Toob Talk

Believe it or not, I was huge fan of Sex and the City.

I loved the show not just because the main character was a writer or because of all the actual sex that went on in it, but because the characters were strong and realistic women.

Well, at least as realistic as NYC socialites on cable can be.

The ad campaign for the new NBC show Lipstick Jungle works hard to evoke the edginess and sexual energy of that other Candace Bushnell-inspired show. Having just finished watching the pilot episode, I have to say that taking that marketing path may very well kill this show.

The only things Lipstick Jungle has in common with Sex and the City is that the base material from both sprung from the same pen and both seem pretty solid in their own right.

Victory, Nico and Wendy are most certainly not Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and/or Charlotte. They are three women in very different places in their lives from those well known characters. Nico and Wendy are both married and successful in their jobs–their very real and believable jobs that would support their lifestyles. Victory, a fashion designer, is the only single one in the bunch and floundering a bit as she tries to take her designs in new directions. Overall, these three women are more stable than the girls of Sex and the City–more mature and, ultimately, more down to earth.

Sure, they’re high-profile power-brokers in their own right, but they’re also dealing with how being high profile impacts those day to day things–like trying to do what’s best for your kids or keeping that spark alive with your husband.

It’s one of the husbands, actually, who steals the show. Paul Blackthorn as Wendy’s husband brings a depth of character and an “everyman” point of view that differentiates Lipstick Jungle more from Sex and the City than anything else in the show. Even if no other actor involved in the show could perform, Blackthorn would make at least some scenes worth watching.

Lucky for us, all the other performers in the show do turn in above average performances. Brooke Shields as movie producer Wendy has a depth that one forgets the actress can offer–and that is almost unexpected in the character. Kim Raver is back in fine dramatic form as magazine editor Nico walks that fine line between bland and sexy better than most I’ve seen try that lately. Even Lindsay Price, the youngest and least famous of the stars (perhaps best known for the disaster that was the American version of Coupling and her two year run on the later years of Beverly Hills, 90210), makes fashion designer Victory into an interesting person, not just a semi-bubbly fashion hound.

For a pilot episode, this one was pretty solid. I can see the chemistry among the three leads working very well as they grow familiar through working together. The supporting cast–especially Blackthorne and Andrew McCarthy–have just as much to offer. I have faith that the writing can stay good (it did surprisingly well in the entire run of Sex and the City and Bushnell is still cranking out new stuff).

The only two things that will hurt this show are a continued writer’s strike and a viewing public upset that they’re not getting Carrie and Samantha.

Lipstick Jungle premieres on Thursday at 10 p.m. on NBC, opposite the new quirky lawyer show Eli Stone. Give it a try there or watch it online like I did through Amazon.com’s video service. (I’m sure NBC will be running it on their website, too.)

Tonight, Lost returns to the airwaves after eight months off.

In TV years, that’s a really long time. Especially for a show that saw what some called a precipitous drop in ratings over the last season it was on.

If they don’t totally nail this first episode back, I don’t think there’s much that will save the show. Most causal viewers, it seems, have already given up on it. And after the poor start to last season, even some of the more vehement fans I know opted to just wait for the DVD set.

Some spoilers for those who aren’t caught up follow…

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A couple of weeks ago, The Sarah Connor Chronicles hit the airwaves at Fox, a show that has garnered a lot of buzz in the geek world due to the fact that it’s a Terminator continuation and that it stars one of the favorites of Joss Whedon’s vocal fan-base: Summer Glau.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, go watch it on the Fox website now. (Now is the perfect time if you don’t feel like watching the State of the Union Address on live TV.)

In the three hours that have aired–before it was preempted by the SoTU tonight–the show has done a great job of washing the bad taste of Terminator 3 out of my head. Glau is a more interesting Terminator than Arnold ever was, especially since there’s still a whole lot we don’t know about what she can do. Thomas Decker as John Connor and Lena Headey as his harried mother bring a different set of facets to those now-iconic characters that we haven’t seen before.

