Stay Tuned

The TV season as officially started!!! Woo! Happy Dancing of New TV Season Joyfulness!!1 Woo-Hoo!!! Clearly, ya’ll aren’t as happy about it is as I am.

I’ve spent the summer as Netflix’s bitch. I’ve never watched this many movies in my life and I worked at Movie Theaters and a video rental place. I didn’t just sit there all summer zoned out in front of movies, I watched TV shows on DVD as too. One I watched was Crime Story, it rocked. It aired originally between 1987-1988, when it was on, I wouldn’t have watched it for pay, 18 year old girls are not famously big fans of period cop shows - give me 19 or so years though and I really got into it's period cop show vibe. Dennis Farina didn’t do it for me on Law and Order but on CS he really was The Man, maybe it was the hat or the skinny ties or the great sound track. I also watched the late, lamented The Job.

I counted up all the movies or TV shows I rented over the summer and I was floored, it didn’t seem like so many when they were arriving one or two at a time, but taken as a whole, damn. 32 from June to present. Wow and even took a couple of weeks off in July. I wonder if they give service awards?

But I am about to become a major slacker. I haven’t watched much network television all summer and not even much extra-network either. I don’t think I watched Queer Eye at all and it used to be a staple for me. I replaced it with Project Runway, but not when it aired, I watched it on Saturdays when they aired all the episodes one after the other. It is reality TV after all, I would never watch it as scheduled. I mean puh-lease. I do not make appointments to watch amateurs fame whore around for the cameras.

Anyway. The season is upon us and I bet you’re wondering what to watch. The fast answer is

1. Shows that are formally scripted.
2. Shows that employ actual, professional actors and writers.
3. Nothing on CW.

I think that is very good advice over all.

But if you don’t want the fast answer. List of New Shows , is a good starting place. I watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and it was terrific. I didn’t want it to be, I’m a huge SNL fan and if I was going to watch a show mocking it, I was going to watch Tina Fey and 30 Rock, damn it. Screw Sorkin and his stellar dialogue. I didn’t watch West Wing or Sports Night so I wasn’t familiar with Sorkineese. He’s not bad. The actors were firing on cylinders as well, I don’t know if this will make sense to ya’ll but the show had great energy and it kept it up for the whole hour. Plays have “energy” issues, on a good night the energy is up and everything is hitting on all cylinders. Those are the nights when the audience is a part of the show, the reality of the character’s becomes the reality of the audience. These are nights when the audience give an ovation. Bad nights in the theatre can be traced to the cast having a “low energy” show. Studio 60 deserves an ovation. Matthew Perry stars and you won’t even think about Chandler. He can actually act. I’ve seen many comments around about Amanda Peet, and that viewers didn’t buy her in the part, feeling that she was too young for her lofty position and she suffers from a severe case of tooprettyitis.. I have really disliked her in other parts for example, I hated her in Saving Silverman, I couldn’t see why this thirty year old woman was doing with a twelve year old. She was too old, in S60 she’s a touch too young. It airs Mondays at 10 pm eastern, tune in.

A show I’m walking into with high hopes is Smith . I’ve read fairly scathing reviews of it, but since I am currently very mad at ABC, I’m going to watch it as long as it CBS will air it. Ray Liotta is also kind of hot, in a I-can’t-move-my-face-way. The rest of the cast is really strong too and all of them seem to be able to move their facial muscles. On paper it should be good or at the very least, interesting to watch. I would be watching, the, according to the scathing reviews, much better Boston Legal, but BL is on ABC and they suck. I’ll be taping it but not watching it as scheduled.

Sadly, there are 2789 shows premiering between this week and October and none of the others are dinging my Tvdar.

My Name is Earl is back on Thursday!!