wrists before you let them into the building/reveal your secret identity to them?

ass pilots

i hope this trend goes on as long as possible, frankly - it's not like anything would take its place besides more cop/doctor/lawyer shows, and network TV has a much bigger budget than cable for scifi and fantasy

Agreed. Revolution isn't too far off the radar from enjoyable cable-shlock like Warehouse 13, The Lost World, or the Secret Jules Verne one.

The Last Resort pilot is streamable online. It's good, though it feels like a few episodes' worth of development crammed into 44 minutes.

tbf her father did tell her to go to that specific hotel

Okay, I totally missed that line I guess. Still.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYC_22

aw fuck i didn't even have a chance to see this! goddammit

what?! Adam Goldberg!? rats. yeah I never even saw this advertised?

bummer

created by Richard Price!

what

the

hell

Yeah I DVRed the first episode of this, but it got accidentally erased and I never saw it.

i only watch tv on my computer and cbs is all proprietary and some of their shit they don't even put on their own web site so i think i might have just thought i would wait it out until i could catch it. but they're such a pain that i forget - maybe they were showing it there while it ran? sigh.

maybe I will consult the torrentz

NYC22 was pretty cheesy. not terrible, but really nothing special

i'd catch it accidentally on saturday nights. it was that kinda show

I don't believe you

:)

i am a fully committed mentalist stan so i am afraid i have to take dismissals of cbs crime dramas with a grain of salt, the cbs old-people aura makes people unwilling to see real quality somehow

Mentalist is shockingly decent, i have to admit. or maybe i still have a crush on that chick from The Craft and Prison Break. I'll still dismiss NCIS/CSI tho

the cbs old-people aura

ooooh. is this why all the colors in cbs shows looks washed out + dull?

The Mentalist is fucking terrible, what the hell are you ppl smoking

I was a longtime CSI fan...I hung with a season of Larry Fishburne and then I was kinda done, it had lost it's shine for me.
I hung with Criminal Minds until last year (mostly dropped it out of boredom/too many other shows to watch)

I watched Medium for a couple of seasons but that just got annoying

I was a longtime CSI fan...I hung with a season of Larry Fishburne and then I was kinda done, it had lost it's shine for me.

I stuck with it until the multi-episode villain for the season was a guy who wore s&m latex and crawled around on all fours. I saw that and said "well, I'm out."

I can't watch procedurals except for First 48.

I'm kind of a sucker for crime dramas - esp serial killers and such, lol

I used to like a lot of procedurals, but now I don't think I watch any. Not sure why.

SVU got too ridiculous even for me, and what's the point without Meloni? I think I watch Investigation Discovery now when I want my murder fix, the story of the old lady who murdered her husband and then blamed it on craigslist was better than anything I've seen on CSI.

having a serial killer with a network of true believers as helpers makes it kind of like when the borg were actually threatening on star trek, every time red john-related stuff comes back up on the mentalist the mood thickens and everyone is all gloomy without talking about it

48 Hours Mystery is still my go-to show for true crime. Think there's a separate true crime show thread too...

Leelee Sobieski as Officer Jennifer "White House" Perry, a Marine MP veteran of the Iraq War

:O

she's... what you expect.

cute?

kicked into a wall by Nic Cage?

oh, how i wish

hey now

you'll always have this: http://youtu.be/e6i2WRreARo

This reminds me, 88 Minutes (with Leelee) is a ridiculous (but funny) movie.

right now i'm watching an amazing piece of shit on the CW called "Mr. Box Office," starring Bill Bellamy, Jon Lovitz, Vivica Fox, Keshia Knight Pulliam and Gary Busey.

O_O

you time traveled back a decade and THAT'S what you're doing with your time????

actually i stepped into the time machine with a rabid donkey and together we were fused into Gary Busey

i'm glad that it looks like elizabeth mitchell is going to be semi-regular on revolution, i'm basically only watching for her + billy burke + giancarlo esposito. if the show has any future i hope they allow the focus to move away from the brother and sister, their perils are p. annoying.

also "monroe" the militia mastermind seems laughably miscast, he has no gravitas or charisma to speak of.

i think i disliked Juliet on Lost enough that her presence is more of a con than a pro for me.

i thought mindy kaling project was funny!

i really liked it

I enjoyed it and Ben and Kate,

oh shit I wanted to see Ben + Kate, the trailer cracked me up

ben and kate was ok, my previous ridiculously obscure crush dakota johnson is in it (1. see her in social network - 'damn, she cute' 2. see her in 21 jumpstreet - 'hey it's that girl from social network' 3. see her in ben and kate - 'ok seriously who is this girl')(she's don johnson and melanie griffith's daughter). watched new girl for first time last night, struck me as less funny my boys - should i keep watching? for some reason i also watched 2 broke girls, i think that seriously might be the worst show i have somehow watched at least six episodes of, worse than mind of the married man.

yeah dakota johnson is ridiculously cute

new girl was good this week but i feel like so far there's a specific handful of episodes from which you'd probably have to see one to get hooked

lol mind of the married man

i'll probably hang w/ new girl, it's got dude from veronica mars in it. i'm an undecided voter but i think i lean 'no' on zoey deschanel, i remember when i first saw almost famous laughing that her bad wooden acting was so similar to patrick fugit's, i almost thought it was intentional since they were playing siblings. i liked her in elf, couldn't last more than ten minutes into 500 days of summer. i'll stick w/ it - ppl like it, and i watched nearly an entire season of 2 broke girls and several seasons of entourage so whatever i'm 'risking' by watching a show i might wind up deciding isn't good i lost along time ago.

vegas is watchable! standard cbs procedural w/ vague daydream of being an fx drama - period drama which so far only means 'they drive old cars', chiklis as big bad, dennis quaid is great per usual

yeah trust me most of the people defending new girl on ilx now were all 'lol zooey is the worst' a year ago. i basically regard her as a minor part of the ensemble at this point, it's like if 'friends' was called 'phoebe.'

i tried to watch abc's 'help my neighbors are space aliens!' show last night, it was pretty dire.

Aw I thought The Neighbors was dumb but funny

'lol zooey is the worst' a year ago

this certainly will not stop us from continuing to say this

yeah i mean she's still irksome as a celebrity but i think the show uses her well, and more importantly doesn't overuse her

oh man last resort is awesome

Cool. Watching it tonight!

oh shit I need to put that on my DVR

i tried to watch abc's 'help my neighbors are space aliens!' show last night, it was pretty dire.

This self congratulatory interview with the show creators was funny.

sigh

it is really sad discovering how low your pander bar is

oh man last resort is awesome

― j., Thursday, September 27, 2012 2:30 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool. Watching it tonight!

― Johnny Fever,

it's setting up a lot of stuff, sure would be nice if ryan got to play it out.

Yeah, I kinda just saw The Neighbors out of the corner of my eye while doing other stuff, but what I saw was really terrible.

I liked some of the details of the aliens, enough that i can't say it's worse than alf on first whiff

i tried to watch Partners out of the corner of my eye on mute, but it was too much for me.

those two "new girl" eps were pretty good, esp. winston with the girly drink and the Public Enemy basketball outro

lot of balls in the air with this Last Resort thing but I'm totally in.

Elementary is pretty watchable. Placing Holmes in the CBS-style police procedural setting is perverse, but since all those other clowns are just wannabe Sherlocks why not have the real thing.

I can't bring myself to watch Elementary, it just sounds too awful

every review i've seen has been reasonably positive; i can give it a shot

sounded like garbage but the clips i saw really weren't bad

I can't bring myself to watch Elementary, it just sounds too awful

It really wasn't too bad -- I think they made it different enough from Sherlock to where it feels like its own thing and not a cheap American rip off. It's a decent procedural, Lucy Liu & Johnny Lee Miller were both good.

my wife who has been all JOHNNY LEE MILLER AS SHERLOCK HOLMES!!! for weeks seemed happy with it, i thought it was at least not as stupid as i expected

yeah basically. could develop into something decent.

