FALL TV EXTRAVAGANZA WRAP-UP

I swear to God I don’t hate TV. I love it. I love everything about a very small percentage of it. I’m one of those people who, when you tell them that “You don’t watch TV”, or that “You don’t even own a TV”, I judge the shit out of you, about how big of an idiot you are. You’re bragging about the fact that you’re a fucking idiot. The New Fall Season is my favorite time of the year, where all of my best friends return to me after a summer of sitting in my chair and staring at the wall. But after this fall, my second watching and reviewing every new scripted show, I have decided I will never, ever do this bullshit again.

 

To be fair, it wasn’t a particularly strong year for freshman shows. I have rated every single show, either on this website or on the PopFilter Podcast, and although the ratings were pretty middling, I have a very personal way of knowing that this year was weak: I will not be continuing on with any of the shows. Each season will typically have at least a show or two that will become part of my permanent schedule. Not this year. Even the ones that were closest weren’t that close. I even made it abundantly clear when I started this that I would not be grading as harshly as I usually do. Fair or not, I have come to the conclusion that TV show pilots are almost by definition horrible, and almost never an indication of what the show will become, if given the chance. So, after a year of sitting through almost exclusively crap, I think that next year, instead of watching all of the freshmen shows, I think I’m going to sit through all of these shows again.

 

Sophomore premieres are going to be so much easier to critique. It’s a much better example of what the series is capable of. Plus, I get to cheat a little bit. Over half of these shows won’t be around next year to re-sample. The networks and the audience will combine to decide which of these shows will get a chance to be seen (or re-seen) by me. A series premiere is a hard thing to accomplish; we’ve all heard the horror stories of how many pilots get produced and viewed for the networks. But a second season premiere?!? That’s almost impossible. Clearly I can’t trust the vetting system of the networks, but I can at least trust the vetting system of you guys. You’ve already collectively folded your arms and screamed to the networks “I’m not going to watch any of this shit!” and for one of these poopy diapers to sneak by and make it into the 2013 fall line-up is a pretty special thing. Or it’s not special, it’s just a show whose title is comprised of initials, and it’s on CBS. Either way, I’ll give it a shot next season. We’ll call this the New Girl factor.

 

New Girl was a show that I reviewed last fall, and found it pretty underwhelming. It was boring, and confused, and clearly unsure of where its laughs were going to come from. But it starred a pseudo-movie star, and though her charms have never swayed me, I know that there is a large chunk of this country who thinks every single fart of hers is adorable. So it received high enough ratings to get a complete season order, and that season did well enough to get a second one. And anyone you talk to who kept watching says that the show is now good for other reasons than Zooey Deschanel is the greatest thing ever. Apparently the New Girl cast and crew got their shit figured out, and now it’s good. And I’ll never know, because I didn’t like the first episode, and don’t have time to give anything more than one chance.

 

If that’s going to be the case though, I would have only seen one or two episodes of Parks and Recreation, a show that co-podcaster Jason recently gave three and a half stars, and was lambasted by me and Mike for being too low of a rating. There has to be a compromise here, and the only way to do it is to make the one chance for each show more representative of what the show is. There’s a couple new shows from this season that I think might have pretty fucking awesome season 2 premieres, and I’ll note them accordingly. How will I find the time to give all of these shows a chance? By not giving any of next year’s new shows a chance until they make it to 2014. Fuck ‘em. Let’s get into the shows.

 

COMEDY

 

The most shocking thing coming out of the television comedy world this year is the fact that we are still getting a healthy dose of traditional three camera sitcoms, something that is absolutely baffling to me. I’ve been thinking about this all season, and the only reason I can come up with for this is the only reason for anything ever: money. I blame TBS, and what I call the Tyler Perry treatment. Tyler Perry stuck his fingers down his throat and puked out a show called House of Payne, which premiered to decent numbers, as most of his brand of trash usually does. TBS saw this, and ordered 100 more episodes. That’s almost five seasons worth of a sitcom on a major network. How can they order 100 episodes of anything? It isn’t just because they are cheap to produce — they are also easy as pie filled with unfunny shit. Imagine if HBO called up Team Boardwalk Empire or Shotime called Team Homeland and asked for 100 more episodes. They would laugh their balls off. Each of those episodes is a mini-movie, with no corner cut at any level of production. Those shows can barely squeeze out 12 a year. House of Payne, and Anger Management, and See Dad Run, and Malibu Country probably take about forty minutes to write, rehearse, shoot, and edit per episode. And every episode these networks produce is another half an hour where they don’t have to worry about what’s on their channel. It’s just mind-numbing garbage to put in between your commercial breaks.

 

FOX comes out the big winner here, with Ben and Kate, the best new show of the season, and The Mindy Project, which was nowhere near as good, but definitely had that potential we were talking about earlier, with a season 2 premiere that might be great.

 

THE DECENT:

 

1. BEN AND KATE
2. THE MINDY PROJECT

 

THE NOT-SO DECENT:

GO ON

ANIMAL PRACTICE – CANCELED

 

THE AWFUL:

 

1. THE NEIGHBORS
2. SEE DAD RUN
3. GUYS WITH KIDS
4. PARTNERS – CANCELED
5. MALIBU COUNTRY

 

THE OFFENSIVELY BAD

 

1. WEDDING BAND
2. BRICKLEBERRY

 

DRAMA

 

Drama fared much better this season. Although there weren’t any home runs (I would have even settled for a Revenge) there was much fewer “Offensively Bad” shows. Pilots were often sunk by nothing more than heavy-handed exposition, something that you can reasonably assume will go away after an episode or two. Also, a huge drop off in the number of procedurals made all of this much more bearable.

 

THE GOOD (yes there was actually good, just not so compelling to keep me watching)

 

1. VEGAS

1. ARROW
2. NASHVILLE
3. HUNTED — IT’S COMPLICATED

 

All four of these shows showed a strong voice in their pilots. That’s a step that they can now skip, and start moving their shows towards the next level. Each of these shows has the chance to be really good if they keep moving forward all season. If you’ve been on the fence with checking any of these shows out, give them a shot. You’ll only be mildly disappointed.

 

THE ALMOST DECENT

 

1. LAST RESORT – CANCELED
2. 666 PARK AVENUE – CANCELED
3. ELEMENTARY
4. CHICAGO FIRE
5. REVOLUTION

 

It’s a big step down from the last group to this one. Three of these shows are high-concept, which is another way of saying Lost Replacement, a show America doesn’t really seem to want replaced. Two are dust, and Revolution might float along for a little while, but let’s be honest — no one really gives a shit. Elementary is what CBS does best, and it’s not painful to watch, so I’ll let them have it. The show that surprised me the most in being in this group, and not the one below it, is Chicago Fire, a pretty crappy soap that has just enough of a likable cast to keep a couple people coming back. I will not be one of those people.

 

THE BAD

 

1. THE MOB DOCTOR
2. EMILY OWENS, MD
3. UNDEREMPLOYED

 

Nobody is even trying here.

 

THE OFFENSIVELY BAD

 

1. MADE IN JERSEY – CANCELED
2. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

 

So there it is, people. Your freshman class of 2012. Please quit watching some of these shittier shows, so I don’t have to watch them next year. And to the freshman class of 2013: suck all you want. Couldn’t care less. I won’t be watching you. I’ll probably be watching you. Fuck.

 

-Ryan Haley