'tis the season for the new season. I'm personally looking forward to the return of Heroes. NBC is apparently taking the sci-fi / fantasy thing a bit over top with three other new dramas: Bionic Woman, Journeyman, and Chuck. The former includes Katie Sackoff (Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica), apparently in the "bad guy" role. Journeyman is some sort of time traveling thing starring Kevin McKid (also the star of HBO's Rome). Chuck is Alias-meets-Circuit City. Or something like that.

I'll tape all of those, but if anything is clear, we're not going to have all these shows by the end of the season...

On other networks, CBS has a new show, "Moonlight" that seems like a direct knockoff of "Angel" (vampire as good guy private investigator in Los Angeles), not to be confused with Fox's "New Amsterdam" that has an immortal police investigator in New York. ABC has another one, "Pushing up the Daiseys" about a police investigator who can ask dead people who killed them. Gaah! Enough with the cop shows!

What I'm wondering is if there's something coming that has clever writing, regardless of genre. I'm continually impressed by Boston Legal for precisely the fact that the writers are hilarious (and for all the shameless things they do to William Shatner).

out of all the pre-airs episodes I have watched so far, Cavemen is my favorite so far, with chuck coming in a close second (looks like its filmed in Canada). The Sarah Connor Chronicles looks quite interesting after the first episode as well. I actually didn't like Bionic Woman at all, kinda reminded me of last years shark boy, filmed the same way at least. Pushing up daisies I could go either way after watching the first episode, not your typical ABC show, thats forsure. Cane looks pretty good though, kinda like a sugar cartel. Aliens in America was pretty funny after the first episode but Big Bangs first episode was very weak!

Californication started off strong, but the writing is going no where fast. Dexter S2 is looking good after just 2 episodes. Weeds S3 isn't really going anywhere but Norm MacDonald more than makes up for that.

My favorite summer show was Burn Notice. If you missed it, it was on USA network.

Did anyone else catch The Larry David Show S6 on Sunday? So glad its back on the air, never expected it to come back on actually.

Honestly, I don't see any compelling new shows at all this fall. I might watch "Moonlight" and/or "New Amsterdam", but I haven't plugged them into the TiVo yet. I might "forget". The new Kelsey Grammer sitcom, "Back to You", might be worth checking out.

There's an apparently complete list of new shows over on MSN.

I too would like to know what you could possibly see in cavemen. Its looks horrible. I thought they decided to not go through with it. If they were gonna go with any of the Geico characters, they really should have given the show to the gecko.

I really dont see many of the shows lasting too long, especially all the sci-fi, comic-hooky ones. Its gonna be like last year when they came out with 50 Lost type shows. They all failed, the worst being that stupid bank one.

I'm an admitted sucker for fantasy-based TV shows (and movies), so I'll be checking many of those out. Pushing Daisies, Bionic Woman, Journeyman, Sarah Conner Chronicles (how can you skip something that has Summer Glau?), and maybe a couple others. I can't check out much more than that, because I already have so many other shows I watch:

Lost
The Simpsons
Bones
Dexter
Heroes
House
Veronica Mars
Family Guy
ER
My Name is Earl
Mythbusters
Smallville
Weeds
Numb3rs
Supernatural
Eureka
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Dresden Files

And there's a bunch I know I'm forgetting. That doesn't include the summer shows that have ended, though. I second that Burn Notice is really good, and it has Bruce Campbell as a bonus.

Of the summer shows I watch, which mainly consists of USA and Sci-Fi shows, I'd say my favorites would have to be Eureka (this show just makes me smile), The 4400, Burn Notice, and Pysch. Monk is stale and ridiculous (though I still watch it), and they have completely screwed up The Dead Zone.

Is anyone else here extremely excited that Avatar is coming back on the air at the end of this month? I can't express how cool the trailer for season 3 looks.

I just saw the first episode of Chuck in a plane and I gotta say, it looks really funny. Bionic Woman looks cool too.

umm. did anyone else catch k-ville last night? at first I was a bit turned off by Anthony Anderson being in a serious cop drama based in a post katrina New Orleans. The show far exceeded my expectations though. The only problem was almost too much happened in the 1 hour so it will be hard to predict what happens next, but it was very good and I look forward to more.

I just watched the premiere of the US version of Kitchen Nightmares last night... Wow. Sure fire way to make a great program absolutely shit... Bring it to the US and give it the USA treatment.

The original show, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is produced by the BBC and is fantastic, not only for its uncensored approach. This US version took everything that made the original special, including Gordon's own narration and focus on the food, and instead replaced it with a huge chunk of Extreme Makeover Home Edition (though that show is an even bigger pile of garbage). Now we get a ton of 1:1 camera confessionals, over the top theatrics by one or more of the restaurant staff and too generous use of replays.

