The Season So Far

I have not been posting TV updates at the furious pace I did last season at this time, because nothing is exciting me the way it did last season. I haven't even tried to watch Smallville, which has stretched way beyond its initial concept. I think they were in a position to do a grand wrap-up about three season ago and end the series the way it really should have ended. But the ratings were too good so they've had to do all these ridiculous contortions with Brainiac and Bizarro and the Justice League, and now I can't even watch it.

Prison Break is the same way. The pilot was stunning, I thought. But the premise didn't seem like a good premise for a series (which it wasn't--Prison Break was apparently originally intended to be a feature), and the ridiculous contortions they've had to go through to keep from ending the series finally wore me out.

Heroes, I still like, but the newness has worn off, and they need to get things moving again. This week, they finally brought back Sylar and Niki (StripperHulk) and showed us what happened to them. But the multiple plots are just not progressing at all, except for Peter's maybe, and three episodes is a little long to let this go on. Stuff needs to start happening soon.

So far, I've been right about Reaper. Three episodes in, and it's pretty much a MOTW (Monster of the Week) show. It's a funny MOTW show, which helps, and Smallville showed you can grow out of the MOTW syndrome without losing the heart of the show. But I'm not sure how long I'll stay interested.

Chuck is strange. It's also funny, and in a sense, it's also MOTW, only in this case, it's Mission of the Week. But the characters actually seem to be growing and developing in ways that the characters in Reaper aren't, so I like Chuck more. The big problem with Chuck is the ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY of the central premise, which just bugs me. I think it would bug me a lot less if the government agencies he was working with were like U.N.C.L.E. or S.H.I.E.L.D. or something; having him work for real-world agencies makes it harder for me to accept the fantasy premise.

Journeyman and Bionic Woman intrigued me, but not enough that I wanted to keep watching either one. So far, the only new series that I'm really going out of my way to watch are Chuck and Kitchen Nightmares.