I'll stick with Cumberbatch

idg lucy liu though, has she ever been good in anything

Elementary >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sherlock

Never change, Melissa.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Sherlock is one of the worst things on television. Elementary doesn't have to be that good to be a million times better than it.

Nicole, your obsession with Melissa is so genuinely creepy that if this were real life I'd suggest a restraining order.

Cajun Pawn Stars is one of the worst things on tv

but you're welcome to enjoy Elementary, Melissa.

Okay?

Yes.

lol wtf happened itt?

Cajun Pawn Stars is one of the worst things on tv

This is fact. It's like the History Channel said "hey, we have this solid gold show, so how can we turn the brand into gold-spraypainted lead?" and voila Cajun Pawn Stars was born.

Dude, I don't even know anymore. xp

lol @ your trying to pretend this isn't a thing, idek what your damage is, lady

Nothing can possibly be worse than Toddlers & Tiaras, its depressing to know parents are not only allowed, but actively encouraged, to feed so many neuroses into children. Although maybe the follow-up series in 2030 about the kids' therapy will be interesting.

Pretty much everything they show clips of on The Soup qualifies as the worst thing on TV.

My Strange Addiction is the worst for me; almost every clip I see of that godforsaken show scars me for days

it's okay, nicole, turangalila still has a display name souvenir from defending melissa's honor from me a few weeks ago

Oh look it's the bonding of the bullies.

it's weird to suddenly find out about some apparently virulent and long-running ilx feud that you had no idea existed

sherlock is really fun

people post, other people respond. sometimes social dynamics like bullying, popularity contests, etc. do enter into it but on a message board usually it really ain't that serious.

I had no idea it existed either! I don't know who this person is, but I guess it is nice to know someone out there hates me.

Anyway, I will probably watch Elementary next week. xp

it's weird to suddenly find out about some apparently virulent and long-running ilx feud that you had no idea existed

otm.

i thought Elementary looked awful, but i'm willing to give it a go, as i do with all things Sherlock. kinda forgot it had started already.

sup y'all

idk Nicole hate is a strong word, more like 'I'd be concerned if I lived in your neighborhood'

But your feigned shock is cute and only corroborates my opinion.

i think i'll have some popcorn with this ham

Y'all take this shit to the beef thread. I want to read about tv.

man idk whatever Nicole supposedly did to stir up this beef, but c'mon Turangalila, you're getting a little ott and uncalled for.

Sherlock is definitely better than Elementary but they're pretty different shows. Much like Sherlock is pretty different from the Robert Downey Jr. movies.

thank god, because that first Downey Sherlock was such utter shit.

i had no idea about the longstanding ilx feud public domain characters updated to contemporary settings (is this morbs' issue w/ shakey btw? do they disagree about clueless the movie vs clueless the tv show?) but then again i have no idea who the fuck turangalila is. torn between psycho lurker determined to make a splash and mel posting under another username. either way, to quote clueless, a virgin who can't drive.

lol at 'feigned shock' - 'you know the batshit reality i have constructed in my head is IN FACT REAL and your befuddlement ONLY CONFIRMS IT'. thinking maybe someone actually could use a restraining order here.

i thought the Mob Doctor pilot was aight, but then on the 2nd episode i realized that a) this is quickly becoming a boring hospital show w/ stupid mob subplots and b) anything interesting they might do w/ the premise was probably already done better in Sons of Anarchy's Tara storylines.

JLM's performance as Sherlock is really bizarre. Also I find it odd that Sherlock Holmes would have so many tattoos.

Turangalila is an old time ilx poster. Tho he doesn't post as often anymore (or at least not in threads that I read).

Pretty much everything they show clips of on The Soup qualifies as the worst thing on TV in life.

Fixed.

The Soup is the best.

Melissa has been posting at least since 2002 when I started.

he didn't mean he hadn't seen her posts before

I'm just stating facts I know in an aspergers-esque manner

yes very familiar w/ mel aka generic store brand white chocolate cheesecake

Fuck off.

***take it to the beef thread or stop talking about it***

Yeah I'm not thrilled about more of Mob Doctor now that I've seen the first one. I like the first ep, but now I don't care? Bad sign.

Last Resort was lots of fun, btw. Completely beggars belief in many, many instances and is kinda corny/predictable. But Braugher is just so cool I can't help wanting to watch. And it's fun to have a classic tom Clancy action-movie type drama on tv.

for your reference

if an ilx beef threatens to take over a perfectly innocent thread you can politely direct people here.

Yeah I'm not thrilled about more of Mob Doctor now that I've seen the first one. I like the first ep, but now I don't care? Bad sign.

This is exactly how I felt about it.

I'm sort of interested in the idea that some actors are New York actors, or LA actors, or etc. Jordana Spiro was in My Boys, shot in Chicago, and now is in another Chicago show. Zach Gilford went to Northwestern. I wonder how often that sort of thing determines the casting.

Like with Lost I'm sure they had to consider how realistic it was for the particular actors to spend extended time in Hawaii.

lucy liu was decent in kill bill and the futurama she did. she was a definite breakout star on ally mcbeal though i'm not sure you could call what anybody did w/ that show good (though i do remember seeing portia de rossi and thinking 'i hope she ends up on some better show' and lo and behold she did, twice). how many failed tv shows has liu had since her return to tv? edging into christian slater territory i think.

i imagine casting geographically matters more of there's an accent that's universally associated w/ the place -- definitely Boston and New York things go out of their way to get people from there or who can do the accent convincingly, but i dunno if Chicago or LA has that to any significant extent.

did er draw on a chicago talent pool? it seems like if a show was gonna be the law and order of chicago it was that one. if it was actually shot in chicago.

I think just some of the exterior shots were done in Chicago, the majority of the show was shot in L.A. iirc.

Anyone see the new Up All Night episodes? I watched the first one and have the 2nd on dvr. First was a bit rushed and crazy in introducing an entirely new scenario from Season 1 but w/e, I love all three of the stars so I'll watch this show forever.

^^^ OTM

haven't watched ep 2 yet

andre braugher is the best. i'd watch him in anything

also, not going to change the channel when jessy schram or dichen lachman are on.

or scheming SEXY DEFENSE CONTRACTORS.

2nd ep of Revolution seemed slightly better than the first? I fell asleep 2/3 of the way in though, so I can't verify that completely :/

lol

andre braugher is the best. i'd watch him in anything

OTM. Still haven't decided whether I wanna commit to another 1-hr. drama, though. Maybe I'll just rewatch my Homicide DVDs and pretend that the precinct house is underwater.

i really gave up on Up All Night pretty early on and was kind of disappointed when it wasn't canceled, but i guess if there's some kind of reboot going on i should give that a chance.

Maybe I'll just rewatch my Homicide DVDs and pretend that the precinct house is underwater.

― Old Lunch, Friday, September 28, 2012 4:39 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's literally a few feet from the bay, give it a few more years!

not going to change the channel when jessy schram or dichen lachman are on.

get to, you mean

man, the Last Resort pilot is the best Star Trek episode in years!

Ha ha. OTM! The encore sucked me in. I might be hooked.

