Spring TV Preview 2: Cliche Boogaloo

Oh, Freaks. You mean to tell me that there's more TV?

Where will I find the time?

Actually, most of this doesn't look very interesting, so I guess I don't really have to worry about it.

Thanks for being so frequently disappointing, television! You're a pal.


New Spring TV: March and April 


Awake (NBC, Thursday 10/9, March 1)

I've already seen the pilot of this show, which I previewed here, and it's really good. I'll be interested to see if the ratings indicate that NBC will keep it around before I get too invested (hint: they won't), but I'm definitely on board for the beginning, and you should be too.

The NBC's promo department's finest work.

GCB (ABC, Sunday 9/8, March 4) 

Another show I've already previewed here, I'm delighted to add what I expect to be a fun, catty soap to my TV schedule. Maybe it will fill the whole in my heart left by Karen Walker.

Great rack, great shoes, great big glass of vodka... Mom?

Breaking In (FOX, Tuesday 9:30/8:30, March 6) 

Hey, speaking of Karen Walker! The unequaled Megan Mullally continues her sitcom tour by joining the Christian Slater-helmed sitcom, which was bizarrely cancelled and then un-cancelled last year. This show wasn't great to begin with, but it had some potential, so I'm hoping the tweaks they've made, in addition to the brilliance of the former Ms. Walker, will make it the show it could be.

Missing (ABC, Thursday 8/7, March 15) 

Ashley Judd found a TV series that is exactly like every movie she's ever done: lots of screaming and running as a former CIA agent looking for her missing son. Whoo.

Also, what did you do to your face?

Bent (NBC, Wednesday 9/8, March 21) 

I just can not decide how I feel about Amanda Peet. Sometimes I think I like her, sometimes she makes me completely insane. I'm giving this show a shot, but I do not have high hopes based on what I've seen so far. But hey, if it manages to not be a cliche-riddled pandering mess then I'll be the first one to step up and admit it.

The second he calls her outfit a "lesbian pantsuit", I'm done.

Girls (HBO, Sunday 10:30/9:30, April 15) 

This show, about 20-something girls in NYC, has a vibe that confuses me. Is it a genuine coming of age piece about women struggling through life in a way I will relate to, or is it a bunch of hipster bullshit about finding yourself while daddy foots the bill? Either way, it's HBO, and since Daddy isn't footing my cable bill, I won't be finding out.

Sex in the Brooklyn? 

Veep (HBO, Sunday 10/9, April 22) 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as the Vice President in this irreverent, "scripted but shot in an improvisational style" sitcom, also starring Anna Chlumsky and Tony Hale. Anything about that sentence sound bad? Nope. I smell Emmy!

No, you're supposed to practice looking surprised when they call your name...

Returning Shows: 

So what about your returning faves? Well Community is back March 15, Fairly Legal and In Plain Sight on March 16, Mad Men on March 25, Game of Thrones and The Killing on April 1, Bones on April 2, and Nurse Jackie, The Borgais, and The Big C all return on April 8.

Every time you don't watch this show, a Whitney gets her wings. 

So that's all the new goodness coming your way, Freaks. What do you think, anything you're really excited about? Head to the comments!

I'm also starting a new "Ask the Freak" series, so if you need my particular brand of TV-related insight and snark, send me your questions on Facebook, Twitter, or by email (thetvfreak@gmail.com). Specific or general, smart or silly, new shows or old- I promise to answer all of the ones I like.

Things I Love/Things I Hate

Hello, Freaks. With all the craziness of February sweeps, I've been a TV-watching...well...freak.

There's been lots and lots of good stuff-

And a little bit of terrible.

Thing I Love: 

Revenge.

This show kicks ass. 

Thing I Hate: 

The ratings for Ringer have tanked. Like, really, really tanked- even for the CW. I don't think it's going to make it to next season, and it's really a shame, because it's gotten so much better. I'm not going to lie, I was almost ready to give up on this show. I wanted to watch because I was glad to see SMG back on TV, but the show felt forced and plodding, and I was just having an impossible time getting into it. The writers seem to have noticed, and the last few episodes have been much more faced paced, twisty and exciting.

Not that it matters, because no one is watching, so it's totally getting cancelled.

Poor SMG.

The ratings for the first episode of Cougar Town were also terrible, which makes me very, very depressed. As I wrote earlier in the week, this show is awesome and you and everyone you know should be watching it. Help me out, Freaks, I don't want to lose anymore shows!

That I like.

Thing I Love:

Pilot season for Fall of 2012 is shaping up to be very interesting, my dear Freaks. I mean, sure, as I talked about last week, it's all retreads and reboots, but at least there are a lot of people I really like getting into pilots! If you follow me on Facebook you already know that Zachary Levi will be starring in the FOX pilot Let It Go, which is super exciting until you realize that it's written by DJ Nash, who also wrote the terrible, terrible sitcoms Traffic Light and 'Til Death.

