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| Name: Ryan Roe Email: prawnrr-rmv@this.com-yahoo.com Position: Movie / Television / Comic Book / Trivia Geek View Ryan's Personal Profile |
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| It’s that time again! It seems like just yesterday spring was fading into summer, May sweeps was wrapping up, and we were all getting ready for a season full of beach-going and drinking lemonade and wondering what the heck is in the hatch. Now fall has arrived, and with it the fall TV season. As I’ve done the past few years, I’ve pored over Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV preview issue and come up with a few predictions, observations, and mean jokes about the television of the very near future. I want to point something out about my fall TV journal entry of last year. In it, I noted that my success rate at predicting which new shows were Most Likely to Get Cancelled had thus far been 50%, and I vowed to bring it up to 100%. Guess what? When the end of the 2004-2005 season came around, all four of the shows I predicted would get cancelled-- Center of the Universe, Listen Up, Jonny Zero and life as we know it-- had been cancelled! One hundred percent, baby! Pass the popcorn! The challenge now is to repeat that astounding success. It was extremely difficult to predict the surefire failures this year, because there are a lot of potential stinkers. Plus, I’m at a disadvantage because I currently get about four channels on an old-school antenna, so I have no idea which shows are getting the most promotion. Still, here are my predictions for the new shows that are Most Likely to Get Cancelled: How I Met Your Mother, The War at Home, Night Stalker and Reunion . How I Met Your Mother is narrated from the year 2030, as a dad (voice of Bob Saget of TV's Full House and the film The Aristocrats) tells his kids about the good old days of 2005. Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Alyson Hannigan is on it, and she’s good. But assuming the show’s two romantic leads meet in the first episode, doesn’t that spoil the surprise? We’ll know how he met our mother by the end of the first half-hour! The War at Home is not a series of propaganda films. Rather, it reflects Fox’s commitment to original programming, by airing a sitcom about a family with a dumb dad. Night Stalker is a remake of Kolchak: the Night Stalker. I’m sure TV viewers will embrace it in the exact same way they did the recent remakes of The Fugitive and The Twilight Zone. Reunion is a drama with an unusual premise: each episode represents a year in the life of its six regulars. This is the kind of show—especially on Fox—that either does really well, or just confuses people and ends up with dismal ratings and a quick death. I’m calling it for the latter fate. This year I’m bestowing the Worst New Show Title awards on the Jason Lee comedy My Name is Earl and the Denise Richards drama Sex, Love & Secrets. Why My Name is Earl? Why not just Earl? And Sex, Love & Secrets probably would have added …and Nudity! if it weren’t for the FCC. At least it’s a better title than Sex, Love & Algebraic Equations, I’ll give them that. Other thoughts: • If I gave an award for Best New Show Title, it would go to Everybody Hates Chris, the new sitcom inspired by Chris Rock’s childhood. Although the writers are lucky the show seems to be getting good buzz so far. It’s one of those titles that “clever” critics would love to use against the show if it failed to entertain. • Last year I commented on the plethora of shows on the air with acronyms. Amazingly, I don’t think there are any new acronym shows, but following the success of Lost, it appears that one-word titles are the big trend. So this season we have Supernatural, Related, Bones, Surface, Invasion, Threshold, Reunion, Inconceivable, Freddie, Twins, and E-Ring, if that last one counts. Not to mention returning shows Charmed, Medium, Stacked, Girlfriends, House, Rodney, Cuts, Joey, Alias, Eve, Reba, Smallville, Numb3rs, and Supernanny. Whew. For a fun game, see if you can make a sentence using only those words! • Speaking of Supernanny, I caught a rerun of it recently, and I must confess I got engrossed watching the chipper British lady helping pathetic parents reform their bratty kids. That makes one more reality show I’ll willingly watch, so it’s clear that I’ll soon have to revise my longstanding general rule of “I don’t like reality TV.” • Commander in Chief stars Geena Davis as the president. I may regret not naming this to the Most Likely to Get Cancelled list, because I really don’t think the show will win the popular vote. Besides, network TV already has a fake president. • Freddie is Freddie Prinze, Jr.’s new sitcom vehicle. “I didn’t know he could do comedy!” you might say. “Oh, yeah?” I might say. “Then what can he do?” • The fact that American Dad and Family Guy are back this season makes me never want to watch TV again. • The fact that Arrested Development is back this season makes me want to keep watching TV for the rest of my life. It’s moving to Mondays. Set your TiVos, peoples! • Blue Collar TV returns. It’s the show that dares to poke fun at controversial topics no other show dares to, like gravy. • I’ll probably watch the Jennifer Love Hewitt drama Ghost Whisperer to see if it’s any good, but I hope I don’t have to turn my TV volume up all the way to hear her whispering. • My interest is piqued by Threshold, one of many new sci-fi-ish shows. It stars Carla Gugino of Karen Sisco, and has all the makings of a potential victim of my Television Curse. • Why is King of the Hill in the 6:30 PM Central time time slot on Sunday? This is its last season, too. Why don’t they put it after The Simpsons instead of The War at Home, which as we know is destined to fail? That way they could have two full hours of animation on Sunday night, and more people would see King of the Hill. Why don’t they ever ask me before they make these decisions? Questions? Angry rebuttals? Offers to provide me with free satellite TV for life? Don’t hesitate to use the comment thingy below. Comments on this post are closed. |
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| I'm surprised that you don't like The Family Guy...even though it is a blatant ripoff of The Simpsons, admittedly. Still, I enjoy Stewie and the dog. |
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| Veronica Mars! |
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| Sara: One reason I don't like Family Guy is that it is a blatant ripoff of The Simpsons, only unfunny. Scott: Yes, of course. Veronica Mars! The last season of which I've just recently been catching up on, thanks to you. I don't know if I can get UPN or not, but if I can you can bet I'll be keeping up with the adventures of my favorite girl detective from Neptune High School. |
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