Bailed out on Revolution. Second episode was horrid.

fiery hell, fuck yeah!!!!

i dig lucy liu. i decided this after watching a lifetime network romantic comedy she starred in (i know) called Marry Me, i think? she was really charming and i decided she's been racistly typecast basically ever since ally mcbeal in crypto-"dragon lady" roles. i think she's good. also, she is very pretty.

i love her freckles

yeah definitely could be that casting has failed her

i just have the attitude of ok if you're gonna flip the gender of a character like Watson you REALLY gotta go for broke

make her REALLY female

give her an extra boob or something

al i kind of feel like you would like marry me; maybe that's crazy though

haha w/o any caps or italics that sentence REALLY can look different than it means -- it is tragically not crazy that i would probably enjoy a lifetime network romantic comedy though

coming back to this thread "new answers" style and forgetting the earlier reference to that movie DID make that post very "oh wow"

loooool my bad. sorry guys!

the lifetime network film Marry Me is super-corny, but it's also kind of funny. it's like a train song in movie form. (not really. i totally like it more than a train song, but i was trying to use an al-specific analogy)

i edited that down from a paragraph long summary btw

i was gonna say don't condescend to me but most Train singles would be pretty easily adaptable to rom coms

so so sad but i decided i was gonna watch suburgatory this season, i'd caught bits of a couple of episodes last season (enough to know randy from the wire was on it), so i dled the first season and blew thru alot of it in two days. not gonna say it's as smart as 30 rock or even happy endings or something and it doesn't make me laugh as hard as modern family can sometimes but it's a pretty good show i think. also, since nobody told me this and i would've started watching earlier if i'd known: chris parnell is in this.

yeah it's not amazing but deserves props -- maybe being practically the only decent sitcom about teenagers the last few years makes it easy to overlook

I thought it was a bit meh until Dalia did this pitch-perfect half-closed one eye eyeroll thing that was AMAZING

yeah 'rmde @ the suburbs' shows usually bore or annoy the shit out of me and this show : mean girls :: parker lewis can't lose : ferris bueller but i do like that the show tends to roll its eyes at tessa's 'um, i lived in NEW YORK' attitude as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZNwn56uSzk

yeah it's good at playing both sides of the iatee/jvc2 wars for laughs (xpost)

Last Resort is really fun. I will watch until they cancel it three weeks from now.

its ratings were good enough that i'm optimistic that they can at least wring a good full season out of it

Yeah that was some 24 level bs

haha is that a compliment

Yeah that was some 24 level bs

You are thinking of Homeland, brah.

yeah i guess 24 kept its nuclear bombs from going off until the 8th episode or so

it's a premise-driven heightened reality kind of show -- making the Star Trek parallel early on was helpful for me because i could look past the flimsy effects and sets and get caught up in the gravity of just the idea and the emotion of braugher killin' it as usual

'star trek episode' is the only thing so far thats made me want to watch last resort, besides the braugher power

they have a conn. and every eighth line is someone questioning an order and then they have a little standoff about whether the chain of command will hold.

man i was pretty disappointed in 'last resort.' braugher is good as expected but aside from that it was a mess. i loved terriers (also created by shawn ryan) but none of the personality/charm of that show was evident in this, everyone other than braugher is boring and indistinguishable. it didn't really make much sense or work as thriller/action. a lot of the problems seemed to stem from the pacing, it was going so fast and so much was happening that there was no room for anything other than plot points. overall it felt like abc trying to recreate 'lost,' from the island location to the ensemble cast to the general tone, but trying to jump right in to like season 3 'lost' intricate plot level without taking time to build. i'll probably give it another shot, if they slow things way down and somehow make some of the characters interesting it could potentially get better i guess.

it's good to remember that Ted Griffin, not Shawn Ryan, was the one who actually created and wrote the bulk of Terriers. his work as a screenwriter is a mixed bag but generally you get much more of the vibe or personality of Terriers in the other stuff he's done than other shows Ryan has worked on.

Good Wife s4 premiere pretty much ruled

yes that was very good

i am sort of nauseated by sexy violence montages, but kalinda is so great. her ex-husband is not goodlooking enough imo.

Was better when we only knew bits of Kalinda's backstory. The ex husband showing up, sexy violence and violent sex, sort of ruin the whole mystery. Peter threatening that smalltime DA was pretty good, though. And I like Nathan Lane so far.

REVENGE OMG YOU GUYZ it's really stupid but I loved it.

i am also a pretty huge revenge fan but have not seen this week's episode. hoping jennifer jason leigh brings the thunder when she pops up. been too long since i saw that girl unleashed.

Revolution, Go On, and New Normal all got full season pick-ups.

3rd episode of Revolution much better than first two

Revolution, Go On, and New Normal all got full season pick-ups.

I figured the first two would, but I've not heard one good thing about New Normal.

Ryan Murphy is some kind of tv antichrist

Finally got around to seeing Last Resort (had to make time to watch it on hulu, as it was on OnDemand for some reason). Did a pretty good job of setting up the premise in one hour. Wasn't moving too fast or wasn't too confusing for me at all. Looking forward to getting my Braugher fix for at least one season (plz don't get canceled!).

*wasn't on

yeah we watched it last night and it scratched a pretty good action/political intrigue itch. Will keep up with it for the foreseeable future.

REVENGE OMG YOU GUYZ it's really stupid but I loved it.

LOVE Revenge, soooo dumb but massively entertaining. Emily is awesome and terrifying in full-on psycho avenger mode - love that she broke out the red dress at Victoria's memorial after an entire season dressed in beige/white. I love expository costume design (see Mad Men).

haven't seen any of the new shows except The Mindy Project pilot, which I liked! Def promising. What else seems decent?

Ben & Kate, 666 Park Ave.

It just occurred to me tonight what's missing from Up All Night...Missy, the assistant. I wish I'd never realized it, because now I'm sad.

She's playing basically the exact same role on mindy kaling's show.

lol surprised that anyone is repping for 666 Park Avenue.

liked The Mindy Project a lot more on the 2nd episode.

not sure how i feel about last resort - so much of it is mediocre and then andre braugher cries and i'm like holy shit this guy

I'm liking Revolution but the premise just makes absolutely no sense. Like, what, EXACTLY, happened to all the electricity? It can't be that some supernatural "electricity ITSELF doesn't work thing" happened, because our brains and bodies are electrical. In 15 years, nobody, including Mr. Google Millionaire Computer Guy, has figured out how to work a steam engine or a human-, animal- or water-powered dynamo?

It reminds me of those old Super Friends episodes where everyone would be stuck on some planet that took away their powers, and for some reason Batman and Robin lost their utility belts.

I haven't seen Revolution but based on the previews I determined that the correct way to apprehend it is as a fantasy story about magic going out of the world. There was even a magic amulet iirc!

Mr Google Millionaire Computer guy cracks me up. His whole character is "walk around like a sadsack in a band tshirt most of the time and occasionally go on wistful flights of fancy talking about when I used to be rich"

personally i'm fine with a high concept/sci-fi show establishing some rules, and then kinda saying "don't worry about it, just go with it." obviously if the rules are inconsistent or overly hand-wavey, or everything hinges on a really unbelievable detail, it's gonna bring down the house of cards, but if the story and the drama work then i'm pretty forgiving as far as science and plausibility go. or if it's something like Revolution, which is so uncompelling that i can't even be bothered to think about whether it makes no sense.

I mostly don't care about Revolution, but I still find myself watching it. I don't expect it to get *better*, I just want to see where they're going to go with it, such as it is.

The Hunger Games main girl is v annoying.

yeah Revolution seems pretty inert right now. I'm thinking of waiting until the back-ordered episodes show up to start watching again, on the assumption that they're getting feedback now about what's shitty and will make adjustments.

if you're really missing Lost-style shenanigans, Once Upon A Time S2 has wisely realized flashbacks are boring and has jumped directly to its "Kate we have to go back" moment.

xp she was earmarked as the Kate of the show from the first episode

Right now the show is mostly all Kates, one sort-of Sawyer, no Hurleys.

pff. i'm not even bother coming back then!