One of the many reasons I don't trust anyone named DJ. 

Terry O'Quinn, who you know I love if you read this regularly, is signed on for ABC's 666 Park Ave., and Jonny Lee Miller (Hackers!) is going to be the new Sherlock Holmes over on CBS. Man, I just have a feeling that show is going to be super-lame. Ryan Philippe will also be joining the network with the cop drama Golden Boy.

Is that "golden" like "aryan"? 

Kristin Kreuk will be the CW's Beauty on their Beauty and the Beast remake, while the adorable Becky Newton (Ugly Betty) joins the new sitcom from HIMYM creators Carter and Bays, The Goodwin Games (FOX). Fellow HIMYM-recurring-guest Kal Penn is signed on for Prairie Dogs on ABC, a sitcom about a guy who takes life lessons from a con man.

So...this show? 

And with a shout-out to a dear friend who will be very, very excited by this news- Dan and Roseanne are back! It's been announced that John Goodman will join Roseanne's new show Downwardly Mobile on NBC, co-created by former Roseanne scribe Eric Gilliland.

Hopefully they will also be bringing back 90's-era giant bows. 

Thing I Hate:

The critically praised and awesomely-starring-James-Van-Der-Beek-as-himself Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 will be -finally- premiering on ABC on April 11th. I've been waiting for this show since May, so I'm so excited to see that it's replacing...

Happy Endings.

Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

But how will I live without Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Phoebe and Joey? 

Thing I Love:

I have mentioned NBC's Awake several times on this blog already, as evidence of how poorly the network is being run. It's a complicated premise that's both sad and confusing, and it's not going to work on network TV, etc, etc. The show premieres on March 1st, but I've seen the pilot, and it's...

Really good.

Like, really, really good. It's extremely well written, Jason Isaacs is just excellent, I was engaged for the entire hour- and honestly, that's been really hard to come by for pilots this year in general. It was a fantastic hour of television. I'd like to be proven wrong in my assumptions that people won't watch serious and well-done dramas on networks, so do me a favor and catch this one early.

Nah, you don't have to- It's NBC, they'll cancel it in a week to make room for more Whitney.

Thing I Hate:

Look, Vampire Diaries. You know I love you. I love your twisty, crazy, fast-paced energy, I love your ever-evolving romantic plot lines, I love your pretty, pretty actors. But there are times (as I've mentioned before) where you are really pushing the boundaries of my suspension of disbelief, even for a supernatural show. You can't get fingerprints from unpolished wood. You can't get an entire town of people to show up for a ball at seven when you invited them that morning. And you certainly can't show up looking like this:

Oh my god, she totally wore that to last year's Vampire Key Party Ice Cream Social!

Thing I Love/Hate:

The end of this week's How I Met Your Mother was... nerve wracking. I mean, Ted and Robin? We've been there already, and we already know she's not the mother, so...what are you doing, show?

But then I thought about it a little more, and it kinda makes sense. Ted and Robin broke up at the end of season 2, with a conversation about where they each saw themselves in five years. Well, here we are, five years later, and Ted isn't where he wanted to be. I actually think it makes perfect sense that his character would suddenly decide to want to retread old ground with her. He loved her; they didn't break up because they weren't in love, they broke up because she didn't want to get married...and now she does. I believe that his character would think that he could look past the kid thing because he wants so desperately to be done looking for "the one"- to get to his happy ending.

It obviously makes me nervous for the show, in much the same way Baby Eriksen does; these are problems that have killed sitcoms I have loved in the past. But maybe this can be the show that proves the trope wrong, you know? We got a brief flash in this episode of FutureMarshall and FutureLily, fighting over dealing with a crying baby, and it was really funny. If you can shift the tone of this show (which, by the way, is what happens to lives and friendships at these ages in reality) and keep it interesting and funny, then I am completely behind you.

I feel like the success or failure of this move, and perhaps the shift in general, will come down to how Robin handles things. I've long said that she is actually the one who is the biggest mess on the show, so truthfully I would believe several different reactions from the character, but I will need whatever happens to feel true to where she should be. After Barney, and the kid thing, and Kevin, and Barney again, and a proposal and now Ted, she should be....well, a mess.

I'm hoping that's how she handles it. And I love you, show, so you know I'm along for the ride.

As long as she's not the mother.

Prowling for Good TV

It's Valentine's Day, Freaks, so do you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to write a love letter.


Dear Cougar Town,

I love you. I'm really glad you're back.

Love,
The TV Freak

There.

Happy Valentine's Day!

You too, would feel my joy, Freaks, if you were watching this show, but I'm guessing from the terrible ratings and nine-month hiatus that you're not.

