Fall TV: Second looks, Part 2

Ok, so I started writing this blog like 2 months ago, but the problem was that I actually hadn't gotten around to giving some of these shows a second look, never mind writing about it. And um, I still haven't...and possibly won't.

Hart of Dixie - Predictable but cute. Lemon and Brick both grate but they have some moments of likability, especially around George. This doesn't seem like the type of show that will have them be antagonists forever but I am glad that Zoe is not a Rory Gilmore who instantly wins over everyone in town though. I'm sad that Nancy Travis had to leave the show (to go to Last Man Standing) though...she was a nice, sane grounding presence.
Status: Keeper.

Revenge - I know a lot of people (including my mom, of all people) are really loving this but I fell behind and just haven't really had the desire to catch up. The whole season is on Hulu Plus though, so I suppose if I'm ever bored...
Status: On the shelf.

Ringer - I tried, I really tried. The CW did give the show a full-season order but the few episodes I watched were just not good. Unless the buzz somehow becomes amazing, I think I'm done.
Status: Off the DVR.

Pan Am - I mean, I really genuinely liked the pilot. But then I just never watched another episode. And now apparently it's pretty much as good as cancelled so...yeah.
Status: Overcome by events.

Fall TV: Hart of Dixie

I'm a fan of Rachel Bilson from her days as Summer Roberts on The OC and her new show, Hart of Dixie has a nice old-school WB feel, despite it being from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (who kind of pioneered the move away from those shows with the aforementioned OC and Gossip Girl). I'm not sure if there's really an audience for this show anymore (similar feeling Privileged and, at least initially, Life Unexpected, didn't last very long) but I rather liked it.

Bilson plays Zoe Hart, a rising star surgeon who is rejected from her desired NYC cardiothoracic fellowship because she's supposedly too cold and impersonal with her patients. Her plans foiled, she accepts a job as a general practitioner in small town Bluebell, Alabama. When she arrives, she discovers that the man who offered her the job has passed away and left her his half of the practice. (The other half, Dr. Breeland, is not so welcoming.) After some initial mishaps, an emergency baby delivery (of course), and a revelation that ties Zoe to the town in a way she never expected, Dr. Hart is in Bluebell to stay.

Yeah, it all sounds kind of cheesy and predictable. But Bilson is charming (even though she's really stretching credibility as a cold, detached Cristina Yang type) and so is Scott Porter (Jason Street from Friday Night Lights) as a lawyer returned to his hometown to marry his childhood sweetheart, the ridiculously named Lemon Breeland (played by Jaime King, doing her usual Jamie King thing). Also in the cast is Cress Williams (also from FNL, but in a very different role) as former football player and town mayor.

I'm glad that the CW isn't just making teen shows anymore and I think this may have the potential to become a Gilmore Girls-esque quirky small town show. And hopefully Schwartz and Savage have enough clout with the network that they won't get pressured to "spice things up" aka run the show into the ground...