Oh, and the action. The action is still there–in spades. There is, of course, another Terminator model chasing down the Connors, no matter how they try to escape. And some of those escapes are impressive, even for sci-fi action shows.

The story picks up a bit after the end of Terminator 2. Sarah and John have settled into an near-normal life. John in particular is enjoying the chance to be more of a normal kid. Sarah still suffers from the nightmares of the nuclear destruction wrought by SkyNet.

Needless to say, all hell shortly breaks use throwing the Connor’s back on the road and on the run, this time accompanied by a new protector: Glau’s Cameron, who starts out as the most personable Terminator ever, flirting with John when he starts at a new school.

Time travel figures more heavily in this show than it ever has in the movies. Any time that happens, I begin to worry for the quality of the show. Shades of the Enterprise temporal war and the cheap outs that Stargate: Atlantis gave us continue to haunt my expectations for this new show. So far, though, it hasn’t been used too much.

But we have only seen three hours of the show. And it’s ratings are sliding, so we may not have many more to watch, even with the ongoing writer’s strike. What you can do, though, is check out Popular Mechanics’ run down of the different Terminator models, including the newest one.

Bottom line is, I’m still enjoying the show immensely. Yes, the characters are different, but a lot of time has passed since those first two movies–that wears on people, even ones who grow up to be legendary heroes of the human race.

December always brings with it the traditional television season break.

Over the past decade, it’s served more as the mile-marker where half the shows pull off the road and a whole new set get ready to come on. This year, with the writer’s strike going on, there’s more chance than usual that everything on up to this point won’t be coming back.

So far, though, this season has been better than most I can remember. Here’s what I’ve been enjoying.

Kid Nation — Probably the best new reality show I’ve seen in a while. While I was at first worried it would be exploitive, it’s been downright inspirational. It wraps up next week and I really can’t wait to see what they have in store. Heck, I’m even looking forward to a reunion show a decade down the road, some of those kids are going to do amazing things.

Samantha Who? — Of all the new sitcoms, this one has a pedigree that actually paid off. Unlike Back to You (which should have been good, but wasn’t even close), the talents of the cast are utilized fully. Christina Applegate and Jean Smart play the perfect dysfunctional mother-daughter opposite one another and the rest of the cast adds more spice. Applegate is always a trip to watch and this show has given her a chance to actually play a range.

Dirty Sexy Money — I’m not fully caught up with all the episodes I’ve recorded, but this show just keeps getting better. It gets more twisted, more wild and just plain more fun every hour. The screwball family dynamics of the Darlings and the not quite Everyman portrayal by Peter Krause of lawyer Nick George is a near-endless source of entertainment. Granted, I don’t really see the show lasting more than two seasons (if it even gets through a full 22 episode run), but it’s going to be good while it lasts.

Pushing Daisies — I had hoped this show would be as creative, twisted and quirky as everything else Bryan Fuller has been involved in. Those hopes were more than met. The story of the pie-maker, the shady PI, the living dead girl and the cast of characters they encounter has been the most fantastical thing I’ve seen on network TV since Amazing Stories. Without question, the show is beautiful, but it’s fairy tale feel gives it a depth and timelessness few other shows could ever hope to touch.

The Big Bang Theory — When I watched the first episode, I hated this show. Needless to say, it got better. A lot better. As the writers and actors found the characters, Leonard, Sheldon and their gaggle of geeks and dorks (and Penny, the hot neighbor) have come to life and kept me laughing. Sure I’ve cringed a bit, too, but it was always because I started to think “Oh, crap… I’ve had that conversation and seen that happen.”

Journeyman — While the comparisons to Quantum Leap are inevitable, this show has come into its own quite well over the past weeks. While the main character may be jumping around time trying to put things right, he’s got a problem to deal with that Sam never did: he slips without warning and always comes back to his home time, often with odd consequences on both ends of the trip. Things get even more complicated as we meet more people who may be involved in manipulating events and slipping through time. This show got right everything that last season’s Daybreak got wrong.

