Toob Talk

Well, The Emmys are done with and that means every network (other than the CW, which doesn’t seem to care about the Emmys) launches their new seasons full-on in the next week or two.

Monday

Monday night finds about half of my stable of favorite shows coming back. Of course, they all overlap.

Two hour premieres of Heroes (NBC) and House (FOX) kick off at 8 p.m. New episodes of How I Met Your Mother (CBS) and Big Bang Theory (CBS) cap off the 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. slot (at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., respectively). Things finally thin out at 10 p.m. when Castle (ABC) looks to be the only thing I’m interested in watching.

All five of those shows left us wanting more when they came to a close in the Spring. Granted, Heroes was struggling a bit to regain its narrative footing after some very poor story decisions and House is quickly running out of tricks to keep things interesting past this season.

How I Met Your Mother, though, continues to charm me with the quirky characters and hard-luck love stories of Ted and company. Sometimes I just relate a little too much to some of those characters. (Of course, that’s nowhere near as problematic as how well I related to the ensemble on Big Bang Theory… half of those outlandish conversations the geek-team has that keep everyone laughing? Yeah, I’ve been involved in those conversations in real life… it’s not too far off. This is why I keep loving this show.)

Castle was a pleasant surprise last season. There was little doubt Nathan Fillion would be fun (he always is), but after the first few episodes the chemistry with Stana Katic fell into place and it was good banter and character play from there on out. The color choices and cinematography for the show are pretty impressive, too. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you probably should.

Tuesday

Tuesday brings us a double-helping of NCIS on CBS, starting at 8 p.m. First we pick up where last season’s cliffhanger left us and then we dive right in to the West Coast deep cover work of NCIS: LA (which actually looks like it may actually be OK, based on the two hour pilot that masqueraded as two episodes of NCIS).

Since I have no desire to watch the second season of 90210 or the new iteration of Melrose Place (both of which kicked in a couple of weeks ago), the only thing the NCIS pair conflicts with is the tail end of SyFy’s new series Warehouse 13 (at 9 p.m.), which has been a lot more enjoyable than I had expected. Again, the points mostly come from good character interaction and some fun stories.

At 10 p.m. you have your choice of watching the stars of two of last seasons canned shows try again. Christian Slater (former of the kind of quirky My Own Worst Enemy, which I liked) comes back in a more standard crime drama called The Forgotten on NBC. It sounds like it’ll be some combination of CSI, Cold Case and Without a Trace. I’m not exactly excited about it.

Also at 10 p.m., over on CBS, is Julianna Margulies’ second try at a lawyer show in as many years. This time around she’s The Good Wife, apparently fighting the good fight from within the walls of an esteemed law firm, no matter what they try to get her to do instead. Sounds a little like Eli Stone without the fun, music or meaning. Best of luck former Nurse Hathaway, I think you may need it to make it past episode six.

Wednesday

Speaking of old NBC medical dramas, on Wednesday, they kick off a new one. Mercy focuses on nurses (not to be confused with the three or four other shows that are doing that this season–some of which started a few weeks ago). I don’t see much to bring me into this, but, as there’s really nothing on against it (though Gary Unmarried premieres its new season during the second half, and that was a kind of funny sitcom), I may check it out a few times.

ABC brings us two new “edgy” sitcom-type shows, Modern Family and Cougar Town, starting at 9 p.m. Both may have some humorous moments in them, but Cougar Town looks to have a little more potential as something almost worth watching. At least it’ll be OK to look at (cast includes: Courtney Cox-Arquette, Crista Miller, and Busy Phillipps, who have all been very entertaining in the past). Modern Family, though, may actually be the one to watch as it looks like it is fully capable of hitting big on satire and social commentary points.

At 10 p.m. on Wednesday, ABC introduces the one show that made just wonder “WTF?”. Seems that after 22 years, they’ve decided it’s time to put a show based on The Witches of Eastwick on TV. (They apparently tried back in 1992, but failed to sell it.) This time around, simply titled Eastwick, Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jaime Ray Newman play our “witches”. Being a fan of the 1987 movie, these women have some pretty big shoes to fill in my book. (And we won’t even talk about how Paul Gross is going to take on a part that Nicholson made fantastic… or speculate on how the heck they’re going to stretch the plot out for a whole season, let alone multiple ones if they somehow manage to last that long.)

Thursday

On Thursday, I finally have an excuse to not watch the CW’s whiny vampire Twilight-wannabe series The Vampire Diaries. The first two episodes have been nothing short of trite, predictable and flat, at best. Especially when followed up by what looks to be the greatest season of Supernatural yet.

At 8 p.m. ABC brings us the newest strange mystery show in their line up, this time from hit-or-miss creators Brannon Braga and David S. Goyer. The premise–everyone on the planet passes out for exactly the same two minutes and wakes up remembering various points in their own futures–sounds cool enough, so I’ll be tuning in to see if they manage to keep it interesting. It could be the next Lost-level hit for ABC. Or not.

