Brief Thoughts on Week 5 of the Fall Television Season

Shut up, just take me to the rankings

Jane the Virgin (CW) & Marry Me (NBC): 2 shows that I borderline effusively praised last week, not as good the second time around.

Cristela (ABC) Episode 3: While it still works within the confines of a multi-cam, laugh-track-plagued comedy, with plenty of signs of the weaknesses of that format (stilted writing here and there), star & creator Cristela Alonzo is likable in spades and this is easily a step above the normal multi-cam, laugh-track show. It’s pretty damn likable and not terrible as a background noise show.

Black-ish (ABC) Episode 5: Easily its strongest episode yet, dare I say, an episode that actually crossed the threshold into being able to be called decent? Tracee Ellis Ross (the wife) is the best thing about this show and they might’ve caught on to that as she spends almost as much time on-screen as (the far less good and far more annoying) Anthony Anderson. Also in the mix are the 4 kids in 1 plot that filled up the whole episode and involved all of them. I was all ready to dump this show, but I may have to keep it around just a little longer…but still as background noise.

Kingdom (Audience Network/DirecTV) Episode 3: The junkie prostitute. It’s a borderline clichéd character but within the first 3 minutes I was captivated and intrigued by just that type of character. A growth from the prior episode, Kingdom is proving itself to be a from-left-field, surprisingly solid treat from an obscure channel (similar to The Knick). If you liked the movies The Fighter (that boxing movie with Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, and Melisso Leo), Warrior (another solid family-drama/fighting movie released after The Fighter that flew under the radar), or even The Wrestler (Mickey Rourke), this show is for you.
Jonathon Tucker, whom I have enjoyed in The Black Donnellys and guest role in Hannibal, is also terrific here. I’m most intrigued in his character and his mother’s (the junkie prostitute) plotlines out of everyone’s.
Is it perfect? No. Is it great? Too soon to tell, I lean towards not yet. It simmers rather than boils and at times that strays into boring territory. Still, quite good. And more importantly, a show I look forward to watching every Wednesday. Also good is Matt Lauria (Friday Night Lights).

The Flash (CW) Episode 3: Meh. I officially don’t care about this show anymore. It’s not bad, it’s just not very engaging or riveting with its baddie-of-the-week format. I’ll keep watching this as background noise but probably for no longer than half a season (hey I gave Arrow half a season and fuck it was awful. The dialogue made my sphincter bleed).
Quick thoughts about this episode:
-Grant Gustin continuing to prove why he was cast in the lead
-That glum look on his face when Iris calls him “the cutest nerd she knows”
-When he’s “talking to someone” on his phone, it’s clearly the home screen of the Samsung Galaxy. Silly gooses

-I want to see them incorporating eating into Barry’s every scene. Y’know, ’cause his metabolism’s super fast and all. Just him always with a bar of chocolate or plate of spaghetti in his hand, would work well humorously.
-Flashbacks were interesting
-“The gas didn’t just come in by itself.”
“UNLESS IT HAD A MIND OF ITS OWN” What a dumbshit thing to say aloud. Yo, not everybody knows you’re the Flash and that there’s ‘metahuman’ creatures running around. Keep that on the DL so you don’t get thrown into an insane asylum, idiot.
All in all, a run-of-the-mill superhero show that I am not invested in.

Constantine (NBC) Episode 1: The last new show of the fall television season to watch. It received decidedly mixed reviews so I didn’t have high expectations going in, and you know what? I actually kind of enjoyed it. I certainly wouldn’t label it bad. It was briskly paced, had some legitimately scary moments in the first half of the episode, and it was quite a bit of fun actually. The closest thing I’d compare it to is Sleepy Hollow, but, its early days yet, so we’ll see how this show goes.