Bionic Woman — Not quite as strong as I had hoped it would be, but Bionic Woman has still been a fun ride. The last couple of episodes seem to have finally hit their stride, making sharp the dark edge the show has been playing with and crystallizing the characters in more three-dimensional ways than before. Thankfully, they’ve avoided the temptation of camp and stuck to serious (or at least realistic) stories.

Reaper — Sure, it’s not a high-class show. What it is is just plain cotton-candy fun. Ray Wise as the devil, as expected, means you can’t go too wrong. The show is silly, the performances adequate for the stories. It’s low-impact, slightly above average, pure entertainment. Problems only flare up when they hint at darker and deeper sub-plots. Really, the show probably can’t handle that. Things should be OK if they don’t try too hard.

Life — It’s not very often that a truly different cop show comes along. Life is that rare bird. It’s got a hard-core revenge plot line the equal of any Dirty Harry film (though with a lot less shooting), but it’s also got humor and humanity in spades. The only thing it’s kind of light on is proper procedural details. Luckily, it doesn’t bill itself as a procedural—it’s a character driven drama that just happens to be full of cops and criminals. And it’s far from clear which is which most of the time.

Chuck — I still think this show has a limited shelf-life. They’ve only got one or two gags so far and, even though they just added a new (though expected) twist to the mix, I don’t know how they’d sustain it for multiple seasons and keep it as fun and interesting as it’s been. And it has been fun and interesting. The spy intrigue and relationship drama, along with the workplace humor, are all well above average.

As the remaining episodes of the current shows wind down, I’m looking forward to the replacements that are on their way. Until they show up, though, I’m going to keep enjoying what’s left of the good new ones. (And, of course, I’m also enjoying what’s left of all the returning shows I’ve been watching and recording.)

If you haven’t been watching Heroes, you’re missing out.

Yes, this season isn’t quite as tight as the first season was. There’s no “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” type catch phrase (a failure on the part of the marketing department, in my opinion). But there has been a “Who am I?” theme running through the show.

A lot of that paid off tonight as we finally found out what happened to some of our heroes in the four months that passed between when the first season ended and when the current season started.

It was impressive stuff.

The best, though, is seeing Kristen Bell playing a distinctly non-Veronica Mars type character. In fact, Elle, here shocking (literally) sociopath, is much closer to the character she played (briefly) on Deadwood than her young, cute, smart and sarcastic PI on Veronica Mars.

With only a handful of episodes left before we may be done for the whole season, there’s a lot more loose ends and half-told stories to tie up in some way.

We already know one way it could go–we’ve been shown that, much like we were shown the destruction of NYC in the first season. But the question is how the prophecy will be twisted, misunderstood, used and sidestepped (if it is avoided).

I, for one, can’t wait to see.

With the writers on strike, some shows are in immediate trouble. Others have between a few weeks and a couple of months before they run into trouble.

The LA Times put together a nice grid about it the other day.

And, for Lost fans, today’s Ask Ausiello over at TVGuide.com points out:

Question: What does the strike mean for Lost? Any idea how many episodes they finished pre-strike? Is it still scheduled to air some time in February?— Mike

Ausiello: Why do I suddenly feel as if I’m talking to myself, Mike? Why do I also suddenly feel like I’m not going to like what I have to say? At least I know the answer to that second part — it’s because I don’t like what I have to say. If the strike extends into the new year and beyond, there is a chance ABC may opt to delay the new season until the fall. Or worse yet, February 2009. Another scenario has the network simply airing the eight episodes already in the can this February as originally planned — something Team Darlton would not be in favor of. Says Lost cocreator Carlton Cuse, “Damon [Lindelof] and my concern about running the [eight] episodes we will have made is that it will feel a little like reading half a Harry Potter novel, then having to put it down. There is a mini-cliff-hanger at the end of Episode 8, but it’s like the end of an exciting book chapter; it’s not the end of the novel. Damon and I didn’t write [the ending of Episode 8] differently [with the looming strike in mind]. We wrote it to be the ending of Episode 8.” In any case, he concedes that the decision to hold or air the episodes isn’t ultimately theirs. “It’s really [ABC honcho Steve MacPherson's] call,” Cuse notes, adding, “No one was happy with the six-episode run last season.”