But Jacob is on it now!

Like literally Jacob, i.e. Mark Pellegrino.

I'm liking the militia backstory, Billy Burke is about the only half-watchable character in the show imo (also kinda handsome in a 'well there's nothing much else to look at' way)

Zak Orth is doing a pretty serviceable Hurley imo

basically everyone is doing the Others

Star Trek parallel

they even have a cloaking device! i guess i missed that in the pilot.

Second ep of Last Resort kept up the good imo. RUSSIANS!

= klingons

Yeah some corny / iffy bits here and there but they're keeping up the action and intrigue quite nicely.

I still don't know everyone's names, but the girl who developed the cloaking device showing up to the hospital room with next to no remorse and just taking the piece of paper out of the dying guy's pocket was awesome.

Also, Robert Patrick at his scumbaggiest.

Admiral's daughter girl, Grace? looks like Julia Roberts + Sandra Bullock.. and the SEAL guy who drinks all the time is v handsome.

I am really digging this show. It's fun watching a show that's like a mini action movie every week.

Ben & Kate and The Mindy Project got full season orders.

good, both are great

both new comedies i'm most invested in - mindy project & new normal - are kind of brazenly hitting topics not normally covered in a way that makes them totally engaging to me while at the same time I'd understand if anyone was like "lovely bit of asshattery there, fuck this show forever." New Normal is definitely more glib than Mindy Project in this regard, though. On one hand they've got one of the most committed, loving couples - straight or otherwise - i've seen on a sitcom - and on the other they're hiring a mariachi band because the lil kid wants to have the "california experience" of a quinceanera before she potentially leaves wtffff

Which topics in Mindy Project?

haha i already regret bringing it up because there's no way to talk about thematic content on a sitcom without a) overstating its impressiveness and b) making the show seem less fun. I don't really want to do the "ok this line about age/gender/race/diversity/success/romance was striking to me" bit cuz for all i know ally mcbeal got there a decade ago, but both shows have had bits on those subjects that were a little "woah, have i seen that on TV before?" to me while still making me laugh.

also i don't want to trumpet the refreshing novelty of anything too much cuz mindy project is still a show where the woman who loves romcoms and the man who loves sports have to learn to get along and perhaps fall in love

i'd hope that the new normal might get less cutesy and smug as it goes on, but honestly that's not what ryan murphy shows tend to do

They only ever get worse.

ben of ben & kate was too much of a sub-carrell dolt on the pilot for me to want to investigate further but between the mindy project and the new girl (which i've started watching now that i know it's basically another "hot people gettin' bantery" show where zooey is no more quirky than the dudes) i may just give in to the whole fox comedy night line-up. which will make this the first time i've watched fox regularly since the last simon season of idol.

Ben is still slightly annoying to me, but the rest of the cast makes up for it.

yeah it's crazy how quickly Fox has gone from barely being in the live action sitcom game for a few years to having one of the best lineups of the big 4 networks (maybe THE best if NBC keeps picking up crap and rushing its good shows out the door)

abc best right now imo

ben in ben and kate more irresponsible, feckless than doltish i think, or at least his doltishness is rooted there as opposed to idiocy like w/ michael scott. veronica mars ex makes new girl watchable for me, still far from crazy about it - i like mindy project alot more for instance - but it's watchable.

xxpost hah croup I misread that as "which will make this the first time I've watched fox regularly since the last simon & simon" lol

who is the veronica mars ex?

as soon as i saw the simpsons on ullman i was like "this is gonna lead to some hacky bullshit 20 years from now"

i wrote off fox when they retooled duet as open house

guy who plays Schmidt was a cop love interest in a few episodes of Veronica Mars (xpost)

Sheriff Leo was my favorite, Logan way overrated.

holy hell i didn't clock that at all

yeah leo was my fave when i could overlook how kinda pervy that whole situation was

Veronica never really seemed high school age so it didn't really bother me. Most of the cast was pushing 30.

yeah, blew my mind when i heard this too - doesn't seem like the same actor at all

yeah watching it it didn't seem bad, it's only when i think of a cop dating a jr in high school that i'm like 'wait a minute'.

Schmidt was also part of an interracial gay couple on the ABC Family series "Greek."

http://www.afterelton.com/sites/www.afterelton.com/files/2011/09/maxpaul.jpg

Is anyone going to be watching Nashville?

Mrs Coach makes me say yes I will try this

I'm recording it

Yeah, I'll give it a go. I love Mrs. Coach.

haha i've had a thing for connie britton going on twenty years now, will probably give this a shot, and yet...somehow have never gotten around to watching friday night lights?

yeah, you should probably watch it

haha i know i know and yet somehow i haven't. i mean, i know that minka kelly is a cheerleader in this which means there are scenes of minka kelly dressed up like a cheerleader and yet somehow i still haven't watched the show.

I think critics only got one episode, but it's generally the best reviewed pilot of the season.

balls dude...this will sound corny but Connie is goddamn radiant in FNL. you NEED to see it. she's maybe the thing I love most about the whole show, and I love everyone in it

connie was a fox on spin city. friday night lights was a portentous chore for me, i gave up after 2 1/2 episodes. will give nashville a try but it doesn't seem like a good sign when a show appears to share its premise with a recent gwyneth paltrow movie?

eh patsy vs loretta, loretta vs dolly, reba vs faith, faith vs taylor - this tale is as old as the hills

oh sure, but you gotta admit it being framed in such a similar way in 2 big-ish projects 2 years apart is a little deep impact/armageddon

yeah, never saw the paltrow (was it even a hit?) and haven't seen any promos for the nashville - do either go straight all about eve ripoff?

afaict connie's star is just beginning to fade while gwyneth was already through her downfall and attempting to make a comeback but otherwise seems thematically pretty similar

some dude - 2 1/2 episodes? really? jeez man.

i already trolled a FNL thread about that once, but yeah, back when i was home all day w/ a newborn i was roaring through dvd sets of various tv shows, and that one just stopped me in my tracks, felt like the most laborious and predictable thing ever.

I probably yelled at you on that thread too, come to think of it.

smdh @ you

you're not wrong about it being portentous but i am still mad at you for that

lol vg

connie britton is amazing on that show, balls. also all the women and the men are incandescently gorgeous; it's not just kelly and britton.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS IS THE GREATEST SHOW EVER
NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO NOT WATCH OR HALF WATCH IT

>:)

i dunno, i heard it was kinda portentious

it is not a show about being surprising or unpredictable plot twists, but it is a good show

also it includes the world's greatest human, jason street

connie britton's hair is beautiful

that actor who plays smash for the first few seasons is great--has he ever done anything else? he's so good.

2006 Fall TV Thread

Even thinking about high school football makes me feel jittery so I'm never watching FNL. I'm sure it's a good show, though.

lol horseshoe

tbh i never finished fnl because it's too sad and i can only handle half-hour comedy these days, but one day when i have the resolve i'll watch the final seasons.

so there's a show about connie britton as a fading country music star? i should probably be watching that show.

http://www.witandfancy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/tami.jpg

look at these luxuriant tami taylor locks

what does fnl portend?

Adjective:
1.Of or like a portent.
2.Done in a pompously or overly solemn manner.

there are a lot of shots of bleak/beautiful texas landscapes set to on-the-nose music like "devil town," so i see what al is saying. it's definitely an identifiably my so called life-ish vibe.

i'm skeptical. i can't find that definition in the OED xp

well, i'm not gonna pretend the malleable ol' internet is more trustwrothy than a paper dictionary, so hey

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/56/130637290_6ec211a168.jpg

mindy show is good, better than i thought

yeah have definitely enjoyed it more w/ each episode so far

I finally watched The New Normal tonight. That show was advertised ALL WRONG. It's totally great, but looked totally awful in the commercials. Go On was meh. I liked Mr. Sunshine better.