The only real downside is that it’s on opposite Bones (FOX), which is one of those great shows that I never really watch.

Thursdays at 9 p.m. is shaping up to be the crazy spot on the schedule for me. Supernatural on the CW is the must see of the hour, with FOX’s Fringe running a close second (in last week’s season premiere, there were two distinct references to the X-Files–one in the series’ setting fiction and one in the series’ setting reality… curious to see where they’re going with that). This week we also have the return of Grey’s Anatomy, which I’m now officially two seasons behind on. Not sure how the show’s doing, but people still talk about it, so it’s probably got at least one more season in it. On NBC you have The Office and Community, the latter I haven’t caught yet, but everyone knows the former draws a crowd.

Friday

The week rounds out with the return of a couple of old favorites.

At 8 p.m. Smallville returns for what we can only hope will be its final season. I don’t even know if I’m going ot bother watching any of this seasons episodes in real time. Last season was abysmal as far as continuity and story were concerned–this show should have ended a couple of years ago or, at least, segued into a Justice League spinoff.

Thankfully, in the same time slot over on CBS, The Ghost Whisperer debuts for its new season on its new network. Now the lead in to Medium, you can get two hours of ghost-influenced chicks. Should be interesting, seeing as how things were left last season with Melinda and her growing family.

Oh, there’s also the ever-present Law and Order that can be seen on NBC.

The real show I’m looking forward to is Dollhouse. Joss Whedon was lucky I stuck with him through five iffy episodes last seasons. He hooked me with episode six, though, and had me holding on for a solid ride in the second half of the season. Now, with a well-established playing field and some interesting threads running, I’m curious to see what he’s going to do with the second season.

If nothing else, it’s going to be an interesting first few weeks of the new season. I’ll be placing bets on which ones will last more than three episodes before being bounced and, ultimately, canceled by their networks. So far, my money is on any new medical drama or lawyer show to get the boot before episode six. That market is still over-full with CSIs, Law & Orders and lingering misty eyes for ER. Of course, half the shows I like are also apt to get the boot.

Not too terribly long ago, I was singing the praises of Kings, by far one of the most literary things to hit network TV in a while.

After running four relatively unpromoted episodes on Sunday nights, NBC let the show skip a week before showling this past week’s episode on Saturday at 8 p.m. Not that they mentioned much loudly about the move. Now, after that one Saturday airing, the show’s been moved again, this time to June (but still on Saturdays).

So, for all intents and purposes, this already fully filmed series that only has seven episodes left in its arc is dead. The network will claim it’s because no one watched it. I’d contend that it’s more a case of no one knowing it was there to watch and then a case of those of us who did know about it, not knowing we had to follow it somewhere else to see more.

I see this sort of thing happen with a disturbing level of frequency among shows I like. Some manage to survive a little bit longer, most don’t.

The good news is, you can pre-order the first season right now (Kings – Season One), and that’s something I’d highly recommend as it may be the only way you’ll be able to see all of it.

As of this season of Smallville we have:

• Most of the stories taking place in Metropolis
• Clark working at The Daily Planet
• With Lois
• and an obvious romantic interest in him on her part

Is it just me, or does that make it Lois and Clark more than Smallville?

Also, no Lex or Lionel Luther to be had so far.

Makes me wonder why I still bother watching the show…

The new summer season kicks off Thursday night with the debuts of two new shows at 10 p.m.

On NBC you have Fear Itself, a horror anthology series in the vein of Tales from the Crypt. Each week the hour will be dedicated to a single story. The show was created by Mick Garris, best known as the man who’s brought a bunch of Stephen King’s stuff to the small screen in mini-series format.

Lots of horror fans have very bad things to say about Garris, but I happen to like most of his stuff. At least enough to not immediately write him off. He won’t be directing or writing all the episodes, so things are already off to a good start. Also giving me hope for the show: the high-profile talent mentioned in the press kits and web site aren’t just in front of the camera (like the ill-fated and thankfully short lived revival of The Twilight Zone perpetrated on us a few years back that was full of pretty faces but lacked many stories of substance). John Landis is on deck for at least one of the planned 13 episodes.

As a horror fan, Fear Itself is automatically on my must watch list. Of course, it also has large shoes to fill: The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside, and The Outer Limits have all done this before (with various levels of success–but success none the less). Will it be eye-rollingly bad or will it be as creepy as some episodes of Supernatural (which has proved more than once that you can be pretty damn scary following regular network rules–if you work at it)? Only time will tell.

While we may or may not being scared on NBC, CBS will be hitting us up with nostalgia in Swingtown. Advertised as a sex-filled swingers paradise, there’s apparently more to this show than just that. Good thing… because on CBS that would get old even faster than it would on a channel where you could actually show the sex. One of the most recent reviews described as kind of thirtysomething set in the 70s.