Also caught the new Kelsey Grammer show, Back to You.... Yawn. This won't likely last the season. The show following it was just above "meh" but markedly better. Both are rather typical multi-camera studio-based sitcoms with annoying laugh tracks.

Lots of stuff premiering but I don't see anything that I think will make it through to next season except perhaps Private Practice. I'm not even sure Lost will make it to next season after the February premier and new short season format (only 16 eps per season from now on).

I'm about to start watching the new season of Weeds - had to download the first 5 episodes because it hasn't premiered in Canada yet. Someone tell Showtime to grow a clue and start producing this show with an additional 15 minutes per episode and more than 12 episodes per season. What's with these cable shows and their super short "seasons?" Do they think they're in the UK or something?

I also watched last night's US "Kitchen Nightmares" and I disagree with Bruno. I see where he's coming from, but it felt a lot like the UK version to me. This one was certainly different, as it seemed that all the problems stemmed from a single individual being a screwed-up jackass. There was significantly less restaurant-related stuff in that episode than in the UK series, but there really wasn't that much of a problem in the restaurant in this case. We'll have to wait and see if that is the way the rest of the series pans out. If so, I'll retract my statement and agree with Bruno, but this might just be the hook to get the idiot US populace to watch.

To me, a significant portion of the appeal is lost simply because of the substituted narrator. There's decidedly less Ramsay in the US version than in the UK version from both an audio as well as video perspective. I'm currently watching the UK series as it's being broadcast on Food Network Canada on Monday nights, so my experience with that version is vary fresh. In fact I had watched an episode just the night before last.

My fiancée who's only seen 1 UK episode so far agrees completely and thinks the Fox version, along with being censored, is simply dumbed down.

Amazon has some of the new season's pilots available for free download.

So far I've watched "Big Bang Theory", "Back To You", "Chuck", and "Bionic Woman".

"Big Bang Theory" is a minstrel show with geeks instead of black folks. It's honestly somewhat offensive. And their jargon is off enough that geeks would just be irritated anyway. It's basically "point at the geeks and laugh".

"Back To You" is no better or worse than any other generic sitcom. Which is to say it's pretty bad.

"Bionic Woman" was just terrible. Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from the new Battlestar Galactica) is a recurring guest star, apparently, and confirmed my opinion that she's simply a bad actress. The rest of the show is just boring. It honestly failed to keep my attention for the whole 45 minutes, and I didn't even have to bother fast-forwarding through commercials. There's just nothing there to recommend the show.

"Chuck", on the other hand, looks like it's going to be pretty good. It's centered around geeks, just like "Big Bang Theory", but it doesn't unremittingly make fun of them. There's still things to poke fun at, but that's not the whole show, and it's more often done in a more friendly manner. The supporting cast is interesting enough, and the premise is reasonably fun. I don't know for sure that it'll work long-term, but it's worth watching again to find out.

My new favorite show is "The IT Crowd", as it just started its second season. I hear that NBC is working on creating an American version (ala The Office), complete with Richard Ayoade playing Moss, but some say it may never get off the ground. This would be fine by me, as the British version is funny enough.

I watched Chuck and Heroes last night. I was surprised how much I enjoyed Chuck, because I'd heard some bad reviews of it. Bitt, you were right on with your assessment of the geek humor, which is probably calculated on their part, so they don't alienate their target audience.

I only had three problems with the episode, all more suspension of disbelief-related.
- "this computer has a DOS override"
- the CIA woman steals his computer, but discards it when it falls on the floor? She really thought the data was lost? And apparently a three foot fall is utterly disastrous for computers: in the next shot you can clearly see a hard drive with its platters exposed. That's some fall!
- nobody in that club saw the woman throwing sharp objects at guys in suits? It was pretty obvious.

I guess it's funny how suspension of disbelief is easier for more outlandish plot points (like a guy seeing a bunch of images and now remembering state secrets), than it is to let slip little things like the CIA not being able to recover data off a hard drive that isn't even damaged

Now...about Heroes... I'm excited for the second season. Hopefully they'll have a better sophomore season than Lost, and I have every confidence that they will, but unlike a lot of people, I simply like The 4400 better. It's lower budget, and it might not be quite as fun, but for me it delivers on more than Heroes does. The message is a lot more interesting and thought-provoking to me, and hell, it even delivers more on the powers, as far as I've seen. I think the main difference though is in the characters themselves, in that the characters on The 4400 deal with their new-found powers and with each-other, and aren't nearly as insular and self-absorbed as the characters on Heroes.

