2010 Fall TV Premieres: What's good and what's not so good?

Someone mentioned starting a thread like this in the 30 Rock thread, so here it is. We'll figure out which shows are worth watching and which aren't (and maybe which shows to start individual threads for). Hooray TV!

So far, I've watched The Event which seems all kinds of corny in the same way that 24 was, but I'll stick around until the mystery gets a little more explanation.

Also, just watched FOX-coms Raising Hope and Running Wilde on hulu. Both are far better than I expected they might be, but especially Raising Hope. Martha Plimpton has been preparing for this role her whole life. SO GOOD.

Terriers' 3rd episode was pretty amazing, hopefully F/X is gonna keep this one going because it has major promise.

I liked the Lone Star premiere a lot but that show is clearly fucking doomed.

I need to catch up on Terriers. I love Donal Logue.

Holy shit, Terriers is GREAT. The pilot's the only thing up on hulu, but I'm going to torrent the ones since then.

Anyone seen anything else good?

I enjoyed "The Event" a lot. "Chase"... not so much.

I have "The Undercovers" saved on DV-R to view at some point.

Terriers is really good. Raising Hope is ok, not great. I'll give it another chance. Don't think I'll check out a second episode of Running Wilde though. It was not very good at all.

Undercovers was terrible. Aside from a few seconds where the girl loses her dress

Watched the "Hawaii 5-0" pilot last night. Not bad, gotta give 'em credit for using the original theme song with no modernization, and essentially duplicating the original opening credits -- zoom in to McGarrett on the roof of a high-rise, all the same landmarks, etc. Scott Caan turning into his dad circa "The Godfather," and Grace Park in a bikini and also naked, well worth watching.

I watched the opening few minutes of Hawaii 5-0 before going back to the football game. Seemed alright, but until the season's over I'd probably rather watch MNF than H5-0.

not sure if they deserve credit
Hawaii Five-0 will use the original show's theme song as composed by Morton Stevens. Critics received an early copy of the pilot with a synthesizer and guitar-based version of the theme. After negative reaction to the reworked song spread quickly online, Kurtzman said he and others realized that changing the music that much was a mistake, and arranged for studio musicians,[9] including three who had worked on the original from 1968,[10] to rerecord the theme "exactly as it was".

Terriers is great. Digging new seasons of The League + It's Always Sunny. Thought Glee season premiere was good-Glee (totally surreal insane disturbing) and not bad-Glee (sappy melodramatic heavy-handed). Haven't yet seen Running Wilde, HIMYM Premiere, Boardwalk Empire or Lone Star, but they're all on my list. Venture Bros is back and great as usual. Modern Family was decent (some lulz, nothing mind-blowing), Cougar Town was cute (still way better than its name). NBC Thursday night starts tonight and I'm psyched. And uh -- I think those are the only shows on my radar atm. Oh, House season premiere was TERRIBLE worst House episode ever. Caught like 10 minutes of Undercovers -- boring.

Modern Family is too genial for my liking.

I don't think the geniality is what bugs me about it, but it does seem to be pandering somehow to me and the joeks aren't always there. "WTF - Why the face" still makes me lol tho, + considering some of the crap I'm willing to watch (will pontificate ab/ King of Queens every now + then) it's definitely one of the better sitcoms out there. Shocked it won the Emmy tho when it was up against (imo) superior shows.

Oh, House season premiere was TERRIBLE worst House episode ever.

I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, considering I was not looking forward to House and Cuddy EVER getting together. The scene with Wilson climbing in through the window in the kitchen was v. funny.

the scene where cuddy is SPOILERALERT kissing House's leg was the most melodramatic creepy shit that show has ever done

The Middle's premiere was funny as usual, but there's still something about that show that seems "off". Can't put my finger on it, because I like all the characters and there are plenty of gags and jokes, but it's still too slight to call it a favorite.

I guess I'm the only person who liked Undercovers. It was breezy and sexy. It wasn't smart but wasn't pretending to be.

