Every TV season there’s one or two shows that I gloom on to that never seem to quite make it. A couple of years ago, there was “Studio 60″ Before that, “Firefly”. This season isn’t too different. My current favorite is Castle. The premise is that a best selling crime novelist is shadowing a NYC detective for his next best seller. The kicker is that its a female detective. The show has several things going for it. The writing is witty, the play between Becket and Castle is perfect and the story lines are different then your usual crime dramas. One of the best was this weeks where a mother staged the abduction of her child so she could get the ransom and paint the father as a bad father when she took him to divorce court. Really kept me guessing till the end of the show.

This isn’t the first time Nathan Fillion has been on tv. He was in Joss Whedon’s ill fated cultfest Firefly as Mal, and a couple of other TV shows. His wit and charm are key to making the character of Richard Castle work and its hard to imagine another actor in the role. Playing Kate Becket is Stana Katic. She’s had minor roles in some major TV movies and shows, she’s also been in a couple of regular movies (Quantum of Solace). The way the two work together is magic and one reason this show should be back in the fall.

The other show you’re not watching is Fox’s Dollhouse. Dollhouse is a creation of Joss Whedon (firefly, buffy, angel) and stars Eliza Dushku. From the Dollhouse site:

ECHO (Dushku) is an “Active,” a member of a highly illegal and underground group of individuals who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Hired by the wealthy, powerful and connected, the Actives don’t just perform their hired roles, they wholly become — with mind, personality and physiology — whomever the client wants or needs them to be. Whether imprinted to be a lover, an assassin, a corporate negotiator or a best friend, the Actives know no other life than the specific engagements they are in at that time.

The show is very scifi and has the “actives” dealing with things from love to POS systems to spies and killers. Its a hard one to get in to if you’re not in to the whole scifi scene, but if you’re a fan of Firefly, buffy or any of Whedon’s other works its pretty easy to get drawn in. And besides, the idea of an organization that can provide you with a person “programmed” to do/act however you want is a nifty idea. Isn’t it?

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The little G and I were watching tv recently (most likely when I should have been cleaning house…) and I stopped on a kids channel because for once, it had something I wanted to watch. Much to my amazement, Cartoon Network was showing an older Tom and Jerry “movie” and Grace was enthralled with it (she likes cats and mice). I had to explain to her several times who the two main characters were (you know, the cat and the mouse) but after a while, she got it and had no problem following along.

What struck me, while watching it, wasn’t the violence (because the cartoons of my youth were definitely more violent than todays cartoons, remember Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs?) but the fact that unlike most of the cartoons today, Tom and Jerry were quality cartoons. Well drawn, for the most part, the story was better than a lot of the crud on the kids networks today and it was fun to watch. When did kids shows become mindless drivel?

It was nice watching Tom try to catch jerry with no luck at all and even more fun to watch jerry out wit Tom with whatever engraved plaques, bowling balls, bats or other implements of distruction he could get his little mouse paws on. Even cooler was the ability to connect with my eldest watching something that had me laughing for hours when I was her age.

Its official, the USA is a White Trash Nation! Thats right, that staple of early nineties TV is back on the air, proving that once again, we have a facination for watching our neighbors get the crap beat out of them. American Gladiators is back on the air, and unfortunately, it was in the works even before the writers strike began. Instead of watching new episodes of this season’s greatest new shows, I’m stuck watching this ken doll on steroids pummel firemen, professional skateboarders and day care workers in to the ground. Granted, there is a part of me (a little white and trashy part of me) that likes it for the shear humor.

Like one of last nights male contestants, Chad, a professional skateboarder. He went the entire round only scoring 4 points (to the NYFD’s 32 or something like that) and all he could say was “I still got time”. Well, his time ran out and he lost. It was much more entertaining watching the women battle their way through the challenges than it was the guys.

That may be because I would not want to meet any of the women gladiators in real life, or because the women seemed to be doing a better job (and were more evenly matched against the gladiators) than the guys did. There’s just something about watching someone, anyone, get the crap beat out of them by someone twice their size though.

Amy asked while we were watching it, if we watched it when it was on before and I had a hard time recalling. I don’t think we ever made a conscientious effort to watch it, but if it was on, it was on. Maybe Eric can shed some light on that for me. Did you watch Gladiators?

