If You Like it Dirty Late at Night, Well....

 There's something about late night television that you should accept: no one gives a shit about Jay or Dave anymore. Jay's a terminally unhip schlub who stole Conan O'Brien's career and Dave, while much more palatable and edgy, is still getting up there in years and pulls the same tie-adjusting-slightly-corny tics and tricks he's been using for thirty years. I love you Dave, but I can only take two decades of the Top Ten not being very funny.

Plus the format is tired. Clapclapclap, monologue with jokes about something that happened two days ago, band plays filler, pre-taped bit, then big name guest comes out, ego stroke, small time guest comes out to plug book or TV show (because TV stars are C-list compared to film stars), then possible musical guest, good night.

So the rigamarole of the late-night talk show is depressingly familiar and hard to upend. I'm not a big Kimmel fan, although I loved the Lost specials he did when the show was going off the air. But he often feels like too much of a shill for ABC, like they take corporate synergy WAY too seriously. He pokes a little fun at the latest Dancing With the Stars castoff, but it's all a bit glossy for me. Jimmy Fallon is funny, amiable, cool, and young, but I'm not a big "funny song" kind of girl, and his energy is a bit nervous. Fallon does get points for coming up with original and fun stuff to do with his celebrities that don't include eliciting the same five stories from these actors that everyone on a press junket gets. One other problem with Fallon: he's on at the same time as the one guy who gives late night viewers a subversive, smart, and strange option (granted you can stay up late enough.)

Craig in his "poorly-lit basement"

Craig Ferguson has always been funny, intelligent, and self-deprecating. Late night guys have to be. But I knew he was really something special when he came on the air after his dad died. Ferguson improvs his monologues, so they can get a little tangential and silly; but this night, January 30, 2006 -- Ferguson spoke directly from his heart, eulogizing his father with a mix of rueful and hysterical stories and effectively introduced the audience to a vividly drawn picture of his beloved parent. For a variety TV host to open himself up like that, to turn his pain and grief into something universal and FUNNY….I was bawling and laughing and moved, profoundly. You can watch it for yourself here and here.

And so my dedication to this Scottish (now-naturalized) crazy person began, and no matter my work schedule I try to religiously watch him. Repeat viewing is rewarded by this show -- jokes carry over into the next night, sometimes for weeks, and there's a plethora of regular guests who have running gags (Kristen Bell, Lauren Graham, Chris Hardwick,) plus puppets who open the show (Sid the potty-mouthed bunny, Wavy the stoner cajun alligator,) and a gay robot  skeleton sidekick named Geoff Peterson. Gay. Robot. Skeleton sidekick.

Geoff is literally a stationary robot with a skeleton head, a metal mohawk, and a cheap suit draped with Mardi Gras beads. He has his own podium on stage, and as voiced by the exceptionally talented Josh Robert Thompson, he is the perfect representation of the silly slyness that Ferguson's show lives and breathes. It shouldn't work -- you can see Geoff's a bucket of parts cobbled together by Grant from Mythbusters, and he can't move very much, and he's got cold LED lights for eyes. But the writers, the voice, and Craig himself have imbued this inanimate object with a fucking soul, I swear to god. And Geoff has become integral to the show -- Thompson is off for two weeks right now, during which time they have plugged celebrities into his chair to be the voice of Geoff. Alfred Molina, Thomas Lennon, and Larry King all had a go last week. This week it's been ladies, and while Lauren Graham kinda bombed, Paula Poundstone and Angela Kinsey have saved some face since then. All of these performers gamely shared a desire to play -- to play along, to play with expectations, to play up the sheer strangeness of this late night experiment.

Larry King as Geoff - note the suspenders

The Late Late Show is the only television show of its kind that has won a Peabody award--for an hour-long interview with Desmond Tutu in which Ferguson displayed vast knowledge of South Africa's geo-political history-- while also staging awesome lip-synced numbers to punk songs in French and Duran Duran covers of "White Lines." The Late Late Show went highbrow and became "Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson" for a week when Craig, Geoff, and Kristen Bell went to Paris and shot a week's worth of shows in and around the city. Mind you, there was zero real studio. They had no permits. They literally set up a card table on the sidewalk and slid through Versailles with socks on, because it seemed like the thing to do. And then the next day there's a "mouth organ" joke and an obscure Doctor Who reference. It's like a post-modern, Henson-less Muppet Show with more dirty jokes.