I haven't seen Go On yet...I really liked Mr Sunshine

so far they're even steven to me

Mr Sunshine

The Dad of Little Miss Sunshine?

that was talk soup

^ old

Even thinking about high school football makes me feel jittery so I'm never watching FNL.

I tried and got a few episodes in before I admitted there were about 10 other shows I'd rather be watching. On the pro side, there were a lot of hot talented actors. On the con, all anyone did was talk about high school football. Nothing else ever. I'm sure it's great if you stick with it, but I didn't feel like letting it get its hooks in me any more than it already had.

there were times in that series where they handled teenagers in high school & parenting teenagers in highschool better than almost any show I've seen.

it took a few episodes to stop being mostly about football, but overall it really wasn't -- that was almost the last thing the show ever ended up being about. Football was the punctuation, or the pivot point of stories

(sorry for being a crazy flag waver, lol but uggggh I am such a fan of that show, I can't even tell you)

I'm with you. Even though I'm partial to football itself, people I know who don't care about football at all loved FNL. It's the setting, sure, and sometimes particular episodes are football-heavy, but it's not a show about football. It's the best character-driven show on tv in the last howevermany years. I just think about Eric and Tammy and Tim Riggins and Billy and Missy and Smash and Saracen and JASON FUCKING STREET and I want to watch the whole series over again.

I can't think of another show (besides maybe Terriers) that got me out of my chair yelling "YES!" or "NO!" at the screen like a dumbass. So well written and acted.

Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler both should've cleaned up with every Emmy they were eligible for, but never even got close.

I mean, BUDDY GARRITY for fucks sake.

i may give it another try once i get through those other 10 shows, if you're being honest that football became the punctuation. cuz the first 4 or 5 episodes sure as fuck were all about football.

the show's been off the air for how many years, and I still get the happys when Coach shows up on a random tv show. Fuck, I think I enjoyed Battleship almost entirely because Tim Riggins and Landry were on a boat together fighting aliums.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v22/dryedmangoez/1010/FNL501-04.jpg

okay so am i really going to watch this green arrow show

someone has to, i vote you

god speed, forks

Check out Beauty and the Beast while you're at it.

haha

yes on proposition arrow
no on proposition beauty

forks will you watch that bravo show about the girls who work in the art gallery for me?

i'm really starting to worry that all these screen adaptations are going to eventually puncture my blissful ignorance as to the difference between the green lantern, the green hornet and the green arrow

one flies a plane
one drives a car
one has sex with black canary

green lantern has a ring
green hornet has a car
green arrow {shrug}

that's backwards!

green lantern has a ring, it's like magic and shit, energy comes out of it and does stuff

green arrow shoots arrows

green hornet, whatevs

GREEN HORNET BRUCE LEE

I'm still waiting for the Green Manalishi.

two prong crown, iirc

y'all are forgetting Green Goblin

he's easy - is green, also a goblin

forks will you watch that bravo show about the girls who work in the art gallery for me?

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, October 10, 2012 6:21 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i watched this thing btw. they are obv all p horrible but it is highly watchable imo

thank you for your service

I dunno if I can bring myself to watch it

also forgetting:

Green Mask
Green Lama
Green Ghost
Green Giant
Green Knight
Green Turtle
Green Fury/Flame

http://hoosierinanity.blogspot.com/2007/12/green-comic-book-heroes-more-than-most.html

those are all made up, not real like the other ones

dude, they're comic books. they're all "made up."

I'd like to go ahead and downgrade The Neighbors to 'fucking awful'. I have no idea who this show is even for. It would at least make sense if it was geared towards kids, but it really isn't at all. Naturally, it's the most-viewed new comedy this season.

btw fuck all y'all, I am laughing at "The Neighbors" with no guilt or shame

is it like 3rd rock from the sun?

Yes, inasmuch as I also hated that show.

O_O

It's scarily reminiscent of 3rd Rock, actually

obv that cast had a totally different chemistry but just by premise alone there are strong echoes

3rd Rock overall is a better show due to the actors involved, tho

It may be that "aliens trying to fit in are wacky!!!" is a comedic formula that's completely antithetical to my sense of humor. Or it may be that they're both terrible sitcoms. Who can say!?

have they ever had a show where the aliens were not trying to fit in wackily, or exterminate/exploit the human race (poss. also wackily), but just like bein here and trying to fit in and such? or was that just 'alien nation'?

also ALF

wackily

most of the wackiness was due to muppetdom

though I kind of hated that show and never watched it

aw cmon, 'schumway', cat-eating, short stature, uh...

i don't remember much about the stories, but i assume they were 100% sitcommy. 'we have to hide alf, my boss is coming over for dinner! she's bringing her cat!'

i liked the interview w/ the creators upthread where they were kind of candid about how unpopular the premise is with lots of people: Alien comedy is a genre of storytelling that’s only been done four times [successfully] on television in 50 years: ALF, Mork & Mindy, 3rd Rock From the Sun, and My Favorite Martian. To those who are quick to dismiss [The Neighbors], the only thing I say to them is, There are 15 alien movies that come out every summer. So what’s the problem?

I watched ALF every week and I can't remember anything except microwaving cats and the Dad in a silver getup singing Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting. Oh and the Happy Anniversary song sang to the tune of the William Tell Overture

haha Willie Tanner dressed in Elton John is the same thing that pops into my head whenever i think of ALF!

the traumatic finale cliffhanger must have obliterated all memory of the otherwise memorable regular-season plots

xpost :D

ah what the hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ecakrMaxkY

ALFtv.NET

I have resisted the urge to investigate further.

my other ALF memory is him putting on a fedora and saying "goodnight Mrs. Ochmonek, wherever you are"

I only remember the asparagus song.

I have a vague memory of something with a vaccuum cleaner? Like he was in love with it?

In this millennium I'm finally watching the Mindy Project pilot, enjoying it so far, winky romcom references aside. Hopefully they work through that conceit soon.

omg you guys Modern Family is hilarious

yeah that seemed to be just a pilot thing and not a running theme for the series, thankfully. in fact i was pleasantly surprised how much her character wasn't an overly sentimental romcom obsessive in the 3rd episode. (xpost)

Mindy Project is getting funnier and funnier

feels like a good omen that Nashville pilot opens w/ the same Eli Young Band song that's been stuck in my head all day today

ah shit I have to set the dvr

brb

third episode was my least fav of Mindy Project so far (just watched all three avail On Demand). Spending big chunks of a script putting NBA players on television and club dancing kind of dull. Kaling and and her room write some good jokes though so I'm on board.

are you crazy, the pashmina joke alone was worth it

totally sold on nashville! cannot imagine what taylor swift's reaction to this show is

yeah real strong pilot

i was too caught up on trying to figure out how a sub-martina mcbride was ever The Queen Of Country and whether '90s country dudes even had albums out on vinyl for hayden to find (i mean he had to be '90s, right?). Not as ahistorical as Crazy Heart and I realize the network would never let it just be "veteran country star vs generational change" it has to be "NUMBER 1 COUNTRY WOMAN VS TEENAGE HARLOT" and damn the actual history of country crossover, AND i realize I am utterly missing the point by sweating any of this which is why my wife can watch this on her own time.

