So I’m pretty much caught up on all the new series.The Playboy Club, Prime Suspect and Pan Am are covered below for new series, as well as returning seasons for Fringe, Blue Bloods and Being Erica. Plus some random thoughts on other shows (shh, it’s a secret list).

But as you read on, don’t forget — SPOILER ALERT. This is your upfront warning.

I gave The Playboy Club a shot. I can probably guess what you’re thinking — Poly’s a guy, so he was probably just looking at the bunnies. Oddly enough, no. Separate from the fact that I’ve never figured out why people find those outfits attractive (kind of like a lot of women’s reactions to bad bridesmaids dresses, quite frankly), I was actually going to NOT watch it because it seemed to be just bunny outfits combined with a flashback wanna-be version of Mad Men, except with sex (or, as the advertisers saw it, SEX!). Then the trailers showed a mob connection, and it peaked my interest. Plus, it stars Eddie Cibrian — I don’t mind him in his previous CSI: Miami outings, and as a lover of Smallville (no wait, really, there’s a connection here), I can easily see him playing Clark Kent…think of him as the love child of Dean Cain and Tom Welling. Add in Amber Heard (easy on the eyes, and not playing an annoying “save me” character) and David Krumholtz from Numb3rs, and could be interesting, right? Umm, no, it’s not. I watched the first episode, saw Nick and Maureen get rid of the mob guy, and then it stopped being interesting. I lasted about 10 minutes of episode II, and then I was gone. RIP, bunnies.

Next up was Prime Suspect and by the time I saw it, I had seen lots of ads and trailers, and I really wanted to like this show. I enjoy a brash female character who takes names, kicks butt, and doesn’t take any guff from the guys all while solving crime. What I don’t enjoy is seeing a completely dysfunctional, angry, arrogant character (male or female) who basically only looks good in comparison to the other characters that are one-dimensional rejects from central casting. The show has an almost similar feel to the show Life on Mars, another UK show that was duplicated for American audiences. For those few who saw it, the show revolved around a “modern detective” dealing with neanderthal cops from 1973, knuckle-dragging chauvinists who were just as happy beating up suspects to get a confession as they were skimming from the crooks, where warranted. Not crooked, just badly bent. And it works — in a time-travel scenario where the modern detective is obviously frustrated with old-style detectives. But this show, Prime Suspect, takes place in modern times supposedly and yet have cops that would have looked stupid in 1955, let alone 1973 or 2011. No time travel, and the somewhat charming lead for Life on Mars is replaced by a character whose response to a conciliatory gesture of welcome by the worst detective is to tell him repeatedly to suck it. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops, but heck, Kojak and a lollipop or two would likely improve this series. Most of the characters are all apparent dunderheads, all the male characters are 40-year throwbacks, and the only positive side is an unpleasant character whose arrogance would only be tolerable if she had flashes of brilliance, which she doesn’t. I struggled through two episodes, cuz I really wanted a strong female-lead procedural. But the writing and the character are just not there. Too bad.

As with the Playboy Club, I had doubts about Pan Am. This is the show where they flash back to the 1960s and show the making of the new airline, complete with top-notch flight attendants. Some of the portrayal is apparently true-to-life — uniforms, hiring based mostly on looks plus education (rather than looks alone), strict requirements for girdles and weight control, etc. Arguments both ways for either complete chauvinism and complete feminism, depending on your political views I suppose. Regardless, it’s boring. I don’t care who sleeps with who, why one ran away from her marriage, where any of the girls are going in their careers, etc. Margot Robbie looks a bit like Erica Durance from Smallville, and I almost thought in a couple of scenes it was her. I really had to check IMDB to be sure, although other scenes were blindingly obvious it wasn’t her. Very confusing for me, or just wishful thinking. I confess I’m not a huge fan of Christina Ricci, which was one of the reasons I had very big doubts. And nothing I saw relieved me…I made it through the pilot and 10 minutes of Episode II. Yawn.

I really like Fringe. Quirky sci-fi / fantasy without degrading into horror and shock. Big spoiler at the end of last season was Peter disappeared, vanished as if he never existed. So, this season, Peter’s “gone”, but trying to return — like a ghost or something, only visible so far to Walter. I have no idea where they’re going with this storyline, and I know Joshua Jackson was looking to leave, but I wish they would decide if he’s gone or not. The ghost storyline is ridiculous. Address it or kill it. On the positive side, the upgrading of Agent Lee on the regular universe is good, a nice foil for Olivia. Freak of the week for week 1 was a new type of shapeshifter and we met a serial killer in week 2, but neither were particularly compelling.