So if you are into the late-night talk show thing and have yet to give Craig Ferguson a go, please please do yourself a favor. Watch him, once, and tell me that he isn't the most original thing you've seen after midnight (outside of Adult Swim.) And watch some of the stuff from the Paris shows if you can't stay up that late. SO totally worth it.

Ovaries Abound in TV Land. And it is Good

We are officially in the swing of a full-on fall TV season, and it's tastier this year than last. (No shit, I think Nikita is the only show from last fall that I still watch.) A couple of cancellations so far (Playboy Club, NBC's Hank Azaria comedy Free Agents) with more to come in the next couple of weeks, but lots of shows don't suck. Some are even awesome: Person of Interest, Revenge and Hart of Dixie, to name a few, are all great or kick-ass or sweet. There's a little something for everyone.

I've been enjoying a lot of the stuff I've seen from a purely entertainment-driven point of view (it makes me laugh, or cry, or goes all twisty and cool,) but as is my way, I've also started looking at everything from the female-oriented-armchair-feminist angle and have stumbled into a moral quandary.

Do I watch a show with female leads if the show itself is complete and utter crap? If the characters attempt to be three-dimensional, do I owe it to my sisterhood to try to suffer through bad writing and ridiculousness in order to let the network know that I appreciate them putting women in lead roles? I think I know the answer to this (hell no I don't owe anything to anyone and we should never reward crap TV ever ever ever) but the initial quandary made me think of what I want from my female characters and how this year's crop of new and returning shows have depicted such complicated and wonderful (and terrible) women and girls so far.

There are more female leads on TV right now than I can ever remember seeing before, and a wide selection to boot. A lot of the time women are vacant cyphers or used to inspire envy or lust, or they're supporting players who exist to stroke the male lead's, er, ego. They're saintly grandmas, teen vixens, or (on the reality TV side,) shrill, gold-digging harpies with no discernible talent or skill (Real Housewives, I'm looking at you.) But in this season's scripted fare we have rich girls, broke girls, cops, flight attendants, talk show producers, surgeons, teachers, spies, moms, bartenders…all of our inimitable facets are represented, for the most part, except for the over size 8 crowd. Sorry, my beloved Melissa McCarthy, one overweight woman starring in a sitcom does not a fair playing field make. Especially when the gimmick of the show is that the leads are fatties.

You are amazing. I miss Gilmore Girls.

But I digress.

So I like to watch women on TV, and I want them to be as complicated and assured and occasionally insane as myself and every woman I've ever known. They can be hotter than anyone I know, because it's TV and that's how it rolls, but they must also be smart, or caring, or ambitious, or devilish, or all of those. I want women who are modern and independent -- women the Taliban would, like, totally go all sharia on. And I want them to be shown making decisions that women make, every day. 

With these standards in mind, I took a look at the women on my small screen this season and tried to figure out if it's positive progress for my gender or if the show runner has ever even heard of the Bechdel Test.

Grey's Anatomy is a show created by a woman, a rarity in TV, and seems to have an easier time  making its female characters complex. This season the bar has been raised, though, since (SPOILER!) Christina Yang actually followed through with an abortion. When main characters get pregnant on TV they either have a baby or a miscarriage, period. Even in 2011 abortion is too alienating for the mainstream, but to have Yang (a driven, ambitious surgeon with no desire to have children) come to term would have been so far out of character that it would've undermined everything we faithful viewers know about her. The fact that Yang's onscreen husband supported her no matter his desire for a kid, well, I don't know if men like that really exist. But it was done brilliantly.

