Premiere Week

That was one long week. It was the official fall premiere week and it was jam-packed! I think back to Amazing Race and Vanished and they feel like they aired ages ago!

Thanks to my DVR and encore performances (and staying up horribly late), I was able to see the following shows this week: The Amazing Race, Vanished, Studio 60, Standoff, Dancing with the Stars (both), The Contender, Smith, Boston Legal, Bones, Justice, Kidnapped, Celebrity Duets (both), Survivor Cook Islands, Grey's Anatomy (clip special and premiere), Shark, Six Degrees, Men in Trees and Numb3rs. (Taping Jericho tonight.)

I forgot how much work being a TV addict is. (But is that all? I felt like I had recorded more...)

Anyway, this may end up being a long post as I give some of my thoughts on the new season, based on this week.

Some of my "favorites" for the official premiere week:

Best music (shows and promos): ABC (I don't even remember any of the music from any of the networks, but ABC had that "come on over" song for Thursday nights, "Better Days" for Six Degrees, "How to Save a Life" for GA, and music video promos, it was awesome!)

Best series premiere: Shark

Best season premiere: Grey's Anatomy

Show that I liked more than I expected: Studio 60

Show that I expected to like more than I did: Smith (I liked Heist....)

Reality round-up:

The Amazing Race: + for diversity, going to Beijing, an eating challenge that wasn't ridiculous in quantity, not hating most of the teams. - for kicking a team off in the middle of the first leg, the return of the "Charla strategy" (not sure what else to call it), "motivating" people who come across like jerks.

Dancing with the Stars: I just want Jerry Springer to outlast Sara Evans. Please! She's not very good, but all of the country music fans are keeping her in it. And people made all that fuss about soap fans keeping Kelly Monaco in. At least she tried to do the dance instead of standing 2 feet from her partner! And what was with the comment about taking the judges' comments but not changing anyway? Whatever. I think Jerry is actually kind of fun on the show. It seems generally obvious which people can dance... and for me, it seems that the guys are much better than the girls (for the celebrity side).

Celebrity Duets: I already posted about how Jai shouldn't have gotten kicked off. He can sing! Argh. I didn't vote though, so should I blame myself? *shrug* No one watched because everyone was watching GA!

Survivor: Yul got the idol! Yay! So far, I'm still not finding the race split to be offensive. I didn't think it was the best idea, but I appreciated that they were somewhat interested in getting diversity (even if they're mostly pretty people). I can understand why Jeff said "wait and see." I think it'll end up being "wait and see" all season. And that "I fell in love" part of tribal council is still awesome.

Dramas and Ratings:

I watch a bunch of shows on Fox. Vanished (entertaining and suspenseful when it's on, but once it's over, I either forget what happened or I notice all the holes in the story), Bones (one of the best shows and I don't know why more people aren't watching), Justice (I find this one lots of fun, but don't know why more people aren't watching it and it's in a terrible timeslot) and Standoff (not the greatest show ever, but I think it's better than Vanished, and it's really starting to get into its groove with the Asian crimelord episode).

However, I think the only dramas that are doing "amazingly well" for Fox are Prison Break and House, neither of which I watch. The former I tried to tape last year but never started watching so I ended up deleting it on the DVR. I tried picking it up again this season but I think I need to watch S1 on DVD first. As for House, I just get bored watching it. Maybe I keep catching the wrong episode?

So, needless to say, and with Fox's history, I am very worried that shows I like will get cancelled. (Sigh.) Can't they move them around after baseball? Test out new time slots? Not let Justice rot in a time slot that includes Criminal Minds and Lost? (I thought that was a disaster before the season started). I just hope they give them a chance. I don't want to start another list of shows that I thought were prematurely cancelled. (My Fox list for last year was Reunion and Kitchen Confidential.) If I had to pick only 1 of the 4, it would be Bones without a doubt. Then Justice. I just don't trust Fox with its history. Never giving anything a chance. Sad.

I've been checking out the new dramas on NBC and CBS too, as you can see from the above list. I'm not going to place bets on what will survive and what won't. But the two that come to mind as memorable are Shark (he is just perfect for that part or it wouldn't work) and Studio 60 (for me, it's not watercooler, like can-you-believe-it-happened, but it was still good).

And then there's ABC... I remember when ABC was like the fourth place network, but now I think it's really the network to beat. They have some huge hits like GA, DH and Lost, and a lot of new shows coming up. I think their promotions are pretty good (the music, especially). Six Degrees was good enough to make me wonder what comes next even if it wasn't that compelling, and Men in Trees is really cute and I hope it survives.

We'll see what happens!