A to Z (NBC) Episode 4: I’m starting to fall for this romantic comedy. First 2 eps, eh, but it’s landed 2 episodes in a row that managed to be sweet without sappy, and humorous without wringing the life out of every joke or punchline. It’s also managed to give the 2 lead and 2 supporting characters some depth while using 2 background characters to good effect (and the blond bitch boss is still a hoot). This show has been struggling in the ratings (though not that far off from its lead-in Bad Judge), so I’m not holding my breath that this show will be able to traverse to the end of the alphabet (each episode is named after a letter).

Returning Shows
Sleepy Hollow (Fox): This may have been the first episode that wasn’t connected to/meant to push forward the main plot, and you know what, it was actually a lot of fun, and made good use of Katrina. I wasn’t really sure what they were gonna do with her other being a prisoner of the Headless Horseman and use some magic shit whenever they needed her to, but this episode added more dimension and history to her independent of her relationship with Crane. Also, I strongly suspect that the Headless Horseman may end up, at some point in time, fighting alongside Crane & Co., most likely at the end of this season at the earliest. His feelings for Katrina might make him turn against Henry.

Downton Abbey (ITV): Warning for all the U.S. Downton Abbey fans, they should just rename season 5 season 4b as this season has just been exhaustingly rehashing the same old tired plotlines from season 4, adding very little (or nothing). This show needs new blood, new characters. It feels staid and boring down, it’s mediocre to the point of being bad. The first couple of Downton Abbey seasons felt like the British period drama that was accessible to those who didn’t like British period dramas. This season feels like it’s every cliché and stereotype people have about British period dramas. Goddamn, Lady Edith is mopey and shit, which is usually amusing but (SPOILER ALERT) watching her visit and creep on the same damn farm house to stalk her daughter while the lady of the farm house hates on her is TIRING. AS. SHIT.(END SPOILER ALERT).

Thoughts on Week 3 of the Fall Television Season

Week 1
Week 2

Black-ish (ABC) Episode 3: An improvement on its first 2 episodes that merely got eh out of me. Granted I was only half-paying attention to the episode since it was downgraded to a background-noise status show. Tracee Ellis Ross (Anthony Anderson’s wife character, the doctor) was and remains the best thing about this show.

Mulaney (Fox) Episode 1: I came into this with extremely depressed expectations given the exceedingly poor reviews it received and that it’s a FUCKING MULTI-CAM SHOW WITH A GOTDANG LAUGH TRACK IN FUCKING 2014. Still, the best of Mulaney (a former SNL writer who co-created Bill Hader’s Stefon character) shone through in bits and pieces, and he’s a likeable enough guy. I also like Nasim Pedrad (another recent SNL alumnus) in a role that could’ve been very bad in the hands of someone else. Most everyone else is pretty forgettable. I don’t know how long I’ll stick around for this (or how long it’ll stay on air given the miserable ratings for its first episode, even by Fox’s standards), but it hovers on the threshold of being tolerable.

Selfie (ABC) Episode 2: I’d already watched the pilot episode back when it was released as an early preview during the summer, hence its exclusion in last week’s rankings. In this episode, they had a plotline where one of the main characters started using facebook and got addicted to it. He even accidentally tags himself in a photo and he, keeping in mind the character is suppose to be a successful, intelligent executive of some sort, can’t fucking figure out how to untag himself. Oh ffs. I’ll keep this show around for just one more episode as background noise. You see what I’m willing to do for ya Karen Gillan?

Gotham (Fox) Episode 3: If they would change the direction of the show and renamed it PENGUIN, I’d be 300% more interested in the show.

The Flash (CW) Episode 1: I’ve previously summarized my thoughts on the first episode here. Holy shit at its ratings though, highest-rated series premiere on the CW in 5 years. Beat out the shows airing opposite it on Fox (a repeat of Family Guy) and ABC. Beat the ratings (in both the demo AND total viewers) of ABC’s Agents of SHIELD. Shiiiiii.
TL;DR-version of the post: not bad, but still has CW-y problems that might grow into dealbreakers. Casting is on point for Grant Gustin

Bad Judge (NBC) Episode 2: Kate Walsh is great. And she is trying her damndest in this show that is utterly devoid of humor.