Parenthood is a quieter, less showy family drama that assembles an amazing cast, but the standouts are Mae Whitman and Lauren Graham as daughter and single mother. Their relationship is codependent and real. Erika Christensen's portrayal of a career woman who can't have a second child is heartbreaking, Monica Potter's balancing act of work, unemployed husband, teenage daughter, autistic son, and newborn baby is superhuman.

They're BFFs. With weaponry.

Nikita is one of the rarest breeds of all -- an actiony/spy thriller with women at the head. The two lead spies: women. The head of the shadowy black ops organization Division: woman. The mouthpiece for Oversight, the politicians who keep Division in check: woman. Maggie Q (Nikita) is an action star in her own right, and she kicks the crap out of people in her own stunts. Lyndsy Fonseca is Alexandra, Nikita's protege and current enemy, and their relationship is the heart of the show. Nikita has a boyfriend, sure, but their romance is back burner stuff. The really gripping emotion comes from the women and their dysfunctional interaction. Like when Nikita breaks Alex's arm and shoots her (for her own good.)

Fringe has the distinction of having a female lead strong enough and compelling enough that she played three different characters last season. THREE. This year she's playing two, sometimes in the same episode. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is repressed and icy with almost everyone, but she's also professional and smart and very, very good at her job. Actor Anna Torv gives Olivia the smallest hint of vulnerability, but not enough to ever make her a victim. JJ Abrams launched this show, the way he launched Jennifer Garner in Alias -- he seems to have a gift for writing deep women.

The Good Wife has plenty of male characters, but the most intriguing interactions are between Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, and Archie Panjabi. When Baranski's liberal attorney makes time with a conservative hotshot and makes no bones about her politics: awesome. When Margulies rains hell down on Panjabi for sleeping with her husband: delicious.

NEW SHOWS!

There are only a few weeks to go on with these new programs. With some, like Charlie's Angels, I can't stomach the thought of watching any more just to see if the women are likable. I got exactly 9 1/2 minutes into the pilot before lines like "I didn't know my heart could hurt this much" made me turn it off and throw my remote at the screen. That show is, in fact, the reason I wrote this post in the first place. First class terrible, but did I owe it a full episode before I dismissed it? I'm going with no. I always give new shows two full weeks, sometimes three, to impress me or repel me. Always. I just could. not. do it. Luckily there are plenty of promising programs full of women with the potential to be authentic and compelling.

I like the hat. Suck it.

Prime Suspect has been a fantastic showcase for Maria Bello. She's closer to middle age than post adolescence, unlike most female stars on TV, and that alone is enough to make me watch. But then she's is dead sexy with her deep voice, fuck-you attitude, and general irritability. And it's all shot in New York, so, bonus.

Pan Am is about flight attendants in the '60's, sure, but this ABC show has depicted less sexism than the set-in-present-day Prime Suspect. While that may not be realistic, and the lessons Pan Am tries to teach about women's lib aren't exactly subtle, the women ARE the show. And aside from their lily whiteness (a problem 90 percent of TV shows share) the women show a decent range of personalities. And it's fun.

Revenge pits the Madeline Stowe's vindictive matriarch against Emily Van Camp's vindictive daddy's girl in a glossy, soapy showdown in the Hamptons. The backstabbing and plotting is like an 'roid rage version of what actual women do to each other on a regular basis. We should stop that.

Ringer stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as the TWO leads, a challenge to which she rises admirably. But this show loses points for making the only other regular female character a woman whose husband is cheating on her. With her best friend. After she gave him babies. Maybe a future episode has her setting their bed on fire.

Dr. Hart tends to a local--it's tick paralysis!

Hart of Dixie stars the lovely Rachel Bilson as a surgeon whose ambition got the better of her and kept her from developing any bedside manner whatsoever. So she ships herself off to Alabama to learn how to be nice to people. Refreshing to see a woman who doesn't fit into the "caring, communicative, sweet" category that stereotype dictates. Even if she is punished for her lack of empathy. And while her main rival is a woman, she also goes out of her way to treat patients who are girls, while subverting the good ol' boys network.

