Toob Talk

Hope everyone’s caught up… this one’s bound to be worth discussing.

Unfortunately, this season has been a very short one. The pacing was much better than last season, which really just makes it seem all the shorter. We have seen some serious movement in plot (some of which was long over due) and more definition for the world outside the island–both before and after the crash.

Needless to say, with the revelations that have happened, things haven’t gotten any less strange. If anything, we’ve gone even deeper into modern fantasy (which psychic powers and strange experiments instead of elves and whatnot). That’s more than OK with me, as long as they keep the characters strong and the story moving.

More later.

Friday is one of those nights that very often gets away from people. They go out and do things, their weekend starts and they’re just not going to sit in front of the toob for anything too heavy.

A lot of shows over the years have either started in a Friday slot and miraculously survived or been moved there to die.

The one exception to that rule seems to be very quirky shows. Ghost Whisperer has been doing OK, or at least good enough to kick off it’s third season at 8 p.m. on CBS. That’s followed at 9 p.m. by the premiere of Moonlight, the new vampire in LA fighting crime series (which will hopefully quickly and decisively differentiate itself from comparisons to Angel, the last show with that brief plot description.) The CBS prime time block gets capped off by the fourth season premiere of Numb3rs, guest starring Val Kilmer.

Other networks are pretty thin on scripted shows for Friday. NBC gets around to a two-hour fifth season premiere for Las Vegas at 8 p.m. Everything else is news, game shows and filler. I remember when Friday was the bastion of family TV sitcoms. That time, apparently, is long gone.

The only other jam-packed slot on the dial this Friday is up on the Sci Fi Channel. Their block of Doctor Who, Flash Gordon and, now, the return of Stargate: Atlantis usually does pretty well. I know it’s what I usually watch or record. (Though Ghost Whisperer has gotten a lot better as it’s taken a slightly darker turn–I really didn’t care for it as much more than eye candy when it first premiered.)

Tonight the DVR will once again be running full tilt.

Smallville kicks off it’s new season at 8 p.m. on the CW up against My Name is Earl on NBC and Ugly Betty ABC. I dropped off of Ugly Betty at the end of last season when life got a bit crazy. I meant to be caught up on it by now… I’m not. So I’ll try to jump back in, because I really do like the show.

The same thing happened with Grey’s Anatomy which kicks off its new season at 9 p.m. It’s up against the new season of The Office and will eventually be up against Supernatural on The CW (though it appears they’re re-running the Reaper pilot… strange). CSI is also back on CBS, but I haven’t watched that regularly in years.

Things calm down a little at 10 p.m. when the only show I’m interested in is ABC’s new one, Big Shots. The cast alone leaves me wondering how it’s going to play out. Christopher Titus and Dylan McDermott and Michael Vartan? How can you not tune in?

Another busy night for me and my DVRs.

We know from last week that the only thing worth watching at 8 p.m. is Kid Nation. Fox’s Back To You will be recorded, just because I feel generous and am willing to give it another chance.

It’s at 9 p.m. when things get a little tricky. Ghost Hunters returns for the second half of its season on the SciFi Channel, the new Bionic Woman premiers on NBC, and Private Practice opens on ABC. I’m not expecting a lot from the Grey’s spin-off, but I’ll give it a chance before I write it off completely.

The 10 p.m. hour sees another stacked set of shows: Life on NBC and Dirty Sexy Money on ABC. I don’t think either of them will make my “must see” list, but I’m curious about the quality and tone of the shows. For those with some nostalgia rolling around, SciFi will be starting up the re-broadcast of Haunted, starring a pre-Lost Matthew Fox as a police detective who can see dead people.

Tuesday night, for me, has been traditionally filled with show conflict. This season looks to be no different.

We’ve got the new seasons of Bones and NCIS both starting in the same hour–in direct conflict with the next episode of Beauty and the Geek. That’s followed by the premiere of the new CW series Reaper and the return of House. Sci-Fi’s Eureka also falls in the 9 p.m. slot, but that gets rebroadcast later, eliminating a recording problem. But, thanks to the scheduling geniuses at ABC, Boston Legal returns at 9:30 p.m., an odd time that messes up plans to get away with just using one recording device to catch everything.

Things get easier at 10 p.m., since I really want nothing to do with the Dallas/Dynasty-flavored retread Cane.

Not a lot of new shows on Tuesday. I’m expecting Reaper to be entertaining. For a little while, at least. How can you really go wrong with Ray Wise as the Devil?

Tonight you’ll be able to catch the broadcast premieres of Chuck and Journeyman on NBC. More importantly, there’s the second season premiere of Heroes, my personal favorite show of last season.

Chuck is already losing me to Prison Break over on Fox, in it’s third season, the show just keeps the action up and the plot twists interesting. I don’t know how Chuck is going to compete with that. Of course, K-Ville loses, hands down, to Heroes.

On deck for the DVR is the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother over on CBS, still my favorite sit-com that’s still on. That’s followed by a new sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, which, from what I’ve seen of promos, looks like it’s going to fall flat for me. But I’ll give it a chance this week.

ABC is kicking off their reality-laden schedule with the new Dancing With the Stars. After two hours of that, you can stick around for the new iteration of The Bachelor. I won’t be watching either. I’ll get all the Dancing info I need from Access Hollywood. And, really, I could live happily without knowing anything at all about what the new bachelor is doing with his roses.