Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The New Season, thus far

I've been catching several of the new tv shows this week. Thus far, we've seen:

Two and a Half Men (I'm considering it new due to the changes)
Two Broke Girls
The New Girl
Raising Hope (I know, was on last year, but I totally thought it was new)
Up All Night
Free Agents
Harry's Law

I think they handled the loss of Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men well. I'm not sure the changes are going to work.

I like Two Broke Girls. I think there was good introduction of the characters, good development of the characters, care taken to not make them into caricatures, and there is an over-arching story line that will tie episodes together. And, there were some pretty good lines.

I really want to like The New Girl. I like Zoey and the idea of three hunky guys trying to develop the skills to live with a female roommate none of them are sleeping with is a good start. However, the show is built all around the female lead but the male characters are more interesting and better developed. The pilot was cute, but I didn't see enough to make me think they could sustain beyond 5 episodes. The female lead is more cute-quirky than developed. Only the male characters have multi-facets.

I made it through the whole episode of Raising Hope. I don't think the characters or story line is broad enough to last another season. Which is disappointing, because I like Martha Plimpton as an actor.

Twelve minutes in, we changed the channel on Up All Night. Again, good actors but the story was contrived and lame and it was painful to watch. I liked the painful to watch flavor the office had, but this wasn't funny enough to keep me tuned in.

I lasted less than 5 minutes with Free Agents. There wasn't enough done to introduce the characters or the story line.

Harry's Law has real potential. Of course, Kathy Bates is a good actor. But, the story line seemed compelling and there wasn't too much introduction to the characters, which will allow you to learn their stories over several episodes and lets the show focus on the story line. There also seemed to be enough people in the show that the focus can shift to fill space and time. It may be the next law show to watch.

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