New Girl is cutesy and goofbally, but Zooey Deschanel makes her character Jess an individual with no real desire to impress anybody. A woman who would like to date but doesn't want to stop wearing yokel teeth for fun is an excellent example of a modern woman who doesn't make me want to gag. Unless she's singing to herself, because that grates. Take a point away for having Jess' best friend be a model, as if Deschanel were an ugly duckling.

Suburgatory has two cool girls in it so far, but the rest are pushy busybodies, Barbie-pink-fake-boobed-soccer-moms or their vapid offspring. Seriously, do high school girls still call other girls "lesbian!" for wearing military boots? Really?

Charlie's Angels. Don't know if these girls are awesome and layered like onions. Don't care. There are too many other shows to watch that have held my interest and gotten writers who were over the age of eight to craft their dialogue. Sorry.

I know I'm forgetting shows. A lot of them probably, since I haven't even touched cable. Women this year are rocking the bejeesus out of the small screen, and although there is zero improvement in female employment behind the scenes (boo) the world is seeing more even-handed and intriguing representation of women now than they were last year. Nothing bad about that.

Poetry's Not Really My Bag

I hated the poetry portions of high school and college English. I could glimpse the beauty in the word and structure, but I didn't truly GET it, not like I did with prose. But I can write the bejeesus out of a haiku. Easy third grade stuff, with contractions and no flowery anything. It ain't Keats, or even "There once was a girl from Nantucket," but it was fun to do.

With that in mind, I bring you (some*) of the Fall TV season, summarized with economy.

Ringer, CW
Buffy rides again
Now she's twice as dramatic
It's very noir-y

New Girl, FOX
Zooey sings a lot
Hope that doesn't stick around
Otherwise, funny

Secret Circle, CW
Pretty, young witches
Evil parents hiding stuff
Way better than Charmed

Vampire Diaries, CW
Stefan goes Ripper
Vamp/Wolf sex is de rigueur
More naked Damon

Castle, ABC
Beckett doesn't die
Still no smoochies with Castle
She's coming unhinged

2 Broke Girls, CBS
God I hate laugh tracks
Appealing leads but that's it
Really with the horse?

Parenthood, NBC
This show simply stuns
With funny, rich characters
Even Dax Shepard

Up All Night, NBC
Baby at 40
Realistic and funny
Not too cloying. Whew.

America's Next Top Model, CW
Tyra picks All-Stars
New bitches same as the old
So many big teeth

Glee, FOX
Things look promising
Songs seem less forced, thank god
Quinn goin' bad girl

Raising Hope, FOX
Crass yet sweet, lines like
"I made that boy with my wang!"
And Leachman to boot

Modern Family, ABC
Got a new Lily
Mitchell wants to butch it up
We are all Pritchetts!

C.S.I., CBS
A spacy Danson
Brings renewed vigor to a
tired group of old friends

Revenge, ABC
Delicious rich snobs
Backstabbing and tawdry sex
Yup, I think I'm hooked

Sons of Anarchy, FX
Guys have done their time
Jax makes white trash look so good
Let's blow some shit up

Grey's Anatomy, ABC
Meredith got canned
But the Chief took a bullet
Everyone looks skinny

The Mentalist, CBS
Jane finally snapped
The team has been suspended
Rest in peace, Red John?

Fringe, FOX
Peter is no more
History rewritten, and
everyone seems new

Nikita, CW
All new stakes this time
Nefarious Division
Can Alex be saved?

Supernatural, CW
Cass as God blows hard
Sam might be going nuts
Leviathans? Yikes.

The Good Wife, CBS
Naughty Alicia
Hottest TV sex ever
Now just forgive Kalinda

Pan Am, ABC
Networks love Mad Men
This ain't that, it still has charm
Mildly intriguing

Prime Suspect, NBC
Sexist pigs gone wild
Bello is icy, ballsy
Just like I like 'em

Person of Interest, CBS
Immediately
Gripped by Caviezel's manner
Looks like the real deal

*This list is made up solely of the new and returning shows that I personally have watched. All in the last week and a half. Minus Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. My DVR is practically on fire right now.