I liked how JD Souther's face was kind of ambiguous listening to the duet at the end, he could have been like "why do young people sing like this nowadays"

if the "this season on nashville" promo had something Melrose Place level crazy I might have made plans to watch ep 2 but as much as I love the Powers of Boothe it looks like a lot of this is going to be about Garth-era singers discovering the truth in dobros or something, also her bandleader being single drops the stakes a bit re: his seduction

guys upthread forgetting the coneheads

I don't think a reoccurring skit counts as a successful television show, otherwise you have to count Nuni and Nooni

Coneheads are def an touchstone for the show, though. I saw the pilot and they even did an "are you from europe?" bit

No doubt, but that's slightly offset by both alien leads having British accents

twas also a terrible movie

I don't think a reoccurring skit counts as a successful television show, otherwise you have to count Nuni and Nooni

― The Owls of Ja Rule (DJP), Thursday, October 11, 2012 9:23 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol what nuni and nooni aren't from outer space!

they are in my heart

Made In Jersey gets canceled. Who's next?!

lead actress from Made In Jersey was crazy good-looking but i couldn't bring myself to watch it, maybe she'll get into a pilot with more potential next year

Mob Doctor next. Guys with Kids and Animal Practice can't be far off.

Mob Doctor's opening scene of Mob Doctoring was promising but the rest of that pilot was so bad

lead actress from Made In Jersey was crazy good-looking but i couldn't bring myself to watch it, maybe she'll get into a pilot with more potential next year

Ha, this pretty much mirrors my sentiments.

yeah after my initial liking of Mob Doctor I've come full 180 and don't even care anymore

I feel like execs need to take a step back before giving some of these shows the go-ahead and ask, "am I likely to be interested in this premise for more than, say, three episodes?".

"if not, sell it to a UK network"

"Mob Doctor" and "Animal Practice" fit right in with "Black Hospital" and "Dr. Mole People Doctor"

i'd like a show called Octopus Vet - either a vet who works on octopusses, or an octopus who is a vet, or a guy with 8 arms

let's make that happen

I support this idea, but only if Octopus Vet wears some kind of breathing apparatus out of the water so it sounds like this when he talks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjxY0Hwo1hE

Oh, and all of his patients sound like that, too.

That was EXACTLY what I was thinking

Quick, to the writers room

made in jersey was silly, basically Working Girl in CBS legal show, with everyone (esp head lawyer Kyle MacLachlan!) telling her what a tough cookie she is while Diane Neal gets green-eyed

UGH! I have no TV so I have no business on this board...except, to say that if I had television, I'd be on pins and needles waiting for Parenthood and Walking Dead to begin. I am actually on pins and needles waiting but...going to be awhile.....

parenthood is up on hulu!

I've never watched Parenthood really (maybe half an episode its first season), but I ended up seeing it this week and that shit just seems HEAVY. Is it always like that?

Finally caught up with Nashville. It's no secret how much I love Connie Britton, but my high expectations were met. It's going to take me a while to familiarize myself with all of the secondary characters, but I likes it so far.

me too!

I felt like once I suspended my disbelief that Connie and Hayden's thin-voiced warbling would get far in Nashville, I really did enjoy it. And they really established the main characters well, I was def rooting for Connie's character by the end.

I really liked that last song that the youngsters sang in the coffee shop.

Really looking forward to the rest of the season. Seems like a good enjoyable drama.

Powers Boothe is an evil evil man. I can't get a read on her sister yet, but she seems partially evil too.

It's like Sy Tolliver got picked up out of Deadwood and plonked down in Nashville, and he's right at home

lots of cute country dudes in this too :D

Parenthood has been really good lately, totally back into it after my attention had wandered for a while. but it definitely is heavier than usual this season because, y'know, cancer.

As predicted, Animal Practice is canned.

There's some spec that either Whitney or Community will replace it on Wednesday.

AV Club says it will be Whitney, with Community likely coming back when either Up All Night gets shelved or 30 Rock is over.

When's 30 Rock ending again?

I think it's just a 13 ep season?

Can't wait to see the Christmas ep of Community in mid-April.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/10/eleven-tv-shows-probably-wont-survive-season/58113/

Last Resort — Another high-profile failure for the Alphabet. This Andre Braugher/Scott Speedman (poor Ben...) action drama had high hopes behind it, but was something of a dud right out of the gate. Itt was too high-concept, or lacked star-power, or its quadrants were all messed up, or who knows. The point is, it's super expensive and super unpopular (though it does better in DVR and On Demand) and probably will whimper and die somewhere around midseason, just like 666. Bad, bold-lettered letdowns for ABC.

goddammit

Yeah I've felt pretty confident that was going to happen after the premiere's ratings. Thursdays are hella difficult as well.

The biggest problem with Last Resort is its timeslot. I mean, not only isn't it an 8PM show, it's on opposite Big Bang Theory and, well, 30 Rock. This shit of the archaic networks paying negligible attention to DVR & On Demand stats is gonna sink a lot of worthwhile shows.

man if suburgatory can't make that post-modern family slot work i don't know what can. nothing has worked there.

I understand suburgatory not working there tbh. I like the show well enough, but highly stylized comedies like that don't tend to hit the broadest appeal. ask nbc. or anyone involved in Pushing Daisies.

"Highly stylized comedies" is just what ABC does anymore (aside from Modern Family).

Well yeah, and they're not all hugely successful like MF. Suburgatory moreso, I think. It's a weird, brightly coloured satirical world.

fox also. the middle is maybe a better fit but putting that show at 9:30 just seems insane. i totally got why happy endings and don't trust the b didn't work, suburgatory seemed a better fit (family show at least) but still not perfect.

Last Man Standing is the only choice.

they better not fucking cancel Ben & Kate

I'll be glad when Happy Endings comes back next week, except it will be on Tuesdays so I'll probably always forget it's on.

glad mindy project and apartment 23 are on against New Normal so I can stop frustratedly watching New Normal

I think Last Resort lost me this week.

i learned from Last Resort that u could put a pin back in a grenade (shut up, I dont know why I didnt know that)

'maybe if i would have given a better speech'

surprised by how much I'm enjoying Nashville.

yeah it's my new favorite!

Waitress girl whose name I still can't remember, I like her. Her boyfriend is going to be a real dickhead really soon, I'm sure.

yeah she is adorable

I'm kinda in love with that Deacon feller

I don't think many people dislike Maya Rudolph, Will Arnett, and Christina Applegate, but the show is a bit too soft to compete with the rest of NBC's mostly sharp Thursday night lineup. We'd like to see pretty much everyone in the cast employed somewhere, this just wasn't the show.

THANK YOU THE ATLANTIC WIRE

although

666 Park Avenue — Somewhat surprisingly, this much-hyped Sunday night supernatural soap has been a complete disappointment for ABC

lol at what stage did this show ever seem like a promising idea to anyone

I think it might've worked as more of a straight-up anthology show. In, like, 1985.

the show is a bit too soft to compete with the rest of NBC's mostly sharp Thursday night lineup.

by sharp i assume you mean ancient

(ok actually i gave up on up all night a retool or two ago - specifically the episode where suddenly jason lee had left and suddenly the ladies had a Dude Boss OMGZZZ BATTLE OF THE SEXES but still wtf at "too soft" to compete with shows that are all likely to wrap up this year anyway)

Up All Night was at its best in the final third of last season, imo. Dude Boss was such a minor part of it.

for all i know that's true, it was just after a couple of plots that could have been ripped from i love lucy i didn't feel like going down the needless "oh noes we have a dude boss and we're ladies" left turn

that they've since gone through another turn or two doesn't make me any less regretful

or more, rather

also that "not sharp enough for thursdays on nbc" line is such a weird one considering up all night's ratings aren't considerably worse than all the nbc shows at maturity that night

Oh yeah, I'm really close to being done with it altogether the way this season's going. Someone somewhere thought "how can we make this show that finally found its footing irredeemably bad in its second season?" Well, that worked.

so this sounds like a joke but it's true: i work with someone who lives at what is ostensibly 666 park and they invaded her building to film for a week on location to establish neighborhood vibe. she said it was horrible.