Blue Bloods started off with a mayoral mystery of sorts — a new mayor wants to control Frank as commissioner (same old, same old), but at least he’s an interesting mayor. But it looks like the writers are going to repeat the same premise for season 2 as they did for season 1 — Frank will fight with mayor and look all ethical and brooding; Jamie (the younger brother) will go undercover for a grand conspiracy, this time by going after organized crime after saving one of the younger members of a crime family from an OD; and Danny (the older brother) will continue to be the only apparent detective working homicide each week. Okay for a start, let’s see where the season goes.

I am really not sure what to say about Being Erica. I love the premise of this show — time travel to your past to correct mistakes and/or learn from your past. Great premise, kind of a Quantum Leap for psychology majors. And the lead actress, Erin Karpluk, is pretty dang good. Yet, there’s a twist in the show as we enter season 4. For quick recap, Season 1 was all about finding her groove with old flame; Season 2 was about really making progress and meeting someone else in therapy; and Season 3 was about progressing from individual therapy to group therapy and finding a real romance with possibilities of a future together. I was disappointed in Season 3 that we didn’t see more trips with the other patients. I know it is about “Being Erica” but it would have been cool to see her living in another’s times, not knowing what is about to happen. For Season 4, I have to first confess that my brain is on crack — I “remember” the end of Season 3 when it first premiered … you see a hand reach out to tap Erica on the shoulder as her new patient (cuz Season 4 is about Erica becoming a doctor-in-training herself), and that hand is male with a long sleeve and a glove. Note too that Erica’s clothes have changed from when she was in the office two seconds before. Yet my memory of the first showing was of same clothes, but a female hand with black lace for sleeves. Anyway, the new season premiered and I’ve seen the first two episodes — the first gave her a patient in the form of her sister’s soon-to-be-ex-husband (Josh, who was in previous episodes, has crush on Erica) and at the end of the second episode, you find out that her new patient is (SPOILER!) going to be Julianne. Now, I’m seriously confused.

The rules are pretty clear in this time-travel therapy world — you can’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Plus you have to be all ethical, can’t change the world for others (like saving Erica’s brother from an early death or going into the future to see what’s what with Kai and Erica). But apparently it’s okay to have someone as a patient who has a crush on you and another who is a good friend plus your business partner. And you’ll have to tell both you have magical powers to send them back in time. Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. Let me spin this as best I can — Erica is learning how to use her new found inner strength as a person to help and influence others in emotional turmoil? Rather than them actually becoming patients like she is with Dr. Tom, she’ll help them in a conventional sense? Confusing! Plus I really really really don’t care what’s wrong with their new assistant Rachel, but maybe I’m just being petty. I love this show, I really do, but I’m starting not to like it very much. Sounds like a perfect plot for an episode actually, falling out of like with those you love? My wife doesn’t watch much TV, but this is one show we share — and yet we can’t watch it together anymore … I will be reaching for the remote to fast forward to the solution way too often, me thinks.

Some quick updates on other shows:

• Still loving Suits, now with Harvard records hacked to fake his graduation;
• Lost Girl is back to freaky-fae-of-the-week, but introduced some back history for Dyson, just wish they would upgrade Lauren’s past and get her out of damsel/human-in-distress mode;
• Covert Affairs seems to have lost their travel budget, and are spending all their time at home;
• Secret Circle is getting a little too 90210ish, but at least they’re still killing off guest characters;
• Against the Wall still delivering decent procedural love;
• Ringer is growing on me still more, not sure where Buffy learned to act recently;
• HIMY Mother had a great Robyn episode, really not sure where they’re going this season for Barney / Ted / Robyn, although we know Ted and Robyn can’t end up together;
• Castle had a fun super-hero episode, just didn’t go into the campy side enough, probably cuz of copyrights on the Marvel and DC universes;
• Hawaii Five-O was okay, saw wonderful ripping rant against show on someone else’s site recently, but what I really want to know is if anyone is fooled by the Kono-going-bad storyline as opposed to this is her going undercover to get corrupt cops on behalf of IA to prove she’s a good guy?;
• NCIS showed us Timmy’s grandma, and it’s Lily Tomlin (!), which was cool, but didn’t use her enough;
• NCIS: LA mixed up the teams a bit, which was a bit interesting, but ultimately went nowhere, thank the heavens that Hety is back and the whole mystery with Hunter is gone — but now Hety is sharing everything she knows with Callan about his past? Wait, no, we still need more mystery there!;
• Unforgettable continues to surprise me — yay Poppy!;
• Revenge continues to be vengeful, although I had hoped it would be more long-term strategy than who she destroys week by week;
• I think I’ve given up on L&O: SVU — sure, we got two new characters, including Scotty from Cold Case, but somebody really needs to do something with Benson, she’s starting to grate;
• Big Bang Theory focused a date for Amy and Leonard that was hilarious;
• Person of Interest focused on a supposedly dead girl but mostly showed us some back story on the computer maker;
• The Mentalist confirmed Red John is not the guy Jane shot last season, and had great sub-story about sabotaging Lisbon’s temporary replacement; and,
• Nikita had a great little story about brainwashing assassins with remote triggers.

I’ll update on four more premieres at the end of October, but other than that, see you around the boob tube.

Active Shows

Rating	Title	Status	Comments
A	Covert Affairs	Returning	Ben Mercer’s plot is dormant, good to see Annie finding home roots and figuring out her life. Wicked line this past week by adulterous journalist to Joan.
A	Suits	New	Love the new show, with premise being brilliant Good-Will-Hunting-like student who never went to law school being hired by high-end lawyer as fake associate.
A	The Secret Circle	New	Pitch-perfect focus on the “magic”, and so long as writing doesn’t turn it into Magic 90210, should be good for at least a season or two.
A	NCIS	Returning	Thought it was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth, but opening premiere was first-rate. Count me in.
A	Castle	Returning	Not a great premiere, but reboots / resets the drama of last season and a return to focusing (perhaps) on procedural episodes.
A	Big Bang Theory	Returning	Cliffhanger of Penny sleeping with Raj was addressed, Penny threatens to leave for Nebraska, and then got an acting gig for the first time.
A	Person of Interest	New	Good vibe, but suspect it won’t attract enough viewers very fast. Not fantasy enough for the Fringe-crowd, not mainstream enough for the L&O crowd, not action enough for the remaining groups.
A	Against the Wall	New	Chicago policewoman makes detective but only jobs available are in Internal Affairs, which doesn’t sit well with rest of her cop family. Has a “Cold Case” feel to it.
B	Lost Girl	Returning	I like the new politically active “Ash” but the soap opera of Bo and Dyson is thin.
B	NCIS: LA	Returning	Opening spent way too much time navel-gazing at Callan’s past, time to get back to procedural focus.
B	Hawaii Five-O	Returning	Confused return, couple of good additions to cast, we’ll see if they give them anything to do.
B	Revenge	New	Decent acting by lead, okay support, and writing intriguing but showing season finale first was odd choice.
B	The Mentalist	Returning	Okay premiere, too many obvious pieces though.
B	Blue Bloods	Returning	Following same formula as first season — ethical brooding, criminal conspiracy, and weekly procedural.
B	Being Erica	Returning	Love the show, but not sure I like the inconsistencies in the premise anymore.
C	The Ringer	New	Don’t care for Gellar’s acting, but I like the character. No idea whether the writing will hold my interest.
C	How I Met Your Mother	Returning	Nothing earth-shattering in first two episodes, starting to feel tired.
C	Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit	Returning	Okay episode, nothing resolved for Olivia yet, and introduced new character to replace her. Wait and see.
C	Nikita	Returning	Nice to see the writers mixing it up, changing the base structure, and altering alliances. Could be interesting, as long as it doesn’t become Rambo Part 12.
C	Fringe	Returning	Need to resolve the Peter storyline, one way or another, and move on.
D	Warehouse 13	Returning	Too campy for my tastes.
D	Franklin & Bash	New	Too much suspension of disbelief for smart-alecky rather than smart writing.
D	Alphas	New	Just not coming together — is it a show about mutants or a show about mutant terrorists? The characters need more backstory.
D	Whitney	New	Not super-funny comedy, although some funny lines. Maybe another episode or two to see if they can make it an ensemble show.
D	The Playboy Club	New	Okay acting by Cibrian and Heard, but just not enough story to hook me.
D	Pan Am	New	Christina Ricci should have been enough to scare me away, but I gave it a shot. Not horrible, but nothing to keep my interest either.
F	Prime Suspect	New	American remake of UK series, and they should have stolen the writers too apparently. Characters are thin, writing is obvious and boring, dialogue is lousy, and, oh yeah, not great acting by anyone except Mario Bello. Yawn.
F	Charlie’s Angels	New	Yo’ Barrymore, the 80s called and they want their show back.