So, this season may end up a complete wash depending on timing.

Jack Bauer fans may be a little out of luck, too. A recent TVGuide.com Strike Watch blog post says:

Fox’s “revised” 2008 schedule kicks off Jan. 13 and 14 with the series premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and starts cooking with gas on the 15th with the two-night return of that singing show known as American Idol, but now is experiencing a Bauer outage. “The seventh season premiere of 24 is being postponed,” explains the network, “to ensure that Day 7 can air uninterrupted, in its entirety.” Fair ’nuff.

Heroes will make it through its current arc, but may end up going with an alternate ending if the second half of the season won’t be ready. And the Heroes: Origins mid-season break replacement is already dead.

Hopefully, this strike will be over quickly and things won’t get too much more screwed up. I’m not holding my breath for that, though.

So, enjoy your shows while they’re on and new.

Bryan Fuller is, apparently, a god among television producers.

Almost every single show he’s produced, I’ve loved.

Pushing Daisies is no different.

Yes, the pilot felt a little uneven at times, but at its worst it was still better than most others I’ve seen. Ever. I can also fully understand why this show will quickly be canceled, much like some of Fuller’s other shows.

The show centers around Ned (Lee Pace), a young man who discovers early on that he can bring dead things back to life with a touch. Shortly after, he discovers two other things. Firstly, that if the thing he has brought back to life stays alive for more than a minute, something else nearby dies. Secondly, that if he ever touches something he’s brought back to life again, it dies. Permanently.

There’s also a girl. Her name is Chuck (Anna Friel). She lived next to Ned and they really liked each other. But they were only nine when Ned’s mother died (and came back to life) and Chuck’s father died (and then Ned’s mother died again). Soon they were separated by the cold forces of reality. But not before one, sweet, first kiss.

Time passes as time does and Ned finds two uses for his gift–making the best pies (because his fruit is always fresh) and helping a less than ethical private detective (Chi McBride) solve murder cases and collect reward money (by asking the murder victim who killed them).

As fate would have it, Chuck comes back into his life. Unfortunately, it’s on a slab.

And that is where the story really starts.

Visually, there’s nothing on TV quite like this show, the over-processed colors and visual tricks add a certain surreal feel. Narratively, it is unique in it’s story-book feel, mostly due to the copious use of a verbose narrator. The closest I’ve seen to this mix before is in Tim Burton’s Big Fish. That particular mix isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

The characters are quirky, distinct and engaging. The writing is funny in an Edward Gorey kind of way. And the overall story is as heart-warming and classical as any good fairy tale.

If that sort of thing is to your liking, tune in and catch the show before it’s gone.

Of course, Fuller could get really lucky and have Daisies be as big a hit as Heroes.

Well, that was unexpected.

Cavemen didn’t totally suck. In fact, I think it’s the best written new sitcom I’ve seen so far this season. Even better, there’s no laugh track.

This show could work even it weren’t populated with cavemen. Most of the comedy is true situation based comedy, as opposed to the all too common one-liners and insult humor that populates the majority of sitcoms. What having cavemen as the main characters allows the writers to do, though, is deal with issues like racism without immediately setting off the raw nerves that are associated with the topic.

I hate to say it, but I think this show may actually be pretty good.

That worries me because I really don’t want to see a slew of copy-cat, based on commercial character, sitcoms. I doubt most would bother to put the work in that the Cavemen team has.

When I tuned in to Life, I expected yet another cop show (like K-Ville). What I got was a bit more.

Life tells the story of cop Charlie Crews who is sent to prison, only to be exonerated twelve years later. He returns to the force as part of his settlement and gets back to work. Of course, he spent a bunch of those 12 years in solitary (being a cop in the general population of a maximum security prison isn’t a pleasant thing), so he’s got a few personality quirks.

