TV Update

The first week of TV premieres is over, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the ones I watched.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Monday, 10pm, NBC) wasn't quite up to my expectations, which were admittedly pretty high. It seemed like there were too many characters around that didn't get introduced properly. After watching the first episode, I can only remember three people's names - Matt (Matthew Perry, so that one's easy), Danny (Bradley Whitford), and Jordan (Amanda Peet). I can't help comparing it to The West Wing pilot, where the teaser showed each main character receiving the "POTUS in a bicycle accident" message. It was a great way to introduce the characters one at a time, instead of having them all thrown at you at once.

(Another way to sort out your characters is to use the Buffy method - in the pilot, Buffy had just moved to Sunnydale, so everyone and their mother introduced themselves to her about 10 times. It actually gets kind of annoying, but at least you're told everyone's name.)

As far as the plot, it seemed to be mainly a set-up episode, as pilots often are - getting all the players into position for the actual story, which will start next week. It actually reminded me more of Sports Night, because of the "show within a show" angle, which I always felt deserved to be an hour-long show instead of 1/2 hour. I thought Judd Hirsch's career-ending diatribe was a little heavy-handed, and seemed more like Aaron Sorkin expressing his grievances through his characters, as he was wont to do on The West Wing with political issues. Other than that, the dialogue was quick (but not as fast as The West Wing) and witty, making me laugh without punchlines.

To sum up, I'll be giving this one another chance, partially because of my love for Aaron Sorkin and the cast, but also because I felt like this episode was just a primer for what's to come.

On Thursday night, I managed to watch two shows simultaneously, flipping between Shark (10pm, CBS) and Six Degrees (10pm, ABC). It probably says something that I was able to follow both shows while only seeing half of them. Shark was very predictable, but funny in a caustic kind of way. It really seems as though someone said, "Give me House, but with lawyers," and so far, James Woods isn't quite on par.

Six Degrees was an interesting premise, but I really hope the connections get more interesting than "Oh, my gosh, we went to the same concert back in the 80s! Let's be BFFs!" I really wasn't that interested in the characters (but at least I knew all their names, thanks to helpful titles before each one's introductory segment). I'm kind of curious what the deal is with Mae, who she's hiding from and why - although that scene when she was being chased with her baby-sitting charge was frighteningly reminiscent of Kim Bauer. I also liked Whitney, and teehee, there's a character named Laura. But am I the only one that thought it was kinda sketchy to make the only black person in the cast the one who's got lots of gambling debt and is involved in crime? Stereotypical much?

I still haven't decided which of these I'll watch next Thursday. If anyone has a vote one way or the other, let me know!

On Saturday, I also caught the rerun of Jericho (Wednesday, 8pm, CBS), which was actually better than I expected. I started watching it on Wednesday, but turned it off to hang out with Megan instead (and watch the looooongest movie ever... I really think they could have edited that sucker down to about an hour and a half, lol. The movie was The New World, in case you're curious). So I really liked Jericho - it got a little cheesy with the speechifying at the end, but up until then, it was pretty compelling. It's definitely dark, as critics have mentioned, but I like dark. I'm curious whether anything will happen with the two people Jake (Skeet Ulrich) killed in that car accident. Will someone find them and Jake's car, and will he get in trouble? Also, what was up with those escaped criminals? And the dead birds? That was just creepy... One thing I couldn't figure out was why they kept talking about Denver. This is supposed to be Kansas, right? Is Denver seriously the closest big city to Kansas? That can't be right. Whatever... Anyway, I'm kind of hooked - I want to know what happened, if there's anyone alive outside of Jericho, and how badly the townspeople are going to freak out when they figure it out.

Up next week: Ugly Betty, as well as the return of Gilmore Girls.