Terriers is great.

The Event was pretty bad.

Running Wilde is good but has room for improvement.

Hawaii 5-0 is something I will happily watch with my parents but never on my own.

Lone Star seems like a good show but I just didn't care about it enough to finish the episode.

Still can't get into any of the ABC comedies but they do seem to have improved.

re: The Middle, every time I've watched it it feels like the characters are all underdeveloped + shallow. that's not such a problem for a show like 30 Rock where broad characterization is really funny, but in The Middle where it's trying to be Malcolm in the Middle (or even Roseanne) style typical family dramedy that's half funny and half poignant it kills the show that none of the characters are particularly likable. the little kid is weird, the oldest son is lazy, the mother is stress and overworked and the father is quiet and trying-his hardest. the only really interesting character imo is the chronically-failing but still chipper daughter, but the show is barely about her at all.

I'll say it again because it needs saying. Don't listen to righteousmaelstrom up there. Raising Hope really is fantastic. Far superior to Running Wilde. If one of the new Fox sitcoms goes anywhere good, it will be the former and not the latter.

Is it really? It doesn't look like the kind of thing that will appeal to me (and for some reason I get the same vibe off it as I did off sons of tuscon), from the commercials at least. Might be more interested tho if people are digging it.

I didn't see Raising Hope, but am intrigued by it because I love Garret Dillahunt.

Garret's part is still really background so far, but he's definitely a presence. It's really a showcase for Martha Plimpton, though. And also the girl who works at the supermarket (I don't know her name, but I recognize her from a few things).

the only really interesting character imo is the chronically-failing but still chipper daughter, but the show is barely about her at all.

Sometimes I think the show might be better if it were told from Sue's POV, but that would probably just make it way too bizarre. At least through mom's POV it seems to be grounded in some relatable way to normal people.

Like I said upthread, I'll give Raising Hope another chance and hope it get its sea legs. I was just underwhelmed by it is all.

Lone Star was pretty good -- could've done with fewer shitty Rogue Wave songs. My wife was all "where's the country music?!" However the ratings don't make it seem like it's going to make it more than another week.

I heard about Lone Star having one more week before being cancelled. That sounds pretty extreme -- I don't remember a (somewhat well reviewed) show getting cancelled so quickly in a season in a while. But maybe it's happening all the time and I'm just not generally noticing it.

I feel bad for Adrienne Palicki being out of a job again so soon if Lone Star gets canceled, but it seemed like an iffy prospect in the first place. If Fox rebroadcast a PG version of Terriers after House on Monday nights, I'd be glued to my tv (because, honestly, saying "shit" about 10 times per episode doesn't really make Terriers a better show than it would be otherwise).

The ratings were really THAT bad.

So pilots I have seen:

Terriers: Good-to-Great so far, with the third being the strongest. Don't think it has the chops to become an all-time classic, but look forward to watching.

Running Wilde: Absolutely atrocious. Will need a massive retooling/jump in quality to be worth watching.

The Event: non-Event, morelike. zzzzz

Hawaii 5-0: Said on other thread, but it was Big Dumb Fun that will likely fall away when they get to their normal budget.

Undercovers: Liked the DV look, but the writing is nothing interesting and it needs to get considerably better if it wants to make up for the clichés and the confused role of the male lead.

Lone Star: The best of the network premieres that I've seen by quite some distance. It has the potential to be a properly good show, but will likely not get the chance.

Nikita: Much better in its second week, it's actually pretty okay once you accept the Danny Cannon element.

Hellcats: WTF lol only made it thru half.

Reviews are so terrible I think I might have to DVR My Generation tonight.

Running Wilde better or worse than the Arnett flick Brothers Solomon?

I actually like Brothers Solomon! Had it been released a year or two later I doubt the reception would have been so vicious/indifferent.