It’s those quirks that make this show stand out above the other cop shows. Crews (played excellently by Damian Lewis) is a great character. The story unfolds in such a way that, right from the beginning, we know that he’s a little bit off… and by the end we know just how off he may be.

Of course, it’s that special insight he has–that incredibly skewed point of view–that makes him the great cop that he is. And there is no lack of good TV police work in the show.

Even the underlying thread–the question of how he got into and out of prison–is engaging and not over done. Mostly, it’s dealt with through documentary style interviews (a convention that many shows have tried and just as many have abandoned). The rest is dealt with through good writing for and good performances from the supporting characters.

I wasn’t expecting to like it, but Life instantly made it onto my “must see” list. You should check it out, too.

Moonlight is the new show about a vampire, living in LA and fighting crime.

Don’t confuse it with Angel.

Don’t confuse it with Forever Knight.

Both of those shows are infinitely superior.

Sure, Moonlight has a brooding vampire in it, but Mick St. John has only been around for 90 or so years. He’s painfully human–not in the suffering yet noble way that Angel was, but in a whining, self-important sort of way. Mick’s also got a friend from “way back” (played by Veronica Mars bad boy Jason Dohring), except he’s not a smooth, manipulative bad-ass like Knight’s Lacroix, he’s more of a cutthroat businessman (which really doesn’t play will with Dohring as the character).

Moonlight is also a private detective show. So you don’t forget this, there is copious voice overs in the pilot.

What it comes down to is this: Moonlight just feels like a poor copy of many different things. It has nothing that pops out and makes it unique. Even it’s dark lighting feels like so many of the modern cop shows. (And I haven’t even mentioned how much a of re-tread the plot–about a suspected vampire cult killing people–was.)

I’ll give it another few episodes to find it’s voice, but my hopes from here on out are low. I suspect it will be gone from the schedule shortly.

With yet another high-powered (though oddly mixed) cast, ABC’s Big Shots could have been fantastic.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

It lacked everything that made Dirty Sexy Money fun. Things weren’t over the top enough. In fact, they were decidedly typical. Even worse, of the four main characters, only one (played by Michael Vartan) is really likable. One other (played by Christopher Titus) is tolerable. The other two are a whiny bitch and a just plain sleezey player (played by Joshua Malina and Dylan McDermott, respectively).

The differences between the characters left me wondering why, exactly, these guys would hang out. Only Vartan’s James Auster has an interesting plot going–and that wasn’t even presented as the “A” story. That’s part of the problem. The writers tried to make everyone the star of the pilot. Four distinct “A” stories in an hour-long pilot just doesn’t work. None of the characters got the time they should have. Everything, in effect, was a “B” story. But that’s OK because I don’t think any character other than Vartan’s could have carried a full episode.

If the writers and show runners are smart, they’ll let the other three “main” characters fall into the background and make the show all about the one good guy among a pack of wolves. That I’d watch. The show as it is? Not a chance.

According to an article in Variety, there is serious talk of bringing back Knight Rider.

Now, Knight Rider was one of my favorite shows in the 80s. Since I got my driver’s license, it’s held even more appeal because, hey, who wouldn’t like to have a car that could drive itself–let alone one that is nigh invulnerable? Sure it didn’t stick the last two times they’ve tried to bring it back (first with the lame TV movie Knight Rider 2000 and then with the wildly unsuccessful syndicated Team Knight Rider–and I just found out about the travesty that was Knight Rider 2010, never even heard of that before). But with the right twist and team behind it, it could work now, right?

I think it could.

Except if you read the article what they’re actually talking about is kind of ridiculous. They want to do a “‘Transformers’-inspired re-working of the 1980s hit action-drama series.” That’s right, they want KITT to transform into a giant robot and fight other evil giant robots.

I’m not doubting that a series like that could work, but why bother calling it “Knight Rider” when it’s actually “Transformers” (or, maybe, “Go Bots”)? Aside from the supposedly cheaper licensing fees.

