Premiere Watch '07: Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters

Desperate Housewives:
Well, I guess this episode was better than most of last season, but I still wasn't really feeling it. I guess I've gotten sick of these ladies and their myriad of secrets. I mean, is it wrong that I wish Edie had actually offed herself? At least now she's back to being the villain and we aren't expected to sympathize with her. I still largely despise Gabby. Susan's antics feel tired to me now. And Lynette has cancer, which is not very entertaining for anybody.

I still like Bree though. And Andrew. Their conversation brought about my favorite line of the episode, when Bree argued that admitting her daughter was a teen mother would put them on the slippery slope toward becoming white trash:

Bree: "We might as well sit on the porch and play banjos!"

Orson and Bree's bit with the "trick BBQ fork" was funny too. It would have been funnier if it hadn't been in the promos.

There wasn't a whole lot that captured my attention or imagination in this episode. That may partially be due to the fact that while I was watching, I was working of my first task for the Dunder Mifflin Infinity online game (we Watch With Kristin message board people finally got ourselves a branch after weeks of hard work!).

The new lady and her mystery aren't doing much for me yet.

I think it's weird that Mike wants a kid, seeing as he already has a kid (Zach Young) that he doesn't seem to ever talk to.

Am I asking too much to request that we have to witness no further scenes of Susan at the gynecologist's office?

Premiere Rating: 5 / 10

Brothers and Sisters:

Hmm, well this episode was okay. A lot of it felt awfully familiar. The Walkers are still pretty entertaining though.

I didn't like the webcam narration scenes that opened and closed the episode. Snooze. And I don't like that they're trying to make us think that Justin was killed in the war. Clearly the B&S people are not going to kill off Justin--and if they were, they'd surely save it for Sweeps. Come on, this isn't the first time I've ever turned on a TV set...

I was happy, however, that the episode included one of those huge scenes where everyone in the family is drinking and yelling at each other and spilling each other's secrets. This one was a doozy, with everyone getting particularly belligerent while waiting for a table at a Mexican restaurant:

• Kevin: "He's going to dump me for Shiva or a lifeguard or something."
• I especially enjoyed Uncle Saul telling Kevin to just shut up.
• Nora: "So maybe if you all could move your drunken asses, my family and I can sit down and eat a damn burrito."

Premiere Rating: 6.5 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Grey's Anatomy

One day after Addison got off to a lackluster start with her Private Practice, we got a new episode of the flagship to enjoy. And, yes, I did actually enjoy this episode of Grey's, which is much more than I can say for last May's one hour crapathan of a Season 3 finale.

The Season 4 premiere got off to a great start with each of the previous interns (except poor George) trying their hand at giving their new interns the same speech that Bailey gave them on their first day. Their "Nazi" impersonations resulted in various degrees of success, with Izzie fairing the worst and Meredith losing credibility when she hilariously went off the script: "On call room. Sleep when you can where you can...but not with anyone...especially not attendings. Sleeping with attendings: not a good idea."

After a great start, the episode lost some steam. Callie was in over her head and I don't feel sorry for her; Lexi seemed a little too perky and excited to meet Meredith; Izzie was doctoring a deer for crying out loud and then lectured her interns saying that she "did the impossible" (please just get over yourself, Stevens); and Meredith still just can't handle a relationship with Derek for, oh, some combination of reasons. But, even considering those things, this episode was better than any of the Grey's we've seen since at least last November.

Highlights and random observations:

• I'm not loving Karev's new facial hair.
• Christina: "Why is everyone so tinkly and hurt? I'm the one who got left at the alter." Tinkly? Do they have to go to the bathroom?
• Bailey: "You and Grey aren't smelling each other in the elevator anymore."
• With the addition of all these new interns, doesn't it seem like there are a ton more people working in the hospital now than there were before? It just seemed like most of them were getting in the way.
• Lexi picked a bad time to introduce herself.
• Steamy: "You want to rub up against me, you're going to have to buy me a drink first."
• Callie needs to get her head in the game. Weird comment about George being a daddy since she's not pregnant...or "maybe" is. I found it all borderline creepy, but maybe that's because T.R. Knight was giving her a look of sheer terror the whole time she was talking.
• That's one fake looking deer.
• Hey, another pregnant chick who's all alone. Maybe Karev can have this one.
• The scene with all the interns conversing around the severed arm had a lovely, vintage GA feel to it.
• Meredith: "Spiritually, Bailey's over everybody's head."
• So the Chief's wife still won't talk to him? Come on! They reconciled! That was the one even half-way positive thing that came out of that train wreck finale and now that didn't even stick! Geez!
• Ha! George thought Izzy was talking about him when she referred to "Bambi."
• Thank you, Derek, for finally sticking up for Meredith. Too bad that you were the one complaining about her for all of last year.
• Well, that was a ridiculously easy childbirth, considering the mother was out cold having an arm reattached.
• So why did Lexi change her plans and do her internship at Seattle Grace if she really wanted to go somewhere else?
• McSteamy to McDreamy: "I didn't come to Seattle for Addison. I didn't come to Seattle to be chief. I came Seattle for you, okay? I came to get you back." Hilarious.
• I liked the Alex/Christina alliance at the end and also that George found a new friend in Lexi.
• And then George goes and tells Izzie that he loves her. Well, I guess I'm glad someone does, because that girl is on my last nerve. I would like to point out that George didn't have to watch her doctor the deer. Maybe if he had, he'd feel differently.

The dynamics of the show have changed with departure of Burke and Addison and the original interns now holding positions of power. It will be interesting how the characters and show deals with this shift. Now we just have to wait and see if this season will be full of good Grey's moments (the chat around the severed arm, McSteamy's proclamation to McDreamy) or if those painful Grey's moments (Izzie and the deer, anything from last year's finale) will continue to creep in.

Premiere Rating: 7 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Big Shots

Wow. This show is too awful for words.

I probably shouldn't dignify anything in this episode with a response, but why would Michael Vartan's wife have an affair with that old guy? Come on. She has eyes.

And, why, why, why when Dylan McDermott's character tells the story of how he propositioned a hooker at a rest stop, was arrested, and then realized said hooker was a man (transvestite hookers are apparently pretty popular this pilot season), did his three best friends laugh like that's the funniest story they've ever heard? Seems to me that's the time when your best friends need to speak up and say, "Well, that's what you freaking get for picking up a hooker at a rest stop you stupid, stupid idiot!"

And I stuck around just long enough to hear Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks" used in a pilot for the, what, 1000th time this season?

I couldn't last very long watching this crap, especially since Without A Trace was doing an episode about victims of the war and genocide in Darfur, which made the story lines of Big Shots seem all the more inane and worthless.

Premiere Rating: 2.5 / 10 (and I think I'm being generous here...Michael Vartan couldn't even dream of bringing in his allotted 5 points when he's struggling through material this horrible.)

Premiere Watch '07: The Office

I love The Office. I absolutely love it. And I'm glad to have it back. The Season 4 premiere started out with quite a bang! Meredith came out of nowhere! And the camera shot of her flying onto the windshield was fantastically done. Luckily, she turned out to be okay, although you wouldn't necessarily know that from hearing Michael's account, during which he was channeling the Arrested Development's hyper-literal doctor.

But, the night's big news: Jam is finally officially happening. Hallelujah! We've suspected for years that they're perfect for each other, and, wow, were we right! Could they be any cuter together? And the other question is: when are we going to start hating them for being so cute and perfect? I sure don't hate them yet. Give me more Jam!

New Pammy sure has become a force to be reckoned with. She guilted Angela into planning the hospital trip and forcefully told Michael that it is not okay to be naked in your office. Go Pammy! Why do I have the feeling that someday they'll all be working for her?

The closest thing to a complaint that I have is that I don't think that the hour-long episodes of The Office work quite as well as the 30 minute ones. It's hard for anything to be consistently hilarious for a whole hour. That said, I will gladly take every second of The Office that they are willing to give me.

Highlights:

• Kevin saying that Jim and Pam go together like peanut butter and jelly. Um, did he perhaps mean "peanut butter and JAM"?
• Michael: "Yeah, it's only Meredith. Thank God."
• Michael's whole conversation with Ryan, including his admission that he was being negligent and his misunderstanding of "double jeopardy."
• Michael: "I have flaws. I sing in the shower. Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. I occasionally hit people with my car."
• Michael: "I'm not superstitious. I'm only a little stitious."
• Poor Sprinkles! I can't believe Dwight shut her in the freezer.
• Stanley, Oscar, and Creed starting the race and then taking a taxi to a bar.
• Michael's idea to carbo-load with fettuccine alfredo and not drink any water before the 5K.