Wow, you guys. Outsourced is probably one of the clumsiest, flattest, most in-poor-taste comedy pilots ever made.

yeah i'm gonna have to catch that on hulu

outsourced is really something

Outsourced is probably one of the clumsiest, flattest, most in-poor-taste comedy pilots ever made.

i've kinda wondered how that would be ... it has the potential to be REALLY bad (b/w the possibility of nasty ethnic stereotyping and that offshoring is kind of a touchy subject in a "whistling past a graveyard" way these days).

Nikita: Much better in its second week, it's actually pretty okay once you accept the Danny Cannon element.

i've liked this so far (haven't seen the third one yet), even if suddenly figuring that nikita is probably the one who shot her protege's parents (i mean, who knows, but that's just the kind of thing one would set up as a major plot point) was kind of disappointing, since i don't normally give much thought to where the plot on a tv show will go and like it better that way. i like the lead. but it seems like it might suffer, eventually, from having an overly small core cast like lots of shows. 'foiled again! by you! again!' there's been a bit of a class-warfare note, it would be nice if they hit it more.

the Boardwalk Empire pilot was kind of a pile of gangster movie/show cliches, but it was very entertaining and the reviews seem to indicate that it does get really good. if you have HBO, would say get on it.

I was really impressed by how gross Outsourced made me feel.

Terriers is pretty good, I'm happy with it so far. I do indeed like Donal Logue.

Running Wilde is pretty bad. I will give it an obligatory residual AD-love few weeks of hope, but it seems really miscast and they need to fix the pacing and all sorts of things.

I gotta disagree with all the critics about Lone Star, thought it was pretty bad. I liked some of the actors, but the dialogue and exposition was just PAINFUL to listen to, just so obvious, on-the-nose - for a second I thought Flash Forward had been renewed. And it already from the getgo seems like one of those serial shows people complain about that dangle impossible plotlines forever, I mean, this is about a guy running two ridiculous cons. Seriously, I am baffled that every critic went nuts over this show - maybe it just speaks to the low quality of pilots this year.

Outsourced is pretty awful. Don't even bother with it.

Raising Hope is another one of those sitcoms trying to grab a Malcolm in the Middle vibe - most of the characters aren't very likeable - though this one borrows a lot from My Name is Earl too. It's just okay. I'm tempted to give it a shot since, like polyphonic, I love Garret Dillahunt (and man is it fucking bizarre to see him as a slacker idiot after being EVIL PERSONIFIED AS A RECURRING GUEST STAR in like every show in the last three years!). Martha Plimpton's pretty good too, but her part could grate soon much like the wife on Earl. I might give it another chance later.

Overall, feels like a better crop than last year, at least.

Terriers: Good-to-Great so far, with the third being the strongest. Don't think it has the chops to become an all-time classic, but look forward to watching.

i liked this too. it looks good and the pacing is leisurely. donal logue and the cajun dude (he mumbles so much he should just always use his 'true blood' voice) seem to have good chemistry, a nicely not-explicit relationship to each other. maybe it's just because i wasn't paying very close attention, but i liked how it wasn't that clear, in the pilot, what exactly their… profession was from scene to scene until it was established as generally part of their prevaricating, odd-job detective deals. i hope the pilot isn't the last time rachel miner's on.

Undercovers: Liked the DV look, but the writing is nothing interesting and it needs to get considerably better if it wants to make up for the clichés and the confused role of the male lead.

boring and misconceived. so it's a remarriage comedy with a spy premise—why didn't they lead the establishing how the spy couple don't really know each other that well (despite having quit the spy game to have a better marriage) so that their new spy partnership comes in at the end to initiate their attempt to get to actually know each other? but that would require actual characters and sharp dialogue and acting and some writing. plus, maybe this is just a taste thing, but spy-comedy stuff generally seems sub-optimal at both the spy stuff and the comedy stuff. at least the green-recruit-navigates-a-treacherous-professional-life-and-complicated-love-life comedy on the piper perabo spy show on USA sort of doesn't exclude a little life-or-death seriousness in the spy parts.

