Monday Madness

Shows I watch that air on Mondays:
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Chuck (NBC)
Gossip Girl (CW, currently on hiatus)
Life Unexpected (CW)
Make it or Break it (ABC Family)
Greek (ABC Family)
Castle (ABC)
Damages (FX)

Shows I watch that air on Tuesdays:
None

What the heck??

New winter TV

There is SO MUCH new TV premiering in the next couple of weeks, and an annoyingly large number of them are on Mondays. WTF? What I'll be watching:

1. Battlestar Galactica. Final season, all will be revealed??

2. 24. It's been quite awhile, and I never finished watching the last season of this show, but I kind of liked the Redemption special so I'm definitely planning on watching. I'm a little upset about Tony coming back from the dead and being evil though because he was one of my favorites. I'm secretly hoping he won't turn out to be truly evil?

3. Damages. Originally I wasn't too keen on a second season of this show, but Glenn Close is so damn good I can't complain.

4. Kyle XY. I can't really explain my love for this show...perhaps it's just the teen sci-fi aspect that isn't found elsewhere on TV anymore. In any case, I'm super excited, especially with reports that it'll be more action-packed.

5. Scrubs. Now on ABC, also possibly the final season? What can I say, it's just kooky and fun and the only medical show I watch.

6. Dollhouse. The new Joss Whedon show with Eliza Dushku. It sounds pretty out there, as one would expect from Joss, and it's been doomed to a Friday night timeslot on FOX, which definitely has no qualms about canceling shows right away, and at the same time I wonder if it's been hyped up too much. I remain optimistic though and I can't wait.

7. Friday Night Lights. The season has already been airing on DirecTV but now it's finally coming to NBC. I think it's likely this is the last season but really I'm just thankful we got to a third one at all.

8. The Bachelor. I know, I'm ridiculous. But I really did like Jason from the last season of the Bachelorette....I thought he was truly decent and it sucked that he got down on one knee to propose and then got rejected. I think it'll be interesting to see how he deals with being the one to have to date multiple people now because he seems very honest and genuine. God knows why I still have hope that he found someone for real when the show's track record basically sucks.

9. America's Best Dance Crew. I don't think I mentioned it but I went to the live tour this past fall and it was really pretty awesome. I wasn't a faithful viewer either the first or second seasons but I might tune in this season. Especially with reports that Dominic and Hok from So You Think You Can Dance season 3 and their crew might be on it.

10. Bromance/The City. Yeah, it just gets worse. But I woke up at 3am last night and couldn't sleep and found Bromance on the air. And it was just really kind of hilarious. (Apparently this show and Momma's Boys were both developed by Ryan Seacrest. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that nugget.) As for The City...I stopped watching The Hills last year because I just couldn't handle Speidi anymore and all of Lauren's self-righteous friendship drama was becoming intolerable, but I always liked Whitney. That said, I'm kind of surprised she agreed to headline her own show because she was always a bit guarded about her personal life. Now she's inviting this weird level of manufactured-ness into her life...I mean, Olivia Palermo is apparently a pretty well-known New York socialite who was basically cast on the show to be Whitney's co-worker, and Whitney met Jay, her Australian musician love interest, on camera and had to kind of ask him if it was ok to have their relationship chronicled on reality TV. Which makes me kind of wonder if he really likes her or if he just wants to be on TV?

11. Big Love. Hm, I haven't finished watching the last season of this show either, and honestly sometimes all the stuff with Roman and Alby and such loses my interest but at this point I'm basically invested in the characters so I will probably keep up.

12. Reaper. Does anyone remember this show? I thought it kind of grew into its own towards the end of its first season and I'm glad it's coming back.

Plus new season of The Amazing Race, Masterpiece Classic, and all the other shows I watched this fall...my DVR is going to be super busy and thank goodness for hulu.com and other online streaming!

Summer season finales

I know, I know, it's fall now (and the weather is finally agreeing with the calendar here in the Northeast) but two really awesome series that ran this summer recently had their season finales. It's funny, summer series never used to be a big thing at all, but with the cable networks producing their own original series and not adhering to the regular broadcast seasons, things have gotten a lot more interesting. These two shows, Damages and Mad Men each had 13-episode freshman seasons and they were both just phenomenal in their own way, really way better than any of the new fall shows, in my opinion. Looking at my TV schedule this fall, I have a mix of quirkiness, guilty pleasures, and geeks of all kinds but not too much of what Damages and Mad Men were: thinking shows for grownups.

