Primetime television season roundup

[dougo]

Last fall, I asked what new shows I should watch. I didn't get much of a response, so I ended up trying out a bunch of new shows, and ended up with six that I liked enough to keep watching: Karen Sisco, Arrested Development, Two and a Half Men, The Handler, A Minute With Stan Hooper, and The Lyon's Den. (I'm not counting The Apprentice, even though I did watch the whole thing and I will probably end up watching it again next season. It's still more of a stunt than a show.) (I'm also not counting K Street, which was a thing on HBO with ten episodes but seemed more like a miniseries (midiseries?) than a regular show.) Well, only Two and a Half Men and Arrested Development made it through the full season, and it's still not clear whether the latter is coming back next season. TV Tome has the full roundup of how this season's new shows did. Not a good success rate.

Meanwhile, of the other shows I listed in that post, five of the fifteen won't be back next season (Friends, Frasier, Ed, Boomtown, Good Morning Miami), and I stopped watching 24 (after accidentally missing an episode, not being able to track a copy down, and realizing I really didn't care anymore about the plot's ever-increasing ridiculousness without the artiness that the show first drew me in with). And I'm pretty sure that That '70s Show and The West Wing will be ending after next season, as the '70s and the Bartlet administration both come to an end.

Comments

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

Is Karen Sisco really coming back or not? I've only seen one new episode in the past few months.

I'm still watching 24 but it's mostly out of a sense of curiosity about how it'll all resolve. The plot is completely ridiculous and most of the characters have broken their personalities beyond recognition in the service of arbitrary plot twists.

One noteworthy high point (for me) is Mary Lynn Rajskub (formerly of the Larry Sanders Show and Mr. Show) as the prickly and socially inept techno-wizard Chloe. One of my favorite moments of the entire three seasons was recently when Michelle, fleeing from her kidnappers underground somewhere in L.A., managed to get through to Chloe on a cell phone with a bad connection. Michelle was yelling "CHLOE! CAN YOU HEAR ME? I NEED HELP!" and Chloe, hearing a garbled voice and static, said something like "Whoever this is, I can't hear you and I've got a lot of stuff to do" and hung up. Chloe isn't just nerdy; she's got serious emotional problems, and Rajskub's performance is terrific. It's a great example of the "we can't fire this person because she's vital to our operation ... but if she weren't, she'd be out the door yesterday."

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Karen Sisco went on permanent hiatus back in February or so. They aired the rest of the episodes on USA, but I didn't find out about it in time to catch them.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I saw the "No One's Girl" episode on USA but didn't see either of the others. Perhaps they conflicted with something else in my TiVo to-do list.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

My Tivo didn't catch any of the USA airings because it only records Season Passes by channel. Did they change this for Series 2 machines?

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

My Karen Sisco season pass is for the USA channel. Did they rerun them on USA last year? I don't remember. I think I set it up that way because the regular network airings conflicted with something so I had the USA version all along.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

And, for the record, I have a series 1.