Tellybox catchup

I've been catching up on some telly over the last few days - old favourites and some interesting new shows. I'm finding that a lot of shows I enjoy aren't coming back with particularly strong episodes at the moment– My Name is Earl returned for its third season and was, well, OK (though I hope it will pick up in the coming weeks), while Supernatural hasn't exactly been firing on all cylinders this season (though it's always enjoyable at the very least). Oh, and don't get me started on the craptacular Bionic Woman. I wonder whether the now-ended writer's strike had anything to do with the lack of quality? Were producers rushing scripts through before the strike began last year?

Anyway, there have been a few new shows that have grabbed my attention recently. Let's review!

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

A show that I always want to call Derminator: Da Saiwa Konner Kwhronikals in an Arnie-stylee. This was a show that I thought would most probably suck monkey balls, but it's actually turned out to be an enjoyable, if relentlessy-grim series (seriously, I can't ever see them doing a Buffy-style musical episode, or something with a little humour). It's got some woman who is not Linda Hamilton starring as Sarah Connor (damn! there goes any hope of reigniting my childhood crush), some dude who appeared in Heroes for a while as John Connor (who is inexplicably now a tad emo), and the slightly-special looking gal from Firefly as a sexy lady Terminator. There are also a variety of guest star Terminators who all look a little bit like Arnie, but are not actually Arnie. Oh, and it sometimes looks a little bit like it was shot on a shoestring budget, which probably helps them afford to do intense visual effects when they need to (like the one I just watched that had flashbacks, um, maybe flash-forwards, to the future).

OK, so the first episode screws around with Terminator continuity a bit, but that actually helps the writers side-step the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines which we'll let them off for. Weirdly, I sometimes find that I don't actually look forward to watching this show, but when it begins I find myself thoroughly enjoying it. And bearing in mind the first season is only nine episodes long and it's still up in the air as to whether it'll get a second season, I suppose I should enjoy it while I can.

Oh, and it's nice to see that T'Pol's wig is still getting work.

Cheer up, emo!

Gossip Girl

OK, so I've actually only seen the pilot episode of this, so it's possible I might change my opinion of it in the future, but I'm kinda not liking Gossip Girl that much. Which is a surprise, as it's being overseen by the producers of The OC, one of my all-time favourite shows. I think my problems with it (thus far) stem from one main source:

Spoilt posh rich people are hard to sympathise with. And yes, I know there's a not-so-well-off family who are supposed to be our guide into the debauched world of the rich, but they live in an awesome apartment and the dad runs an art gallery while also fronting a band, so I hate them for that. At least in The OC Ryan had had a pretty shitty life, and the Cohens were slightly kooky outsiders in Newport.

If Gossip Girl is just going to be all about rich people having expensive parties and wearing nice clothes, I think I might have to stop watching it. Admittedly The OC started out all serious like this (and I almost stopped watching that after the first two episodes), so I'm going to give Gossip Girl a couple of weeks to see how it develops*. I can't see any of the main characters ending up writing comic books, though. 

I am troubled, though, by the fact that one of the girls (Blair?) looks uncomfortably like a slightly uglier version of Summer from The OC, and the first episode ended with the slightly poorer kid decking someone in a Ryan Atwood-stylee.

Anyway, even if things don't work out for me and Gossip Girl, I've always got Josh Schwartz's other new show to fall back on: Chuck starts on April 7th, and that looks a bit more like my sorta thang.

Set expectations to 'raised.'

*My patented three episode trial period - like I did with Jericho. Although I stopped watching that after two episodes because it was badly acted and shitty.