Fall TV Premieres

My thoughts on the premieres I caught last week:

• Journeyman: At first I thought the show was just a semi-interesting update of Quantum Leap. Then, about 40 minutes in, there is a twist that makes it so much better and from then on I just wanted to see more. My early favorite new show.
• Reaper: It’s got that fun dramedy/fantasy vibe that Buffy had and the cast has already got a pretty good chemistry working. I’m not sure about Ray Wise’s performance yet… he seems to be a very poor man’s Al Pacino from The Devil’s Advocate. But other than that it was a very likable pilot.
• Bionic Woman: I was really looking forward to this show and I found myself rather bored by the pilot. Unfortunately this goes back to a lot of my complaints about remakes which is the need they feel to give us cursory backstories and origin plots. I don’t care any more about seeing these familiar faces struggle with their newfound power, just show them kicking some butt, mkay? Anyway, the pilot really bored me and I’ve already got this on a short leash. Here’s hoping it gets a lot better fast.
• Dirty Sexy Money: It dropped the soap in the first sixteen seconds. It looks like a metropolitan, New York high society version of Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives. It was a compelling enough pilot, but I can’t see myself caring enough about their “shocking” rich folk behavior or the “who sleeps with whom” salaciousness of it week in and week out.
• Chuck: “Young underachiever gets thrust into an unlikely situation he doesn’t think he can handle, where he must excel to win the heart of a hot girl.” It’s the same plot synopsis as Reaper except instead of the unlikely situation being “monster hunter” it’s “superspy.” And yet while Reaper hit all the right notes, Chuck fell really flat. The cast was annoying and had no chemistry and the show thinks it’s a lot funnier than it really is. Very short leash on this one.
• Big Bang Theory: I’m not sure why nerds trying to win over hot girls is such a huge theme this year, but this sitcom was barely—barely—average. I probably won’t watch it again.
• Back to You: Some shows you can tell have a grain of a concept hidden in the clunky first few episodes. Some of my favorites like How I Met Your Mother and The Office are like this. But they take a while to warm up. Back to You has sitcom stalwarts hitting on their peak levels right out of the gate and producing… the most predictable, uninspired dud you can imagine. It’s like Generic Sitcom to the degree that it feels, upon first viewing, like you’re watching a rerun. No thanks.

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