TV Premier dates, and voting for reviews

Hi all. All of the major networks now have their fall premier
schedules available, and they have been compiled into a single
list by the kind people at Ain’t It Cool News. I
should have time to review every new episode of one series this
fall, so keep reading to see what interests me, tell me what
interests you, and let me know what you want me to review.

The shows I’ve been watching this season which are still on the
schedule this fall are Angel, Smallville,
and Enterprise, in order of preference. All three are
on Wednesday nights this fall. I’ve been reviewing every
Smallville episode for the show’s second season
(with the exception of one episode reviewed by Hitchhiker while I
was out of town.)

This fall, I plan to continue watching those three shows (for a
while, at least; Enterprise is on the chopping block.)
However, my school schedule has me on campus until 9:30pm,
and it’s a 30 minute drive home, so there’s no way I can do the
same-night reviews I’ve managed this season. (The late night is
because of a lab portion of a film studies course, so we may get
some random reviews through the year from that.) My Tuesday
and Thursday schedules have me done on campus at 6:30pm,
and my Monday and Friday school schedules have me there until
1pm (although my part time job may tie up those evenings.) So,
Tuesday or Thursday will likely see the TV and movie reviews,
and Friday or Saturday will see the comic reviews this fall.

I have time to review one show. Which should it be? Continuing
the Smallville reviews means those reviews will be at
least one day late. Theangrymob will (presumably) continue the
excellent work he’s doing on the Enterprise reviews.
Do you want me to review Smallville,
Angel, Eliza Dusku’s Tru Calling (which
airs in an amazingly competitive Thursday night time slot on Fox),
or something else that strikes your fancy? Vote now, and I’ll tally
the results on Saturday, August 9 and declare a winner.

27 replies on “TV Premier dates, and voting for reviews”

  1. Should mention “Firefly”

    Here in Canada, we’ll get all episodes of Firefly in the
    intended order Mondays at 7pm on Space: The Imagination
    Station
    . I’ll be watching every week, but I’d like to know if readers
    want the remaining episodes reviewed individually, or if you’d prefer a
    review of the entire DVD set (due out December 9; I’ll own it no later
    than Boxing Day, I assure you.)

    • Re: Should mention “Firefly”

      Here in Canada, we’ll get all episodes of Firefly in the
      intended order Mondays at 7pm on Space: The Imagination
      Station
      . I’ll be watching every week, but I’d like to know if readers
      want the remaining episodes reviewed individually, or if you’d prefer a
      review of the entire DVD set (due out December 9; I’ll own it no later
      than Boxing Day, I assure you.)

      I vote you wait for the DVD.

      Most of us won’t get to see ’em all (or in order!) before we get our
      preordered DVDs. It would suck having to refrain from reading the
      reviews before getting to watch the episodes.

      • Re: Should mention “Firefly”
        y42 spoketh:

        I vote you wait for the DVD.

        Most of us won’t get to see ’em all (or in order!) before we get our
        preordered DVDs. It would suck having to refrain from reading the
        reviews before getting to watch the episodes.

        While I live in the states, and will have to wait for the DVD’s too. I feel
        that it is good to get others perspectives, so maybe we should be on the
        “Haha! We get to watch the show now, and you hafta wait” end of the tv
        viewing stick. Those crazy canadians had to endure all of us saying how
        great firefly was without the full enjoyment. Actually, I don’t know if they
        didn’t get firefly on first run – But I’m sure it happens to them for some
        tv shows.

        Just a thought.

        But I would still vote that you wait for the DVD’s :P

        • Re: Should mention “Firefly”

          Those crazy canadians had to endure all of us saying how
          great firefly was without the full enjoyment. Actually, I don’t know if they
          didn’t get firefly on first run – But I’m sure it happens to them for some
          tv shows.

          We did get the FOX feed of the original run…stupid FOX, of course,
          played them at a random timeslot, out of order, so I wouldn’t call that
          “full enjoyment” though. ;- )

  2. Jake 2.0?
    Looks like it could be painfully bad, but what the hey – it probably won’t last a full season, so you’ll have a night where you don’t have to do reviews. I’m still betting it’s going to be “The Sentine(l)rd”.