The Emmys are Dead. Long Live the Emmys

Bow ties are cool.

Seeing as how TV takes up a huge portion of free time, considering that I study it and love and want to stick it in my pocket to cherish forever, well, then the Emmys should be the pinnacle of my TV-watching year.

It is not.

I hate sure things. I hate it when the same shows or people are awarded the highest prize in their respective fields five, six, nine times. A few wins in a row, sure, particularly if the competition is nil. But predictability breeds irritation, and so many amazing accomplishments are left out in the cold on a regular basis that the Emmys can be a slog and a half. Last night's broadcast surprised me a couple of times, but I was disappointed more than I wasn't.

A breakdown now of the best, worst, and most blah moments.

In the category of "Took You Long Enough":

Sorry Connie. RIP FNL.

Kyle Chandler winning for his portrayal of Coach Eric Taylor on Friday Night Lights. FNL is  poignant, funny, compelling, and so chock full of amazing performances that  the fact that it took 5 years for it to be recognized at all by the Academy is a travesty. Chandler's performances have never wavered, and he deserved this, big time. As did Producer/Writer Jason Katims, who won for writing FNL. HOWEVER. Connie Britton's snub in the Best Actress category was a terrible mistake, no matter how great Julianna Margulies is on The Good Wife. Then, to add insult to injury, Chandler forgot to thank Britton by name during his acceptance and tried to correct his mistake after his mike had been turned off. Sigh. Tami Taylor, we love you.

In the category of "Normal-Looking Women Are Award-Worthy Too":

Melissa McCarthy winning for Mike and Molly (not a great show, but she is the real deal) was not only heartening for non-size-2 funny women, but it gave the nominated actresses in the comedy category a chance to show solidarity and make us laugh by joining hands on stage and pretending it was a Miss America contest. Amy Poehler should've won, because Parks and Recreation is a stroke of genius, but McCarthy is deserving too.

Did she win this year? Knope.

And Margo Martindale, a middle aged woman of some physical presence won the Emmy for her role as Mags on last season's Justified. If you watch this show, you know why she won. If you don't, try to catch up on both seasons so you can soak up Martindale's country-fried Machiavellian matriarch who doesn't think twice about cutting off her own kin's fingers. Shakespeare couldn't have written her any better.

The award for "Are You F*#king Kidding Me" goes to:

The producers of the Emmys, for allowing Charlie Sheen to come out on stage and present an award. What Sheen said is irrelevant, other than to say he didn't annihilate the broadcast. The sheer stuntiness of his presence was gross and SO four months ago. And it was made worse later in the show when Jon Cryer and Ashton Kutcher presented and felt the need to reference Sheen again. Let him fade into the ether. Please.

The "Cripes That's Boring" award for unnecessary repeat wins:

Amazing Race. The reality competition show that is nearly impossible to beat won again last night over shows like Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance. Here's the thing, though-- Amazing Race is a very very good show, but how in the hell can any other program compete with one that is FILMED AROUND THE WORLD? Visually it's an insurmountable challenge. Shots of designers cutting fabric in a work room, or teams racing across China? It makes this category so dull.

Mad Men. I adore this show, in all of its snail's-pace-slow-burn-repressed-emotional glory. And last year was a great year for Don Draper and company. But the Mad Men love-fest prevented the last year of Friday Night Lights from winning the award it deserved.

The Daily Show. Yes, yes, they're genius. Are they nine-years-in-a-row genius? No. At the very least Stephen Colbert deserves some big ups. And can Craig Ferguson get a damn nomination?

In the "Missed Opportunities" group:

I mean, come on. Kristen Wiig rules.

Kristen Wiig losing for her virtuosity on Saturday Night Live. Julie Bowen's win for playing Clare on Modern Family is deserved, sure, but MF will be around for a while and Wiig has been carrying SNL for years now. Let's hope she doesn't quit the show before being recognized by the Academy. and can someone get Julie Bowen a cheeseburger, please? She's got that ropy TV-star look going on.