Pending Review

Rating	Title	Status	Premieres
?	Chuck	Returning	October 21
?	Grimm	New	October 21
?	Once Upon A Time	New	October 23
?	Allen Gregory	New	October 30

Other mid-season shows to come: Alcatraz, The Finder, Republic of Doyle, Merlin, The Frame, The 2-2, Missing, The River, Touch, Awake, and The Firm.

Season Completed

Rating	Title	Status	Comments
A	The Glades	Season completed	Nice ending, no cliffhanger, good but somewhat obvious mystery in last episode. And all ends well for Callie and Jim.
B	In Plain Sight	Season completed	Cliff-hanger ending (ooh, the baby is coming!) but liked the twist that the wedding didn’t happen.
B	Torchwood: Miracle Day	Mini-series completed	Decent storyline, but should have been a lot shorter or tighter. Ending was worth it, but took a long time to get there.
C	Rookie Blue	Season completed	Too much soap opera, not enough police work.

The week of premieres continued last week, although I got a bit behind fast in my TV watching with life interfering. I did however manage to watch Castle, Hawaii Five-O, Unforgettable, Revenge, Law and Order: SVU, Big Bang Theory, Charlie’s Angels, Person of Interest, The Mentalist, and Nikita. 😆 Plus another new show, a surprise one.

But as you read on, don’t forget — SPOILER ALERT. This is your upfront warning.

Castle ended last season with a bang — literally. The conspirators behind killing Kate’s mother years earlier came back with a vengeance, killed off Captain Roy Montgomery, and shot Kate at the very end. You find out in the premiere that Kate survived, didn’t want to see Castle and didn’t for three months (she said she’d call, and she didn’t — sound familiar? of course, same deal last year with shoe on other foot), broke up with her boyfriend (except she’s wearing an engagement ring on a chain so you know there’s more to that story), and wants to get back in the saddle chasing the killers. However, a new by-the-book Captain named Yates (oops, Gates — she was Cassidy Yates on Star Trek: DS9 a few years ago) is going to micro-manage every detail. Including assigning her other cases cuz her shooting went cold. You also find out that the mysterious package of files that Montgomery mailed at the end of the season actually went to no one anyone knew — someone completely new who owed Montgomery in the past. So, he’s keeping the files and reached out to Castle to tell him the deal is that Kate remains safe as long as she doesn’t investigate. Which Castle sort of convinces her to do. Which also means, ta da, back to life as a normal procedural. Kind of unfortunate. The only real “twist” was you realize that Kate’s claim that she doesn’t remember “anything” from the day of the shooting was a lie — she remembers everything. Including Castle telling her he loves her. Now, I’m hardly clairvoyant, and even I saw she was lying at the start of the episode. Overall, the episode was confused, unsatisfying, and went nowhere. Loved it anyway! 🙄 I’ll keep it on my A list.

Hawaii Five-O also ended their last season with a bang — the shooting death of the Governor. With McGarrett framed for the murder and arrested. They brought Terry O’Quinn back to Hawaii (sorry, I wasn’t a Lost fanatic) and he is a decent addition to the group so far — he plays McGarrett’s ex-mentor and someone who knew his father. We get a bit more info about McGarrett Sr’s investigation, and of course, we clear McGarett and put the team back together. Richard T. Jones joins the cast as the new Lieutenant Governor, and I used to enjoy it when he was on Terminator, so I hope they give him something to do here. Episode was choppy, too much going on simultaneously, some weird stuff with Danny and his ex-wife. But the only truly game-changing part was the last 30 seconds — big spoiler alert, I suppose, is warranted — when you find out that the CIA analyst who’s helping them is actually a mole for Wo Fat. Whoa! Give it a B overall.

