I agree with the TV

This never happens: All but one of my favorite TV shows has been renewed for the fall season! While Bones, Lost, and The Office were never in any real danger, Terminator, Chuck, Reaper, How I Met Your Mother, Til Death, and Eli Stone were all on the bubble. I figured at least half of them were goners. I’m even strangely relieved that New Amsterdam and Back To You were cancelled, since I—like the rest of America, apparently—had already given up on them. It’s a good day.

Fall TV report card, part one: The new shows

Before I settled down and got a real job in 2001, I spent a year of my life bouncing from one doomed entertainment website to another trying to make a career out of my ability to write semi-lucidly about all things pop culture. Definitely not the best career move, but plenty fun except for all the layoffs.

My favorite among the many websites I worked for in those days was called WildWeb, which even at the time sounded like one of those sites you don’t want your wife catching you looking at. While my 9-5 job there required me to play and then write about video games all day long (yes, really), I moonlighted as a TV critic with absolutely no credentials other than that I liked TV.  So I suppose in hindsight I shouldn’t be surprised that WildWeb went out of business.

Anyway, it was at WildWeb that I learned to truly embrace the giddy anticipation that comes with awaiting the fall TV season. (This was back when Buffy was still on TV every week—I haven’t actually been giddy for a TV show since then, with the possible exception of LOST’s first season and the occasional episode of The Office.)

So, in honor of my days as a faux TV critic for WildWeb, I thought I’d take a stab at grading this fall’s new shows. Well, the ones I decided to watch, anyway.

Back To You

This is basically Frasier Lite: Instead of playing a pompous, washed up radio psychiatrist, Kelsey Grammer plays a pompous, washed up TV news anchor. It brings to mind the last few seasons of Frasier—which is to say it’s good for a laugh here and there, but it’s hardly inspired comic gold. Still, it’s funny enough that I’ll stick with it for at least a few more weeks. Grade: C+

Bionic Woman

Here’s a show that really, truly, desperately wants to be Alias. Hot young kick-ass (literally) heroine? Check. Secret identity? Check. Super-secret government agency in charge of the whole operation? Check. Conspiracies, betrayals, and convoluted backstories around every corner? Check, check, and check. Only one problem: Alias did it all better. The writing on Bionic Woman is occasionally good but more often lazy, and Michelle Ryan is no Jennifer Garner. There’s potential here, but it’s just average so far. Grade: B-

Chuck

This show wants to be Alias, too—only a bit funnier, I guess. I wanted to like it. I really did. But so far it’s not funny enough to be a comedy and not exciting enough to be an adventure. And Zachary Levi is definitely no Jennifer Garner, either. On the plus side, it does co-star Adam Baldwin of Firefly/Serenity fame, so bonus points for that. Grade: C-

Reaper

I didn’t really know what to make of Reaper’s premise when I first heard about it: Slacker guy finds out his parents sold his soul to the devil, and now he must act as Satan’s bounty hunter. Hilarity ensues. This could have been awful, but it’s surprisingly not terrible at all. The writing’s crisp and funny, Bret Harrison is passable as the slacker-turned-bounty-hunter, Tyler Labine is legitimately amusing as the sidekick, and Missy Peregrym gets the much-coveted nod as my new TV crush of the year. Grade: B+

Pushing Daisies

Overhyped, overpraised, and over-the-top. I literally can’t bring myself to watch this show again. Grade: D