2010 TV Season So Far

In September, I wrote about the shows I planned on watching this season. Let's see how that went...

The show I was most excited about was "Lone Star". Whoops. Strike 1.

The thing that's pissed me off even more than it getting canceled is when people write that this show "sucked". Um, just because something gets canceled doesn't mean it sucked. Bad ratings can mean a lot of things - sometimes it's that the show is bad, other times it's the time slot, promotion, wrong network, etc.

There are a thousand things, But in this case, it's that sometimes retards don't know what's good for them. I miss "Lone Star".

And then there's "Boardwalk Empire". The warnings that it took awhile to get going proved to be true. But much like "The Wire", it was just setting things up and about midway through things started clicking. I love this show. It has just the right amount of boobs and just the wrong amount of disfigured faces.

People have complained about Steve Buscemi playing the lead. But he's not supposed to be a Tony Soprano type. He's more of an intellectual dude. And they play up that difference between his dumb brother. Not every "bad" criminal guy is a big bruiser, and that's okay.

Next, I wrote about "Hawaii 5-0". It's been as good as advertised. But it took about 2 episodes for me to realize, "hey, I don't watch procedurals". I haven't watched it since.

It's good at what it is, but I just have no interest in those types of shows at all. I'm a soap opera man, always have been.

"The Event". I've been waiting every week for this show to completely fall apart like "Flash Forward" did. It hasn't yet. That's not to say it won't, but it has been surprisingly good.

Unfortunately, NBC is doing the same thing ABC did to "Flash Forward" - they're splitting up the season and new episodes won't come back on for 3 more months. Has this strategy ever worked in the history of TV? I don't think so. But I'll be watching when it comes back, and I might be the only one.

"Better With You". My good friend writes on this show, so thank God it's good so there isn't any uncomfortableness. Much of the staff used to work on "Friends" and it shows in a good way.

I did a list of "3 Shows I Will Not Be Watching". And guess what? 2 have been canceled - "Undercovers" and "Running Wilde". The other one is still on the air, but still stars Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell.

"Running Wilde" means yet another failure for failed TV pilot extraordinaire Mitch Hurwitz. I guarantee you he will have at least 3 more pieces of shit for us to hate next season. For 99.9% of everyone in Hollywood, it's impossible to get even one chance. This guy gets a hundred every year. Yes, I'm bitter.

I was on the fence about "My Generation" and "Chase". I never watched either, but "My Generation" got canceled and "Chase" is universally hated.

And finally, a show that just started up that I didn't mention - "The Walking Dead" on AMC. I started watching it even though I'm not a big zombie guy. It's actually pretty good.

It's getting great ratings (for AMC) and is a critical darling. However, this show has the most amateurish moments I've ever seen. There are times when the writing is simply awful. It's weird.

It's like they're working off first drafts and there's no time for rewrites.

For example, there was a scene with a stand off between a group of survivors and a group of gang member survivors. Just as they're about to kill each other, one of the gangbanger's "abuela" comes out and the tension is relieved and all of the sudden they become buddies. It was so bad.

But still, they do some cool things. I'm enjoying it. And it's probably good for a show to do a couple of things that make me angry. They better be careful though, because it is definitely straddling the line and could quickly become awful. We'll see...