I really can't see Last Resort making it until the end of the season.

I've stopped watching just because what's the point.

I recognize that, based on empirical evidence, "The Neighbors" is really terrible

so why do I laugh at it?

but

Last resort is still really good!

Andre Braugher choked out a dude last night, it was rad!

I'm sure it is, and it may get even better...but then I'll be sadface when it's axed.

I've had that happen with many of my favorite shows but it doesn't stop me from watching, sadly

like EYES

remember EYES? with the other guy from Wings? I loved that show so much and they cancelled it halfway through the season.

and RAINES, the Jeff Goldblum show. that was cool.

I just remember both of those via commercials (my mom watched them, I think). Tim Daly had a silly run of flops before he wound up on Private Practice (which I don't know if he's still on or not).

my dvr forgot to get the second ep of last resort so i decided to ditch it. in general i'm trying to avoid shows with season-if-not-series-long narratives because they either 1) get canceled or 2) get poopy after you're already invested. i'd rather belatedly watch one season of a show cut down too short than be told "only watch the first three seasons of this hit, except at the end of season 3 you'll need to see season 4 but you'll hate it not to mention seasons 5-7"

I really like Tim Daly, I think he's funny

no it's okay, you all hate Andre Braugher being awesome, I totally understand

i am planning to break my pact with myself by watching season 3 of justified before season 4 starts (loved the first 2 on dvd). if i get burnt, never again. in general my favorite successful hour-long dramas are ones i have no interest in watching but star an actor i liked from somewhere else. always happy to know folks like nathan fillion and david boreanaz are on salary somewhere.

s3 of Justified rules imo

Last Resort's last ep was easily thebest since the pilot. Jay Karnes <3

yeah it was great! next week's episode looks a bit iffy though, was hopiong they'd continue the momentum of this episode

"I will crush the jelly from your eyes"

YES

i will crush the jelly from your eyes, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

is what we would have gotten on premium cable

there's no such thing as a french cowboy

lots of v funny lines in this one finally -- robert patrick was p good!

Revenge has been just about 100% "HOLY SHIT" this season. Just saw last week's episode and now I have to wind down before trying to sleep.

damn near stood up and applauded when baby mama went over the railing

haha, I've only just got into Revenge. Watched all of season one in 4 days last week and have now caught up on Season 2. I kinda miss Nolan/Emily take down of the week episodes tho'

i marathoned revenge recently, too -- i can't get over how fun it is! they're using tropes and characters that i KNOW would annoy the shit out of me on other shows, but they make it work. it's like a well-oiled soap opera machine.

my major complaint now is that the accented ex-boyfriend is supplanting nolan's role in emily's life, which is bullshit because nolan is amazing and this new guy is dull as rocks. then again i also didn't like fake amanda that much and look what happened to HER, so there's always hope.

lol glad people are getting into Revenge. Such an awful show, but I can't stop watching. And I agree, I miss the Emily/Nolan dynamic, especially since Emily has no sense of humour whatsoever.

The Fug Girls do excellent recaps of this btw: http://gofugyourself.com/tag/revenge

i don't like fake amanda except as a way to throw off emily's game, really hate declan and to a lesser extent jack. miss the oldest dog in the world. really miss the takedown of the week though they couldn't do that forever. enjoying daniel coming into full graysonhood, love the voiceovers that work like carrie bradshaw reading from the art of war, stoked for jennifer jason leigh in full crazy, can't wait to see what castmember from short cuts pops up next (plz plz huey lewis), emily vancamp is very pretty.

declan is the worst. I hope he ends up being the mysterious dead guy on the boat (which is possible since he's rumoured to be back on Gossip Girl for the final season.)

Charlotte can pretty much go away too. and thanks to Nolan, Daniel will forever be "Spaniel" to me now.

man i love mason treadwell

Pretty sure Emily (actual Amanda) has worn backless things before, so the scar not being where he thought it should be seems like not a big deal at all.

so do i have to watch revolution now or what

haha i don't think you'll get any survival tips from it no

Padma is on my shit list now. Along with Aiden. Leave poor old billionaire Nolan alone!!

I don't think Padma's intentions were malicious. She's looking out for the interests of Nolcorp. Aiden seems to be a huge dickhead, though.

Up All Night is going to come back in the Spring as a multi-cam.

wait wat

Look for NBC's newest hour-long medical drama, Up All Night, premiering Fall 2013. And fun has a new name in Spring 2014, as NBC presents the new reality game show, Up All Night.

New NBC logo just dropped today, y'all:

http://delapruch.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/grasping-at-straws.jpg

xpost and our new detective show Up All Knight

haha jesus that makes all previous retoolings seem like nothing by comparison. has any show ever completely overhauled its visual style mid-run? like even if it miraculously worked and the show ran for six seasons, syndicated reruns would be like 'huh why do a quarter of these episodes look completely different from the rest.'

like EYES

remember EYES? with the other guy from Wings? I loved that show so much and they cancelled it halfway through the season.

Great show - if memory serves, the creator of EYES also created PROFIT which is one of the great lost shows of the 90s. The rest of the season did get run out in NZ I think...

Up All Night can be an 'anthology series' like American Horror Story, every season is a whole new thing

I've never seen Profit, though I've heard it was really good

NBC just makes my fucking head hurt anymore. It reminds me way too much of places I've worked where nobody seemed to be in charge and nobody knew what they were doing and you were shocked every single day that the place was still in business.

Up All Night can be an 'anthology series' like American Horror Story, every season is a whole new thing

Seriously. I enjoyed last season, but this one has been so desperate and dumb. I wonder what the multi cam version is going to be like.

it's hilarious because usually random desperate cast additions are, like, some sexy actress or popular standup comic, with Up All Night it's just 'random bearded UCB dude that was only a mid-season replacement we canceled 6 months ago'

only=on

EW says this was Lorne's idea.

I doubt it's going to anything but awful, but I have a morbid curiosity about what they plan on doing to it. The brother is already worse than Cousin Oliver, so this has real trainwreck potential.

Lorne should be focused on figuring out a starring vehicle for Maya, she deserves better than sidekick status (xpost)

six episodes into s3 maya will be replaced by crystal the monkey

Look forward to the point in the show's run that it becomes animated Simpsons-style and then becomes Law & Order: UAN.

just saw rainn wilson tweet that nbc has decided not to pursue the dwight spinoff after all.

i guess it's not all bad decisions over there

First smart thing they've done in eons.

haha i'd take more comfort in that if i didn't suspect they made the right decision for the wrong reasons

just retooling to multi-cam. will truck in studio audience to an actual farm.

What he meant to say is that they're still doing the Dwight spin-off, just without Dwight. Will be all of the newly-cast actors playing Dwight's family, wondering where Dwight is and what Dwight is doing.

BTW I feel for that cast. A friend of mine is on a show that was supposed to be on ABC Family this fall but which was dropped right before it debuted and is airing on some online video site instead.

The Neighbors gets a full season order. What a weird day.

Jesus. Does ABC not realize that they could probably just let the station go dark before Modern Family and get the same ratings without spending any money?

This week's Nashville: I was sure last week Juliette had lifted that nail polish at the drug store to work some publicity angle, but as this week's episode went on I kept thinking "no, she's not THAT stupid" and she'd get even stupider. Nice button on the real reason why, though.

OH TEDDY

Probably belongsin its own thread, but eek spoilers, so, Homeland S2 any cop?

It's been excellent so far. An improvement on season one.

i'm on the fence about whether i agree w/ that but it's definitely worth watching if you liked the first season at all

It's got big brass balls but that means that I have no confidence in it whatsoever from week to week.

yeah it's very flawed in ways that have been outlined on the thread but bottom line is it's ballsy and watchable

I basically watch the show for the things it excels at: tension, bravura acting, and omg what's going to happen next. if you can hand wave away the sketchy stuff on the margins (iffy plot choices mostly) it's a very solid show.