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Its sad when really good TV never gets a chance to realize its full potential. I was watching tv late last night as I waited for one of the puppies to return home from a walkabout and as I surfed the comcast channel guide, I came across the SciFi network which was running episodes of the cult hit FireFly from 11pm until 3am. I didn’t stay up until 3 (knowing full well that the girls would be up around 7:30) but I did catch the two pilot episodes which reminded me why I loved this show in the first place.

If you’ve never heard of FireFly or Serenity, you’re probably scratching your head. FireFly is set in the future, where the world has a largely Asian (chinese) influence (which isn’t hard to imagine when looking at population numbers) and has a really nice western feel to it. The cast on FireFly worked well together and the show just had a really good fit that made it a somewhat believable SciFi show.

Created by Joss Whedon (of Buffy and Angel fame) the show only lasted one season on Fox, but it managed to find a HUGE cult following and even spawned a movie based on the name of the ship, Serenity. The movie was just as good as the show. If you haven’t caught and episode yet, I highly suggest you keep an eye on the SciFi lineup to find out when it comes on.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain’t comin’ back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can’t take the sky from me
There’s no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me…

Main Title Theme Written by: Joss Whedon More info HERE

I was bummed when NBC didn’t pick up the sleeper of last season, Studio 60. I was a little more bummed when Fox dropped Standoff. I thought both of those shows were the stand outs from last season (I never understood the attraction to heros and I still don’t other than Hayden and now Kirsten Bell being on the show). I gotta say though, NBC has redeemed themselves a little with three of this seasons best new shows, Life, chuck and Bionic Woman.

These three shows have me tuning in every week (it helps that the CIA agent on Chuck and cruise’s partner on Life and Jamie on Bionic Woman are all HOT) to see what happens next. They are all well done, the actors are, from what I can tell, relatively unknown (Adam Baldwin on Chuck was on Firefly) and the stories are pretty compelling as well. The effects in Bionic Woman could have gone over the top, but have been kept fairly realistic and the story behind how she came to be bionic is compelling as well.

The most far fetched of the three is possibly chuck (who now holds all the NSA and CIA’s secrets in his head), but thats easily forgotten when you look at the action and how well everything ties together. My favorite and the one I will not miss every week is Life. I like the zenlike attitude that Charlie has adopted since being in Prison for a crime he didn’t commit and the fact that half of the force seems to be with him and half against makes for some good action too. All in all, while I miss the old, I like at least, three of the new…

Unfortunately, it looks like Jimmy Cann’s reign over Vegas is done. He left the show in the season opener two weeks ago after killing Mary’s father. A Wyoming cowboy played by Tom Seleck decided to get in to the Las Vegas Real Estate game by buying the Monteceto from Sam. Its interesting how the introduction of the new owner has thrown everything in to a tizzy there as well. D’s Pregnant with Danny’s baby, Danny is the new President and Mike Cannon (who was set on leaving) is now the head of security.

It’ll be interesting to see how much time Cooper (Seleck’s character) actually spends at the casino. In the past, the owners have been short lived (monica flew off the roof, Casey was eaten by a giant squid), I’d like to see cooper stay around a while. The show’s dynamic has changed a little, but I think the main chemistry is still there. This might be an interesting season on Las Vegas.

So the fall season is off to a roaring start. Monday night I caught most of Chuck on NBC and K-ville while the Amy was watching Dancing with the stars! I have to say, while the premise of Chuck (a computer nerd who is sent an email of critical CIA information by and old friend) is a little far fetched, the show was pretty funny and well paced. Plus the fact that Adam Baldwin is in it playing an NSA agent who is out to use Chuck to solve issues and the HOT CIA agent who is protecting chuck make the show even better.

The first episode had chuck thwarting a bomb attempt by loading a virus (one of the porn spam things) on the laptop controling the bomb. I admit, it is a little far fetched. Of course, so is a gorgeous blonde CIA agent who can take out opponents with out a crowded bar noticing. I think I’ll tune in again as it proves to be worth it. Maybe next time, Chuck will keep a plane from crashing to the ground using nothing more than an USB flash drive loaded with knoppix.