Fall TV 2012: What to Watch and When to Watch It

I may have been absent from the Interwebs for a lot of this summer (it's strange how real life will keep you busy sometimes), but don't worry, I haven't been watching and studying any less television than usual.  In fact, I've been saving up some of my excitement and analysis for exactly this moment:  the proverbial eve of the fall TV season kick-off.  These are a few of the shows I'll be watching and reviewing subject, as always, to change (except for Parks and Rec, which I will watch/love till the end of time).  And in case you've been sitting on your sofa staring blankly at your television set and awaiting my instructions as to what you should watch, here they are for your perusal:


Mondays:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS, premieres September 24th)
*Where we left off:  Barney's future bride was revealed (it's Robin!); Lily and Marshall had a baby (and promptly brought it with them to the bar); Ted and Victoria rode off into the sunset together (sort of).
*What's next:  With the writers, at least according to recent interviews with Bays and Thomas, working as though this will be the show's last season, it seems the tying up of some loose ends is on the horizon.  We have to figure out how the heck Barney and Robin make it to the alter (remember he's newly engaged to stripper Quinn in the present), as well as how Ted ruins things with Victoria (again) and arrives at the show's titular moment at long last.  It should prove to be an interesting season, and hopefully there will be significantly less time wasted with so many plots to unravel in so short a time.
*Wish list:  I'd love to see an announcement (sooner rather than later) that HIMYM will in fact wrap up after this season.  I think 24 episodes is more than enough time to wrap up the loose ends still dangling if the writers are deliberate about it, and if Thomas and Bays are permitted to stretch this journey out any further the cracks are really going to start to show.


(NEW SHOWS!) Tuesdays:

Go On (NBC, premiered September 9th)
The primary reason this show works well is that the execs at NBC have stopped fucking around and finally returned Matthew Perry to the role he belongs:  Chandler Bing.  Yes, Chandler's aged a decade or so and he's got a different name and job and blah, blah, blah; but essentially this character is nearly identical personality-wise.  It's as though we're seeing future Chandler following the death of Monica, whom we all knew kept him grounded, and though he's surely bereaved, he's also hilarious.

Better than that, though, this show actually seems to have heart, and not in a jammed-down-your-throat kind of way.  It's ballsy for a primetime sitcom to deal with something like grief, but the level of accuracy Go On supplies in the pilot episode alone is definitely encouraging, and a good sign of things to come.  Hopefully NBC doesn't err on the side of their usual instinct, which is to water down the honesty of some of their best programs (Community and its new team of writers springs to mind, not to mention the soon-to-wrap train wreck that The Office has become), because that would sacrifice a lot of what thus far makes this show appealing.

The Mindy Project (FOX, premieres September 25th)
This is a show that seems designed to stand up well beside its lineup-mate, FOX's New Girl, which was of course one of last year's runaway hits (not to mention the source of way too much Deschanel Hype in my life).  The Mindy Project follows Mindy Kaling, who you'll recognize as Kelly Kapoor from The Office, in the early stages of her career as an OB/GYN, as well as the battle-worn (and hilarious) stage of her romantic life.  It's lighthearted, it's laugh-out-loud funny, and it's identifiable, which is really all you can hope for in a pilot episode.  I can foresee problems similar to those found in the early run of New Girl, when it became clear that the amount of "isn't-she-quirky" based humor needed to be toned down-- in The Mindy Project, it's easy to lose sight of Mindy's role as (in theory, at least) an everywoman character in the more grating aspects of the character's personality.

This one also has an excellent supporting cast going for it, and I'm hopeful that the writers will gradually shift some of the focus so expended on Mindy in the pilot to some of these already very interesting personalities.


Wednesdays:

Happy Endings (ABC, premieres October 23rd)
*Where we left off:  Season 2's finale brought us another wedding, this time between friends of the gang Derrick and Eric.  We saw Penny struggle with possible feelings for Dave, who ended the night instead with erstwhile fiance Alex, while Brad and Jane tried to come to a compromise on how to better communicate with each other.
*What's next:  It doesn't seem that this Alex/Dave/Penny triangle is going to be too much of an overwrought thing (especially with rumors of Penny getting a new semi-longterm love interest), which is excellent news for a show that's already brilliant without the addition of needless melodrama.  
*Wish list:  More of Adam Pally's Max and less of Elisha Cuthbert's Alex (mainly just less of the emphasis on her being the dumb blonde of the group); more viewers for what I guarantee is the funniest show you're not watching.