Ignoring Louis CK in both the writing and acting categories. Louie, the show, is a perverse exercise in what TV could be if the creative types were allowed as much freedom as movie makers. CK writes, acts, directs, and edits every show with little to no input from his network, and that kind of true maverick-ness should be held up on a pedestal and fawned over.

Walton Goggins was magnetic and intense as Boyd Crowder on Justified last season, and it would've been perfect if he had joined Margo Martindale in the winner's circle. This disappointment is tempered somewhat by the fact that Peter Dinklage is an amazing actor, and dead sexy. The floppy hair is working for him.

Confidence is hot.

And in the "Too Much of a Good Thing" category:

I really wanted Parks and Recreation to win Best Comedy. The show is a little strange, sweetly neurotic, full of detailed and loving performances by Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Adam Scott, and everyone else. There wasn't a single episode last season in which I didn't have to rewind my DVR to catch the jokes I missed while I was busy peeing my pants. Then I realized the exact same could be said about Modern Family. So we, the viewing public, are lucky that the two funniest shows on TV aren't on the same night opposite each other.

QUICK HITS, LOVE/HATE STYLE

Love:
Leonard Nimoy describing Jane Lynch as alternately "mannish" and "womanish" in the show open. Also in the open, the entire Mad Men portion. "Women can marry women now. Hey there Peggy."

Hate:
Clare Danes shook her hair out of her eyes 743 times while presenting an award with Hugh Laurie. Jesus, get the girl a bobby pin.

Love:
FBI agents Dunham and Booth (aka Anna Torv from Fringe and David Boreanaz from Bones) together on stage. Thank you Fox, for your synergistic prowess.

Hate:
The Canadian Tenors have lovely voices. But their singing during the In Memoriam segment was off-putting.

Love:
Ty Burrell's carefully constructed and hilarious acceptance speech about his father, and Guy Pearce's deliciously bawdy one.

Hate:
Never ever ever make Zachary Levi, Joel McHale and Cobie Smulders et al. do something like the Emmy Tones again.

Love:
During the Lonely Island musical number we got to see Michael Bolton as Jack Sparrow, three dudes freaking Bill Macy, and an Ed Helms/Maya Rudolph/John Stamos three way.

Hate:
Lonely Island-type comedy songs. They irritate me, although it might just be Andy Samberg.

Love:
The pithy comments when people were walking to the stage. "Game of Thrones is filmed on location in Awesomeland."

Also Love:
Jane Lynch: "People wonder why I'm a lesbian. Ladies and gentlemen, the cast of Entourage!" She was appropriately edgy and perpetually charming as host.

That's it for this year. We'll see if my faves get recognized next year. Don't hold your breath, cast of Fringe. Or Katey Sagal.

P.S. Best dress: Kate Winslet. Worst: Julianna Margulies. She looked like a bathroom tile.

Fall TV Time-Suck in 3..2..1!

The fall TV season is upon us, and it is probably my single favorite time of year. Yes, for reals. I've got a breakdown of the more interesting launches of the next few weeks, and if you want to check out a complete fall schedule for the networks, Entertainment Weekly has a good look at them.

A preface.

I watch more TV than anyone I know. I mean scripted television, the hard stuff, not the brain-cell-killing Jersey/Kardashian/Housewives candy-colored crapola*. I watch sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, dramedy, drama, procedural, docu-series, musicals, almost all of it. I've been obsessed with it since my earliest memories, when Greatest American Hero and Wonder Woman were being rerun in syndication and my mother watched shows that were over my head like Hill Street Blues and All in the Family.  I consider television to be the most challenging and relevant medium we have, and to create a brilliant TV series is to touch the gods of narrative and make them your bitches. Not every brilliant show is brilliant all the time, because to create 22 episodes of genius every year is an insurmountable task for even the most intelligent and ambitious writers. And the writers are the creative power in TV, more than anywhere else.

