Fall TV: airplane previews

So, my favorite thing about flying internationally is the personalized entertainment systems that allow you to choose from tons of movies to watch.  Except for when the airlines don't have this luxury available; then there's nothing nice about flying internationally -- it's just long, uncomfortable, and your sleep schedule gets all screwed up.

On a recent flight, I got lucky and one of my many legs had my favorite personalized entertainment system and believe me, I made use of it. I watched Something Borrowed (fun enough), Midnight in Paris (really enjoyed it and thought-provoking in the Woody Allen way), Bridesmaids (fun!), Arthur (not horrible), and two sneak season premiers: Revenge and Once Upon a Time! I have no idea why they were available on the flight, but since they're on my list of shows I plan to watch this fall, I took full advantage of the opportunity!  At this point Revenge has already aired, but Once Upon a Time won't premier for another month... Here are a few of my thoughts on both premiers!

[Incidentally, the funniest part of my movie watching experience is that the 40- or 50-something Asian American man sitting next to me on the plane watched pretty much all the same movies as me during this flight, with the exception of Arthur I think. Every time I glanced over at his screen, he was watching the SAME MOVIE AS ME.]

Revenge
So, as I blogged previously, my knowledge of this show was minimal and my expectations were low. I was definitely wrong to assume this would just be another run of the mill drama -- I'm hooked!  The show drew me in from the opening scene and as we watched the complex relationships between all the characters unfold, I was impressed! It was everything Ringer failed to be; it didn't fall into the trap of being a pilot that needed to set up a story.  It accomplished all that but it really unveiled the story beautifully and everything about it was just fantastic!

Short synopsis: Emily Thorne (born Amanda Clarke) has returned to the Hamptons to enact revenge on the families that helped destroy her father and thus her childhood. From her father's lover, the wife and queen of the Hamptons, Victoria Grayson, to his secretary Lydia Davis, who was having an affair with Victoria's husband, Conrad. Additionally, the story starts with Emily's engagement party to Victoria and Conrad's son, Daniel, who is shortly found murdered on the beach. If that doesn't build a complicated enough social network, Amanda's best friend as a child, Jack Porter still lives in the area with a boat named after Amanda; and she's able to afford this Hampton's lifestyle due to the success of a business partner of her father's.

Yeah it's complicated, there are a lot of characters and even more storylines accompanying each of the characters and their relationships with each other.  But despite ALL that craziness, it was laid out beautifully in the pilot. I'm excited to see where this show goes and I'm already rooting for Amanda and Jack! :)

Once Upon a Time
I was super excited about this show, as evidenced in a previous post. Fairy Tales, Ginnifer Goodwin (I'm not sure why, but I really like her), and well, that's all I needed to be really excited.  I was less excited about Jennifer Morrison (better known as Cameron from House), but you know what?  I liked her in this show!  I was worried that my high expectations would lead to disappointment, but it did not. If anything, I am even more excited to see where this show goes; unfortunately, I have to wait another MONTH before they even air the episode I already watch.... meaning 5 weeks before another new episode. Sigh.

Synopsis (ignore this if you want to be surprised by the premier): Snow White and her Prince have their happily ever after only to have it threatened by the evil stepmother.  The kingdom discovers that the only way to save it is through the child of Snow White and the Prince who is placed in a special closet for safekeeping (the evil people were attacking).  This child (a daughter) grows up in normal, non-fairy tale world and has a child of her own who she gives up for adoption at birth because she's so screwed up herself from not having had any parents. The next generation child is adopted and raised in the town where all the fairy tale people ended up after the evil attack, having forgotten their true identities. Now the previous generation child needs to go and save fairy tale land. Following all that? :)

Basically, fairy tale world existed but it got melded into regular world and now Snow White's child needs to go and save fairy tale world and bring the happily ever after back.  I loved how the fairy tale was shared and I thought the cast was all perfectly chosen to play the parts.  There's so much more to unravel and so much potential with where this show can go -- I'm really excited! And really hating that I have to wait another five weeks...

hospital shows that i still watch...

Grey's Anatomy: I think this show has only gotten better with them losing George and Izzie (okay, so Heigl is only temporary gone) and gain Owen and Teddy! Plus I love that MerDer are no longer the tortured couple but fully functional and married on a post-it note. No big hoopla over marriage but completely comfortably accepted. I also love that they're developing the relationship between Meredith and the Chief, more and hence developing his character much more. And Bailey has romance storylines in the works! The Christina-Owen-Teddy love triangle could be really annoying but they've made it work. I think it works because nothing is kept as a secret and festering -- all 3 characters are pretty blunt characters and when something is discovered it comes out before the end of the episode. I appreciate that, A LOT. Ooh, and the last thing I do like is Arizona (who is one of my faaaaaavorite characters) taking Alex under her wings to do pediatric surgery. I've always loved the tidbits they've shown of Alex working with children/babies and so this is so fitting! All in all, there's not a storyline that bothers me this season. (Especially because the Mercy West-Seattle Grace merger isn't a main part of the storyline. Oh, and especially because Sloane's daughter Sloane has been gone for the last 2 episodes. That helps, too.)

Private Practice: This show sucks me in because of the complex relationships between all the characters. I don't particularly care about any of the storylines, especially not the Mia (Naomi-Sam's daughter) being preggers or Cooper-Charlotte fighting or Sam-Addison being attracted to each other. In fact, I really don't like a lot of these storylines! But, I love the dynamics between the characters and I love the characters. And I love the little episode-long storylines. For instance last week, a family had to choose one twin daughter to save with a needed blood transfusion (or something, I don't remember the exact procedure). Or Dale dealing with almost losing his daughter because her drug addict mother was making meth in the kitchen and the house exploded. Or -- ooh! Addison finding out that her cheating father wasn't the cheater, her lesbian mother was! And these are things I enjoy about the show that I don't feel guilty about enjoying the way I do when I enjoy watching 90210, or Melrose Place, or Gossip Girl. (BTW, I did force myself to drop 2 out of 3 of those shows.) To sum it up, I still love sexy doctor shows.

