Friday, June 1, 2012

Television: The Good, The Bad and The Canceled

The Good - Television definitely took a tumble this season.  Good shows were hard to find.  Especially, new shows.  The only real "break-out" show, for me, is Revenge.  It was really the only show that captivated my interest through the entire season.  The writers were smart to push up the reveal of who was shot in the pilot to mid-season, instead of dragging it out to the finale.  The second half of the season was able to re-invent the story to prove it's longevity as a series.  A few "older" shows shined such as Fringe, which is possibly the most consistently awesome show currently on tv, Mad Men, this past season may just be it's best and Southland, even though it didn't have any "standout" moments the season was still solid.  On the comedy front, Community remains utterly brilliant.  Happy Endings, Parks & Recreation and Cougar Town all had a satisfying season.

The Bad - There are some new shows that were shockingly bad, yet still received a renewal. Specifically, Smash and Hart of Dixie.  While, Smash had a decent pilot, the rest of the episodes were downright terrible.  I fast-forwarded through the musical numbers and laughed at how ridiculously predictable the plot became.  I predict that Hart of Dixie will be the CW's new One Tree Hill (you know, the show that should have been canceled after the first episode but instead became a running joke amongst pretty much everyone and lasted a whopping 9 seasons).  It's simply terrible and the fact that it was renewed is offensive.  There were some new comedies that were sometimes entertaining like, New Girl, Suburgatory and Two Broke Girls that will live on to next season, but I'm still not sure if I will be watching. They just weren't funny enough to be "must watch tv". Also, not bad, but surprisingly mediocre, were two of my favorite shows, The Vampire Diaries and Glee.  TVD's third season devoted much of it's time to the mythology of the "original" vampires and it bored me to death, while Glee became repetitive and downright annoying.  Also, what the fuck happened with The Killing?  The first season was pretty good, but the second season barely makes sense and they still haven't figured out who the murderer is?  Way to drag things out painfully. 

The Canceled - While we said a sad "goodbye" to a few loved series like Chuck and Desperate Housewives,  I think we can all agree that their time was up.  It was another year of introducing a billion new shows and canceling 90% of them. It's a good thing that I already stopped watching most of these canceled shows (in parenthesis are the amount of episodes I made it through):  The Secret Circle (about 10 episodes), Awake (1/2 of the first episode), The River (4 episodes), Ringer (about 12 episodes), Terra Nova (6 or 7 episodes), Person of Interest (3 episodes), Alcatraz (5 episodes), Are You There, Chelsea (1 very painful episode) and Pan Am (I think I actually watched the whole thing, which is just absurd).  So, I decided that I am no longer investing my time in new shows.  It's a waste of time, really.  Better to wait it out and see what survives. 

No comments:

Post a Comment