Tag Archives: 2014-15

The new 2014-15 TV season: Wednesday night

The PolyBlog
November 1 2014

The sound of crickets chirping. That’s what you would hear, generally, for most of Wednesday night around my PVR.

There are eleven shows that are returning on Wednesday night where I have absolutely zero interest in them. American Horror Story: Freak Show isn’t exactly a “returning” show in the strictest sense, but it is another installment, so close enough. Continuing on that “different” tangent, I feel like I should be interested in The 100 for its sci-fi narrative, but it didn’t hold my interest last year beyond the first episode, so another pass. For reality shows, I generally limit myself to The Amazing Race or American Ninja Warrior as the slow pace of Survivor drives me crazy. Hell’s Kitchen had no interest for me for the star. Run of the mill shows that I’m surprised ever garnered an audience include The Middle, The Goldbergs, Modern Family, Nashville and Chicago P.D. Every time I’ve seen episodes, I’ve felt like other shows did it first and better.  Which leaves me with two shows closer to my demographic tastes.

Law and Order: SVU started out awesome in my view. While L&O focused on homicide, here was a group dealing with the most vulnerable, and with a strong focus on procedure and the victims, we didn’t ask much of the leads. How Mariska Hargitay garnered awards is beyond me — I truly do not understand how people love this woman. She’s wooden, she can’t emote worth crap, and when the show started upping her focus, I quit watching. Feels more like a nighttime soap opera with cops, and with the same production quality. I popped back in with new cast last year, no great improvement, as they just don’t have the writing chops behind them to handle drama that isn’t thimble-deep. Criminal Minds by contrast is probably the best show on TV that I’m not watching, at least for writing. Why am I not watching? Because there isn’t a single character in the show I care about. Not one. Great premise, good writing, fun plots, and complete yawners to watch. Both get a pass.

But those 11 shows? If you watch, fear not — they all seem to have viewers somewhere, and I’m betting on full season pickup.

There was one new show for Wednesday nights that I also had zero interest in, the new comedy called Black-ish. The premise of this show is that the rich black dad feels like he’s out of touch with his black roots, so he wants to try to regain his “blackness” because his lifestyle is yuppie white. Hence, he’s only “Blackish”. Right out of the gate, I get that I’m not the demographic for this, but I showed up for the first episode anyway. Less than 10 minutes and I was deleting the show. No chemistry at all, no comedy in sight beyond “hey, look, I’m stupid, so this looks really awkward”…oddly enough, if they dropped the comedy and made it a drama, there actually might be something worth watching in the premise. But alas, no. I’m predicting mid-season cancellation.

Not to worry though, Wednesday had three other new shows that I thought merited a look. I had mild interest in Red Band Society before I watched Ep1 and found out it was basically The Breakfast Club in a hospital for sick kids. I would cancel mid-season.

The Mysteries of Laura is one I really wanted to like. I liked Debra Messing in Will and Grace, love Eric McCormack in Perception, hate Megan Mullaly and Sean Hayes in everything but Will and Grace. Saw Messing in the opening Ep and thought, “Really? Nope. Not seeing it.” I wanted to like it, I really did. But not passing muster. I’ll even go so far as to predict difficulty finding an audience and being cancelled by mid-season.

Like I said, crickets chirping for most of the evening. I had much higher hopes for the new Stalker show. Dylan McDermott is a take/leave actor, but worth a shot. Maggie Q did a great job in the Nikita show, even if it veered pretty far from the original premise. I survived an episode, taped 2 others and thought, “Nope, not missing it much”, so deleted them. The trailer and promos promised more “rogue” action, but I think I’m more turned off by the premise than for L&O: SVU. It’s different, has a different vibe to it, but there are a lot of other shows that would grab my attention more on the PVR, and I really couldn’t commit because I don’t expect it to survive even to the end of the season.

Which really leaves me only one show on Wednesday nights. Yep, I lose all credibility here because it’s my favorite show. Arrow. I’m a sucker for origin stories, maybe why I tune in to Gotham, and definitely part of the charm of Smallville. Arrow has moved into season 3, just passed its 50th episode this week, and part of what I like is that they are not resting on their laurels. Or Laurel. Spoiler alert — Season 1? They killed off his father and his best friend. Season 2? Rough year and then down goes Mom. Season 3? A few episodes in, and we’ve already lost Sara aka Black Canary. It’s darker, grittier than Smallville, and, of course, the best part? No superpowers. I’m also benefitting from not knowing much of the Green Arrow’s mythology for what is what and who becomes who. I just get to watch each week, and see where it goes. It will easily get full season pickup, and should go a full seven seasons to get into proper syndication range.