Look, if you’re going to do a new version of Knight Rider, do it right. It requires three things:

1. A slick car. Preferably one that has a lot in common with a sporty one you can buy, but with a few extra things–like an AI with a bit of a condescending attitude and combat-ready options.
2. A person with a shady past who’s turning over a new leaf. I’m open to it being a woman. Amnesia is optional, but always a good plot device.
3. A sponsoring organization that is well-funded and well-connected. Make it a bit ambiguous as to who’s interests it actually serves and you’ve got plot for at least a season.

That gives a production or creative team a whole lot of leeway. And it doesn’t even exclude giant robots. Just don’t start out with them. Build your own damn brand and don’t ride on the coat tails of the current hot film. By the time you actually get the show made, those coat tails will be dusty and the coat will be so over-worn no one will care any more.

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.)

From the makers of Grey’s Anatomy comes… a show that feels exactly like Grey’s Anatomy.

Not that that’s an entirely bad thing. I happen to like Grey’s. And I’m sure there will be plenty of people who like Private Practice just as much. But unless they differentiate themselves, unless they get a more distinct feel, they’re not going to keep the 14 million viewers they had for the pilot.

The good news is, the show has potential. Kate Walsh did wonderful things on Grey’s with Addison, who was originally supposed to be a short term character when first introduced. Other members of the cast–Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Taye Diggs, Paul Adelstein and Chris Lowell–will look very familiar to frequent TV viewers. They’ve all been on good shows. Most of those shows were canceled before their time. They’ve got talent and the characters have potential to be good.

In the pilot, though, they’re all kind of flat and dull. That was the biggest difference from the first episode of Grey’s. That didn’t leave me feeling like it was dull.

Hopefully, over the course of the next few episodes, the show will come into its own. It took Grey’s a while to really hook me. Maybe Private Practice will work the same way.

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?

My first thought, as I rolled my eyes at the show descriptoion was, “Great, another lawyer show with quirky characters.”

And so it was with great trepidation that I tuned in to the first episode of Dirty Sexy Money.

Now that it’s over, I can honestly say that not only was I pleasantly surprised, but I may just have to tune in next week–and every week after–just to see what they come up with next.

It’s the top-notch actors that really make this show worthwhile. Donald Sutherland’s presence alone adds a bit of class to the show, regardless of how lost and intermittently vile his character (the patriarch of New York’s richest and most famous family, the Darlings) is. Jill Clayburgh as the matriarch of that family is the perfect compliment to Sutherland. And Peter Krause is cast perfectly as their diametric opposite–their new family lawyer.

Krause plays Nick George, the son of the Darling’s recently deceased (in a plane crash) family lawyer. George, like his father, is a lawyer. Unlike his father, he is determined to be a good family man. After seeing how working for the Darling’s destroyed his parent’s marriage and knowing full well how difficult the job was on him as a young boy, George doesn’t want to put his own wife and young daughter through similar problems. Instead he runs a private practice that does as much charity work as possible.

But when Tripp Darling (Sutherland) offers him the job as family lawyer and tacks on an extra ten million dollars a year for George’s charity work, he reluctantly agrees.

The next 24 hours of his life are chock full of utter mayhem.

And we all get to go along for the crazy, disjointed, engaging and, ultimately, heart-warming ride.

Gorge is a man of integrity and virtue among a gaggle of self-important, self-indulgent, holier-than-thou, spoiled rich people. He is destined to be the conscience of the dysfunctional Darling family. If he can stand it.

Every character in this ensemble is quirky in a good way. They all have just enough implied depth that they stand out from the caricatures that they almost are. Each one, even in the space of an hour-long pilot episode shows a little bit of humanity.

Plus, the mayhem is fun. The best and worst thing about it is that what happens is nothing we haven’t seen on the news a thousand times before. It is familiar.

As I said, this show surprised me. I’m hooked and look forward to the expanding circle of mystery that was introduced in the final act. A bold move, since the basics of the show are more than enough to keep things interesting. If done well, it will make Dirty Sexy Money a true gem on television. If they’re writers aren’t up to the challenge, though, the show will quickly descend into a muddled mess that even Sutherland and Krause won’t be able to save.

Here’s hoping for the former.