  3. Jeremiah
    I haven’t seen anything saying no premium network shows, so I’d like to put in my vote for Jeremiah on Showtime. Along with Jeremiah this has been my favorite show since Sledge Hammer and Voltron :)

    • Re: Jeremiah

      I haven’t seen anything saying no premium network shows, …

      Showtime isn’t available in this part of Canada. My digital cable feed
      gets me ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, UPN, and WB, as well as Space and
      some other Canadian stations. I don’t get Sci-Fi or Showtime.
      However, some local stations pick up their shows. I haven’t noticed
      Jeremiah, but I haven’t looked very hard. If it’s available, it’s likely a
      couple of days behind the Showtime schedule.

  4. Becalmed
    Remember this time last year when all the buzz was on Birds of Prey and I was trying to generate some interest in covering what I thought was going to be just a little post-apocalypse show called Firefly? Huh.

    The new TV season promises to be a dud, I think. My plasma injectors have been offline for a centon as far as my sub-space warp coil desire to keep watching Enterprise goes. All I can dig up on Google about the new season is blah. To wit: The Seattle Times’ Kay McFadden may have said it best: “It’s a mediocre season, but it aspires to a slightly higher level of mediocrity than last season did.”
    “ABC actually has a couple of shows that are watchable,” said Charlie McCollum, of the San Jose Mercury News.

    OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhh I can hardly wait.

    Here’s the one Burea42 should review:”I thought (NBC’s) `Coupling’ was everything that right-wing groups say TV is,” Glenn Garvin, of the Miami Herald, said. “A smutfest with one filthy sexual innuendo after another, devoid of characters, plot, or any other content whatsoever.” And that pretty much wraps that up, except Ed Bark of the Dallas Morning News said “Coupling” will probably be a hit.
    “It has the best chance for commercial success on Thursday nights on NBC since `Friends’ came on,” he said.

    For this we lost Firefly? The only sci-fi-like show I have any curiosity at all about is “Century City”, and the odds it’s goona be terrible are far higher than the odds it’s gonna be good.

    http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C82194%7C1%7C,00.html

    http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2003/July/20/LFedge2.htm

    I’ll be in my bunk with my new Firefly DVD from Dec 9 on.

    • Re: Becalmed

      Here’s the one Burea42 should review:”I thought (NBC’s) `Coupling’ was everything that right-wing groups say TV is,” Glenn Garvin, of the Miami Herald, said. “A smutfest with one filthy sexual innuendo after another, devoid of characters, plot, or any other content whatsoever.” .

      I still have some hope – the British series “Coupling,” on which the NBC series is based (and co-written by Steven Moffat from the original show) was hi-freaking-larious.

      • Re: Becalmed

        I still have some hope – the British series “Coupling,” on which the NBC series is based (and co-written by Steven Moffat from the original show) was hi-freaking-larious.

        Don’t worry, it’s already been ruined. Apparently they simply adapted the first episode directly (same dialog, no laugh track, etc), and it rated very poorly with the focus groups. So it’s been changed, presumably for the worst.

  5. Smallville
    With Smallville and Enterprise in competition this year, many of us without PVR’s will have to make a choice. Thus, I suggest reviewing Smallville. That way, if we have to miss one or the other or miss pieces of each, we’ll have two reviews that we can go see what we missed.

    • Re: Smallville

      With Smallville and Enterprise in competition this year, many of us without PVR’s will have to make a choice.

      I recognize it’s blasphemy, but there is a simple solution. Head to your local Goodwill, get a VCR for $10, a cable splitter (for some reason, Goodwills always seem to have cable splitters) for another $0.50, two short coax cables,and a cheap VHS tape wherever you can find one. Split the signal before it hits the TiVo and put run the other to the VCR.
      Yes, I recognize that the video quality stinks and the interface is terrible. This is just for emergencies only.

      • Re: Smallville

        Yes, I recognize that the video quality stinks and the interface is terrible. This is just for emergencies only.

        Actually, this video quality is a pretty good match for the Enterprise story quality provided by B&B.

    • Re: Smallville

      With Smallville and Enterprise in competition this year, many of us without PVR’s will have to make a choice.

      I’m trying to figure out what CityTV is planning on doing in my area. Their “Coming this Fall” section lists Enterprise as being Wednesday at 8pm starting September 10, and Smallville starting Wednesday October 1 at 8pm as well…

      Perhaps they will shift Enterprise to 9pm, making Wednesday a good evening for TV (that is, if Enterprise stops sucking, which is doubtful).