But other than Arrow? Just crickets.

DayShow TitleCategoryInterestPredictionStatus
TuesdayAmerican Horror Story Freak ShowReturningZeroFull seasonPending
The MiddleReturningZeroFull seasonPending
SurvivorReturningZeroFull seasonPending
The GoldbergsReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Criminal MindsReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Law and Order: Special Victims UnitReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Modern FamilyReturningZeroFull seasonPending
NashvilleReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Hell’s KitchenReturningZeroFull seasonPending
The 100ReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Chicago P.D.ReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Black-ishNewZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
Red Band SocietyNewMildCancel mid-seasonPending
Mysteries of LauraNewMildCancel mid-seasonPending
StalkerNewModerateCancel mid-seasonPending
ArrowReturningHighFull seasonPending

The new 2014-15 TV season: Tuesday night

The PolyBlog
October 26 2014

My Tuesday night preview starts off with one of the five quirky new “relationship” comedies that debuted this year, Manhattan Love Story. I wish I had published my preview last week — of the five newbies, MLS was the one that looked the least focused, the least entertaining. And with the biggest pitch being that you get to hear what’s going on in their heads (like Herman’s Head, which I enjoyed), I figured it was a high contender for early cancellation. I didn’t realize HOW high — it was cancelled already, the first casualty of the new season.

I’m also predicting mid-season cancellation for About a Boy. This one debuted last year, and went nowhere, but somehow got renewed. For the seven people who watch it, I’m sorry for your pending loss.

There are five returning shows and one new show that I have zero interest in, but suspect they’ll probably go all season — Utopia, Supernatural, The Mindy Project, Sons of Anarchy, New Girl, and Chicago Fire. Each of the returning shows have cult followings, and the new Utopia reality show probably doesn’t need it since it is one of the basest versions of reality programming (pick diametrically opposed nutjobs and make them work together).

I had mild interest in Marry Me and Selfie. Marry Me focuses on a couple through a botched proposal, and the ups and downs of their relationship (moving in, for example). Selfie, by contrast, is aimed at the younger, hipper crowd that I hope are out somewhere doing anything else on Tuesday besides watching this show. John Cho is awesome, but the rest is downright painful. Think of watching a bunch of 14 year olds having a conversation about relationships, and you captured the level of ability of writers for this show. Three minutes of the pilot and I was grinding my teeth. Pass on both, and I’m betting (nay, hoping), they both get cancelled mid-season.

There are two returning shows in which I have had moderate interest. The first, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is one I feel I should be watching just by genre alone. I love superhero shows, for the most part. Electra and Daredevil, perhaps not. But generally. And I tried this one last year. After a strong first couple of episodes, I started to tune out, and by Ep 7, I was gone. Apparently around Eps 14-15, the show picked up again, and grew throughout the season. I’ll catch up on NetFlix or something. The other show, NCIS, is incredibly formulaic at times, and while I love the addition of Bishop last year, some of the episodes drop to almost-Hawaii-Five-O quality. If NCIS: Orleans catches on, this could be NCIS’ last season, but it will still go full season at least.

For the shows where I have high interest, the first is a bit odd. I don’t mean the show itself is odd, but the experience watching it. I watched the first episode of Forever and I was enjoying it fine. Medical examiner show? Check. New York City? Check. Something quirky about lead? Check — he’s immortal (he dies, but pops back up very much alive in the river). Lives with an old man who looks like his father, but probably isn’t? Check. Has a secret area in the old man’s business? Check — wait a minute. Strong sense of deja vu here. Search, search, search. Yep, there was a show called New Amsterdam a few years ago, almost identical premise. And while I love Alana de la Garza as the lead detective (and loved her on Law and Order back in the day), Ioan Gruffudd as Henry Morgan, the ME who didn’t die is a bit odd choice. I didn’t mind him in the Fantastic Four, and he’s passable here, but he’s just not dynamic enough to pull off the Sherlock Holmes style of Johnny Lee Miller for example. Alas, I expect it will be cancelled mid-season.