I’m really not sure there’s a market for this show. But it’s got a good pedigree behind it, so I’m willing to give it a chance. Among the six leads (three couples), there is a lot of experience with canceled TV shows. Luckily, there’s also a good bunch of talent. Of particular note are Molly Parker (Deadwood) and jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean and the British version of Coupling), who will hopefully not be wasted.

At the head of the show are a handful of, well, not familiar names, but producers of familiar good shows, like Jericho and Six Feet Under. That leads me to believe that if the CBS marketing team can get their heads out of the gutter and stop focusing on the orgies and instead pitch the show to their normal demographic, they may have a hit.

Of course, I never expect network executives to do anything even vaguely sensible. So I expect the show to barely make it through the six episodes its scheduled for. Probably with at least one time slot change by week three.

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.

If you haven’t been watching Lost this season, you’ve been seriously missing out.

Last season, the run started off a little rough. This time around, there was none of that.

That’s probably a good thing, with the long lull between last season and this season. Any faltering would have lost them a lot of viewers.

Tonights episode was one of the subtle ones… (more behind the cut)

(more…)

I’ve put off talking about New Amsterdam for a couple of episodes. Mainly because I wanted to see if it could keep up the wonderful attitude it had in the first episode.

The show really did surprise me. Right from the first few minutes, it set a good tone. We quickly got into the head of NY detective John Amsterdam, a man who’s called the area home for about 400 years or so. Unlike really old west coast vampire Mick St. John (who’s more than three centuries younger) over on CBS’s Moonlight, Amsterdam has more or less gotten over himself. In fact, he’s doing a lot better than just about any vampire that’s ever had a show.

I’m sure some of that has to do with the fact that he’s a) not a vampire and b) doesn’t have to chop off the heads of other immortals in order to finally grow old and die. No, all he has to do is find his true love.

And I think we can all relate to just how tricky that can be.

Well, he’s been at it for centuries, ever since he saved the life of a local Lenape back when New York was New Amsterdam (why they changed it, I can’t say… people just liked it better that way… everyone, sing along!) and was “rewarded” with near eternal life. He just can’t die. Not for long, at least.

New Amsterdam refers as much to the Big Apples original name as it does to the idea of the main character reinventing himself. Needless to say, he’s been there and done that before–and unlike most other Methuselan characters we’ve seen on the toob, he’s not all that shy about talking about it. Most people just think he’s joking. It must be the wonderfully dripping cynicism he usually wraps it in.

The show is enjoyable on a number of levels. With a decent bit of police procedural thrown into a mix of relationship issues (romantic, platonic and familial) and topped off with Highlander-like flashbacks to the long ago (but not so far away) events of Amsterdam’s past, there’s something here for almost everyone. Some of the interactions can be downright funny.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, pop on over to Fox’s website and catch up. I doubt it’ll be around past what episodes there already are based on the track record of the other time-traveling/sci-fi-ish shows that were (not quite) all the rage during the first half of the season.

This Tuesday at 10 p.m., Quarterlife (which I mentioned a while back) makes the leap from the computer screen to the TV screen when it debuts on NBC after the next episode of The Biggest Loser.

If you haven’t checked out this show online already, catch it when it hits the main stream. From the same people who made the age-group touchstone shows Thirtysomething and My So Called Life, it has more substance and heart than most things I’ve seen lately that feature 20-somethings out in the world. It’s not all glitz and glamor. The biggest problem isn’t some outlandishly contrived ratings sex-stepped grabber. These characters have real problems and live in the real world.

As most 20-somethings do, they’re questioning themselves and their place in the world. But because they’re 20-somethings in the 21st century, they’re able to do these private musings in the most public of settings–on a video blogging web site.

Even viewed online the production values looked good and the performances all-around are on par (if not slightly above par) when compared to other similarly targeted shows.

So, give it a look. (Even if that means time-shifting it because it’s on opposite Jericho on CBS). Even if you’re not a 20-something now, you were one not too long ago.

It looks like the writer’s strike may be heading toward a positive resolution, at least according to a recent post over at United Hollywood.

This is good news both for the writer’s who’ve been out of work for three months and those of us who’ve been waiting to see what, if anything, the rest of this television season would bring.

According to TV Guide’s Ausiello Report, we’re going to be getting 4-8 new episodes of a lot of shows.

Some shows (like Chuck) are gone until fall and others (like Bionic Woman) are just gone for good.

Also, for those like me that were loving Jericho before it ended last season, it’ll be back for a seven episode run starting tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Unfortunately, it’s up against Boston Legal. But that’s what DVRs are for. Barely saved from cancellation by fans sending lots of peanuts to executives, Jericho is one of the few shows I think heartily deserves that kind of support.

So watch it and hope that it’ll live up to the praise and hard work. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll earn a third season.

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…

(more…)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.