I admit I am extremely pleasantly surprised by Unforgettable. The premise was attractive — ex-cop who has a perfect memory of everything, except the day her sister was killed. Very much like the Mentalist or Lie to Me, maybe even L&O: Criminal Intent — the quirky outsider who brings an unique point of view and skill to criminal investigation. But I was really hesitant because it stars Poppy Montgomery, who was often a good reason NOT to watch the show Without A Trace. Any episode where she starred in the ensemble was usually painful, regardless of the premise. But, I may have misjudged her. I liked her in the pilot, and will give it a go. Not quite sure how it will work in the future though — the pilot was for a crime she more or less witnessed. Won’t be the case for fresh investigations, and I don’t see where it goes after season 1 … presumably you’ll need to see some resolution on the sister’s murder, at least someone caught for it. But I’ll give it a B for now and see if it even makes it that far.

Revenge debuted last week too. Premise is somewhat straightforward, although it didn’t seem as clear in the promo ads. Basic line is that her father was convicted of some massive company fraud, but he was framed by a bunch of rich people who summer at the beach. Fast forward 10 years-ish, and she’s now a young eligible and rich little lady (compliments of her dad’s investment in a huge computer company before he went and died in prison), and she wants revenge on all of them. Emily Van Camp stars as the lead, and is pretty solid. My wife used to watch Brothers and Sisters where she played Rebecca, and she seemed okay in the few scenes I saw here and there. I never watched Everwood but she was apparently good in that too. My big hesitation on this show is actually Madeleine Stowe as Victoria, queen of the group. I didn’t like her in The General’s Daughter, Twelve Monkeys, or Stakeout. And yet she wasn’t quite the same here — more polished, more formal, more reserved. And it relatively worked. Not great, but good. But there’s an inherent problem in the series — the premiere showed how the season ends (with the death of a character), and then flashes back 5 months. Seriously? You show me that’s how it ends? Could have been a twist and it goes awry at the beginning? Could have been faked, hard to say. I’ll give it a B for now and see if it makes it that far.

Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit is one of those shows, like all the CSIs, that tend to run together for me. I know the Emmies love Mariska Hargitay’s portrayal of Olivia Benson, a daughter born out of rape, but I am not overly excited when she has her emo moments. I like her, but I don’t love her. What I do like is that the writing often introduces more twists and turns, and unlike the other L&O franchises, you have extra cops to carry the investigation load. Last season, though, I hardly watched any of the procedurals regularly, and maybe a handful of SVU episodes at best. But the new season promised change — Stabler has retired, Olivia’s supposed to make Captain (not sure what that means for Kragen), and there’s a new female detective played by Kelli Giddish. I absolutely hated her in the show Chase, but couldn’t decide at the time if it was just her as an actress or her + her character. I only saw her briefly in the SVU premiere, which was modeled on the DSK rape case in NYC, but she seemed watchable so maybe I just didn’t like her previous character. Assuming Olivia becomes Captain, curious to see who Giddish gets as a partner. C for change, I guess.

Those who have read some of my TV posts before know that while I don’t particularly jump on board for sitcoms, I watch The Big Bang Theory religiously. I really enjoy it, partly for the smart talk by the characters who aren’t focused on gossip all the time and actually seem to have productive lives rather than turning into boozefests every day, and partly just to watch Sheldon’s character figure out social mores. It’s kind of like watching Data from Star Trek in a comedy. They rebooted the show at the end of last season, and it was hard to tell if it was a “jump the shark” moment or what it was — Penny apparently slept with Raj and everybody knew. So new season, Penny’s really embarrassed, thinks she’s destroyed her life enough, plans on moving back to Nebraska. Which will devastate Raj cuz he thinks he’s found true love. Big spoiler alert again — they didn’t really do it. Cuz Raj lost his mojo before they started. But they’re saving that news for a drunken revelation to Leonard sometime in the future, probably. Episode was okay, nothing special. But show remains in my A list.

Charlie’s Angels was on Thursday, and I watched it on the weekend. I rarely feel embarrassed by camp shows, I’ll admit to watching just about anything. But this was just plain bad. If you wanted a complete throw-back to the original series, this would be it…same feel, same female worship of the guy on the phone, etc. They even kill off one character to replace her with another in the opening, something vaguely reminiscent of the way Jill Monroe aka Cheryl Ladd was introduced to replace Farrah Fawcett. But here’s the thing — it was watchable for the 1980s, but almost unwatchable now. Sure, they updated the technology, and gave us a kick-ass Bosley. But the rest stayed the same. Yawn. Give it an F, and thanks for freeing up my Thursdays at 8.