NCIS: New Orleans will probably go full season, as the pedigree is too strong. If it fails a bit, they’ll have cameos from the other shows to prop it up. But the team around Scott Bakula is great, particularly Zoe McLellan. She used to be a mainstay on J.A.G., but I honestly don’t recognize her from that. She shone on Dirty Sexy Money a few years ago, even if the show didn’t.

I’m also VERY happy to predict that The Flash will also go full season. Unlike Gotham which is down and dirty, and The Arrow is dark and noirish at times, the Flash is a, umm, flash of welcome light. Mainly because the main star, Grant Gustin. Everything he does seems like it is powered by cheery-little-boy, and it is easy on the soul to watch. Not sure about Jesse L. Martins yet, but I like seeing Tom Cavanagh again. I’ve watched five episodes so far, and I’m loving it. Not as much as the gravitas-filled Arrow, but as a light palate cleanser, it’s pretty good.

Which leaves only one show for Tuesday night, the returning Person of Interest. I confess that I like the show. I wish there were more Sameen episodes than John or Fusco, but a bit more Root is welcome (even if the budget for adding Root meant they had to kill off Carter). Unfortunately, the “unseen” enemy of Samaritan is making the first few episodes of this year pretty ethereal. This past week, they added a terminator chick working for the machine (to match Root’s connection), but I’m not sure audiences will stick around for the new “menace”. At least with Elias, or HR, you could “see” the bad guys. It’s more like they’re acting against a green screen and someone forgot to add the F/X. I’ll keep watching, curious if anyone else will.

And that wraps up Tuesday nights…

DayShow TitleCategoryInterestPredictionStatus
TuesdayManhattan Love StoryNewZeroCancel mid-seasonCancelled
About A BoyReturningZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
UtopiaNewZeroFull seasonPending
SupernaturalReturningZeroFull seasonPending
The Mindy ProjectReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Sons of AnarchyReturningZeroFull seasonPending
New GirlReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Chicago FireReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Marry MeNewMildCancel mid-seasonPending
SelfieNewMildCancel mid-seasonPending
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.ReturningModerateFull seasonPending
NCISReturningModerateFull seasonPending
ForeverNewHighCancel mid-seasonPending
NCIS: New OrleansReturningHighFull seasonPending
The FlashReturningHighFull seasonPending
Person of InterestReturningHighFull seasonPending

The new 2014-15 TV season: Monday night

The PolyBlog
October 21 2014

For new shows, I have to confess, I am shocked by the allure of Gotham. By all accounts on the show running spectrum, this show should die a quick and horrible death. While the Batman franchise can live large at any time, a story where Bruce Wayne is a kid means that the basic story arc is that the entire city has to go into the toilet so that Bruce Wayne needs to become Batman to save it. So, to prove that story arc possible, just about every season has to end with things getting just a bit worse. So I was fully ready to take a pass on Gotham, with the full expectation that it would die. But a friend at work said she had watched it and really enjoyed it, so I pulled it up on my DVR and gave it a go. The show is borderline awesome. It has a Gotham City feel to it from the get-go, with a look and feel to match. Jim Gordon is the main protagonist and just a detective, but the choice of Ben McKenzie as the actor is extremely compelling (I never watched Southland, nor O.C., but I’m curious how he was in them). He’s great here. The rest of the characters are a little cartoonish at times (not Batman 1966 cartoons, just a little overplayed, like most Batman villains). The first three episodes were pretty good, and while Jim gets dirty in the city, he also gets to make small differences, maybe take some of the edge off the city’s blade. It’s already picked up for a full season, as it should be. Long term, I don’t know, but I think Season 2 is relatively assured.

I’ve only watched Scorpion‘s first episode, and while the pacing was a little off, and the writing a bit clumsy in places, overall I’m in for the recording. Unfortunately, I think the show is too quirky to be sustainable. “Super nerds save the world” usually works better when the nerds are secondary, not primary characters, even if CSI and Numbers proved otherwise for a while. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a go for watching for now.

I saw the promos for Jane the Virgin. The premise is she’s saving herself for marriage, but add one mix-up at the hospital and she’s accidentally artificially inseminated. Let the storyline begin. Yawn. That’s good for about, oh, two episodes and then it just becomes single pregnant girl. Oh wait, she’s Latina. Maybe three episodes.

For returning shows, Mom blew me away last season for all of ten seconds in the restaurant, and then she went home to her family, and the show dropped 50 IQ points. Pass.

