Flash Forward: You know how when Lost premiered, the pilot was so well done, so incredibly gripping, that you knew immediately that ABC had a hit on its hands and that you couldn’t wait for Wednesday to come around?
Yeah, it’s not like that.
Good idea. Lousy execution. I may watch a couple more episodes, but I am not impressed. They’re repeating it tonight if you missed it.
The Good Wife: Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, and the obnoxious kid from Gilmore Girls playing an obnoxious kid on this show—what’s not to like? Actually, this was a very good pilot. Sure, it’s a lawyer show, but it’s a very different twist. This is a woman re-entering the workforce because her husband is in jail on corruption charges, struggling for her job against a kid fresh out of law school and ready to cutthroat his way to the top. And it’s from Ridley Scott! No wonder it’s so good.
Modern Family: The critics are hailing it as the best new comedy of the year. I watched it. Eh. Watched it some more. Okay, that was funny. Watched to the end. Yeah, it’s funny. I think I’ll keep watching.
Cougar Town: Eh. I laughed a bit. It might get funnier. Boy, you can’t watch this show with young kids around, though. When did primetime TV get so adult at 8 p.m.?
And this is the difference between me, and a Judith Warner from the NY Times. I watched the show in the hopes of finding a comedy that would make me laugh. Here’s why she watched it:
I’d watched “Cougar Town†on Wednesday night not because I thought I would like it, not because I was genuinely interested in seeing it, but because I thought I, too, would be able to derive messages from it about the zeitgeist — the pop-culture zeitgeist now permeated with talk of cougars, women over 40 who take up with younger men.
Darn it! I’m just not up on the current pop-culture zeitgeist! How is it that I was cool when I was young, and now I’m so unhip as to be unable to keep up with the New York City zeitgeist-seeking crowd?
Then again, I’ve lived in the ‘burbs most of my life. Uncool. Uncool. (And they wonder why we call them “the media elite.”)
Vampire Diaries: Okay, I admit it. I was bored. It was on. I watched it twice. I did not watch the third episode. Seen all I needed to see to know that it’s basically another vampire romance teen saga, and, well, ew. Vampires must be staked. No exceptions. Wait. Angel. He’s the only exception, because he has a soul. Everyone else (including Spike), boom.
Castle: Yay, it’s back, and it’s still good. It’s the only crime show I’m interested in, and that’s because they don’t generally cut up bodies and try to figure out how they died.
Looking forward to: V. The new series looks excellent. Dollhouse: Premiere tonight. My DVR’s been set since last season ended. Which is a good thing, because it’s on while I’m in synagogue. Bummer that Terminator didn’t make it.
Did you ever watch Courtney Cox’s other show at 8PM? That might be when it started.
I did. But I didn’t think of what kids watch until I started teaching fourth grade. I got a biiig surprise that first year, and most years after. “Your mother lets you watch X? You’re kidding me!”
Re: Flash Forward…had the same thoughts. I recorded on Thursday night because the trailer and concept looked good and then bored, started watching it last night because I didn’t remember that I had recorded it already. (Long week…)
Anyway, good concept and mediocre execution. I’ll give it another couple of tries but it can’t compare to NCIS or L&O SVU that are on constant play in our house.