2013 Fall TV Thread: Previews, Evaluations, Ridicule and Mourning

cheers had it all down from the pilot

the first episode was good but in no way classic

First season of Buffy just not all that good -- I mean, better than most of what was around it, but lacking in what made BtVS BtVS

Less-than-stellar first episodes/first couple of episodes/first seasons are pretty much a rule for episodic television for which I can think of very few exceptions. Maybe just Larry Sanders and The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer.

Classic Pfeiffer.

Spader hamming it up on the Blacklist is wonderful.

Crazy Ones was highest rated premiere

prime location though i can imagine there's a significant potential cbs audience that still finds robin williams hilarious

I think it's near impossible to judge a pilot fairly as a pilot way after the fact, especially if the show went on to be a beloved institution. I loved 30 Rock from the jump and thought it was one of that fall's most promising pilots, but it feels sluggish now compared to later eps. Lots of the best pilots still show growing pains and abandoned ideas/characters later on. It's the shows that actually go downhill in the next few episodes that are doomed.

i ... tolerate sleepy hollow

So both episodes of Moms felt like rough going at first but really won me over by the end. The pacing is still a little wonky (the beat between the joke and the laugh track grates), and Anna Faris feels a little green to multi-camera format compared to Janney (lack of theater experience?) but her kid's boyfriend is a real find, A+ well-intentioned doofus, basically keanu in the movie parenthood.

We Are Men EASILY takes worst pilot I've seen this year. Really felt like a rough draft throughout, chances for comic set pieces skipped over, laugh-lines practically had "joke TK" in them.

has there ever been a show whose defensive macho bluster is presented right in the title ever worked? Man Up, Last Man Standing... A show can work with that energy, but I feel like it has to be couched in other details to succeed (Married With Children, Entourage). Imo dudes don't really go "hey, this show says MAN in it, I'm a MAN, finally a sitcom at 8:30 for me!" but I might be forgetting an example.

Trophy Wife has such a good cast but I have no sense they're ever going to explain how this guy wound up marrying or divorcing either of his first two wives (one harsh, one flaky) before hooking up with a well-meaning hottie. Goldbergs supporting cast is also great but they're doubling down on the "set SOMETIME in the '80s" muddledness without even giving us "malcolm in the middle" levels of surreal family hijinks to make up for it.

The Man Show was pretty successful, but obv not a sitcom. But yeah all those recent shows are weak, especially How To Be A Gentleman. Last Man Standing is amiable mediocrity, though, I guess it's still chugging along.

http://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Music/4a/03/f4/mzi.pehdbdhk.170x170-75.jpg

rip

haha never saw it and couldn't find any parts of any episodes which is really saying something (found homeboys in outer space), but did find this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqlVZM_sSjo

Last Man Standing is amiable mediocrity, though, I guess it's still chugging along.

amiable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFmkyZd1rZ0

I really want Trophy Wife to be good, the cast is amazing

I was kind of shocked to hear it was created by the Sarah Haskins from "Target Women," apparently based on her experiences as someone's third wife. The show would probably work better if the lead was more like her, but Malin Akerman is so relatively bland compared to everyone else that it accentuates the oddity of her being the sympathetic lead. Like, you know who might not sympathize with the plight of a young woman in short shorts trying to be more involved in the lives of her stepchildren? ACTUAL MOMS.

I initially assumed the premise was the outcome of some sort of "you know who's got an interesting life? My third wife" kind of bigwig groupthink.

and well whaddya know

*** How about "Trophy Wife"? Ugh. This one hurts, because "Trophy Wife" was possibly my favorite new network show of the fall. That wasn't a HIGH bar, but I found this comedy to be fairly charming in both its pilot and its second episode. America does not agree, as the second episode of "Trophy Wife" drew 4.3 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49. That's coming out of a 2.2 key demo rating and 6.06 million viewers for "The Goldbergs." That's not spectacular retention for "The Goldbergs," but shedding 0.8 in the key demo from a mediocre lead-in is never good, nor is shedding almost a full ratings point from its premiere. Want to know who tuned out? It looks like it was women. While "Trophy Wife" slipped from a 1.8 to a 1.3 rating rating among men 18-49, it went from a 2.7 rating to a 1.6 rating among women 18-49. And it appears that most of the drop was among slightly older women, as "Trophy Wife" fell from a 3.4 rating among women 25-54 to a 2.0 rating in that demo. I could keep going, but yeah. It's a 1.5 ratings point drop among women 35-54. That's as deep as I'm digging.

lol i'd heard that last man standing had settled into some clumsy attempt at an archie bunker update but i didn't know they actually had a meathead on there

i have a weird faith in malin akerman, maybe because of children's hospital... hopefully the show's still on the air by the time i give it a shot

despite the commercials annoying me all summer, Super Fun Night had a decent pilot, i could easily see it floating on the ABC schedule ala The Middle or Suburgatory. Rebel Wilson is good and supporting cast is decent