Premiere Rating: 8 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Ugly Betty

Starting off the Betty review with some highlight bullets:

• The telenovela sequence in the beginning was funny.
• Justin looks much more than three weeks older.
• I like Yoga: "Everyone thinks I'm the maid. Or Gayle King."
• Hmm, I could have done without the oppressive Victoria Secret product placement that never seemed to end.
• Um, I think that Amanda would prefer not to be related to her parents. They're creepy :-)
• Eeeew, Amanda did sleep with Daniel! That totally didn't even occur to me when Mark first suggested that Bradford is her dad. Gross! I love that Amanda pointed out: "That's the kind of dirty that doesn't wash clean." Poor girl.
• Santos: "Man, the hooker had her baby kidnapped and now she has Tetanus? That's a bad Monday."
• "Dadford." Ha!
• Wilhelmina: "N. I don't have the energy to say 'no' anymore."
• Wilhelmina: "Is it just me, or does anyone else see the little fashion elf?"
• Wow, Willy's too smart. She didn't fall for Claire ploy for a second. Wilhelmina should hang out with Patty Hewes--the two of them would take over the world!
• Mark: "You? I may never be able to watch The Sound of Music again!"
• Oops. Alex(is) doesn't remember (s)he's a girl now. That's interesting.
• Aww, Santos is so hot; why does he have to be the one who is dead?
• Henry looks pretty good for having just taken the bus all the way from Arizona to NYC.

Good episode. Much better in my opinion than the overly dramatic Season 1 finale. I liked the Mark/Amanda stuff, and any time Wilhelmina and Justin get together is awesome. Also, Daniel seems to be making some solid progress, which is good.

But, wow, poor Santos. The scene where it is confirmed (I already had it figured out) that he's actually dead and Hilda's daydreaming was heartbreaking. Definitely the saddest moment I've seen on TV in a while. Poor Hilda. She and Santos finally got it together and now look what's happened.

What bothered me was that in the scene where Betty was comforting Hilda, she was seemingly equating Hilda's loss of Santos with her "loss" of Henry. Not the same, Betty. Hilda has a kid with Santos and was just about to marry him. You flirted with Henry occasionally at work. Santos was brutally killed in a robbery. Henry moved away with his pregnant girlfriend. Betty has reason to be sad, but her situation is no where near as tragic as Hilda's. Move on, babe.

Speaking of moving on, didn't it seem weird that Justin appeared to be totally over the death of his father after only three weeks? I know they weren't super close, but still. He was far more upset about the craft projects at his summer camp than he was about he dead father.

Premiere Rating: 7.5 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Private Practice

Well, based on what I had heard about this episode from critics, I was expecting this first actual episode of Private Practice to be pretty bad. And I guess it wasn't horrible, but it was pretty boring and kind of grating. That is not something it can afford to be when it's on at the same time as the very entertaining Gossip Girl. If there's any justice in the world, at least half of PP's (PP, ha!) viewership should switch over to GG next week.

I found the opening scene where Chief Richard questioned Addison's decision to quit Seattle Grace and move to the holistic hippie practice to be oddly fitting. His comment, "This is not my Addison," ended up being pretty prophetic. The L.A. Addison was not my Addison either. My Addison was a hardass hotshot surgeon who, except for making the big mistake of cheating on her husband, had her shit together. She was not silly. She did not dance around naked. And that was ok! I liked her just the way she was. Why does she have to change herself in order to have her own TV show? Oh, and most annoying of all, why did she have to use the phrase "Addisoning me," three times in this episode?! Just shut up.

My problem with the other characters on this show is that (like Addison does now) they seem very much like TV characters and nothing much at all like actual people. They're mostly either whiny or kind of buttheadish. It takes talent to make me not particularly like Tim Daly, and PP did it, so I guess congratulations are in order? Those pink scrubs he was wearing certainly weren't helping. Merrin Dungey, you may have dodged a bullet here.