Thursdays:

Parks and Recreation (NBC, premieres September 20th)
*Where we left off:  One Leslie Knope is about to take Pawnee City Council by storm after triumphing in the season finale's election.  She'll be working on a long-term relationship with Ben, who has taken a job in Washington D.C. and who has somewhat inexplicably recruited April to work as his intern.
*What's next:  A Ben/Leslie shake-up, but according to executive producer Mike Schur it's not the kind you'd expect.  Also, some long overdue maturity for Tom, who last season appeared to backtrack a bit following his Entertainment 720 venture.  But the best news is that by the end of the season premiere, the Tom/Ann debacle will really and truly be a thing of the past.



Fridays:

Community (NBC, premieres October 19th)
*Where we left off:  In a season finale that really would've made a great conclusion to the series, we saw everyone going their almost separate ways in relative happiness (yes, even Jeff, who decided to finally seek out his long-estranged father).  It was almost enough to make you not want a fourth season.  Almost.
*What's next:  The show's last-minute salvation last spring means that some tweaks are going to have to take place (this is even without the team of new writers and the firing of Dan Harmon, the show's creator).  We'll apparently be meeting Jeff's father, there will be an Inspector Spacetime convention, and the gang will pay homage (sort of?) to The Hunger Games in the season premiere.
*Wish list:  I don't have too many particular demands, I just hope that the show will still be recognizable as the delightful, wonderfully weird thing it is after the new writers have gotten their hands on it.


Honorable Mentions:

30 Rock, The Office (Thursdays, NBC):  Both are entering their final seasons, hopefully some laughs will be resurrected before the end.

Grey's Anatomy (Thursdays, ABC):  Yup, they're still kicking over at Seattle Grace.  And this season promises to be every bit as miserable and death-filled as you could possibly hope.


Here's to a wonderful 2012/2013 television season.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Part 2

So what I've learned over the past week or so is that May sweeps as we once knew it basically doesn't exist anymore.  For one thing, it apparently starts in April now, which bumps the whole schedule forward by several weeks (remember back in the day when the season finale of your favorite shows would coincide with the last days of school?).  Most of the shows discussed below will end in the first two weeks of may, and have already begun to ramp up their plot lines accordingly.  Let's get to it.


Parks and Recreation

Last week's "The Debate" continues to present new things for me to gush about (especially now that I've watched the director's cut, which has even more glorious extra laughs).  And things are only going to get more exciting from here.  The remaining two episodes will determine Leslie's political fate, and rumor has it there are going to be some major complications before the end of the race.
*I've already watched this evening's episode, "Bus Tour," and am holding off on elaborating here so I can post a better review later.


Grey's Anatomy

I have to applaud the current arc centering on the residents taking their medical boards, which I thought might grow tedious but which has been really very interesting to watch.  It's the first time in a while that Grey's has really emphasized the journey each character is on as an individual, rather than simply exploring their romantic relationships with one another.  The hype for the finale has been on the rise for a few weeks now, with several cast members cryptically giving interviews about how anyone's death is fair game in the season finale, due to air May 17th (although rumor has it Meredith, Alex, and Christina are safe, at least from death).  Of course, anyone following the show knows that this has more to do with ongoing contract negotiations with the actors than anything on the creative side, but it definitely feels like things are in flux, and that everything is about to change, for better or for (probably) worse over at Seattle Grace-Mercy West.


New Girl

(Yes, this is the overrated freshman show I was talking about in my previous post.)  Although the writers and actors seem to have finally found something of a groove in terms of humor, storytelling, and minimizing the "isn't she ador(k)able?" aspect of Zooey Deschanel's character, I still think the finale of this show's first season will be (somehow) both predictable and anti-climactic.  Fans are rooting for a Jess and Nick hookup with a fervor reminiscent of the early seasons of Friends and the Ross/Rachel tension.  Now, New Girl could potentially pull off a satisfying conclusion and/or cliffhanger if they go a similar route (that is, resolving it and not resolving it simultaneously, a la season 1 of Friends, where Rachel goes to the airport having realized her feelings only to see Ross with Julie).  I predict that by the end of next Tuesday's episode, either Nick or Jess will have an epiphany of sorts (though it could be argued that Jess kind of did at the end of this week's installment), but I doubt that anything with a clear resolution will happen.  I'd also like to see Nick go through with his decision to move out of the loft, if only because it presents more possibilities for the start of season 2.


Cougar Town

Jules and Grayson are going to get married, which is probably the official moment this show will demand a new title, as there is no substantial age difference between the two.   But rumor has it that Laurie might be assuming the role of a cougar of sorts, if the murmurs of something real happening between her and Travis are to be believed.  My only reservation with this story line is that if the writers aren't careful about handling it, they may run into the same criticism that plagued the show in its early days about how appropriate and/or realistic its interpretation of relationships is.  As someone who's been very happy to see how far this show has come since the pilot, I'm hoping they can pull off an acknowledgement of the palpable chemistry between these two characters in a way that fits with the show we know and love.