There seems to be one or two stupid moments/plot points in every episode that keep the show from being totally awesome (like last week's episode, which was massively engrossing for a long stretch of time until one of the characters went batshit out of nowhere). It's mostly about the actors for me, though, and it still definitely delivers on that front.

Now am an official Ben And Kate fan. It's got charm.

it's cute! ben's funny. the australian, kate's friend, i didn't expect anything from her but she's pretty consistently hilarious.

yeah Lucy Punch is dope imo

dont think shes australian

she isn't

show is great

wut? I just read about this new FX show with Keri Russell. She's a KGB spy in 1981 deep undercover as an American. SOLD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-QgGULt3o0

yeah i'm psyched about that. created by an ex-CIA guy who wrote for Damages, and exec produced by the creator of Justified.

suburgatory ending this week insane!

kinda too ott episode for me tbh though i did love the ending

so maybe need a late pass here but key & peele is pretty funny huh?

Yep.

yeah, I dig that show and am bummed I keep missing it

do what i do and just watch a million of their sketches on youtube instead of working

ozomataz buckshank

their hammer dance after election night results (think it came on between Daily Show and Colbert) was p funny

Meanwhile Revenge is still batshit crazy, and Emily was a motherfucking boss tonight.

Last night's Revenge was one of the best of the series. Pretty much non-stop OH DAMN from beginning to end.

^^that was ridiculous. and more proof that they really need to kill off Charlotte/Declan/Jack/the bar.

also, this is more about last week's episode but motherfucking lol @ Emily owning a cold storage room where she keeps all her dead bodies, just in case she needs them later.

i did lol that the nefarious bar co-owner was so charmed by jack and declan that he needed ANOTHER nefarious guy to remind him he was supposed to be evil

so the hero of that show has murdered multiple people? huh, guess it's not quite as tame as i gathered from the first couple episodes i watched before abandoning it

oh hahahahahahahaha

update, update

LAST RESORT IS STILL ON

and good

I am 2 weeks behind on all my shows but SO happy that Last Resort is still recording each week

so the hero of that show has murdered multiple people?

Nope, not a one. But she does set up circumstances where people she needs dead actually die.

Damn. Is Revenge the secret follow-up to Profit that I've always wanted?

oh cool zzzzzz

yeah most of the murders have come from one her sensei's henchmen so far right?

PLEASE start a revenge thread so i can read this thread without spoilers PLEASE

i want to talk about revenge because it's SO DUMB but i keep watching it, it is one of the dumbest tv shows i've ever seen. but i can't talk about it because i'm still in s1 and don't want spoilers.

Revenge has managed to make abject stupidity and wholesale ludicrousness into assets

Like, I know it's super dumb a lot of the time but just watching Emily manipulate everyone around her down lanes of self-destruction is amazingly entertaining

i know we aren't supposed to believe in guilty pleasures anymore in 2012 but that's totally what it is

I'm not totally caught up on season 2 yet but I just hit a wholly horrifying event this weekend that I refuse to spoil for you because, even though I saw it coming, it was still shocking

also its on-the-cheap portrayal of the billionaire lifestyle is so charmingly awful, the graysons live in the hamptons equivalent of downton abbey and yet daniel sleeps in the poolhouse.

ABC's primetime soap REVENGE: S1/S2 discussion herein

there is a massive spoiler right in the beginning of that thread btw

tbf, that spoiler is at least three episodes old...what's the allowable timeframe for such behavior?

generally speaking, when the person worrying about spoilers says "btw I'm only halfway through season 1" you should probably avoid directly posting major things that happen in season 2, or at least make it clearer in the thread title that you plan to spoil the shit out of season 2

it's ok i specifically asked for another thread so i could avoid spoilers by not reading it. i know i confused matters by saying i wanted to talk about it but mainly i just wanted to say how dumb it is so mission accomplished

In retrospect, the spoiler I dropped doesn't figure into the story arc too greatly. It was just an easy set 'em up, knock 'em down pun.

sure, but it a grade-A Revenge moment that everyone should get to watch unfold in real time with no forewarned knowledge; in some ways, I'd love it if the show stopped advancing an overarching plot and just had Emily and Victoria manipulating everyone around them into jumping into alligator pits

Nashville given a full season pick-up, btw.

w00t

yeah, show's not as good as i thought it might be but it's still very watchable. little befuddled blonde songwriter is a cutie.

you just wanna make her life all wonderful

she's p cute. I have a weird crush on deacon, even though he has weird squished-in eyes

mad crushin' on all kinds of these Tuesday night comedy women

i like the central characters/plot in Nashville but the attempts to turn it into a sprawling ensemble story of a whole city Treme kinda thing haven't been working for me, don't really care about any of these other secondary characters

why can't you let scarlett have this

Nashville is pretty ridiculous at this point (I feel comfortable saying that as someone who lived there for a while), but I'm so sucked in that there's no turning back. Especially now that Rayna and Miss Thing have to do a duet at the Opry.

I let this stack up on my DVR and then just deleted it all and now I regret it. :(

Well Last Resort was cancelled. So was 666 Park Avenue but I don't guess anyone cares about that.

I loved the Last Resort pilot, suffered through the second ep, and then didn't watch it again. It just felt like a canceled show by the time of the second ep, so I didn't (and won't) bother catching up.

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

i do so much for this little box, why can't it do anything for me

Johnny Fever otm, i actually have gotten about 4-5 episodes in now and want to make an attempt to see it through to the end but it definitely squandered a lot of its potential pretty quickly

Man, post-Homicide Andre Braugher just cannot catch a long-term TV break. This is, what, the fourth (fifth?) show he's been on that ran two seasons or fewer? Unjust!

I liked that Thief show that was just a mini-series on USA a few years ago.

Not USA, but FX. I stand corrected.

thief was one of those mini-series that is really a 6 episode order from a cable station that decided not to ask for more. political animals was one too.

dodged a bullet w/ Political Animals, man that was bad

nooooooooooooo not Last Resort

;_;

to be honest, last resort always felt like a one season only type of thing. there's no way a plot like this could be dragged on for multiple seasons without it getting boring as hell. but i guess a one season show is def not something that makes sense on american tv, sadly.

I started DVR'ing Key and Peele and it really is good; I mean as you'd expect from two ex-Mad TV'ers it's kinda hit and miss but they're both surprisingly great actors and tap into what made the few good Mad TV sketches work pretty well. It reminds me a lot of Brit sketch comedy like Big Train in that most of the sketches are just one absurd joke taken to its extreme, lots of hard left turns, and it kind of passes up cheap shots. I hope they stick around a while.

Keegan Michael Key was a pretty acclaimed dude at Second City. There are a number of Mad TV alums whose talents were totally squandered on that stupid show.

hahaha every week i think last resort cannot get any more ridiculous and every week i'm proven wrong.

For those who may have missed the news, Shawn Ryan just got a deal with HBO for a new show. So he may get to finally spread his wings a bit (and not have to worry about his shows getting cancelled after a single season).

Ryan also created, wrote and/or produced other dramas, including "The Shield," "The Chicago Code," "The Unit" and "Terriers." He is working with comedian Eddie Murphy on a "Beverly Hills Cop" pilot for CBS.

wait, what?

What? HBO is no better than any other network about letting shows find an audience. If they're not doing well pretty much out of the gate, they're toast.

Yeah, the BHC reboot. It's based on Axel Jr. (or whatever his name will be) being a cop in Beverly Hills, constantly trying to live down his father's reputation. Eddie will make cameos, but it's supposedly going to be a semi-serious procedural cop show.

well that's DOA