3 New Fall Shows: Meh

I find Fall TV to be an interesting phenomenon. We go into it expecting most of it to be terrible, and that most of the new shows will be canceled within a few months. Entertainment magazines and bloggers make predictions about what will be first on the chopping block. I understand all about Sturgeon's Law (that 90% of everything is crud), but I still have to wonder why TV networks can get things so wrong so regularly. Is the answer just that making TV shows is really hard? Or is it that TV studios are really stupid?

Anyway, I've been watching more TV than I would like lately. Which is not to say that I don't like watching TV, but that I haven't been sleeping much this last week (due to a cold that didn't let me breathe when I laid down, and also due to a baby who is currently for sale.) (Cheap!)

A few thoughts on the new season. I'll quite likely spoil things without warning (or regret).

The Event

The premise of this show is surprisingly simple for being a big conspiracy show. There are two main plots: one has a twenty-something guy who's trying to find his kidnapped girlfriend (whilst being framed for a murder), and the other has the President of the United States dealing with some aliens in an Alaskan prison. The aliens have powers, they look like humans, they've infiltrated society. And so on.

So, it's going to be more long-form mystery/conspiracy stuff. The question is: will it be good, like the first season of Heroes, or will it suck, like all the other seasons of Heroes? Will it be layered and complex, like Lost, or will it be a cheap mystery/conspiracy knock-off, like FlashForward? My answer: almost certainly the latter.

Here's the biggest problem with The Event: they don't have enough ideas. The structure is great and fun, how they bounce around through the time line to see different things from different angles. But here's the problem with that: the different viewpoints don't reveal anything significantly different.

For example: we knew that Leila (the aforementioned girlfriend) was kidnapped from her room on the cruise ship. The show had explained that, it had inferred that, and then we saw her with the kidnappers. But then we have a flashback where we get to watch it happen--for no reason whatsoever. Both of the episodes so far have been full of this kind of thing: flashbacks that reveal nothing, give no clues, no additional insights. It's like they have 20 minutes of good material (well, "good" material) and then they have pad the rest of the hour with repeated, obvious fluff.

All of that said, I don't hate the show and I'll probably give it a few more weeks to find its feet before I give up. I don't know why. I think it's because the actors are likable. There's nothing about the show that's really making me mad--just making me sad. You've disappointed me, The Event. I expected more from you. I want you to think about what you've done. (Or not done.)

Survey says: I'll give it another few episodes.

Hawaii Five-O

As the well-known theme music came on, my baby said "Gramma". The point of this story is to show you how adorably cute my little baby is, and how obsessed my mother is--my parents' NetFlix queue is an endless string of Hawaii Five-0 discs.

Despite that, I am not too familiar with the old show. I watched a few episodes, but not enough that I really knew all the characters. Which, it turns out, is just fine because the new show doesn't have much to do with the old one.

One of my biggest pet peeves with cop shows is the complete disregard for reality. I'm not talking about nitpicky stuff about the details of police procedure--I'm talking about the big stuff that gets cases thrown out of court: illegal searches, beating up suspects for information, shooting indiscriminately. We, the viewing public, are not idiots--we know these basics of the law--and yet most cop shows (NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones, Law and Order: SVU, CSI, etc) all ignore these things completely. And--SPOILERS!!!--so does Hawaii Five-0.

Here's the really weird thing about the show: the characters are all bland stereotypes, especially the main character, Steve McGarrett. But Danno is really interesting. It amazes me that the same writers who created everything else also created him. (My guess: it has more to do with the actor than the writers.) (Neat trivia: the actor is James Caan's son!)

Survey says: no thanks.

Chase

This is a show about US Marshals who are tracking down bad guys. The end. That's all you need to know.

And actually, that's just fine, because every time that they take a break from the plot to focus on the characters--such as the interaction between the marshals when they're eating breakfast--makes me want the bad guys to shoot them all.

I missed the first episode, but the only redeeming quality to the second episode was the bad guy, played awesomely by Robert LaSardo. Alas, the bad guy was captured and won't be in other episodes.

Survey says: Meh. I'll probably treat this show like I treat Bones: if it's on, and it's late at night, and the remote is too far from my hand, I'll watch it.

I think that's all the new fall shows that I've watched so far. I'll try to catch up on some of the others and blog again if any of them are any good. (Unlikely.)

What have you guys been watching?