Person of Interest also premiered Thursday and I think this is the one I’m most sad about as it has almost no chance of surviving an early cut. It sounded in early descriptions a lot like Minority Report — except that instead of pre-cogs controlling the guilt or innocence of people about to commit a crime, this was going to be some sort of special device. Instead, what you find out is a geeky little guy built a tool that creates probability scenarios for Homeland Security using data from cameras, cell phones, etc. And, when it correlates the data to suggest something “bad” is about to happen, it spits out two sets of people — one set of individuals involved with significant loss of life i.e. terrorists and another set with insignificant people (simple murders, etc.) But the geek built a back door into the system so that he could find the second set of people — people whose lives are about to change forever as a result of being the victim or the perpetrator of a crime. This show feels a lot like Seven Days, Target, The Pretender, or Early Edition, and I liked all of them — basically a show about knowing there’s a problem in someone’s life, but not knowing exactly what the problem is, and the rest of the episode is about figuring it out. If it wasn’t on CBS, but CW/Fox, it might live long enough to grab some low numbers. But this is pretty tech-y, even if the main bodyguard is ex-Delta Force and action oriented. I just don’t see it attracting enough people to hold on unless there’s some glitz coming that I don’t see. I like it, it’ll make my A list, but I doubt it will go beyond a handful of episodes.

The Mentalist premiered last week building off the cliffhanger where Jane shot Red John. Except his gun disappears, and his name and life appear to be completely clean. So Jane is in jail, rest of team is on suspension. Doesn’t stop them from helping Jane prove his innocence. Spoiler alert again — it didn’t stop me from figuring out three major plot points in the show in advance. First, there’s a key on the dead guy’s ring that the wife goes crazy trying to figure out its purpose…which is obvious to me, Jane put on the key ring himself. Second, the dead guy was interested in a missing girl’s investigation earlier, so obviously we’re going to find her (only question being if she is dead or alive) and realize he’s a monster, so the jury can absolve Jane. Third, and this is most critical, it’s obvious the dead guy is far too ordinary to be Red John, so Jane reveals that he pretended to the jury that he was Red John but he knows he wasn’t. So what’s wrong with this picture? All too obvious to the storylines, but each point comes as a surprise to Lisbon. How???? Anyway, I like the show, downgrading it to a B though overall. Starting to get a bit tired.

Nikita also debuted last week, and after an explosive first season with lots of action but little plot, I’m surprised it got renewed. But it’s the CW, and their numbers work very differently. The opening was interesting, as Nikita, Burghoff, and Michael are all together, there’s a new oversight guy running around Division, Amanda’s in charge over there, and Alex seems to be trying to be Nikita, working for Division. Good ending though as Nikita basically showed her that she is NOT at Nikita’s level yet — with Alex ending up with a broken wrist and shot in the leg to keep her down on the farm for awhile. Burghoff has some great new toys though, and the show worked okay with the new format. Perhaps even a bit more streamlined although it runs the risk now of being smash-and-grab rather than finesse to solve spy-like problems. Keep it a C, watch where it goes.

I also seem to have inherited another new show that wasn’t on my radar — Against the Wall. The premise of this show is a young police woman who finally makes detective. But the only available jobs for detectives are in Internal Affairs, so she takes it. She wants to eventually work homicide, but in the short-term, she’s willing to do her time. But IA is not a popular job, as she finds out very quickly from her three cop brothers and cop father. Interesting investigation stuff, and cute secrets as to who she’s sleeping with (her brother’s partner). The lead actress is played by Rachel Carpani and I knew she looked familiar, but couldn’t place her. Thanks to IMDB, I realize now she was on The Glades in the first season as a love interest for Jim. She looks very different here, and far less “annoying”. Partner is good, support cast looks good. Almost like Blue Bloods but with lead being a woman. Really good show so far. Now, if someone can just kill off the mother character played by Kathy Baker. She was big in the 90s in Picket Fences, and I hope she goes back there. She can’t act to save her life, and please no more “I’m a tortured mom caring about my son” storylines. Absolutely awful, and I can’t hit the fast-forward button fast enough. An A overall, I’m really enjoying the show, although I doubt it will last long. Come to think of it, feels a bit like a grittier Cold Case. Maybe it’ll find an audience.

