NBC

While I am on my "dinner break," I can talk about the NBC upfronts.   (Dinner is really yummy, so I want to take a break from drafting for it).

 

Let's start with what they cancelled this season and/or are not bringing back next year.  I'm not really torn up about any of them except for Kidnapped (which, considering how long it has been since it was hastily cancelled, I have come to accept, although I don't get why America didn't like it) and Raines (which was entertaining in its quirkiness, but sadly quirky shows have a hard time succeeding).  I did watch Studio 60, but don't particularly care about a second season (just seeing the rest of the first season episodes burn off) and The Black Donnellys (until it bored me, which was quick).  And well, Grease, but we knew that was never coming back and even then, I skipped the entire middle.

 

On to the renewals and the non-cancellation of any of the L&O franchises.  That is shocking!  I mean, I kind of want the franchise to set a record for consecutive seasons on the air because I think it's definitely a franchise that deserves its place in history, and I did watch endless amounts of it during the bar exam... but it's really aging (other than SVU, which I used to DVR, but now just watch repeats of).   Happy to see the renewals of Friday Night Lights (heard about this days ago, but at least now I'll have a chance to watch the entire S1 DVD and then watch S2 - I didn't end up seeing much this season because it got built up on the DVR and we ran out of space), Heroes (not really a question) and Medium (was worried that would get cancelled until a few days ago).

 

Then there's always the not really cancelled yet but not really renewed yet Apprentice.  It's kind of aged to the point of irrelevance, but Trump still thinks he's #1.  I can't imagine how this could be revitalized.

 

Now, the fun part - the new shows!  I've been reading snippets about them for weeks, but I usually don't post until it's official.  It's always hard to tell until the fall promos and articles whether the shows will actually live up to their potential (and then again, should still give them a shot like Brothers and Sisters!).  I tend to pick any that look interesting, give them a couple of tries and then if I don't like it or get bored (it's usually the latter, I have a low "like" threshold but a high "really like/love" threshold), then I stop watching.

 

So first, the ones that I'm most interested by:

 

*  Chuck - Josh Schwartz and the brains behind the OC + "comedic spy thriller" + geek becoming secret agent - what's not to love about that?

 

*  Heroes: Origins - intrigued by anything Heroes + we get to choose a character?

 

*  The IT Crowd - more tech humor :)

 

*  Journeyman - time travel + relationships (I thought that was ABC's domain...) - could be interesting but time travel is a very tricky thing in shows and I usually end up overanalyzing it to the point where I have so many holes in it that I don't know what to do with it anymore.

 

*  Lipstick Jungle - well, I do own all the seasons of SATC on DVD, this should be no surprise.

 

*  The reality ones - Singing Bee (karaoke and singing) and World Moves (I watch all the dance reality shows) - seem fun :)

 

Which leaves only two:

 

*  Bionic Woman - I kind of just don't care about it... I'd probably check it out, but I care more about the geek shows :)

 

*  Life - sounds depressing.

 

We'll see what happens... ABC is up tomorrow and is threatening to steal all my remaining TV hours. ;-)  (Oh, and I finished my Moroccan harira soup before I even got to the new shows... oops).