Previously, on Battlestar Galactica. . .

We previewed, however quickly with such cursory glances, the Monday night schedule for Television during the 2009-2010 “season”. (It’s TV season, get out yer guns and blaze away at those fleeting plasmas!). In today’s episode, I try not only to make sense of Tuesday night for you, but also Wednesday evening, and I plan on doing it in ONE post! I know, I KNOW! You can scarcely believe it, you say you need EVIDENCE! Oh, ye of little faith. . .

If Monday night seemed to be a less than pathetic waste of time, then Tuesday night will enable us to conserve energy by not turning on those devious appliances at all (though DVR’s and TIVO’s may be useful – but not for regular network programming). I shall start with ABC. They bring about a rehash from last season, Shark Tank, where budding entrepreneurs are subjected to the greediest, heartless investors known to man. Having lived through this embarrassment in real-life, I do not wish to watch even one minute on television, except perhaps, for a slight bit of shadenfreude. It’s like Dragon’s Den, or Tycoon, or any number of related series. However, it is only airing until November, when it is replaced by another rehashed series – V. The thought of this re-series simultaneously thrills and disgusts me. The thrill is that the original MINISERIES was very good, and made Marc Singer and Michael Ironsides household names (okay, that’s just a lie, and a bad one at that). The SERIES, however, didn’t die a quick enough death for me. I’m talking 1984 terms, too, when I was. . . twelve. Even I was savvy enough to know that the Visitors needed to have the reverb throat thingy. The producers simply blew it and I have been wounded ever since. Now that I am older and more “mature”, I find myself hedging, thinking it MIGHT be a good series, and I MIGHT give it a chance. On Tivo. I’ve always thought that remakes should be reserved for bad movies, and well, the 1984 V: The Series was as bad as it got (except for Cop Rock). So, in the spirit of forgiveness and of remaking horrible things, I will give it a few episodes. Of course, ABC will lose me with another hour of Dancing with the “STARS”, and I won’t return for the hour of Christian Slater squinting as an amateur detective trying to piece together crimes in ANOTHER Jerry Bruckheimer produced crapfest – The Forgotten. ABC can pretty much cram Tuesday night’s where the sun don’t shine, despite the possible stong offering of V (which includes Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk, both of Firefly “fame”).

CBS gives us the Mark Harmon NCIS, coupled with NCIS: Los Angeles, with Chris O’Donnel and LL Cool J. It’s like regular NCIS (which is an acquired taste) only in LA, with edgier, hipper NCIS agents, like the loose cannon Chris O’Donnel and the ultra-cool LL Cool J, investigating military crimes and misdemeanors . . . in LA. However, offsetting the ultra-cool and loose cannon we have Linda Hunt, the fantastic Elven actress from so many movies it’s impossible to name them all here. So, CBS gives us a full two hours of same-yet-different on Tuesday night’s, though I doubt any of the characters will utter anything as cool as David Caruso’s Horatio Cane. Ever. They then drop the ball with The Good Wife, which is about the wife of a jailed politician trying to make her own career with the baggage of that bastard hanging over him. It MIGHT be good if it weren’t for all of the true stories where this is really happening.

Fuck if I am going to say anything good about the CW’s Tuesday Nights. Since they did so well with 90210 last year, they brought it back with a re-envisioning of Melrose Place. I’m sure the skanky and crazy will be quadrupled due to inflation. Just do what I requested last year and give us two hours of new Firefly and Jericho. . .

FOX brings us two hours of So you Think You Can Dance, which was obviously inked by the studio that produced So We Fired All the Writers.

And NBC, in perhaps the biggest omen of their ratings for Tuesday night brings us more fatsploitation in The Biggest Loser. I’d rather watch David Hasslehoff eat a burger off of a sentient car. Feh and meh, I say.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

So, while reading and scanning the lists of new shows on Wednesday evenings, I noticed I was becoming more and more depressed. I don’t know why, except that the “quality” of television programming has gone horrendously downhill, and I’m just talking about crap from the 80’s. As lame as it was “Buck Rogers” was still awesome for the time, as was Dallas, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Diff’rent Strokes, Night Court. . . I admit, there are some programs still worth watching, but I don’t think you’ll find them on Wednesday night craparama. Really, do yourself a favor and go check out the latest comedy by your local theatre troupe. Not only do you know where the money goes, you will undoubtedly have a better time than sitting in front of your 56” LCD screen, letting the electronic gremlins steal your soul.

ABC is having it’s way with sitcoms and leaving them cold and wet on the floor without so much as a reacharound. Okay, that was a little rough. But they aren’t even giving us tripe, they are giving us substitute tripe. They start off with another Kelsey Grammer snorer (Hank), claiming that he’s BACK (yes, because that FOX show meant nothing). He’s a bigshot exec in New York who suddenly needs to relocate to a small town in Virginia closer to his hee-haw family. HI-larity. Why yes that WAS sarcasm, thanks for noticing. They follow that formula with another formula of Patricia Heaton as a Midwestern mother of three living in Indiana in The Middle. Makes me want to vomit a word rant, but I shall not do that here, where space is limited. The saving grace of ABC’s Wednesday night schmaltz and crap smorgasboard is Modern Family, filmed like a documentary by a Dutch film crew. While I admit it looks enticing, so does dog food after a bout of starvation. It seems a bit like the Arrested Development style, which might be refreshing or horribly, horribly boring. Cougar Town stars Courtney Cox as a MILFY 40-year old divorcee on the prowl for some fresh, young meat. Yawn. Finally ABC brings us ANOTHER rehash of something old, Eastwick, based on the film The Witches of Eastwick, based on the Updike novel of the same name. I sense that it will be as tempting to watch as eating cherries after watching the 1987 film.

CBS gives us more of the same with The New Adventure of Old Christine, which I assume is what Cougar Town is based off of, Gary Unmarried, or Gary Unfunny, followed by more Criminal Minds still without Mandy Patinkin, and CSI: New York, which has Gary Sinise without the Horatio glasses or one-liners. So, with CBS Wednesday’s, it’s simply the same old thing, but to be fair, every other network seems to be doing it, too.

The CW can suck it with America’s Next Top Model and The Beautiful Life (TBL). I refuse to write a single word more on this topic. Just do what I requested last year and give us two hours of new Firefly and Jericho. . . (Yes, I admit it’s a ploy to get more internet traffic and links by the rabid)

Ugh, how infuriating. FOX give us more So You Think You Can Dance, followed by “the surprise hit of the summer”, Glee. Glee seems to be about singing, and high school students singing. From the advertisements and promos, I would think it to be a rip-off of High School Mucousals. However, I could be wrong.

NBC, please please save us from the mediocrity of the night! Please! I implore you! What? Mercy. . . A hospital drama. . . set in “Mercy Hospital”. . . How. . . inspired. (yes, that was sarcasm again, very good of you to notice). Wow. Well, what else do you have? Oh, really? Law and Order: Family Court? No? Just Law & Order: SVU. . . Followed by the Jay Leno canned goods. . . I’m. . . nonplussed. I’m also full of ellipses. What I’m not. . . is impressed. . . by anything on Wednesday nights. It looks like my TIVO and TV can get a rest and I think maybe I will read a book or have a family game night. Thanks, execs, for bringing our family back together mid-week! I’m beginning to realize the true impact of the writer’s strike.

NEXT: THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

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Tags: 2009-2010 TV, bad tv, sarcasm, satire, smidgen of snark, society, Television, waldorf

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Panic!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.