When I was a lad of just fourteen, an Irish priest came to visit my class to speak to us about the possibility of receiving Holy Orders and joining the priesthood. That’s not important or relevant. What is important AND relevant is that the Priest, with his Irish accent, didn’t pronounce the ‘th’ in third as a ‘th’ sound at all, but a hard ‘tuh’ sound, thus turning every “third” into “turd.” As a fourteen year old, I found this unendingly amusing. As a thirtysomething (turdysomething) with a fourteen year old mentality, I still find it amazingly funny, and appropriate when discussing this Fall’s Thursday’s (Turdsday) TV lineup.

The Disney owned ABC throws another round of its Turdtacular Ugly Betty/Grey’s Anatomy, a one-two punch with a proven track record. If they don’t screw it up this year, then I’m sure both will be renewed for 09-10, and they will bring modest numbers of viewers to Life on Mars, based on the BBC series of the same name (with Robert Carlyle in the original – you know, one of those Trainspotting lads) (EDIT:  Not Robert Carlyle, as astute readers know, but John Simm played Sam Tyler in the original, sorry for the slip).

I’ve watched clips, snips, and cuts of Ugly Betty and it’s not my cup of tea. Grey’s Anatomy — I find myself in the minority on this one — is just a daytime drama at night, and after watching two episodes found myself wanting either a) the hospital to collapse upon itself, or b) the entire cadre of healthcare “professionals” to be investigated, fired, and thrown in some sort of jail (preferably something with an iron maiden, or Iron Maiden, whichever would be more painful for them). Perhaps I am a little harsh, as there are many who adore the two shows. I think they are entertainment wastelands.

I will give Life on Mars a TiVo round or two (a detective finds himself in the past, that’s as much as I’m giving you), but I’m not giving it much of a chance before the cancellation faeries come by and whack the show on its wittle head. It will be gone midseason anyway, to make room for a new season of Lost. Only two more seasons of getting mindfucked and then it’s gone.

CBS has Survivor, which I won’t touch with your eyes. This time it’s in Gabon. I think they may have filled the cast with a bunch of bitching, whining, cutthroat people vying to be the final winner. Just a hunch.  9 PM is CSI (the original, not Miami, NY, or Kenoshah) which is pretty good as far as procedural police dramas go. It’s not really a police drama, but a crime drama. There is a difference!

Following in the wake of CSI is Eleventh Hour, with a dashing Rufus Sewell in an X-Files meets Eureka meets procedural FBI drama. The claim is that it’s about “Science Fact, not Science Fiction”, so it might be worth watching to find nitpickety discrepancies. I might TiVo it to be safe. But I might watch it just to yell at Sewell’s character, remonstrating that “there have always been stockadders at Cold Comfort farm.”

Here’s the switcheroo. The CW redeems itself, mostly, by keeping Smallville and Supernatural intact. There are rumors that this will be Smallville’s final season, and who knows how much longer Supernatural will be able to go on. I am a junkie for these two shows. Smallville simply because I’m a geek and I love the improbabilities the writers keep coming up with. How many head wounds have these characters had? They’re heading down a road toward padded walls and coloring books for Christmas. The previous season of Smallville picked up life after a lackluster 06, but we’ll see what happens.

Supernatural is just a funny, badass, goofy, horror-type show. It delves into urban legends as Sam and Dean Winchester fight off the big bads. It’s not just dark eye candy, it’s also full of fairly crisp writing and direction. I’m pretty excited. The two saving graces (I’ll get to Holly Hunter’s show in the Cable version) of the CW. You must watch them, although if you never have watched them before, I’d suggest a Netflix catchup. Well, at least with Supernatural.

Fox has Moment of Truth and Kitchen Nightmares. Moment of Truth is a sadistic game show and Kitchen Nightmares is a fat, steaming turd served with a rank hollandaise that had been set out in the sun for a week. Fox Turdsday.

NBC gives us some sunshine with My Name is Earl, the new Kath & Kim, The Office, 30 Rock, and the final (hopefully) season of ER. There is also a Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursdays slated for the 30 Rock timeslot, and I’m not sure what that’s about. Well, I know that SNL:WUT is about the elections and has the SNL team delivering some comedy in their robotic weekend update style, which will be mostly funny.

My Name is Earl – I’ve seen a few episodes and they were funny. Not pissing my pants funny, but I laughed and would watch it if it were in front of me. Kath & Kim has a little promise, and will probably be okay for the four or five episodes that will air before the axe. The Office I find pretty funny, at least the first season (I haven’t watched it since). 30 Rock, while my contemporaries will rail me, I find beautifully compiled. I don’t care if Kenneth is based on a real-life page, it has some damn funny things going on in each episode. While it doesn’t approach the genius of Seasons four and five of The Simpsons, the multiple gags and plotlines are so wonderfully intertwined that I find myself laughing too hard to care if its lowbrow or not. ER is ER, and it’s been very meh for the past couple of years. Why’d you have to kill off Goose?

My suggestion, watch NBC and Tivo CW. Really. Then at 10 PM, switch to ABC. That’s what I’d do. And I’m S-M-R-T smart.

spread the panic!

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Tags: crap, criticism, Fall, pop culture, smug, society, Television, turd, TV

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 8:38 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.