Fall TV Preview

by ELEANOR MORROW

June 10, 1991. It was the last day Twin Peaks aired new TV on broadcast television. Seinfeld had just replaced Night Court as NBC's Wednesday at 9 staple. Things were on their way up. Flash to whatever's left over from an era of televised brilliance.

We would never recover, and eventually we would drift from Must See TV into NBC boring us with Green Week and eliminating five hours of original programming.

NBC

Community with Joel McHale is at least one thing to be excited about on NBC's dreadful slate. They'll probably replace it at midseason with something starring Paul Rudd as a firefighter. How dreadful? The only thing they air in primetime during Tuesday is two full hours of The Biggest Loser. If I wanted to watch sad people struggle with their weight, I'd attend Rosh Hashanah with my family.

Although Joel McHale was probably better in The Informant, I am willing to watch him flick his eyes around no matter how bad the script is.

NBC is committing the cardinal sin in promoting a season by having two new shows with a similar name: Trauma and Mercy. Trauma looks hopeless, and Mercy not much better. Trauma at least appears to know how bad it is, while Mercy just features nurses working overtime in full makeup and looking like models.

traumaA kind of prologue to its long-running hit ‘E.R.’ in that it deals with young emergency medical technicians and the high-intensity medical cases they get involved in — before they reach the E.R. The show, set in San Francisco, features lots of helicopters and racing ambulances.

The Jay Leno Show could ruin as much as 10 percent of my aimless channel flipping. They should put this guy out to pasture like an old racehorse. One day there's a bullet in his hide and nobody's asking questions. This move was destined to fail because late night shows don't do primetime numbers, this is just a fact of the universe. Somewhere, Arsenio Hall is dead.

Day One won't appear until 2010, but it looks to be even more horrible than Heroes, if that is in fact possible.

ABC

ABC does a horrible job of promoting its comedies, which means there's really not any point in watching them because they are likely to die by midseason — their replacements are even listed on the schedule. It's better to roll shows out slowly instead of sticking eight programs on with a 15-person cast and hoping someone notices. Eastwick - based off a great Jack Nicholson movie - already made its premiere, and amazingly I hated it even more than Tom Shales did.

From what we can tell, Flash Forward consists of characters staring at each other from every discernible angle, often in mirrors. Furthermore it includes the actress Sonya Walger, who is now a world class surgeon. I hate to break it to you, but that's not accurate. Sonya Walger is Penny from Lost and that is all she will be. The show is based on a Robert J. Sawyer novel. It premiered on Thursday and had an OK premiere. The acting could be generously described as challenged.

Modern Family is probably the most offensive show on the network's fall schedule. It is also tremblingly unfunny. It will often be confused with Hank, which incredibly stars Kelsey Grammar as a middle class schlub, and The Middle, which airs right before it. No one but ABC knows anything about these shows. They are like theatrical productions where the actor's families are the only attending.

ABC is also premiering The Forgotten, which is amazingly not based on the movie of the same name, even those both products use the same title font. This show is ABC's attempt at a fall procedural. I am reminded of Don Draper's city mouse: "No one wants to think about forgetting when they're trying to remember to watch a show."

FOX

Fox extended a merciful stay of execution to a bunch of series that didn't deserve another chance including Dollhouse, Lie to Me, and Til' Death. At least there is hopefully no 24 in sight. In Fox's position, you should look to highlight television that is more experimental and different from the networks — seems like there would be a niche there. Go back to stretching boundaries rather than airing another half hour of Seth MacFarlane's diarrhea. My mother says Glee is good, but she also watches Dancing with the Stars.

CBS

CBS did the best job of balancing new programs with their existing slate, although it's not like there's anything to really look forward to here.

Juliana Margulies plays Eliot Spitzer's pathetic wife in The Good Wife. I would really hate to be Eliot Spitzer, although I guess he should be flattered they cast Chris Noth to play him. If my husband was Chris Noth, I'd put up with a lot more philandering than I would if my husband was Eliot Spitzer. In any case, this show was actually not terrible. Ultimately this show will struggle because no one is going to respect her for staying with Chris Noth despite his earthy good looks, and if you can't respect your protagonist, you have problems.

I still think The Good Wife will be a hit until she also cheats on her husband and everyone calls her a harlot.

I realize these procedurals make a lot of money, but I wouldn't trust these two to babysit my kids, let alone fight crime. Also, Chris O'Donnell is not even the best O'Donnell anymore.

In Jenna Elfman's Accidentally on Purpose she basically has the plot of Knocked Up, but everyone is slightly better-looking. At least CBS does a decent job introducing comedies — you should do it progressively and hype it on your central show, in this case they have the ratings dynamo of Two and a Half Men.

In trying to make a mainstream show that would appeal to everyone, they achieved the exact opposite with Accidentally On Purpose. This is a very strange world. Jenna Elfman and her friends (the incomparable Ashley Jensen and the weird-looking Lennon Parham) plot to get impregnated by a 23-year-old busboy who lives for Grand Theft Auto and weed. Then when she tells him about the baby he's totally cool with it and wants to go to her gyno appointment. I kept waiting for Judd Apatow to pop out of a box and scream, "Surprise!"

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here.

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