I don’t watch the zombie shows, and making it vampires instead doesn’t help, so I passed on The Originals both last year and this year. I didn’t realize anyone was watching it enough for a renewal, but there you go. Equally passing on 2 Broke Girls, Dancing with the Stars, and The Voice. The false drama of all three (!) makes them unwatchable for me.

The Big Bang Theory is one of my favorite shows, and I love that the premise of 4 guys and a girl has broadened out to 3.5 couples with another half on the way. The extra options for interactions, and the fantastic choices for actresses to play Bernadette and Amy, female nerds of a different feather to compliment the male versions, makes the other storylines regularly even funnier than the main lines. I was disappointed the first episode of the new season so quickly resolved Sheldon’s angst from the end of last season though, could have been good to let him stew awhile longer.

Sleepy Hollow just plain rocked last year. I could do without most of the characters other than Ichabod, but Tom Mason is phenomenal as the lead. His look, his mannerisms, it is easy to suspend disbelief most of the time. And they handle the flashbacks pretty well. The show went a little Supernatural-ish at the end of last season, where it had been light horror before, and not to the betterment of the show. I have recorded the first four episodes, and haven’t caught up yet, but I expect the series will continue for the whole season easily, with return to regular plot-of-the-week being main storyline by episode 5 or so.

I also make sure not to miss an episode of The Blacklist. I really wondered if the show would have legs last year with James Spader as the lead, and if you can forget any show where he looked like he should be hanging out with Andrew McCarthy, he’s really quite good as Reddington. More importantly, Megan Boone as agent Elizabeth Keen (technically she’s trained as a profiler, but that seemed to fall by the wayside by episode 2) is awesome. Good looking, compelling, the hot brainiac next door type. I vaguely remember her from the short-lived L&O: LA, but she was decent there too. Love the show, and the first couple of episodes of the year have been great to meet (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!) Reddington’s ex-wife. I found his return to working with them far too easy, and they shook up the people on the team a bit too, but basically the same show cuz you don’t fix what ain’t broken. It’ll be around full season easy.

My second favorite show on TV is Castle. I know I just lost all credibility, but I love the premise of a mystery writer who solves crimes without it being Angela Lansbury. Add the fact that Stana Katic is awesome as Beckett, and it is Must-Watch TV in my house. I’m going to go out on a limb, but it has a bit of an innocent-without-being-cozy feel to it, the same type of shows I grew up watching — Simon and Simon, Moonlighting, Magnum P.I. The various dark cop shows can keep their angst in dealing with corruption, noir plots, personal demons; Castle is all about the mystery of the week, wrapping it up in 44 minutes, with nary a need for a F bomb in sight. Episodes 1-2 of the new season deal with Castle’s disappearance at the end of last season, but by episode 4, Castle and Beckett are back in near-normal land, and I suspect that will continue until 75% of the way through the season. I’m sure the “big secret” will come out then, perhaps just in time for new nuptials?

I am not sure how NCIS: LA will fare this year. I watch Gibbs’ team on regular NCIS every week, even though it is beyond formulaic. But NCIS: LA has an extra vibe that both helps and hinders things — maybe it is the rogue nature of their operation, or the constant will they / won’t they / did they vibe for Kenzi and Deaks, or maybe even just the ridiculous over-acting by their bosses, but I feel like the suspension of disbelief gets harder every week. I’m in, but when I’ve hit this point with other shows, I started watching part of it in fast forward, and it wasn’t long before the networks cancelled them outright. If NCIS: Orleans cannibalizes the audience, I bet LA is toast.

There’s a new show starting in November called State of Affairs, which looks like a cross-between Madam Secretary and Homeland — a hot blonde CIA analyst who advises the President. I found HL hard to get into (the meds for her mental condition seemed way too cliché to hold my interest) and Madam Secretary is smarmy. I want to believe a storyline in the genre can work without degrading down to Covert Affairs level (although I do enjoy that show too), but Katherine Heigl plays the analyst? With a Southern belle accent? I’m passing long before I get to even see an episode, and betting on cancellation by Episode 4.

