Premiere Watch '07: Round Up!!!

Well, I'm exhausted. Who knew that blogging about television could be so tiring ;-) It sure didn't help matters that there are now about a billion shows that I wanted to a least sample this season. Here are my rankings for the first episodes of almost everything a whole lot of new and returning shows (scale of 1 to 10):

Pilots:

• Pushing Daisies...............9.5
• Reaper..............................8.5
• Chuck...............................8.0
• Gossip Girl.......................7.5
• Dirty Sexy Money..........7.0
• Samantha Who?..............7.0
• Aliens in America............7.0
• Moonlight.........................6.5
• Kid Nation........................6.5
• Private Practice...............5.0
• Big Shots...........................2.5
• Viva Laughlin...................1.0

Returning Series:

• The Office.........................8.0
• 30 Rock.............................8.0
• Ugly Betty.........................7.5
• Grey's Anatomy...............7.0
• Brothers and Sisters........6.0
• Men In Trees....................6.0
• Heroes................................5.5
• Desperate Housewives....5.0

Whew. It seems like no sooner did we wade through all the premieres, than it's time for November Sweeps! Oh well, bring on the weddings, births, deaths, surprise pregancies, etc....

Premiere Watch '07: Viva Laughlin

Viva Laughlin:
Well, it wasn't easy, but CBS managed to put a show on at 10 p.m. on Thursday that was significantly worse than Big Shots.

I didn't think it could be done. Major congratulations are in order for Les Moonves, etc. The congratulations will, however, be quickly followed by questioning along the likes of: "WTF were you thinking?"

Ok, I don't particularly love musicals, but I really don't like whatever this was. It wasn't a musical because the actors were only kind of singing along with the actual songs. And they doing it in a half-assed manner reminiscent of Britney Spears at the VMAs. You couldn't even freaking hear them some of the time.

As stupid/bad as the songs were, I felt like there weren't enough of them because the spoken dialogue and plot were so much more awful! And, dude, the main character guy is replusive. And not in a House/Dexter/Boston Legal kind of way, but in a there's-nothing-remotely-likeable-or-redeemable-about-this-person-at-all kind of way.

I felt badly for some of the actors in the show who can do so much better (and have done better in the past): Senator McAllistor's brother from Brothers and Sisters (a.k.a. Rex from Days of Our Lives), Sherry Tinsdale from Gilmore Girls, and Professor Landry from Veronica Mars. I feel particularly badly for Prof. Landry because he was on Pushing Daisies just last week! That's a long way to fall in a very short amount of time.


Most of the time while watching Viva Laughlin, I honestly could not believe what my eyes were seeing and my ears were hearing. And not at all in a good way.

Premiere Rating: 1 / 10
(Well, I know it was worse than Big Shots, which got a 2.5, but I'm not really sure where to place this one in the 0 to 2 range. I'll go with a 1 because I suppose that somehow it could have been worse: they could have sung only Spice Girls and Celine Dion songs, they could have played a transexual hooker plot line for laughs, they could have aired a blank screen for an hour, etc.)

Premiere Watch '07: 30 Rock

A few weeks after its fantastic 1st season won the Emmy for Best Comedy, 30 Rock picked up right where it left off last year. The second season opener featured a guest appearance by Jerry Seinfeld, and if his appearance on the show can help to hook more viewers on 30 Rock, that will be a victory for us all.

30 Rock's strength is that, like The Office and Arrested Development, it has a great cast of kooky characters with very well-defined niches. Tina Fey is one of my heroes, I've previously documented my unnatural love for Tracy Morgan, Kenneth and Jenna are both perfect for what they are, and Alec Baldwin could not nail this role any harder.

My favorite Tracy moment of episode 1 was when he was explaining how he likes to help transvestite prostitutes better their lives (encouraging them to go to computer school, study to be a court reporter, etc.).

Best line: "You can be a freaky-deeky and still do data entry!"

In a season when several pilots (Big Shots, Dirty Sexy Money) are squeezing all the sleazy jokes they can out of transvestite hookers, it was wildly refreshing to see 30 Rock take the whole theme in an entirely different direction. Thank you, Tina Fey et. al., for having a fresh voice.

Other highlights:

• I enjoyed the computerized Jerry Seinfeld guest appearances in all NBC shows. It seems like everyone else has ended up in Heroes anyway, so why not him?
• Jack: "She needs to lose 30 pounds or gain 60. Anything in between has no place on television." (What's frightening is that, if you think about it, he's completely right.)
• Kenneth was so cute grinning at Jerry Seinfeld.
• Tracy: "Ask my wife if she's sleeping with D.L. Hughley." (Hmm, I'm thinking that this isn't a random mention since D.L. was on NBC's other 'sketch show' show Studio 60.)
• Jack: "Ha ha! You're going to buy NBC! Like you have $4 million just lying around..." (Ouch.)
• Jack: "There are no bad ideas in brainstorming, Lemon."
• Liz sounds like Jerry Seinfeld when she cries.
• Tracy (when he sees Liz in the white wedding dress): "Oh no! Did a Korean person die?"

This episode was a promising start to season 2. As far as I'm concerned, Tina Fey can take over the world.

Premiere Rating: 8 / 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.)