Unfortunately for these wonderful writers, the networks want moneymoneymoney, so scores of good-could-be-great shows are never given the chance to breathe and settle in to their writing staff and characters. So expect a bloodbath of cancellations before November -- when you are a big sci-fi/fantasy fan like me, you get used to your genre programs getting slaughtered in their infancy. RIP Space: Above and Beyond, Twin Peaks, Firefly, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Caprica, Dollhouse, Life On Mars, etc. etc.

Gratuitous Whedon Photo

SO! I want you to feel safe taking a recommendation from me because not only am I a voracious consumer of the product, but I guarantee I will be watching every one of these new shows for at least 3 or 4 weeks, to see if they can make a go of it. If something's terrible, I will suffer along with you.

TEN NEW SHOWS THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE GARBAGE:

Ringer
Sarah Michelle Gellar is Buffy Summers. Period. BUT! She's also an incredibly deft actress, and she's been given a high-concept show in which she gets to play estranged twins (addict stripper and secretive socialite.) There are faked deaths, murders, and a lot of SMG-patented pointed glaring. Sounds just like our Slayer.
Premieres Tuesday 9/13 at 9pm on CW

Applegate and Arnett go gaga

Up All Night
Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph are starring in this comedy about 40 year olds who give up their extended adolescence and have a kid. It's been made very clear in press reports that this show is less about the baby and more about a specific generation (mine) doing the kids thing late, and the situational comedy that comes from that. Whatever. The previews made me pee a little, and the stars are all at the top of their game. Not watching would be, in the words of Gob Bluth, "a huge mistake."
Series preview Wednesday 9/14 at 10pm on NBC

Kat Dennings is yum.

2 Broke Girls
Another comedy that looks as savvy and biting as a laugh-tracked show can be is this Kat Dennings vehicle from CBS. CBS comedies are hit-or-miss really, not super-edgy or groundbreaking, but not appalling. This one, about a blue collar girl and a formerly rich girl waiting tables and having shenanigans looks younger and more fun than anything the network has put out since How I Met Your Mother started. Dennings is delicious and rough, so let's hope the jokes stay fresh.
Premieres Monday 9/19 at 8:30pm on CBS

Pan Am
Did you know the employees of Pan Am (the only global airline in 1963, when this show is set) were enlisted in espionage for the US Government? Me neither. But the premise of this show is based on a real woman's experiences, so I'm intrigued by the concept. Pan Am is also an ABC drama, though, so there will be good soapy elements and family/relationship drama to keep it multi-dimensional. One thing that might bug me: no one will be smoking. In 1963. Ah, Disney.
Premieres Sunday 9/25 at 10pm on ABC

Prime Suspect
Cop shows are hard to do in a fresh way -- and while PS has an impeccable British pedigree (Helen frisking Mirren!,) American cops are harder, nastier, and carry more weaponry than their English counterparts. So this new version starring Maria Bello will reflect that in its portrayal of a New York detective with a big mouth, a big attitude, and very cool hat. To have a procedural drama from a female perspective is HUGE, particularly when the woman gets to be rough around the edges. Bello is an amazing actor, and her supporting cast is stellar (Aidan Quinn, Kirk Acevedo.) Plus Exec Producer Peter Berg did Friday Night Lights. Sold.
Premieres Thursday 9/22 at 10pm on NBC

Terra Nova

Jason O'Mara. Not hideous.

If only for the fact that I've been waiting to see this thing for over a year. Spielberg goes back to his dinosaur roots with a time travel sci-fi epic starring Jason O'Mara and Stephen Lang (the bad guy from Avatar.) The conceit: humans ruin the planet. A chink in the armor of the time-space continuum allows people to be sent ALL the way back. Like, dinosaur times. So humans begin resettling our planet in an effort to head off  the nightmare Al Gore warned us about. Why the past resettling doesn't change the state of the current devastated planet in real time is a paradoxical conundrum best answered by The Doctor. But that's another show. 
Premieres Monday 9/26 at 8pm on FOX


Person of Interest
Michael Emerson is singularly creepy, and it's not his fault. The characters he plays are always emotionally and mentally disturbed to the point where they can't possibly be viewed as much more than pitiful (see: Ben Linus on Lost.) So to see him as a zillionaire who teams up with Jesus Jim Caviezel to prevent violent crime….a thrilling opportunity. Caviezel is handsome, stoic, yet intensely vulnerable, and every word out of Emerson's mouth sounds like it has a dozen strings attached. And you hang on every nuance. From the mind of JJ Abrams, if you needed more convincing.
Premieres Thursday 9/22 at 9pm on CBS

  

Look how kooky I am! Glasses!