Kingdom (Audience Network aka DirecTV) Episode 1: Audience Network is a television network available to DirecTV customers, previously known as The 101 Network until 2011. Regardless of the name change, Audience/101 has been trying to stake its claim to classy, upper-tier television fare for a while now. It helped rescue the critically-acclaimed, low-rated Friday Night Lights from cancellation, getting first-run rights to the show’s last 3 seasons while NBC re-aired them later. Not long after that it also rescued the similarly critically-acclaimed but ratings-challenged Damages from cancellation on FX, this time being the exclusive channel for Damages, FX got no reruns. Audience Network has been chugging along since, airing originals such as police drama Rogue, seemingly trying to be recognized as being on the same high-quality premium tier as HBO, Showtime, or at least second-tier premium networks like Cinemax or Starz.
With all that said, Audience Network might’ve landed itself an original that pushes itself closer to that goal with the MMA-themed Kingdom. I’ve already blabbered long enough about the history of a TV channel so here’s the short of it:
Good cast, ably-directed, intriguing 1st episode of the MMA-set show. Didn’t blow me away but I’m enticed enough to keep watching. Also it stars a Jonas brother and I don’t hate it/him, whaaaaaat

How to Get Away with Murder (ABC) Episode 3: I’ve pretty much reached my limit with this show. Fucking called it that the black chick’s fiance was homo for that gay guy (it was blatantly obvious though, fucking Helen Keller coulda seen that shit from a mile away) and that the imprisoned terrorist woulda flipped on the stand against the housewife. Too fucking obvious. Also, how the fuck did he get out of jail THE SAME FUCKING DAY HE AGREED TO TESTIFY AGAINST HER?! Like, shortened sentences doesn’t fucking mean you get out the same day.

Cristela (ABC) Episode 1: It’s a multi-cam, laugh-track, live-studio audience show…..and I didn’t hate it. It has plenty of charming moments, it made me chortle more than once, it manages to sidestep almost all the pitfalls that plague multi-cam, laugh-track comedies today, and even has a pretty sweet moment towards the end. I can picture this airing after Modern Family.

Gracepoint (Fox) Episode 2: An improvement on the first episode but still far inferior to the original British series. The Solano family is glaringly weaker (acting-wise) to the equivalent Latimer family. My original remark about Anna Gunn potentially being the show’s only saving grace at this point in the show bears itself out in episode 2 with Gunn on-screen more than Tennant. Her take on Det. Miller feels fresh, feisty at times even, in a show that’s nearly a carbon copy of the original. Gunn is giving Miller her own spin and I like it. Tennant regurgitates (sometimes ver batim) some of the same dialogue from the original series, and it’s just not as good the second time around

Stalker (CBS) Episode 2: While I understand the critical drubbing this show received due to it being a misogynistic stalker-porn show, outside of that focus, it’s not terrible. I may even say it’s decent at being a thriller at times (for example during this episode’s opening sequence). It doesn’t really serve as much more than a case-of-the-week procedural, and it does that fairly ably. I don’t hate it like the critics, which is surprising given how much I absolutely loathe the previous show from the creator of Stalker, The Following. I’m merely am meh on about Stalker.

Scorpion (CBS) Episode 3: For the first two episodes this served as a sort of dumb fun, some light and light-weight entertainment to throw on in the background, but it got a bit too dumb and light-weight than fun and entertaining for its third outing. It’ll be interesting to see how this show does ratings-wise after its hefty Big Bang Theory is taken away, but I won’t be viewing anymore.

Manhattan (WGN America) Episode 11: Haven’t been including this in my weekly rankings/thoughts since I’ve been half-paying attention to this show starting around episode 2 or 3. It’s a decent show, but boring. This was probably the most intriguing episode of the show.

