Tag: Private Practice

It’s That Season Again…

The new season of Bones premieres tonight, marking the beginning of this year’s TV season for me. Yay! My DVR is bigger than the one I had last year, which is a good thing. Here’s a little preview of everything I’m going to try to watch. Until I inevitably can’t keep up and have to drop some. Let me know what all you’re excited about!

There may be spoilers for previous seasons throughout this post.

Must-Watches

The Office

The Office

How long has it been since a half-hour comedy topped my must-watch list? It’s probably never happened. But The Office manages to be funny, real, fake, and heartwarming all at the same time. Going for three months in the summer without Jim and Pam and Michael and the rest of the crew is…not fun. I’m not sure what I want to happen this year – they kept the Jim-Pam storyline from getting too stale last season by having lots of other stuff going on, but I’m not sure how much longer they can do that. On the other hand, we’ve got the Dwight-Amanda-Andy triangle getting more convoluted all the time, not to mention Jan’s pregnancy. So we’re chock full of drama. Which will be handled most comedically, I’m sure.

30 Rock

30 Rock

How long has it been since TWO half-hour comedies topped my must-watch list? But I honestly look forward to 30 Rock every week at least as much as any other show. Sometimes even more than The Office, I’ll admit. The continuing adventures of Liz Lemon, producer of an SNL-like sketch comedy show, her boss Jack Donaghy, Jack’s assistant Kenneth, and others manages to stay fresh, funny, and wonderfully self-referential. (My favorite moment last year? After taking a conversation about a cellphone to an obvious extreme of product placement, Tina Fey turns to the camera and asks if they can have their money now.) My #1 request for this year: Give Jane Krakowski more to do.

Pushing Daisies 

Pushing Daisies

The most enchanting new show last year made it through the network’s quirk-factor gatekeepers and somehow got renewed. And we all breathed a sigh of relief that it’s on ABC, not FOX, because I doubt FOX would’ve been so generous. Ned is a humble piemaker with a special gift – he can bring dead things back to life with a touch. But a second touch returns them to death forever; and if he lets them live for longer than one minute, someone else dies. Pretty much a catch-22, especially when he brings back Chuck, the girl who lived next door and who he now loves. As cutesy as the concept is, it’s also the only show on TV that continually greets me with a sense of wonder. Plus, the art direction and cinematography is delectable. My fear for Season Two is that it won’t be able to figure out how to keep the “they love each other but they can’t touch” premise from getting old.

The Amazing Race 

Yeah, I’m putting a reality show fourth on my list of twenty shows I want to watch. You wanna make something of it? I love, love, love The Amazing Race. Why it took me until, like, Season 7 to figure this out, I couldn’t tell you. Seriously, racing around the world, to awesome places, doing awesome things (and some not-so-awesome things)…I’d do that even without a potential million dollars at the end of it. And watching it is the next best thing.

Chuck 

Another sophomore show, Chuck blends the things I like best in TV shows all together: geeks, spies, kick-ass women, action, comedy, awkward romances, etc. And it does it well. I almost literally can’t wait for it to come back. Will Chuck and Sarah move from fake dating to real romance? (I honestly can’t remember if they sort of did last year, or not…anyone remember?) And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Julie Cooper in previews. Er, that is, Melinda Clarke – she played Julie Cooper on The O.C. (and became pretty much my sole reason for watching the show near the end, before I quit watching completely). So that’s very exciting.

How I Met Your Mother 

How I Met Your Mother

What’s this? ANOTHER half-hour comedy? That’s right. And if Arrested Development were still on, we could have a nice set of comedy tennis doubles. But it’s not. Boo. Anyway, How I Met Your Mother isn’t quite as innovative as The Office and 30 Rock, but it makes up for it by having characters I love to pieces. If Ted were real, I’d marry him in a heartbeat. And if Robin were real, well, I’d be her. In my dreams. And Alyson Hannigan. And Jason Segal (who I like much better on TV than in Judd Apatow films). And of course, Neil Patrick Harris, who is GOLD. What about this year, though? I miss Ted-Robin as a couple, but I’m starting to be curious as to who the mother is – the last few episodes of last season seemed to be moving closer and closer to revealing her, or at least dropping strong hints about her. On the other hand, the premise of the show sort of dictates that once Ted meets her, show’s over, right? And I’m fairly sure it isn’t Stella, as much as I like having Sarah Chalke on the show. And I’m not at all sure about Barney-Robin. But that could just be because I’m still, two years later, so attached to Ted-Robin. We’ll see.