(Advance) TV Review: New Girl

So the folks over at FOX decided to go for a more aggressive approach marketing this show by putting the full pilot up on iTunes for free downloading (at last check it was still available, so if you don't feel like waiting till next Tuesday, I recommend it).  I watched it on Saturday but wasn't quite ready to form an opinion of it, and so watched it again last night to see if I could glean anything new.  I think I'm one of the few people I know not blinded by the Zooey Deschanel adorable factor, and so that has allowed me to be more objective than the army of her fans who will undoubtedly supply this show with the bulk of its ratings.

The premise is pretty simple:  Deschanel's character Jess is smarting from a bad breakup and wants somewhere new to live.  Cue interview session with the three amigos in their almost too-good-to-be-true apartment.  We meet her three soon-to-be roommates, only one of whom (Nick) seems to have a first name.  The other two are called Coach (yep, you read that right), and Schmidt (which I'm assuming is his surname).  And yes, on the whole they are as flat and douche-y as they sound.  The only redeeming quality these three have in the pilot is that they form a quick, platonic attachment to Jess and by episode's end really have her back, which is nice because she needs all the help she can get. 

Looking at this show's long-term potential, however, raises some flags.  The pilot had some laughs, certainly, and the writers should be able to coast on the whole "the gang gets into a mix-up" gimmick for a while, but if they don't do something about characterization this show is going to lose its charm fast.  Jess is very funny and has the potential to continue to get laughs, so long as she doesn't let the guys whitewash her.  Most of the things I thought were funny were her awkwardness and "nerdy" references, but you could already see hints of her trying to shed that skin because it wasn't "cool" enough.  I'd like to see Jess remain an unabashed nerd, something that can still work really well in comedy (there's a reason both male leads from The Big Bang Theory have Emmy nominations).  If she becomes just another pretty girl trying to fit in, this show will embark on a slippery downhill slope, fast. 

Of the three roommates, only Nick is tolerable right now, and even he's walking a tightrope there.  He is introduced with an easy role; he's the heartbroken, kind-of-a-bummer guy.  But that works for him, and of the three guys he seems to have the most genuine interest in being friends with Jess, proven when he ditches drinks with his ex to go and "save" Jess from being stood up.  His character runs the risk of becoming bland, though, if they don't come up with something other than the recently-dumped angle.  I noticed that he apparently works at the bar they go to on their first night out; I'm sure that could be incorporated in some way to add to his character or at least provide an activity for him that isn't moping over his ex (played, incidentally, by the fantastic Mary Elizabeth Ellis, aka "the waitress" from Always Sunny).  Coach, on the other hand, has hitherto exhibited almost no personality whatsoever.  By the end of the pilot we know two things about him:  he's a personal trainer and he is apparently a hardass/sucks at talking to women.  Let's peel the onion a little with this one, guys.  And Schmidt...well, let's just say that if this character keeps up his current antics, he will be the reason I (and likely many others) have to stop watching this show.  He is really, really douche-y, unapologetically so, even when he has to put money in the "douchebag jar" (I did like that).  I get that we need to have the one guy who is kind of full of himself and is (hopefully) being set up for eventual redemption, but if you ask me, his personality still needs to be toned down a little.  Not only is he kind of a jackass in a very stereotypical way (he decides Jess should move in because her friends are models, and he removes his shirt whenever he feels like there's a woman nearby who needs to be impressed), but he also comes off as extremely unintelligent.  If this is all for the sake of his later development/improvement, I hope that Jess intervenes sooner rather than later.  Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, what the heck is his job, where he apparently works exclusively with shrill women?

All of that said (and now looking back I'm realizing I had a lot more thoughts than I expected), there are still some moments where the show exhibits real potential.  Jess' quirks, as aforementioned, so long as they aren't overused or wiped away completely, make her character much more relatable, so that even though it is clear why the guy stands her up for their date, you still feel genuinely bad for her.  Additionally, the scene in the restaurant, as cheesy as it was, gives us the most fantastically garbled, off-key rendition of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" that I've ever heard, although I spent most of the episode wondering why Dirty Dancing would be someone's go-to breakup movie. 

Overall, New Girl gives us a somewhat uneven pilot with glimmers of potential.  I think it will be clear within the next two or three episodes whether this is a show worth sticking with, because it will either get much better or much worse (there's not much room for a middle ground).  Check it out on iTunesTuesday, September 20th on FOX.