What I’m Watching This Fall
With last week’s premiere of Prison Break’s 2nd season officially kicked off the Fall TV Season. Matty wanted me to rundown some of this season’s shows and what i’ll be tuning in to. I’m an admitted TV junkie and love nothing more than to warm up to the ol’ cathode ray tube. This is what I’ll be doing when any of you ask if I want to catch a drink during the week.
MONDAY
8pm - Prison Break – I really wanted to give up on this show after such a lackluster finale to season 1, but damn it, they pulled me right back in with the premiere. The addition of William Fichtner as a regular (Buffalo, New York native by the way) playing the FBI man on those wacky Scofield bros. trail is a great casting choice. He plays the part big and really eats up that cheesy shit they love to throw in to the characters mouth’s. Sucre remains lovably annoying and Bellick turning into a bounty hunter is just a fantastic way to keep familiar characters in the mix.
9pm - Heroes — Yeah, I’m gonna toe the party line on this one and just say, watch it!
10pm - Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip — Walking and talking behind the scenes of a ficticious SNL. Would be my most eagerly awaited premiere if it wasn’t for another show I was lucky enough to see the pilot of last spring which I will get to very shortly.
TUESDAY
8pm - Friday Night Lights — I’m gonna have to wait all the way until Oct. 3rd to see this one. The pilot script was one of the worst written scripts I’ve ever read. But it still worked. When I saw the movie I wanted it to be 4 hours long and allow the audience to get into that world and that town. I think if it’s done right it’ll make one helluva TV show.
9pm aka I wish my Tivo could record 3 shows at once!: House/The Unit/Veronica Mars — The Unit has been hit or miss. When it’s on, it’s one of the most satisfying hours of television you can get. When it’s off it makes me long for the later days of Numb3rs. House won me over during summer reruns. Veronica has been a favorite since its premiere 2 years ago. I have to support this little gem of a show that people don’t seem to be watching. What is wrong with you folks? It’s a fantastic show.
10pm - Smith (at least until The Shield premieres in Jan.) — I hope this show lives up to it’s cast: Ray Liotta, Simon Baker, Amy Smart, Virginia Madsen, Johnny Lee Miller, and Mrs. Araz herself, Shoreh Aghdashloo. Does that not sound like a bloody Joe Carnahan movie?! Gotta give it a shot.
WEDNESDAY
8pm - Jericho – I am giving this show a chance solely on the fact that Gerald McRaney absolutely blew it out of the park playing Hearst on ‘Deadwood’.
9pm - Lost — *sigh*…I am shaking my head at myself for giving it so damn many chances. I hope they made Henry Ian Cusick aka Desmond a regular because that seems to be the only time last season when it had any energy to it at all.
10pm - Kidnapped — This was the best pilot I saw last spring. It’s absolutely fantastic. Every character actor you’d want to see is in it: Ricky Jay, Delroy Lindo, Linus Roache, Doug Hutchison, James Urbaniak, and Robert John Burke to name a few. It’s gonna be a big, sprawling kidnap story with Jeremy Sisto as one of the leads along with Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany as the kidnapped boy’s parents.
THURSDAY
8pm - Survivor — How can you NOT watch this racially ridiculous set up? This is only because I will gladly pay $2 for The Office on iTunes every week.
9pm - The OC — Yeah, screw you. I like it.
10pm - Catch up! Most likely I’ll be catching up on episodes of Showtime’s series Weeds or other things that I’ve missed during the week that get replayed.
FRIDAY
10pm - Battlestar Galactica — If you aren’t watching it you’re doing yourself a disservice.
SATURDAY
Watching the bottom of a several glasses of booze.
SUNDAY
9pm - The Wire — TV’s greatest show.
10pm - Dexter (rebroadcast) — Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under fame plays a forensic detective who moonlights as a serial killer. Yeah, that sounds about right. Count me in.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Damn, you and I must have read two completely different drafts of the Friday Night Lights pilot. The draft I read was a total pleasure from beginning to end. And the teaser looked like a beauty. We’ll see, eh?
I’m dying to see Kidnapped! Jeremy Sisto is one of my faves.
For some reason I feel like I’m going to be disappointed by Studio 60. Every time I see Matthew Perry’s bloated face on the screen it just seems… wrong.
Is the O.C. even the O.C. without Mischa Barton? C’mon, Pier.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
FNL - I’m not saying I didn’t like it, it was just so poorly written. The football scenes weren’t even written, they were just sort of outlined on the page. It might have been a really early draft but that’s what the agencies were sending out. It was an ugly read, but I dug the hell out of it.
I like Matthew Perry and his bloated face. What I do not like is the ugly mug of Amanda Peet trying to play way above her abilities.
90210 went on in spite of Luke Perry’s absence, the OC can do the same. She was annoying anyways and her character sucked. Killing her was the right move.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I can’t believe you just said you like Matthew Perry’s bloated face and dislike Amanda Peets face in a public forum. That’s some madman shit.
And I’m not even responding to that Luke Perry comparison.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Ms. Peet is not attractive. Matthew Perry at least has the attractive quality of being humorous in his favor. Advantage: Perry.
Also, how is it not apt to compare Mischa to Dylan?!?! They are quite similar.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I give the argument to Pier, considering he had the balls to offer up the fact that he watched 90210.
We all have our vices.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
You have proven your superior wisdom once again, Greg.
August 31st, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Just got caught up on BG. This is some ridiculously good television. Thank God for Tivo.
September 1st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
A few things I’ve been watching until my stories, as I like to call them, come back on the air:
Dr. Who - the first season is available on DVD and on Sci Fi, the second season of this is better, but you’ll have to download it illegally.
Life on Mars - an interesting show on BBC America about a 2006 cop who gets hit by a car and wakes up inexplicably in 1970’s Britain.
Brotherhood - Matt and Pier’s recommendation, kind of “The Wire” or “Sopranos” lite on showtime, about two brothers, one a politician, the other a gangster, set in Providence, Rhode Island.
Question - where do I go to find out when the fall shows start? I’m thinking of: The Wire, Heroes, Lost, The Office and Battlestar (and I guess the Battlestar spinoff, Caprica)
September 1st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
The Wire starts Sept. 10th. Heroes is Sept. 25th. Lost is Oct. 4th. The Office is Sept. 21st. Battlestar is Oct. 6th. I think Ron D. Moore said that Caprica was still in development. so I imagine we won’t be seeing it for several months at least. I would go here for the listings of all the show premieres: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=24318 It lists everything alphabetically and also by date.