Unfortunately I dropped House sometime late last season. I heart House but I just lost interest in some of the full season storylines and pretty much all the side characters. Oh, and Wilson was getting annoying to me, too. So basically House and Cuddy weren't enough to keep me devoted.

fall 2009 - initial thoughts

My DVR is still full of shows that I need to catch up on (both from last season and this season) but because it was getting so full, there were many shows I had to catch up on to open up space for more recording... :) In any case, I had a few initial reactions to shows, old and new, that I've been following this season.

Old:
-- 90210: So very angsty! I think it's because Darcy... or whatever her name is, Annie?, is so very angsty this season and she was all sunshine and optimism last season. I'm not sure I like it, but I do like the strong bond forged between Naomi-Adrianna-Silver. Actually I've gotta say that as a whole I kind of hate it, but there's something about high-school angst tv shows that draws me in... Oy.
-- So You Think You Can Dance: Having to watch audition episodes week after week after week is kinda getting sucky. Plus, it's so weird to have a new season of it SO SOON. Especially since last season, while it had its moments, for the most part it was underwhelming. But, I'm glad to see that there are breakers and well, non-contemporary and non-ballroom dancers auditioning! Plus I'm still waiting for Natalie to come back!!
-- How I Met Your Mother: This show is so reliably fun. I really do hope we finally get to meet the damn mother this season. I'm not sure how many more seasons of NOT meeting the mother I can go through. But I do love Barney. And it'll be interesting to see how Barney-Robin develop, but I really hope that doesn't become the focus of the show.
-- Greek: I caught up with all the old episodes right before this season started. SO much fun. This is my happy show of the moment.

New:
-- Melrose Place: Not really sure why, but I'm enjoying this show. Maybe it's just that I never get to watch soap operas anymore and this show is the perfect night-time soap opera: psychotic characters, tons of secrets, murder, betrayal, and good-looking people. Plus the character that's the most fascinating to me is Ella, who I sort of see as a new generation Heather Locklear. BTW, I didn't actually watch the original MP when it aired back in the day, though I've caught a few episodes of it here and there on Soapnet in the past few years.
-- Glee: I was expecting this to be my happy show of the moment, but no, it's definitely a lot darker than a happy show can be. I love the musical numbers and truthfully, I watch just in anticipation of those. I like the main teacher-guidance counselor romance undercurrent, hate the psycho wife, love the psycho cheerleader coach, and am very amused by the awkward football coach. I could care less about the kids, but the gay kid is the most interesting by far.
-- The Beautiful Life: This show has already gotten canned, thank goodness! Well, it's mostly a thank goodness because if it didn't get canceled, I would probably continue to watch it. So, I really am glad that the network is taking this off of my insane list of tv shows I watch. :)
-- Community: I had high hopes for this show but so far it's been amusing at spots, still has good potential, but hasn't really delivered. We'll see.
-- Accidentally on Purpose: One episode was enough, I do believe I have the willpower to stop watching this show.
-- Eastwick: Uh, I might continue to watch this, but mostly because it kinda satisfies the part of me that was sad to lose Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle (and yes, I may be the only person in the world that was sad to lose those shows).

Still waiting to be watched on the DVR:
-- Grey's Anatomy
-- Gossip Girl
-- Heroes
-- House
-- The Good Wife
-- Cougar Town
-- Modern Family -- have high hopes for this one!!
-- Flash Forward

blog may seem abandoned, but we're still watching tv... ;)

... at least until the shows start running out of episodes.

I'm probably in the minority, but I'm kinda glad this writers' strike is going on because it means I have a chance to catch up on all my shows. I'm still a few episodes behind, but here's what I'm still watching...

Every week:
* Heroes
* Chuck
* How I Met Your Mother
* Samantha Who?
* House
* Gossip Girl
* Pushing Daisies
* Private Practice
* Project Runway
* Grey's Anatomy
* October Road

Sometimes:
* Shark
* Dirty Sexy Money
* Las Vegas
* The Unit
* Numb3rs
* Friday Night Lights

all the medical shows jennifer doesn't watch.. :)

I figured I'm long overdue an update, but Jenn has done such a thorough job in covering Fall TV, really all I could possibly write about are, well, the shows she DOESN'T watch. :)

Grey's Anatomy - This season is nowhere near as terrible as last season was, but it's still not all that interesting. When will they learn that Meredith and Derek are just not that interesting of a couple and leave their storyline alone. They're far less annoying when they're happy and together, so just let them be! I don't know how many more Meredith-Derek breakups I can sit through. I like the addition of Lexie Grey, because I like the actress from her Reunion days (though I only liked the high school version of her character), but everything else is just sorta the same old stuff.

Private Practice - Terrible. Well, I'm giving a few more episodes a shot. Mostly I'm rooting for Judging Amy's Amy (the Psychiatrist) and Prison Break's Secret-Service-Agent-with-a-conscience man (the Pediatrician) to get together. I have no idea, nor do I care to remember, what their names are, if that's any indication of how much I do not particularly like this show.

House - Hands down the best medical show on TV right now -- if not ever! At least IMHO. I adore Hugh Laurie as much as ever, but mostly I love the new season's gimmick. All of House's assistants were fired/quit at the end of last season, so now he is eliminating "potential" assistants from a class of 100 or so applicants every week. I also enjoy how Cameron, Chase, and Foreman continue to be mixed into the storyline even though they're definitely not working under House anymore.