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.

Of all the networks, NBC seems to be a bit ahead of this technology curve. At least for the upcoming fall season. They’ve made three of the pilots for new shows available in a few different ways. I watched them on my cable system’s On Demand system the other day.

We see remakes all the time on the big screen. It doesn’t happen quite as often on the small one. At least not outright ones that aren’t Superman.

Why? Probably because there’s no way to avoid comparison with the original and TV executives are even more fickle than movie studios. The new Battlestar Galactica caught a heck of a lot of flack (even from me) before it hit its stride five hours into the series. It has since blown away just about everything else on TV.

The Bionic Woman is a remake (some would say “re-visioning” in order to avoid the negative connotation) of one of my staple shows growing up. The original was action-packed, light and fun, just like so many other shows of the late 1970s and early 80s. A lot has changed since then. This new version embraces those changes fully.

No longer is Jaime Sommers a tennis player injured in a sky-diving accident. Now she’s a bar tender, barely making ends meet as she tries to finish college and take care of her younger sister. The high point in her life is her (slightly older) boyfriend, Will, a surgeon working for a private company. It’s that last connection that comes in handy when their car is demolished by a tractor trailer.

Jamie is brought into the program Will heads. In order to save her life, he rebuilds her with a combination of high-tech mechanical prosthetics and nanotechnology. This leads to her getting the trademark bionic legs, arm, and eye. The super hearing kicks in a little later.

The big problem is, she’s not the first person to undergo the procedure. Sarah Corvus (played by Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff) was the first, but ran into some… difficulties.

Without question this show has more grit than the original ever thought of having. It’s got a very human edge, to it, as well. Much like the new Galactica took some key points from its previous incarnation, the new Bionic Woman has kept true to the core idea but made it something more.

This is a show to watch this season. If it does well–which I think it will–who knows what other super heroes of the 70s we’ll get to see next. In an odd twist of irony, maybe a new version of The Six Million Dollar Man will spin off of Bionic Woman.

It’s rare to see a comedy that has both high production values and an oxymoronic high-class flavor of lowbrow humor.

Reaper is one of those rare shows.

Granted, when I first started seeing stuff on it, I thought it would be a cold day in Hell before it turned out to be worthwhile. Seems that either Hell has frozen over or I was wrong about that.

Who’d have thought that a story about a slacker who’s parents sold his soul to the devil could be hear-warming? Oh, and don’t be mad at his parents–when they made that deal, they never planned on having kids, so offering up the soul of their first-born to save mom’s life seemed like a perfectly fine idea.

But, what’s done is done and now Sam, just celebrating his 21st birthday, has been visited by the big guy from downstairs and pressed into service. Sam’s now Satan’s right hand man, a hunter of of evil souls who have escaped from hell. If he doesn’t perform, not only will he still go to Hell when he dies (the devil, after all, does own his soul), but his mother will, too.

Sounds like the recipe for a dark and gritty show doesn’t it? It should, it’s only a slight variation on the plot of the short-lived Brimstone from a decade ago. The major difference here is that Reaper is produced by Kevin Smith and is thick with his quirky attitude and irreverent tone. So, instead of “dark and gritty” you get silly and snarky.

A combination that, oddly enough, makes the show quite endearing and a lot of fun.

As long as they keep up the writing, it should do OK. The CW’s decision to have it follow Beauty and the Geek in the schedule, though, is a little mind-boggling. It would fit much better paired with Supernatural, a show that has a similar theme but a completely different tone (kind of like how The Sci Fi Channel had Battlestar Galactica, a dark and gritty show, paired with the usually much lighter Stargate shows). I guess they just didn’t want to break up their Supernatural/Smallville block just yet.

Oh, and for anyone who was a Twin Peaks fan, good old Leland Palmer himself, Ray Wise, is playing the relatively likable (though distinctly unnerving) devil. Always a treat to see.

Definitely put this show on your list of things to check out, even if you have to watch it online or time-shift it. I know that’s what I’ll be doing. (Sorry, House still wins on a regular basis.)

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?