Ugly Betty

Ugly Betty

Oh, Betty. I don’t care for the world of fashion (oh, right, except for Project Runway), and you keep dragging me back in. When a show has so many characters you love to hate, or hate to love, or love to love, how can you resist? Mark and Amanda are easily among my favorite supporting characters ever, even when I spend entire shows wanting to smack some sense into them. And there’s plenty of drama to go around…Wilhemina’s blackmail baby, Christina’s involvement in that, Gio vs. Henry…suddenly hoping all that didn’t get resolved last season and I forgot. What with the writers strike and trying to graduate, I got a little lost even on some of my favorite shows.

House 

House

House and Wilson are on the outs because of a little thing like House killing Wilson’s girlfriend, Heinous Bitch. Gotta admit, though, Heinous Bitch did bring a lot of interest to the show last year, so I think it’s going to miss her. But House seems to be able to come up with something (like the American Idol approach to hospital hiring) to keep me involved, so I’m trusting them. I wish Thirteen were a little less Cameron2. Even though I like Cameron. Oh, and Felicia Day, of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, The Guild and BtVS S7, and general all-around acting/internet/tech cool person, is going to be in episode 2, so watch for that.

Bones 

Bones

Zach!!! I’m still angry about that. I didn’t believe it, I didn’t like it, and I don’t like that Zach won’t be on the show as much this year. Yet I’ll still be watching, because I need my Boreanaz-Deschanel-fake forensics fix.

Dirty Sexy Money 

My favorite guilty pleasure show of last year. I honestly don’t remember much about the plot part, and I could really care less about the overarching thing with Peter Krause’s father. I’m all about the twins and whatever shenanigans they’re getting up to.

NCIS and Numb3rs 

NCISNumb3rs

 

These both fall into my “episodic procedurals that I love to watch but don’t obsess over.” They usually stick around on my DVR until I’ve watched everything else, or when I need something comforting to watch. Yeah, I find procedurals about murders comforting. I’m weird like that.

Will Watch

These shows I’m still interested in (or am checking out for the first time and expecting to be good), but I’m not wholly invested in anymore. Some of these may be surprising to those of you who’ve known me over multiple TV seasons.

Fringe 

Fringe

I’m actually pretty excited about this one; it’s only down here because it’s new and hence an unknown quantity. Even being from JJ Abrams – I fear he’s spreading himself a little thin, what with this new show, and Lost (which I guess isn’t coming back until spring?), and the Star Trek movie, and I think there’s another movie he’s working on, too. But the concept sounds cool, and I’m hoping it’ll be awesome.

Grey’s Anatomy 

Grey\'s Anatomy

Two years ago I was a huge Grey’s addict. Then the debacle of S3 happened, and S4 didn’t pick up the pieces quite enough. So I’m there out of loyalty (although I don’t think I ever actually watched the post-strike episodes last year, so I’m a little out of the loop), but I don’t have the same blind hope that I did last year. Unless they turn it around quickly, I may have to regretfully let it go.

Desperate Housewives 

Desperate Housewives

I think I missed the last episode of this, too, because I thought they stopped at the tornado one, but then I later heard they aired the next episode (where you find out that Tom and the kids aren’t dead, I guess). Anyway, this year they’re apparently jumping several years ahead, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I guess they wanted something of a fresh start for the show, which admittedly stagnated a bit last year. We’ll see how it works out.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles 

Sarah Connor Chronicles

I want to move this into the top section, but it never grabbed me last year as much as it did some people. Honestly, I think being busy with school and thrown by having a show start right when all the others were ending (off-season shows really throw me for a loop, unless they’re reality shows) might’ve contributed. But again, I’m always up for kick-ass women shows, and if Summer Glau is involved, even better, so my hopes are high that this will soon become a must-watch.

Heroes 

Heroes

What…even happened last year? I really don’t remember. I remember thinking what a blessing it was that the season was cut short by the strike. Not a great sign, honestly. And from what I’ve seen, I’m not alone in my ambivalence toward S2, so hopefully the writers will find some new direction that will be awesome. If not…

Family Guy 

Family Guy

I actually love Family Guy and have no beef with it. I just tend not to care whether I catch every episode or not, so it’ll get saved up on the DVR or I’ll watch it on hulu.com when I feel in the mood.

Private Practice 

Private Practice

Addison was one of my favorite Grey’s characters, but I never got beyond casual like for her spin-off. I’ll keep it on the DVR for now, but it’s probably one of the first to go if I start getting behind. Unless it suddenly becomes awesome. But my hopes aren’t particularly high.

Tentatively Trying

Knight Rider 

Knight Rider

This could be pretty cool, or it could CRASH AND BURN. Chances about 30-70. Plus, it’s against two other shows I’m not missing (Pushing Daisies and Bones), so it’ll have to be really darn good for me to expend the effort to find and watch it.

Crusoe

(I can’t even find a promo pic for this; that doesn’t bode well)

An 18th-century period piece on primetime network TV? When has that ever happened and been successful? Don’t get me wrong, it’d be cool if it does work and does well, but I’m not scheduling my life around it just yet.