Parts of the episode were just kind of boring, but some parts were flat out ridiculous. Such as:

When someone's boyfriend dies, who immediately demands his sperm? Like I realize that's what they were in the process of dealing with when he died, but come on: if you're boyfriend leaves to go get some milk from the convenience store and gets killed in a robbery, the first thing you say when police show up at your door is not going to be, "I want the milk!" And then the whole thing got even more stupid when the ex-wife showed up and said she wanted the guy's sperm too. Did he have some kind of fantastic DNA code that I was unaware of? It sure didn't seem like it, seeing as he keeled over and died in his middle age. It was especially ridiculous because why would his wife, whom he left because she got older, want to have his kid? There are other men out there for crying out loud. How about you have a baby with someone who is actually nice to you? This guy was clearly not that fantastic.

And another really stupid thing was that the teen girl just happened to come to the clinic to deliver her baby on the same day that Addison showed up. Because who was she expecting to deliver her baby? No one knew Addison was going to even be there! Were they planning on letting Piz the receptionist take care of it? AND this whole thing got dumber too when it was revealed in an "oh, by the way..." type of moment that the teen's mother died in childbirth. Shouldn't a girl whose mother died in childbirth be delivering her baby in an actual hospital?! It didn't occur to anyone there might be some sort of problem? GAH!

And how dumb is it that it takes so long for them to get people from their clinic to the hospital? You'd think that if you were going to have a stroke, a doctor's office would be one of the better places to do it, but apparently you'd be very wrong.

All that said, I do still like Piz. He managed to get a moderately funny line: "You think I'm eye-candy. You have no respect for me or my midwifery skills!" I was curious, though, about who was watching the front desk while he was helping Addison deliver the baby. But, seriously, Chris Lowell, if you could find your way to Gossip Girl or Reaper or Chuck or Dirty Sexy Money or Ugly Betty or almost anything other than this tired show, I'd appreciate it.

Premiere Rating: 5 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Dirty Sexy Money

My favorite description of Dirty Sexy Money was when someone called it the drama version of Arrested Development. AD left some pretty big shoes to fill, but it looks like the Darlings could become just as kooky, immoral and entertaining as our beloved Bluths.

The DSM pilot episode was quite fun. No surprise that I loved Juliet Darling since I'm a big Samaire Armstrong fan. As Juliet, she seems to have much less "sage wisdom" than she did as The OC's Anna, but she's totally nailing her new Paris Hilton-esque character. My other favorite Darling was the Rev. Brian, who is quite the firecracker despite being a man of God! Who says, "I'm sorry Grandpa's dead," to a little girl! Yeesh!

Bullets:

• Juliet: "I'd never want to be blind, but playing blind is really fun."
• The Darlings drink even more alcohol than the Gossip Girl kids!
• $10 million a year for the charitable foundation is a pretty freaking good offer, but by the end of the episode, it doesn't seem like nearly enough.
• Karen (to her fiance): "Nick deflowered me." Yikes!
• The personalized ringtones for each member of the Darlings were funny.
• Nick: "Look, he wrote his name in just now with a crayon!"
• Anything by the Teddybears and Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks" are definitely the official songs of pilot season. It's getting ridiculous.
• I guess it's official: money doesn't make you happy.
• I'm pretty sure that (the future senator) Patrick Darling's wife changed mid-episode. When they got out of the limo at the funeral in the beginning, she was definitely Tom's baby momma from Desperate Housewives (Kiersten Warren, also of Saved By the Bell: The College Years...ha ha), but a different lady was talking to Dan Rather at the party. Oops. Pilot recasting strikes again?
• Nick: "Don't you as a United States Senator have to have enough courage to walk into a hotel room and hand a trannie hooker a check!"
• Nick's dad had a 40 year affair with Mrs. Darling! Oh no! I guess we should have seen that coming, especially in light of her meltdown at the anniversary party.
• I know he wants to find the killer of his father, but I really think Nick might want to turn and run away from these people as fast as he can. By the time he solves the murder, his whole life is going to be ruined.
• Ha ha--Jeremy's going to space camp.

All in all, a good start. This show definitely has the potential to be an awful lot of fun.

Premiere Rating: 7/10