jere7my | Sep. 14th, 2011

Last September, I posted my aspirations for the upcoming TV season. Let's see how I did, won't you?

Hawaii Five-0: Renewed! This is a stupid, terrible show, which I totally dig. I look forward to season 2, and still bounce around like a fool when the theme music comes on.
Chase: Cancelled, and rightly so. It was cliches on top of cliches.
Outlaw: Cancelled, and again: hooray! Supreme-Court-justice-turned-trial-lawyer lasted about six episodes.
Undercovers: Cancelled, and while I know some of my friends liked this show, again I can't blame the network. It was Alias without dramatic tension — two well-adjusted happily married trendies effortlessly completing CIA missions and running a catering business. Props for giving us black leads, but they could've been white and you wouldn't've noticed — they had no black friends, had nothing to distinguish them from the cultural mainstream. Heck, they went undercover in Germany without race ever coming up. I did like Gerald McRaney a lot, probably because he also disliked the leads, and because I used to watch Simon & Simon.
The Event: Cancelled! They gave up on the most interesting part of the pilot (the nonlinearity) and replaced it with limp plot threads navigated by idiots. Wanted more characters to die.
No Ordinary Family: Cancelled! Imagine Heroes. Now give the superpowers to the people on the front of a Hallmark card. Throw in a "hot" "geek" girl to make transparent superhero references, to appease the mom's-basement crowd. Bleah.
The Defenders: Cancelled! I actually sort of liked this show. It floundered between heartfelt and edgy, but it was solidly affable. Oh well.
Blue Bloods: Renewed! I will probably watch season 2, at least when my TiVo's well runs dry, because I like Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg. It's probably the most politically conservative drama on TV, though, and it raises my hackles at least once per episode. The liberal foil in the family is weak and easily steamrolled.
Detroit 1-8-7: Cancelled! Another cliched cop show, with terrible acting; they gave up on the interesting docu-drama angle immediately. I only watched two episodes.
Outsourced: Cancelled! I actually had to look on Wikipedia to determine this, which tells you how funny the show ended up being.
The Walking Dead: Renewed! Loved this; excited for season 2; worried about replacing the showrunner.
Terra Nova: Postponed! Now it's going to premiere this fall, so we can wait once more to see if CGI dinosaurs make compelling TV.

At least most of my established shows continued into this year; only Medium, The Good Guys, and Caprica were cancelled, and the three new shows I'm still watching fill those holes. So, mathematically, I am in the same situation as I was last year: hoping for five or six decent new shows. I am optimistic! Ha ha!

Terra Nova I've already talked about. Premieres 9/26 on Fox.
Ringer is Sarah Michelle Gellar's triumphant return to TV, in which she plays a twin on the run who takes over the life of her missing, wealthier twin. I can't see it being good, but loyalty demands I watch the episode I taped tonight. It's on the CW (noooo!), and just premiered.
American Horror Story looks like it might be a creepily intriguing take on the "Oops, I bought a haunted house!" genre. It's billed as a "psychosexual horror mystery," and the ads have been bizarre — like, someone playing a naked woman's back as a cello bizarre. Seriously, YouTube it. Premieres 10/5 on F/X.
Person of Interest is the new drama from J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan (brother of Christopher), starring Lost's Ben as a fellow who's developed software to predict crimes and the fellow he hires to stop them early. Premieres 9/22 on CBS.
Charlie's Angels is another reboot of a classic series, and while I suspect it will suck I'll give it an episode or two. 9/22, ABC.
Grimm is about a monster-hunting cop who is also the last surviving descendant of the Brothers Grimm, who were also monster-hunters and writing stories about real monsters. 10/21, NBC.
Once Upon a Time is, funnily enough, another "What if fairy tales were real?" show, with what looks like much less edge and conviction than Grimm. But it's written by two Lost alums, so I will give it a chance. 10/23, ABC.
Hell on Wheels looks amazing. It's a historical drama about construction of the Transcontinental Railroad! And there's revenge or something! I am very excited. AMC, 11/6.
Homeland is on Showtime, which I suddenly get for free for no reason I can discern. It's about a POW who may or may not have been turned during his captivity. Cast includes Mandy Patinkin, who suspects that I killed his father, and Damian Lewis, who starred in the vastly underappreciated Life. Showtime, 10/2.
Pan Am, the period piece about stews, which is hovering on the edge of me giving it a chance. My dad's worked for an airline all his life, so it may hit the nostalgia spot for me. ABC, 9/25.

Coming in 2012 is Alcatraz, starring Jorge Garcia (Hurley!) and produced by Bad Robot, about a whole lotta prisoners who vanished from the island decades ago. Also The Finder, a Bones spinoff we already sorta saw an episode of on Bones; Awake, in which Jason Isaacs shuttles back and forth between two realities: one in which his wife is dead, and one in which his son is; The River, a gritty horror show about a wildlife TV host who goes missing in the Amazon, and the quest of his family, friends, and crew to find him; and The Firm, a "several years later..." sequel to the Grisham novel/movie, which I find such a weird concept I may have to watch it. The River and Alcatraz both have great potential; I'm actively looking forward to their spring premieres.

Fingers crossed for five or six of these to pan out! I have been scraping the dregs from my TiVo lately — I've been forced to watch Leverage, for God's sake.

(One show I will not be watching is H8r, the description of which gave me hives: "Host Mario Lopez will bring together stars [like Kim Kardashian and Snooki] and their civilian haters so they can convince these detractors to see the error of their ways." Gaaah! Why, TV? Why?)