Returning Shows
The Good Wife (CBS) Episode 3: Better than last week’s good episode

Homeland (Showtime) Episode 1 & 2: I’ve always enjoyed Showtime though critics and some audience have complained about the last 2 seasons. I admit I see some weaknesses, especially in the last season and especially an over-reliance on the Brody family (particularly Dana Brody) in the early goings, but the ship mostly righted itself by the end and crescendo’d into an emotional wallop. Early buzz about season 4 was good, but I would reserve judgment until I saw it. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about scheduling back-to-back episodes what with the 9 other Sunday shows I have to watch, but now viewing them, airing the 2 episodes back-to-back makes sense. Episode 1 firmly pushed into a new direction, while episode 2 served dual purposes: it took the strands from episode 1 and more firmly charted a course for (what I’m thinking will be) the central plot of season 4. Episode 2 also tied up, in a way, some dangling threads from seasons prior. It was all great, with more than one FUCK.WHAT.FUCK.NO.WHAT.FUCK moments. Ratings for the show dropped significantly, busting the consistent season-over-season, premiere-to-finale ratings growth Homeland had been seeing. Maybe people aren’t interested SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT without the central couple/Brody as the center of the narrative anymore END SPOILER ALERT or maybe they saw the season 3 finale as wrapping up a 3-season storyline. Either way, I hope Homeland sees growth as this double-episode hints that Homeland still has plenty of fire left in its cannon and lays the groundwork and hints at a lot of fun spycraft shit to come. PLUS QUINN. GIVE HIM SPIN-OFF PLZ (QUINN-OFF?).
The Good Wife has been dominating my television rankings for the past 2 weeks running, but Homeland looks to serve up plenty of competition. Alicia Florrick v Carrie Mathison, oh baby.

Sleepy Hollow (Fox) Episode 3: This show emerged as one of the shows that surprised me the most, consistently being an entertaining, well-paced show. The beginning of this season was a bit meh to me, and increased my fears that with a larger-episode order, that perhaps this show would feel diluted a bit. Episode 3 brought the fun, and funny, back into this show. Among the many quotables: “I’ve watched the finale of Glee” “1. She’s a grown woman 2. She’s a witch 3. She’s a redhead” etc.

Ranked: All Scripted Shows I Watched during Premiere Week (Sept. 21-27)

I’m doling out 1(ish)-sentence reviews of all the new and returning shows premiering over the next 3 weeks, but here’s a ranker of all the scripted, non-variety (i.e. no Colbert, Last Week Tonight, etc) shows watched this week before the other post can include all the later fall premieres. This is based purely on enjoyment, one show might be better than another, but this is just which shows I enjoyed watching most (enjoyment does not always = quality, there’s plenty of shows I’ll admit are good but I find boring or a labor to watch)

—————Good—————
1. The Good Wife No doubt about it, by a long shot The Good Wife is #1
2. Masters of Sex (Showtime) Solid episode, but The Good Wife just had a magic to it
3. The Knick (Cinemax) Probably the best episode of the series thusfar, condensed storylines focusing on one event for the entirety/majority of an episode almost always pays dividends for a TV show
4. Modern Family (ABC)
5. Garfunkel and Oates (IFC) Kinda kills me to rank it below Modern Family, but I enjoyed Modern Family more even if this sweet-yet-still-funny season finale of G&O was probably better
6. South Park (Comedy Central)
7. Downton Abbey (ITV)
8. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
9. The Goldbergs (ABC) Reliable if unspectacular
10. The Awesomes (hulu)
11. How to Get Away with Murder (ABC) Really straddling the line between good and merely okay

—————SO-SO—————
12. The Mindy Project (Fox)
13. Sons of Anarchy (FX)
14. Sleepy Hollow (Fox)
15. Black-ish (ABC)
16. Gotham (Fox)
17. Madame Secretary (CBS)
18. Scorpion (CBS)

—————Not Good—————
19. Red Band Society (Fox)