At the very least, I can say that this past season finale for The 4400 has left me with a lot to think about, and dying to see what happens next, unlike the first season finale of Heroes, which just left me feeling cheated and underwhelmed...a lot like most episodes of the show.

Sorry to go off on such a tangent...

I watched Journeyman last night. It wasn't great, but it wasn't completely terrible. I don't think it'll hold my attention, but I'll give it one more week to see if it improves.

anyone following prison break s3? I don't know how but they keep this thing going. Its a guilty pleasure of mine.

Yup. I'm still watching. I hope it's better than last season. Last season had a couple good episodes, but some of them seemed like just filler.

I watched the first episode of Chuck as well and while I enjoyed it for the most part, there were a couple of issues I see with it. One, I'm having a bit of trouble with the whole suspension of disbelief thing, and secondly, I can't get past the fact that they tried to find basically the twin of Jim from the Office. Chuck is just waaaaay to similar to Jim for me, to the point where it gets distracting. Not just the look but the way the guy talks and some of his mannerisms.

But so far, it has been the most entertaining of the new shows.

So I didn't miss anything last night with Kitchen Nightmares then. I can't record it any more due to both my PVR's tuners being occupied with other programs. The UK original has about 4 episodes per season and I've already seen the newest ones. I believe there are only 16 total so far and I've probably watched 7. Hopefully the existence of the US-based version doesn't preclude Ramsay making more in the UK.

Last night I think the 9:00 PM time slot consisted of Private Practice and Bionic Woman. PP was pretty good, though not as much fun as the preview episode toward the end of last season's Grey's Anatomy run. Bionic Woman was just watchable. I can't really give it much praise except for having liked the fast running effect (more so than I've seen in any other show that has attempted it). With only the pilot watched, it's reminding me too much of the Nikita TV show (which I don't particularly like, though I quite liked both the original movie and its remake).

Reaper was decent the night before, but I hope it doesn't get too Buffy-like. Journeyman was so-so but I think it'll get the axe before the season runs through - likely before the 13th episode (I'm not sure how many eps were ordered by the network).

Also caught Life late last night before heading to bed. Cop comes back to work after 12 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Liked it quite a bit. Not because of the story-arc they're developing, but rather because of the actors and their performances. Instantly likable characters.

Boston Legal and House are still highlights of the week's programming.

I'll hopefully have a trimmed favorites lineup set on the PVR in two weeks or so. I wasn't able to record Chuck, also due to conflicts, so it's being picked up this Saturday instead.

Avatar (animated) got off to a decent start last week, but I didn't find the first episode quite as interesting nor well-written as the last few of last season. Family Guy's 1-hour Star Wars parody was great. I'm going to have to download South Park and buy the past couple of seasons on DVD because the Canadian channel re-broadcasting up here does a piss-poor job of scheduling. No episodes are marked first run, they're not always shown in order and since they air various episodes of the show at least 10 times per week, it's hard to set the PVR to grab just the new ones. Of course they've changed the timeslot for those episodes a few times too just to make it nearly impossible.

I too liked Life, It's fortunate it was on after Bionic Woman, I might not have watched it otherwise.

Bionic Woman didn't really impress. The pilot episode was rushed, I mean she went from denial to acceptance and in charge in what seemed nothing flat.

I'm pretty sure Reaper is my (and my wife's) favorite new show so far. I just found it to be a lot of fun, and Ray Wise is perfect as the Devil.

Life was pretty good, but was it just me, or was it sometimes difficult to hear what the main character was saying? Not everyone, just him...

To wrap up the ones I've seen:

Bionic Woman - probably the weakest of the premieres. I liked the lead actress in Jekyll (go watch that if you haven't), but she seems a little off here, and it's clear she's having problems with the American accent. There are several points where she puts simply bizarre inflection on what she's saying.

Journeyman - I kinda liked it. I'm hoping it'll improve a little though. I'm a sucker for shows like this.

Chuck - pleasantly surprised. Funny, and has Adam Baldwin.

Reaper - definitely my favorite so far.

Life - probably won't watch past a few episodes. It's interesting how we don't know everything about the case he was framed for. Do we even know WHO died? I'm assuming it's his child, but I'm not sure...

Now I just can't wait for Pushing Daisies.

Oh, and I couldn't believe a series of lines from Bionic Woman. Did I hear this right?

Random nurse: "We've got to get you to rehab"
Jaime Summers: "What for?"
Random nurse: "Rehabilitation"

That's some great writing right there. On par with this.