I really like Rebel Wilson, but I'm annoyed that they made her adopt an American accent. Still planning to watch, though.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2013/10/the_best_performance_of_the_new_tv_season_is_margo_martindale_in_the_millers.html

hey, that's margo martindale

first ep of the blacklist seemed like it was just gonna be a gimmick procedural but the second def turned up the silly swag - lolled hard at the rossellini twist

idk i think i'm down for a spygame revenge

it's taking all of my restraint not to type her line out btw

I need to catch up on some stuff tonight, for sure. Nashville, Revenge, The Blacklist I guess. And Super Fun Night. I would say Scandal too, but I didn't watch it over the summer like I'd planned, so I'm still way behind.

yeah i caught that Margo Martindale show last night and was bitching on twitter about what a depressing turn of events it is for her career. she's cable drama guest star MVP but god knows HBO or AMC would never have her star in a show.

I'm glad she'll be back for The Americans, though I'm not sure how often.

A lot of the Millers was hacky but man, there are so many good performers on that, and I probably laughed more in the opening bit then i did during the entire mj fox show. I'm not against fart humor on principle.

mj fox show at times felt like one of those inspirational twinkly holiday adds publix will run sometimes

New comedies this season, favorite to least, based on 1-2 episodes:
Mom
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Welcome To The Family
Trophy Wife
The Millers
The Goldbergs
Michael J Fox Show
The Crazy Ones
Dads
Sean Saves The World
Back In The Game
Super Fun Night
We Are Men

Shows I can actually see surviving: Mom, Nine-Nine, The Millers, The Goldbergs, Michael J Fox (highest-rated of the NBC thursday shows this week by glorious default!) and The Crazy Ones (everything that annoys me about this show will be received joyously by old people who watch Big Bang Theory).

Sean is hacky and the least charismatic performer is the grinning ghoul in the title. Welcome To The Family has a sweet cast but the fact that NBC went for a shitty "OMG/Dios Mio!" culture-clash angle that isn't in the pilot is a bad, bad sign. Super Fun Night allegedly has gone through a show-runner or two and the first episode (NOT the pilot, which they won't air) was flat enough to suggest that.

I laughed despite myself at Will Arnett and Margo Martindale dancing to "I've Had The Time Of My Life," so if I didn't even get close to laughing at Rebel Wilson singing Meat Loaf (and why at a piano bar rather than karaoke?) that's not good.

Weirdest thing about Sean Saves The World is the feeling that I'd seen it all before despite it being about a gay single father working at an internet company, which I'm pretty sure I haven't seen before.

lol croup old ppl are not the big bang theory's audience

i didn't mean that the primary audience of BBT is oldsters, but that any oldster who DOES watch it (and the ratings suggest it's got a relatively broad market share) will LOOOOOOOOVE The Crazy Ones.

basically I'm just saying that anyone who's first thought when it comes to Robin Williams is "funny!" rather than "yeesh" will be happy with the show

ok that makes sense. i wonder if my dad watches it, i know he watches 2.5 men.

it was kinda weird it was hyped as 'robin williams returns to tv!' like most of the public were still thinking of him as tv-turned-movie star after 30 years. it'd be like hyping something 'tom hanks returns to tv!' or even 'bruce willis returns to tv!'. i guess we'll never be over mork.

pretty harsh on super fun night, average in a sweet way imo

then again that is b99 i see there in second on ur list so maybe they subtitled it badly for bizarro world or something

millers was... not nearly as bad as i was bracing myself for. the husband and kid are total dead weight though

http://tv.yahoo.com/photos/fall-tv-shows-in-trouble-1380737839-slideshow/

it's taking all of my restraint not to type her line out btw

"i'm going to kiss that sweet, young fbi agent on the cheek and say goodnight... AND THEN GO DOWN TO THE DOCKS AND PICK UP MY NEXT SHIPMENT OF GIRLS!!"

lol!!!

cheesy classic, i lol'ed

my parents-in-law fucking LOVE big bang theory, every time we visit they try to make us watch old episodes with them.

Maybe I'm just feeling really generous/bored this season, I've been watching a lot more sitcoms this season and been feeling "eh, all right"

Trophy Wife, case in point. No doubt it will be cancelled, but I like the cast (Bradley Whitford, Marcia Gay Harden, Mikaela Watkins, Natalie Morales and a genuinely trying Malin Akerman) and the premise is a little different

on the whole i think most ensembles are totally great this season, its wack premises and creaky pacing that're killing me

Just looked at that Yahoo! list. What the hell even was Lucky 7? I never heard of it.