Kath & Kim 

Kath & Kim

I wanna give this a shot because a) it’s Australian, b) Molly Shannon, and c) Selma Blair. But if the tone in the ads is actually indicative of the tone of the show, I might not be able to take it for long.

Fall TV – Two Weeks In

Now that nearly all the shows I was interested in have premiered, and most of them have gotten a couple of episodes out, here’s what I’m liking so far. Pretty much in order of how much I like them. There’s going to spoilers for all of them, just fyi. The few shows that I’m planning to look at but haven’t premiered yet are Women’s Murder Club (which I won’t actually be able to watch unless ABC puts it up on their website, or I obtain it via, um, other means, because of scheduling conflicts) and The Next Great American Band, which is American Idol for bands, and which has one of the Australian Idol judges on it! I was really excited when I saw that in a promo tonight. I might try Cashmere Mafia when it starts in December (I think), because Lucy Liu is in it, but I decided against Christina Applegate’s amnesia sitcom Samantha Who?, because the more commercials I see for it, the stupider it looks.

LOVE/ADDICTED/OBSESSED

Ugly Betty
This show is so close to perfect right now, it’s not even funny. The very first scene of the opener, spoofing telenovelas? Loved. And the way they did Hilda dealing with Santos’ death was so great–they had me fooled, but it was niggling in the back of my mind that if they really had Santos recover from being shot in the chest from a foot away, it would be really bad from a narrative point of view. But what they did worked really well. And America Ferrera, as always, great (she won an Emmy, you know). And Mark, and Amanda, and Christina (apropos of nothing, I just discovered that Ashley Jensen is on HBO’s Extras, which you should totally watch), and Wilhemena…I had no idea how much I had missed the show over the summer. Please, please, watch it if you’re not.

The Office
I’m not hugely loving the hour-long format; I think that’s short-lived, though. Some shows are just half-hour shows, and that’s the pacing that works for them, and The Office is one of those shows. The opener was pretty good, but the second ep really hit the stride, as Ryan comes back fresh from his promotion and starts overhauling the business and being generally douchy while Michael complains that the changes represent ageism. Brilliant. And Jim and Pam. SO ADORABLE. Please let them be happy and adorable for a long time without making them angsty. Let others deal with the relationship issues for a while, and just let Jim and Pam be adorable.

House
First three eps this year were brilliant. House and Wilson getting into a kidnapping war, House bouncing ideas off the janitor, actually interesting cases, the search for the new team members is cracking me up… I honestly don’t mind if they keep Cameron and Chase off House’s team for a while–as long as they’re around somewhere–and some of the new team possibilities interest me. I like the really annoyingly pushy chick, because I can see some entertaining explosions coming out of the fact that she’s just as ruthless and pigheaded as House, and I like the old guy. And I also like the woman who ended up killing the guy this week (ooh, someone died on House! That never ever happens), but I guess the fact that she killed someone may not bode well. We’ll see. But I’m not sure about Foreman getting fired from his new job…that whole subplot wasn’t really well-integrated, and that leaves the door open for Foreman to come back or something, and he was the one of the team that I didn’t mind leaving.

Friday Night Lights
I finished S1 on DVD on Friday one hour before the new season’s premiere. Yay! There’s something so fresh about the show, even though it’s about a small-town high school football coach and his family and his team, which doesn’t seem like a very original, innovative subject. But the writing is really good, the characterization is really good, and the camerawork is uncompromising (though the handheldedness of it can get a little annoying at times). Mr. and Mrs. Coach are the best adult couple on television, no question about it. And if I can fall in love with a show about football, as much as I dislike sports, you can too. So come on. The premiere went a number of interesting directions, a few of which had me screaming at the TV, so really, this season could go anywhere.

30 Rock
There’s only been one episode so far this season, but it left me wanting more immediately. 30 Rock is sort of one of those shows that sneaks up on you with how good it is. I watched it for weeks last year before I realized that I didn’t just casually enjoy it, but I honestly loved it. And I say that about so few sitcoms. Seinfeld-vision is brilliant, like most of 30 Rock‘s other comic indictments of consumerism and mercenary motivations of television execs. And poor Liz Lemon with her wedding dress! And Alec Baldwin is better than he’s been in years.

Grey’s Anatomy
Okay, so I’m really mad at Grey’s right now. But it still legitimately counts as an obsession, since obsession includes the idea of being unable to let go of something that no longer really lives up to expectations. And I can’t let it go. I still love the characters, even though they’re being stupid, and I still love the music, and I still love the show. And every once in a while there are flashes of goodness, and for an obsessed person, sometimes that’s enough. Plus, Becky and I spent the whole show last week arguing through text messages over whether or not Lexie is annoying enough to merit Meredith’s bitchiness toward her, and anything that provokes logical argumentation has value, right? Right?

More after the jump.

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