Webber explores new shows
Hannah Webber, Staff Writer
Published On: 11/10/2009
We’re well into the new season of television and by now should be more or less familiar with the new television shows. Whether you’ve actually watched those new shows, seen the commercials for them, or just read bits and pieces about them online, you have a general idea about what is and is not working for you this season. Here are my views of this season’s new crop of television shows.
Let’s get the bad ones out of the way first. I will start with a show I never watched. Even if I had wanted to watch this show, I wouldn’t have gotten much of a chance. Yes, I am talking about The CW’s “The Beautiful Life.” On paper, it seemed like it might be somewhat of a hit. It was produced by Ashton Kutcher and starred people like Mischa Barton and Corbin Bleu, who are recognizable to the young demographic the show was aiming to attract. The premise even sounded moderately interesting: a group of female and male models live together in New York. It was sort of like a scripted version of “America’s Next Top Model.” However, unlike “Top Model,” “The Beautiful Life” had no staying power. It only aired two episodes before it was cancelled.
The CW has produced another one of my least favorite new shows of this season in “The Vampire Diaries.” I did watch this one, but I only made it through the first episode and could not make myself tune in the next week. The only reason I watched the show in the first place was talented actor and “Lost” alumnus Ian Somerhalder’s starring role. Even Somerhalder’s talent couldn’t cover up the banal dialogue and uninteresting characters. I might be alone in this opinion, however, as “The Vampire Diaries” is currently the CW’s best performing show.
The third of my least favorite new shows is NBC’s new medical drama “Trauma,” which came to a “traumatic” end in October when it was cancelled. The commercials for the series looked promising, with big explosions and emotional tragedies as the centerpiece. It seemed like this could be an apt replacement for NBC’s last great medical drama (and one of my all time favorites), “E.R.,” so I tuned in for the season premiere. I only made it through half of the episode. Yes, it was exciting and suspenseful when the helicopter crashed into the building, but when there were no explosions, it was another case of uninteresting characters.
Now let’s get to the good stuff. My first new season winner is ABC’s sci-fi drama “FlashForward.” Like “Vampire Diaries,” the main reason I tuned in to this show was an actor, namely Dominic Monaghan. He was great as junkie-turned-hero Charlie Pace on “Lost” and as the oft-overshadowed hobbit Merry in the “Lord of the Rings” series, so I was eager to see him in a new role. Monaghan wasn’t even in the first three episodes of “FlashForward,” and I was still hooked. The premise itself was mind-blowing: everyone in the world blacks out for two minutes and each person sees their future. There are so many directions the writers can go from there, and they are going in all the right ones. Each week the show gets more complicated, but each week it gets better.
The next of my favorite new shows is NBC’s comedy hit “Community.” I am a big fan of E!’s entertainment clip show “The Soup,” so I was definitely interested to see if that show’s host, Joel McHale, could act. Well, he can, and very well. McHale plays Jeff, an attorney who has to go to community college after his college degree was found to be invalid. That premise alone can tell you that this character is going to be in some interesting situations. And he does with his set of misfit friends, including the eccentric Pierce, played brilliantly by Chevy Chase. The chemistry between Chase and McHale is reason enough to watch the show, but the healthy helping of belly laughs you’ll get from it is great as well.
Last but not least we have ABC’s “Cougar Town.” The plot, centered on newly-single, over-forty Jules (played by our hometown hero Courteney Cox), is pretty raunchy. It’s basically about Jules’s wanting to relive her 20s after divorcing the man she had been married to for half her life. Naturally, this plot line leads to scenes centering around the main characters’ sex lives, but that’s not why I tune in. The characters are very engaging and the dialogue is excellent. None of the jokes are tired and, although you get the obligatory sitcom-speak from time to time, the characters speak like real people. It’s a refreshing, entertaining show.
Of course, I still have my old favorites, like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Bones” and “Heroes,” but it’s nice to have a few new plot lines to follow.
Email: hwebber@uab.edu