Let's talk about Mad Men's big finale twist first: Peggy hasn't just been gaining weight, she was pregnant. And she gave birth. And seemingly rejected her baby. Pretty much all in the last couple of minutes of the show. WTF? It was definitely a shocker, and a lot of people have been buzzing about how that just strains the credibility of the show. And I'd really been liking Peggy, as she rose in the ranks from secretary to junior copywriter based on her talent. It's just so bizarre that they went in this direction. I can't speak firsthand, but it seems to me that gaining weight because you're pregnant is entirely different from just plain gaining weight. And I mean, was she so clueless that she didn't realize she wasn't having her period? She didn't feel kicks? Or was she in colossal denial? The writers have got some serious explaining to do.

But outside of that, the episode (and entire season really) have just been excellent. Jon Hamm, who I don't recognize from anywhere really, has been so incredibly good as Don, and I've loved the slow reveal of his past. Betty's storyline has been a roller coaster too...she has this weird sort of creepy quality about her that makes her and Don the craziest couple on TV that I'm actually rooting for. Don's slideshow presentation with all the photos of his family really got me a bit misty. And how sad was it when he got home and saw that they had already left? It's weird, this slick, composed guy whose whole life is kind of a lie and who cheats on his wife...I'm totally sympathetic with him.

There's tons more to say but I really encourage everyone to go and check out this show before it returns for a second season. The time period is almost a character in itself, and it's really unlike anything else on TV.

Now onto Damages. Talk about a show that knows how to plot! The show had two timelines that were inching closer to eachother as the episodes progressed, and it was just really thrilling, with all the twists and red herrings and mini-mysteries. It's been really unpredictable and exciting, but not to the point where unbelievable things are happening. It's kind of hard to sum up the entire season, but it's been an incredible ride.

And things have been kind of set up for a second season, though it seems it'll have to be a very different kind of show. I originally thought this was going to be an extended mini-series of sorts, with only one season, but there have been rumblings otherwise. This season has been very tightly structured and plotted, revolving around the Frobisher case. Ellen's whole induction into Patty's world was really based solely on her connection to Katie and the case. But now with the case wrapped up, Frobisher presumably dead (shot down by Larry...how crazy was that?)...we're going to be delving into Ellen working undercover for the FBI to find out more about Patty? The writers are definitely going to have to come up with more than that. And I'm a bit skeptical. Patty's a really great character and Glenn Close is amazing and I'm sure there's tons that can be done with her, but I don't know if I necessarily want more. Again, it's the whole thing with letting a story end where it ends logically. I mean, some shows just aren't meant to go on indefinitely...right?

Go watch Damages

Wow, what is up with all the great summer shows this year? This week I watched the premiere of Damages on FX, and I'm totally hooked. Originally I thought that this was just going to be another legal drama, but it's actually a kind of mystery/thriller that's really exciting.

The big story attached with this series of course, was Glenn Close. I've never watched the Shield so I haven't really been familiar with her recent work (in fact I don't think I've watched her in anything since those Sarah Plain and Tall TV movies from the 90s) but she really is awesome in this role. She plays Patty Hewes, a high powered, somewhat morally ambiguous lawyer trying a class-action suit against a billionaire named Frobisher. She hires a recent law school graduate, Ellen, to be her new protege, but obviously something else is going on there...the beginning of the episode reveals that 6 months later a bloodied and half-dressed Ellen is running through the streets. The show employs a flashback method of storytelling, with scenes from the "present" interspersed between scenes telling the story from the beginning. Normally I'd be a little nervous about this kind of series, because I've gotten burned by similar things in the past (i.e. Reunion and the Nine) but it's more of a mini-series (well, a long mini-series...13 episodes) and it's on cable so I don't think we really have to worry about that.

With this, Mad Men, Kyle XY, Greek, the 4400, and my reality shows, there really isn't a lack of TV to watch this summer at all. I haven't even gotten a chance to catch up on Doctor Who like I've been intending...