New TV! Looks Like Old TV!
16 Sep 2007Through the wonder of the internets, I was able to check out a few of the new fall TV shows via my TiVo. Yay! New TV!
So, then I actually watched them. And new TV didn't seem so new anymore.
Let's start with the worst. "Journeyman" stars the dude from "Rome". Not the really cool dude, but the other one. The less cool one. He plays a journalist (ha, "journ"alist ... "journ"eyman ... ha) in San Francisco who has a British accent that just sort of peeks out every now and then. It's only mildly annoying. It's slightly more annoying when he randomly starts going back in time. It becomes apparent, fairly quickly, that the show will be about him adjusting to the new time he's in and then setting some prior wrong right.
Yep, exactly like "Quantum Leap." Except not nearly as good. The one good bit was that they resolved the marital strife his time traveling caused right off the bat. But, otherwise, this looks like a show that'll make it through half the season before they have to rewrite it and have it take a massive twist because it's just boring.
"Bionic Woman" reminded me a lot of another show. What was the name of it? Oh yeah ... "The Bionic Woman." Except this one tried to be all futuristic and clever. It had one decent fight scene with the villian (Starbuck from "Battlestar Galactica", which is an infinitely better show, as far as I can tell), but like everything else in this show, it was rushed and pretty much pure exposition. You'd think a dorky sci-fi action show would be right up my alley, but I fell asleep twice trying to get through this. The best part is how the main character flips out after becoming bionic, hates everyone involved, but within 10 minutes is fully using her new powers and fighting the bad guys. I guess they wanted to get right into the bionic powers rather than dealing with the potentially interesting story of her struggling to deal with her new powers.
Whatever. I probably won't watch this. It looks like it'll be a worse version of the new Terminator show. Which I haven't seen yet.
Finally, there were two kinda good shows.
"Life" is not about Eddie Murphy being in jail. No, this version is about a cop who was wrongfully accused of a murder and spends 12 years in jail before being freed. Part of his settlement for wrongful imprisonment (besides a bunch of money) is to be put back on the force as a detective. It all stems from him living his zen-like existence and wanting to make a difference ... or is it. Muhahahaha.
Actually, the zen aspect of the main character, and how it affects his perspective and approach to police work is kind of fun and reminds me a good bit of "Raines," a show from last season that I like a lot (about a detective who talks to ghosts in his head). So even if the show didn't have a secondary element, it'd still be worth watching. But there's a nice reveal at the end of the pilot that puts a slightly new spin on the main character (is he as zen-like as he seems) and adds a hopefully nice serialized story to the proceedings. I'll be watching.
Finally, there's "Chuck." Or, as it's also known, "Jake 3.0." It's about a guy who works for the Geek Squad at Best Buy ... umm, I mean the Nerd Herd at Buy More. He's a dork, he's droll, he's Seth Cohen. Hey, wouldn't you know, this the new show by the guy who invented Seth Cohen. Surprise! Chuck gets an email from an old associate and BAM, he knows a bunch of spy stuff he shouldn't. The NSA and CIA send operatives to capture or kill him. They all work together to save stuff.
Ok, so it's a bit derivative of the previously mentioned Jake 2.0 crossed with The O.C. And, given the subject material and the plot, it's a bit lacking in the energy department. That being said, it was really fun. It's obvious that this could be a good, even great show, once it finds its footing a bit. They had to cover a lot of ground in the opening episode, so it's not too surprising that it was a bit uneven. It looks like it'll be worth watching for the first season and a half before it turns crappy like The O.C.