'detroit 187', the michael imperioli police procedural vehicle (with james mcdaniel in it), seems rote and hurried, not much sign of substance. and way too much music.

and way too much music.

Is it up to Cold Case levels in music overuse? I could never fully embrace that show because half of it was just slow montages with music laid on top.

I watched the first Terriers and half of the second and gave up. The show looks great (no small achievement when most of the shows on Showtime and FX look like shit) and Donal Logue is in his element, but the writing just isn't witty enough and his partner on the show is boring as fuck. I could see coming back in 10 episodes and discovering it's awesome though.

Is it up to Cold Case levels in music overuse? I could never fully embrace that show because half of it was just slow montages with music laid on top.

not that bad, no, just your usual scene-filler. people running! people driving somewhere! music you may associate with detroit and feel good about hearing again! (although, at least it wasn't as bad in that regard as 'memphis beat' playing 'green onions' like three times in every single episode.)

omg I forgot about HELLCATS

that show is a neverending cycle of WTF that hits all of the same pleasure centers as America's Next Top Model for me (look! pretty women acting ludicrous!)

shameful admission: I kind of want to hear what Aly and AJ sound like after seeing AJ on "Hellcats"

you really don't.

Ratings wise My Generation didn't do so well but Outsourced did respectable, better-than-Community numbers.

xpost RE: Hellcats. That was the kind of show I was hoping it would be, but that pilot was too much. I think I'll try it again though.

I have Outsourced on the DVR. Kinda scared to watch it now.

I mean don't get me wrong, Hellcats is balls-out stupid. Don't expect great television at all. Both AJ and Ashley Tisdale seem to be embracing the fact that they are in the world's dumbest show and are having a ball, which I am finding incredibly compelling to watch. Although I missed it this week.

Also Aly & AJ suck. ;_;

sadness. yeah, it's up there with the great one-season wonders...

Guys, guys, don't worry. Britt and Hank are sitting on a beach somewhere in Mexico drinking margaritas. That's gotta be the case.

Actually, they went straight (last line of this).

That's what I was hoping.

interesting article, nice to hear that the president of FX is that up front and honest about things. i still think that he's wrong that the marketing was just fine, though, the ads really should have had more going on than just a bunch of quick cuts of action and guns and one character saying "god I hope you have a plan," something that put across a little more of the show's essence

I agree that they handled the ad campaign wrong, but I honestly have no idea how it could've been done right. The show's both incredibly easy to settle into and incredibly hard to distill in just 15 or 30 seconds of footage.

I just hope that all those involved get a chunk of money from dvd sales. I'll be buying it on release day.

So people who otherwise share similar tastes to mine (I'm looking at you Johnny Fever), should I be watching The Walking Dead?

imo it's kind of underwhelming and wouldn't recommend it as a must-see, but on the other hand 6 episodes isn't a big investment of your time and if you think you'd enjoy a show about zombies regardless of quality you probably will

i was kinda excited for it but then i started hearing really mixed things. maybe when the whole season is done airing i'll check it out (maybe it'll be a summer catchup thing)

the finale ran yesterday, so you can do that now fyi

I didn't watch, so I have no idea.

It would have been interesting to see where the second season of Terriers would have picked up if it had been renewed.

At first, I thought it was nice to see the president of FX conducting a conference call to talk about the cancellation of the show but in the end, he fell right back in line with what you would expect a network exec to say: FX Marketing did adequately promote the show, and the ratings were way too low for it to continue. I finished the article thinking, why did you even bother to conduct a call?

Re: The Walking Dead, I think the show started strong but ham-handed acting, some not very good writing, and plot twists veering away from the comic (and not in a good way) made me come away with the fact that I may not bother to watch the second season.