I have another five premieres taped, wish me luck this week!

Active Shows

Rating	Title	Status	Comments
A	Covert Affairs	Returning	Ben Mercer’s plot is dormant, good to see Annie finding home roots and figuring out her life. Wicked line this past week by adulterous journalist to Joan.
A	Suits	New	Love the new show, with premise being brilliant Good-Will-Hunting-like student who never went to law school being hired by high-end lawyer as fake associate.
A	The Secret Circle	New	Pitch-perfect focus on the “magic”, and so long as writing doesn’t turn it into Magic 90210, should be good for at least a season or two.
A	NCIS	Returning	Thought it was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth, but opening premiere was first-rate. Count me in.
A	Castle	Returning	Not a great premiere, but reboots / resets the drama of last season and a return to focusing (perhaps) on procedural episodes.
A	Big Bang Theory	Returning	Cliffhanger of Penny sleeping with Raj was addressed, Penny threatens to leave for Nebraska, and then got an acting gig for the first time.
A	Person of Interest	New	Good vibe, but suspect it won’t attract enough viewers very fast. Not fantasy enough for the Fringe-crowd, not mainstream enough for the L&O crowd, not action enough for the remaining groups.
A	Against the Wall	New	Chicago policewoman makes detective but only jobs available are in Internal Affairs, which doesn’t sit well with rest of her cop family. Has a “Cold Case” feel to it.
B	Lost Girl	Returning	I like the new politically active “Ash” but the soap opera of Bo and Dyson is thin.
B	NCIS: LA	Returning	Opening spent way too much time navel-gazing at Callan’s past, time to get back to procedural focus.
B	Hawaii Five-O	Returning	Confused return, couple of good additions to cast, we’ll see if they give them anything to do.
B	Revenge	New	Decent acting by lead, okay support, and writing intriguing but showing season finale first was odd choice.
B	The Mentalist	Returning	Okay premiere, too many obvious pieces though.
C	The Ringer	New	Don’t care for Gellar’s acting, but I like the character. No idea whether the writing will hold my interest.
C	How I Met Your Mother	Returning	Nothing earth-shattering in first two episodes, starting to feel tired.
C	Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit	Returning	Okay episode, nothing resolved for Olivia yet, and introduced new character to replace her. Wait and see.
C	Nikita	Returning	Nice to see the writers mixing it up, changing the base structure, and altering alliances. Could be interesting, as long as it doesn’t become Rambo Part 12.
D	Warehouse 13	Returning	Too campy for my tastes.
D	Franklin & Bash	New	Too much suspension of disbelief for smart-alecky rather than smart writing.
D	Alphas	New	Just not coming together — is it a show about mutants or a show about mutant terrorists? The characters need more backstory.
D	Whitney	New	Not super-funny comedy, although some funny lines. Maybe another episode or two to see if they can make it an ensemble show.
F	Charlie’s Angels	New	Yo’ Barrymore, the 80s called and they want their show back.

Pending Review

Rating	Title	Status	Premieres
?	The Playboy Club	New	September 19
?	Prime Suspect	New	September 22
?	Fringe	Returning	September 23
?	Blue Bloods	Returning	September 23
?	Pan Am	New	September 25
?	Being Erica	Returning	September 26
?	Chuck	Returning	October 21
?	Grimm	New	October 21
?	Once Upon A Time	New	October 23
?	Allen Gregory	New	October 30

Other mid-season shows to come: Alcatraz, The Finder, Republic of Doyle, Merlin, The Frame, The 2-2, Missing, The River, Touch, Awake, and The Firm.

Season Completed

Rating	Title	Status	Comments
A	The Glades	Season completed	Nice ending, no cliffhanger, good but somewhat obvious mystery in last episode. And all ends well for Callie and Jim.
B	In Plain Sight	Season completed	Cliff-hanger ending (ooh, the baby is coming!) but liked the twist that the wedding didn’t happen.
B	Torchwood: Miracle Day	Mini-series completed	Decent storyline, but should have been a lot shorter or tighter. Ending was worth it, but took a long time to get there.
C	Rookie Blue	Season completed	Too much soap opera, not enough police work.