      • Re: Smallville

        Perhaps they will shift Enterprise to 9pm, making Wednesday a
        good evening for TV (that is, if Enterprise stops sucking, which
        is doubtful).

        Didn’t you hear? They’re going in a bold new area of sucking this season!

        Proof that they are original are:

        • New hairdos!
        • More violence!
        • A ship makeover!
        • More softcore vulcan sex!
        • Even more time travel crap!

        Oh, how they have their finger on the trekkie pulse…cutting off
        circulation!

        • Re: Smallville

          Didn’t you hear? They’re going in a bold new area of sucking this season!

        • More softcore vulcan sex!
        • Poor choice of words, or accurate depiction of things to come? I think I could manage to tune in if that were the case….

  6. They aren’t kind people
    …over at AintItCool, they are bloody blind and should be shut for their webdesign.. *sigh*

  7. Smallville
    I watch the same shows, so the reviews are mostly interesting from a “what someone else thought about the show” point, and as a discussion start, for me. I say keep on with Smallville…

  8. New list is bleak
    Jake 2.0: I’ll watch it as the only SciFi-ish new one, and with David Greenwalt from Angel involved, I’m actually almost hopeful that it won’t totally suck.

    Skin: the conflict between the parents might be amusing, once.

    Tarzan: After looking at pics of Travis, I may watch this one with the sound off ;-) but I’m not hopeful — it looks like a variation on Tarzan in Manhattan.

    10-8: Not really a premise that interests me, but I like Danny Nucci in the few things I’ve seen him in, so I’ll give it one viewing.

    Threat Matrix: Spy shows seem to be the in thing now; while Alias is pretty good, this one intrigues me because I wonder how they’re going to portray “Homeland Security”: just another FBI/CIA “good guys” or if they’ll actually take on the constitutional issues the shrub and cronies are trampling all over.

    • Re: New list is bleak

      Jake 2.0: I’ll watch it as the only SciFi-ish new one, and with David Greenwalt from Angel involved, I’m actually almost hopeful that it won’t totally suck.

      All I’ve heard about it makes it sound an awful lot like the cartoon Max Steel which was made about two or three years ago – it was computer animation and featured guest spots by ‘extreme athletes’ (i.e. Tony Hawk, etc). They both seem to have the exact same premise – boy gets infected by nanites, boy becomes superhero/secret agent for clandestine organization, boy… yada yada yada.

      The more I think about it, the more it seems like Smallville and Angel are going to be the only SF stuff I’ll be watching this coming year, with the odd episode of Enterprise thrown in to whet my curiosity.

  9. One vote for Ange;
    fiziko asked us:

    I have time to review one show. Which should it be?

    Angel is the only one of the three that I’ll be watching. Wait – if I’m
    already watching it, do I need you to review it? I’m not sure how I should
    vote now. Maybe I should ask you to review enterprise, so that if it is any
    good (it would actually have to be a great review for me to get back to
    watching That Enterprise Show) I can catch it on the fox rerun on
    Sunday night?

    I’ve never got into Smallville, so I don’t care as much about that one. But
    doesn’t (of did, I guess) the WB rerun Smallville on Saturdays too? Maybe
    if a review was really good, and I was really bored on a sat. I’d watch it.
    I’d be more inclined to watch Smallville over enterprise if the review as
    good

    All right, I don’t know which one I’d vote for… But Angel is the only one
    that I’ll be watching. Should you review the least watched show, in case
    they get better and people can get notice? or the most watched show, to
    see the other people’s reactions? I just don’t know.

    • ANGEL ANGEL ANGEL
      My pick is definatly for ANGEL…maybe with more reviews out there…more people will be inclined to watch it…which helps with the ratings, which will lead to future seasons! I can’t lose the only Joss show left on TV!

      • Re: ANGEL ANGEL ANGEL

        My pick is definatly for ANGEL…maybe with more reviews out there…more people will be inclined to watch it…which helps with the ratings, which will lead to future seasons! I can’t lose the only Joss show left on TV!

        Ditto. Count My Vote For Angel As Well.

  10. Joan of Arcadia, anyone?
    Not sci-fi, but definitely has supernatural elements.

    I think the premise for this show is interesting, and it seems like it could actually turn out well… I expect they will play up the humorous/awkward aspects of being a teenager who hears voices/talks to God, but it looks like there will also be some darker elements.

    If it intrigues you as it does me, you can check out a couple of real video previews from CBS’s website.

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