You should be. Here's why:


The cast is awesome

I've always thought of Courtney Cox as one of the most underrated actresses on TV. She was the only Friend not to be nominated for an Emmy, which I think is crazy, and she was fantastic on the weird and short lived Dirt. She shines on Cougar Town as the messy Jules, who is crazy and knows it (in the way I think most of us really do). She's got a complicated life full of friends, a son, her ex-husband and her new man and it's a lot of fun watching her switch deftly between the character's many hats.

But the thing that makes this show click so well is the brilliance of all of the actors. The chemistry, the comedic timing, the dry humor delivered is all just perfectly spot on, and should be an example to all of the lazier sitcoms that have come after- the ensemble matters. Everyone matters.

I'm sure that color was just a coincidence. Everyone matters! 

It's funny

Yep, it's a sitcom that's funny. Really, genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny.

Look, y'all know I love sitcoms, and there are a handful on TV right now that genuinely make me laugh, but there are a few I watch that have a moment or two per episode (The Office, Big Bang Theory) and a lot that I don't watch because they are not at all funny (2 Broke Girls, Last Man Standing, Whitney) so it's actually not all that easy to do.

The writer's room is helmed by Scrubs boss Bill Lawrence, and his sweet and silly sense of humor shines here in a slightly less strange way than it came across on that show, which I think does it a service. I loved Scrubs, but I understood people who had a hard time with the JD-narrative format, and the occasionally bizarre tangent into dreamworld. Cougar Town retains that sense of fun, but without the harder to digest stylization.


It's like hanging out with your friends

About half of any given episode is just the characters sitting around drinking copious amounts of wine, and while it seems like on paper that would be...well, kinda boring, it's actually not. It feels like hanging out with your pals, talking, making fun of each other, having your inside jokes. These feel like people that I could have a good time with, and that's what I'm looking for from TV.

Fellow alkies! 

Friends.

OK, well, you know what I mean. My favorite sitcoms feel full of people that I genuinely would want to hang out with in real life. It comes from the feeling that a show, and therefore the characters, share my sense of humor and outlook on the world, but do it with better quips and wittier comebacks.


It doesn't take itself too seriously 

The show knows its title is terrible, and makes fun of it with the opening card of every episode. It makes jokes about cast member's previous gigs and actual flaws (you'll never look at Josh Hopkin's hot face the same after you notice his tiny eyes). It has running gags with stupid games like Penny Can (Penny can!!!), giant wine glasses (RIP, Big Joe), and crazy Barb (the show's only actual cougar). It's fun and silly and sweet, and it's back tonight, so due your favorite blogger a favor and tune in.

Don't forget the wine.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again! Pilot Season 2012

Man, TV is kinda boring right now, huh? I mean, don't get me wrong, there's been some fun stuff going on- I loved the Valentine's Day Happy Endings, crazy twists over in Mystic Falls on The Vampire Diaries, Revenge gets soapier and soapier- but over all, a little rote.

Times like this, I like to look to the future, to see what new and exciting shows the world of television might be offering me come next fall. Pilot season is a time when the most creative entertainers in the medium come together with fresh, new, original-

(What's that?

Oh, really? All of it? Damn.

No, they're just going to be really disappointed when I tell them...

Fine, I know it's my job, I just don't like...

Ugh. Hateful.)

Sorry, about that, Freaks. Where was I? Oh, right! Pilot Season 2012. Looks like it's shaping up to be an exciting look at TV we've already seen! Let's check out the coolest repeats, remakes, and retreads, shall we?!


Dueling Beauties (and Beasts) 

Both CW and ABC are cultivating remakes of the popular fairy tale, trying to mix a sexy love story with the genre trend that is very, very popular for next season. Expect CW's version to be more "grounded in reality", as it's based on the 80's show and is taking a more procedural bent, while ABC's version is set in a magical world.  Also, you can probably expect them both to be terrible.

This will forever be the greatest version of the love story based on Stockholm Syndrome. 

Unoriginal: novels and comics edition

CW is also planning (and seriously hyping- they seem to think it's the sure thing for a pickup) a prequel to Sex and the City, The Carrie Diaries, based on the 80's-high-school-set Candace Bushnell novel. I do suppose it would be interesting to see how Carrie turned into a vapid and horrible person, huh? CBS is doing a Sherlock Holmes reboot, which is obviously much-needed, and NBC is doing a modern-day take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Do No Harm, which imagines the man with two personalities as a New York City doctor. Oh, and CW is also doing Green Arrow. But they dropped the "Green", so now it's just Arrow. Edgy!

Screw edgy, break me off a piece of that arrow! 

Doctors and Cops, oh my! 

In completely unsurprising and unexciting news, there are a million new shows starring cops, firemen, lawyers, and doctors. Want a list? Chicago Fire (NBC), Trooper (CBS), Guilty (FOX), County (NBC), First Cut (CW), Golden Boy (CBS), Queen (CBS), and an Untitled FOX project. These are all the shows that will actually make it on TV next fall.