Landgraf is STILL talking...

http://www.avclub.com/articles/exclusive-fx-president-explains-terriers-cancellat,48758/

So a very good old friend and former acting partner of mine had her first of (at least) 4 episodes as a guest star on Detroit 187 tonight. The show is not so good, but hey, legit acting work! Go friends!

thanks for reminding me that detroit 187 is still on (and terriers is not).

i'm sorry i got terriers cancelled, everybody.

FYI, Outsourced is still on too

Yeah, but it moves to 10:30 in a few weeks...hopefully meeting a quick death.

S#*! My Dad Says appears to be going strong as well

With the BBT lead-in, it really can't do worse.

I also stumbled across a website predicting renewal for Mike & Molly, which I haven't watched but am just blanket-assuming is terrible.

I'm sure it is, but CBS is hypnotoad right now.

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly changed about my brain chemistry that made me go from thinking 2 and a Half Men was surprisingly funny to thinking it is a crime against all things good and right in our world.

it's called "growing up," dan, and it happens to all of us.

maybe that explains why I suddenly started getting hairy... THERE

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly changed about my brain chemistry that made me go from thinking 2 and a Half Men was surprisingly funny to thinking it is a crime against all things good and right in our world.

for me it was the time between being charmed by charlie sheen to noticing the huge trainwreck surrounding him (about a couple episodes basically)

you sound like denise richards over here

... Mordy or me?

mordy

aw

here's my usual capn save-a-CBS post: How I Met Your Mother is still the best non-NBC sitcom on TV and Mike & Molly is easily in my top 5 favorite new shows this fall, 2 1/2 and Big Bang have seen better days though and Rules of Engagement is just kind of filler. haven't seen Shat My Ner Says.

did anyone read that profile on chuck lorre in the nyer? never realised he wrote the theme song to teenage mutant ninja turtles

Is Big Bang less popular? I'd love to see Community last forever is all...

BBT still kills in the ratings, i just meant it's been funnier than it is lately

it's still pretty funny, tho

or at least a good bit more consistent than stuff like Outsourced, which can actually be hilarious but oftentimes is just cringe-inducing

well yeah, "broad but often clueless jokes about nerds" tends to go down a little better than "broad but often clueless jokes about India"

well the other thing too is that BBT does the jokes about India better than Outsourced, which generally succeeds/fails based on how much of the episode is dedicated to making Todd look like a moron

heh yeah true

I keep watching Running Wilde. I like every scene with Will Arnett in it

i skipped a few of those but watched last night and it was better than the earlier episodes; or, my expectations had just dropped and it was acceptable to me now.

also, that raising hope show is pretty funny, in a My Name Is Earle kind of way.

Martha Plympton OWNS Raising Hope

did anyone read that profile on chuck lorre in the nyer? never realised he wrote the theme song to teenage mutant ninja turtles

― just sayin, Wednesday, December 8, 2010 2:26 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

also, that raising hope show is pretty funny, in a My Name Is Earle kind of way.

― akm, Wednesday, December 8, 2010 5:08 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

same creator as My Name Is Earl, which makes me kind of u_u since i've always been comfortable in my dislike of that show and don't want my enjoyment of Raising Hope to make me reconsider it

Earl crapped out pretty early even for those of us who liked it, like by the end of season 2. it's undoubted that Raising Hope is very similar, but without being locked into that redemption episode formula and with MUCH better actors

Yeah, wtg NBC. Because Heroes wasn't ridiculous enough, and didn't tank fast enough, we bring you THE CAPE! Guaranteed to be a footnote in tv lore before Spring 2011.

Since I've now seen promos for this featuring Summer Glau, I nave no choice but to watch this when it starts up. Excuse me while I go wipe up my fanboy drool.

i wonder if pitches for sci-fi/fantasy shows now include the words "and we'll have someone from Firefly in it, the nerds will eat that shit up"

Raising Hope has been picked up for next season.

Now, if I could just remember to watch it when it's on.

i like this show, too

good news!

btw i should probably put a link to my new TV thread here: 2011 winter/spring TV thread: mid-season replacements, returning favorites, etc.