DayShow TitleCategoryInterestPredictionStatus
MondayMomReturningZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
Jane the VirginNewZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
State of AffairsNewZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
The OriginalsReturningZeroFull seasonPending
2 Broke GirlsReturningZeroFull seasonPending
The VoiceReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Dancing with the StarsReturningZeroFull seasonPending
ScorpionNewModerateCancel mid-seasonPending
NCIS: LAReturningModerateFull seasonPending
GothamNewModerateFull seasonPending
Sleepy HollowReturningHighFull seasonPending
The Big Bang TheoryReturningHighFull seasonPending
The BlacklistReturningHighFull seasonPending
CastleReturningHighFull seasonPending

The new 2014-15 TV season: Sunday night

The PolyBlog
October 20 2014

I am a huge fan of serialized storytelling, so the fall premiere is like my fantasy sports league. I try out new players, fall back on old stalwarts, lament the loss of retired ones, and avoid others that I wouldn’t draft even if nothing else was available.

Sunday night of the new season is a perfect example for me. For returning shows, American Dad, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Boardwalk Empire, Bob’s Burgers, The Newsroom,  and Family Guy were never on my schedule, but somebody’s watching them.

There are also the hugely popular The Walking Dead, Homeland, The Good Wife and CSI. I missed the initial bandwagons, although I did watch some of the early CSI, but I’ll catch up on them on Netflix sometime. So too for The Simpsons, it’s not on my recording schedule.

I used to record Once Upon A Time, but somewhere in Never Never Land last year, it became just Never Never and I lost interest. The Frozen storyline looks interesting this year, maybe somebody can let me know how it’s going. I record Revenge for my wife, and after it is over, she updates me in about 4 minutes on anything I care about. I can’t believe Charlotte is still alive. Seriously? I don’t even watch the show and I want to see if the fandom of wesleycrusherdiediedie are available for an online petition. I gave Resurrection a try last year, but it never gelled for me. I was incredibly surprised it was renewed.

Which leaves me open on Sunday night to new shows. The Affair on Showtime sounded promising — the story of an affair told from two very different points of view — but I don’t get the feed. The Comeback stars Lisa Kudrow. Outside of Friends, I find her almost unwatchable, so zero interest in this one, but the little I have seen is unfocused, going nowhere. I’m surprised Kirstie Alley wasn’t available for a couple of episodes to star and kill it.

When it comes to Madam Secretary, I thought the show was going to blow chunks. Tea Leoni was in the movie Deep Impact, where the asteroid had better emotional range than she did. Just about everything else I’ve seen her in, I’ve had to watch with almost gritted teeth. And yet I was incredibly surprised when I pulled up the first and second episodes. She is okay, not stellar, but easily pulls off the character. The problem is that the show seems to be trying to be The West Wing, International Edition, and there is a lot of walking and talking, and deep conversations about ethics and principles. Unfortunately, it continually comes across as “she was the brilliant analyst” and the rest of the characters are all lazy asses who just want to work in good jobs but have no idea what they are doing. I get that the writers are trying to show conflict between her and the staff, but they continually do it by demeaning everyone else to make Tea’s character look better. The West Wing did it too, no doubt about it, but they also showed the main characters struggling to understand things, to come up with options, to not always have the right answer until the last 7 minutes of the show, and sometimes, yes sometimes, to royally screw the pooch. Tea’s good, the show isn’t. I predicted cancellation after 4 episodes, but I think they may already be past that now!

Which just leaves Mulaney. The bar is pretty high for me, as I dislike almost all sitcoms. One of the few I can tolerate is The Big Bang Theory. But I’m eternally hopeful. Mulaney wasn’t the saviour I’d hoped for. Pitched as more “I Love Lucy” than “Louie”, there was no edge in the scenes I saw. SNL audiences may love him, I had to pass.

DayShow TitleCategoryInterestPredictionStatus
SundayBoardwalk EmpireReturningZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
The NewsroomReturningZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
ResurrectionReturningZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
The ComebackNewZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
MulaneyNewZeroCancel mid-seasonPending
Bob’s BurgersReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Brooklyn Nine-NineReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Family GuyReturningZeroFull seasonPending
American DadReturningZeroFull seasonPending
CSIReturningZeroFull seasonPending
Madam SecretaryNewMildCancel mid-seasonPending
HomelandReturningMildFull seasonPending
The Good WifeReturningMildFull seasonPending
The Walking DeadReturningMildFull seasonPending
RevengeReturningMildFull seasonPending
Once Upon A TimeReturningMildFull seasonPending
The SimpsonsReturningMildFull seasonPending
The AffairNewModerateFull seasonPending