New Girl
Zooey Deschanel is a hipster cottage industry unto herself, but her personal cuteness has gotten in the way of her actual skill lately. A sitcom with her as a hip, kooky, and newly single girl who moves in with a group of dudes sounds like a perfect opportunity to get her comedic timing back on the front burner. The incessant promos over the summer killed every joke in the pilot, though, so a couple extra weeks will be needed to see if a) the jokes stay fun and b) the guy they got to replace Damon Wayans Jr. is any good.
Premieres Tuesday 9/20 at 9pm on FOX

 The Secret Circle
If you're into Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries or Supernatural, then SC is going to work for you. It's got young hot people. Witchcraft. Family secrets. Jealousy, hormones, and soapy sudsy goodness. The star, Britt Robertson, is lovely and intuitive as an actor, and Thomas Dekker (Sarah Conner Chronicles) deserves a hit show. This might be outside the wheelhouse of the average 30-something but y'all need to loosen up.
Premieres Thursday 9/15 at 9pm on CW

Once Upon a Time
In a small town in Maine, fairy tale characters are real people. They don't know who they are, but they exist. Gothic fantasy combined with character-driven drama, suspense, and an outstanding cast (Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parilla) make this something that could be very, very, VERY good. The writers in charge are Lost vets, and genre scribe extraordinaire Jane Espenson is producing. Nerd-gasm.
Premieres Sunday 10/23 at 8pm on ABC

American Horror Story
Very little is known about this show from Ryan Murphy (yes, he did Glee, but he also did Nip/Tuck) other than it stars Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, and Jessica Lange and it is supposed to be capital-s SCARY. And dirty. Just look at one of the posters, then go check out the teasers:

Premieres Wednesday 10/5 at 10pm on FX (cable!)

Annie Ilonzeh, Rachael Taylor and Minka Kelly are the new Angels

ALL THE REST:
Don't fret that you will never have time to see everything you want to see -- between  live viewings, On Demand, Hulu, and the network showing "Encore Programming" on Saturdays, it's easier than ever to access the stuff you want to watch. If you need advice or tutorials, let me know. I can effectively make time out of thin air when it comes to DVRing.

You may be asking "What about those sexy Charlie's Angels? Or the Playboy Show! The one with the, uh, Playboy stuff! Don't those make the list?"

No. The Playboy Club won't be as biting or satirical as it could be if it didn't have Hugh Hefner's approval, and it's way too easy to go uber-sexist within this premise. Plus, I can only handle one period drama with no smoking in it (see: Pan Am.) As for Charlie's Angels, I'll give it a couple weeks because I like girls who shoot people (on TV, people, relax) but I'm conflicted about Minka Kelly. It's her mouth. And the potential for sexism on this show is high, too.


And on any other list, there may be mention of the new supernatural cop show called Grimm. But Grimm is on Fridays at 9pm, opposite Fringe and Supernatural. No one wins that battle, least of all the newbie NBC show. On Demand viewing for sure.

Talking about the returning shows that are near and dear to my heart would take up even more of your eye-effort, so just know that I will be in nirvana once Fringe, Parks and Recreation, Community, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Modern Family, The Good Wife, Chuck, and The Walking Dead all come back. And Sons of Anarchy already started. And this doesn't include mid-season launches. We'll do this again in January.

So get a babysitter and call in sick to work. We've got TV to watch.



*I'm not immune to reality TV's charms. I watch: So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, Top Chef and America's Next Top Model, and I liked The Voice a lot. I also like the shows where they remake your business or teach you how to better yourself in a non-plastic surgery kind of way. Or the ones where they build you a new bathroom.