Stealing the Queen's TV

Also in the works are lots of British remakes (since that worked so well with Free Agents!), including Bad Girls and Friday Night Dinner on NBC, and White Van Man and Only Fools and Horses on ABC. This is not going to work. There, I called it.

Dammit, NBC, neither is this! 

Searching for JJ Abrams

The biggest trend for next year is the whole genre-elements-in-the-real-world show, although some of these are doing a better job of combining than others. There's lots of time travel, mysteries, aliens, new societies, post-apocalyptic settings, demons and other various supernatural creatures around, so us sci-fi nerds are really hoping the networks can manage to make some of these actually work. NBC is doing Beautiful People, about the rise of the machines, Midnight Sun, about a commune that vanished, and actually got JJ Abrams for Revolution, one of the post-apocalyptic ones. CW is combining singing and time travel with Joey Dakota and combining The Hunger Games and The Bachelor with The Selection.

And no, I did not make either of those things up.

ABC is going to town after the success of Once Upon a Time, and has no less than six genre-style shows in the works, an untitled sitcom with aliens, conspiracies with Zero Hour, setting up a new civilization with Last Resort, cops dealing with an unseen world on Gotham, demons taking over an apartment building on 666 Park Ave, and an untitled Roland freaking Emmerich. Yeah, you read that right.

So expect excellent characterization, subtle plots, brilliant writing, and no gratuitous CGI.
Also, I'm a unicorn.  

And of course, CBS isn't making any.

Oh, grandpa.

So, is there anything I'm actually excited about?

Hell yes. 

Mindy Kaling is writing and starring in an untitled sitcom for FOX, where she plays a "Bridget Jones-type doctor struggling with her personal and professional life". Um, yes please. Also, Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (Will and Grace) are doing a new pilot sitcom for CBS about longtime best friends (huh, that sounds familiar...and awesome) and Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town) has a new sitcom in the works at FOX.


Arrested Development alum Judy Greer and Portia de Rossi might both have new shows on ABC, with Greer attached to star in American Judy and de Rossi starring in The Smart One, exec produced by wife Ellen Degeneres. I really love both Greer and de Rossi and I trust them when it comes to comedy, so I expect good things there. And though I can't imagine it will get picked up, I'm intrigued by another ABC project, Gilded Lily's, a soap set in 1898 at the first luxury hotel in NYC.

What about you, Freaks? Anything making your heart race?

Waiting to Exhale

Well, Freaks, I had intended to make this post a review of NBC's new show Smash, which premiered last night. And then I watched it.

It's good.

There, reviewed.

Oh, theater people....

Really. I don't have anything else to say. I liked it well enough, the musical numbers were fun, I don't hate anybody.

It was fine.

You know, I don't love anybody either. Maybe that can be excused by it being only the pilot, and they will work up to more with further episodes, but it felt a little lacking in the personality department. Honestly, the boyfriend and the assistant were more interesting than any of the main characters, although I do enjoy the interaction between Julia (Debra Messing) and Tom (Christian Levitt), mostly because it felt like a real lived-in friendship. But do I care about Karen (Katherine McPhee)? Apparently not a ton, because I had to look up her character's name. She's fine, she has a nice voice and she's doing a good job. It's not that it's bad, it's just....

A little blah.

Look, anything that is not actively bad on NBC is pretty important, and the premiere got a 3.6, the highest ratings of the time slot and spectacular for NBC. But still. This is the show that you're hanging your hat on? You spent so much money on promo-ing this show that it's become a hot topic of speculation among the TV media and basically threw all of your other shows under the bus, and it's not any better than that?

You might have set expectations a little high, that's all I'm saying.

I didn't hate it.

But I didn't love it either.

If I lived in a primitive time before a DVR, and I had to actually pick one show to watch (Oh, the horror!) it wouldn't be Smash.

I just really hate how poorly managed this damn network is right now. It makes me a little crazy. I just don't understand how you keep throwing money at stuff that isn't very good (Whitney, Chelsea) and stuff that, while good, is not the greatest show ever (Smash, I'm guessing next month's Awake) and then nothing for really good shows with built in audiences (Community, The Firm, Up All Night)?

What's the plan here?

I'm really excited for NBC that both The Voice and Smash did really great ratings, it means that the network won't have to fold. But I'm not entirely sure Smash is sustainable. It feels a little like one of those shows that people in the middle of the country are going to feel got made by people who feel sorry for people in the middle of the country, do you know what I mean? Look, I went to theater school, I get the references and jokes, but I'm not sure it's not going to come of a little.... elitist.

Which is fine, if you're Aaron Sorkin.

This is not.

It's trying to be. It wants to be. Maybe it can get there.

But I'm not holding my breath.