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

the show is already really solid, great cast all around

k this episode was ace. so many great moments, especially:

*Boyle INSISTING on bringing up his blog
*Terry breaking the 8-ball
*Pizza sauce prank
*The cop/firefighter turf war
*Gina scaring the interviewee

her bit on the witness stand in the previous episode was great

'to be candid...'

lol yes and the blinking!

so the crazy ones is just one ongoing exercise in brand partnerships right

Getting On (HBO, sorry) is fucking nonstop amazing right out the gate. Everyone has to watch this right now.

Masters of Sex has loads in favor of it and is consistently getting tripped up on its own feet with too many plots and counterplots that keep stirring the pot before anything gets even half baked. I'm hoping it calms down next season and trusts the actors to carry it a bit more.

anyone been paying attention to these sundance shows, are they really so good or is this another AMC bubble for people to latch onto

Rectify and Top of the Lake are fantastic. Les Revenants/The Returned is pretty good.

I loved Rectify. I thought Top of the Lake was good at times. The Returned was superb...until it wasn't.

Rectify is fantastic.

Anyone watching Almost Human? I was behind & watched the first two tonight, am totally on board. Good chemistry between the handsome blue-eyed fellow & Karl Urban, some good laugh out loud moments between them in ep 2

i watched it a little and found it decent. i find the trend of 2 hour pilots really off-putting, though, the show is too light to pull that off. i liked how quickly they got to an episode about sex robots, though.

trophy wife gets funnier every episode

I dunno, I watched last week's, and I still have that problem where I find it cute/charming but not actually ha-ha funny.

i'm digging it, but it's true, a lot of it rides on how likeable the cast is

its a really nice ensamble. i feel like they've hit a groove.

In which Alessandra Stanley compares OITNB to Clueless: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/arts/television/alessandra-stanley-sizes-up-2013-tv-fare.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&

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

Never forget, 2013's best response to Alessandra Stanley's bullshit, courtesy of Chris Hayes: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/14/nyt_calls_chris_hayes_a_hollywood_diva/

hahaha

i still like almost human it's like gotham central in transmet universe

yeah I'm still loving it

i should give it a shot huh?

it doesn't really do subtle character sketches, it's very pulpy. i hope they make it weirder and weirder as it goes on

For the end of the year, I think what would be interesting is if everyone reading this thread gave a list of new shows they're sticking with and a list of shows, both new and otherwise, that they're giving up on (or thinking of doing so).

New shows:

The Originals (Best New Show 2013 - but I'm a Vampire Diaries fan)
Sleepy Hollow
The Tomorrow People (such trash, and not even that enjoyable tbh, but I keep on watching this for some reason, maybe cause it's hard to change the channel after Arrow)
Trophy Wife

Shows I'm (close to) giving up on:

Agents of SHIELD (I'm reallyyyy close to giving up on this one - gonna see how they resolve the "midseason finale" cliffhanger and if that isn't resolved in a satisfactory manner, I'm out)
Awkward (I've liked this show a lot and last night's finale was fantastic but it also felt like a series finale since the creator/"showrunner" is leaving the show so I don't know if I want to ruin the neatness of the entire arc so far)
Nashville
Revenge (see Agents of SHIELD)

New Shows:
Sleepy Hollow
Almost Human

Giving up on
Walking Dead
Agents of SHIELD (havent officially given up but cant be fucked watching)
White Collar

New shows:

The Americans
Orphan Black
Orange Is The New Black

Shows I'm close to giving up on:

Revenge, for the same reasons as Murgatroid gave. This series has gone some stupid places, but if what they've teased as happening is really what happens, I may be done.

mordy kinda selling me on almost human. bailed on agentzzz of shield, bailed on nashville a while back (ok show, just expendable), loved revenge season one, lost track w/ season two and haven't really looked back. i could see myself catching up on netflix at some point. i think the only new show i actively watch is brooklyn nine nine? it's kinda come into its own though it's nowhere near its ceiling (i hope). very much mean to check out masters of sex cuz i love period drama and i've heard good things and i find lizzy caplan very very interesting. has anyone experienced this feeling i've had of late where you'll hear some show that you've been meaning to check out whenever you finally somehow find the time has gone to hell and you get this odd sense of relief? in my case thinking here specifically of homeland and sons of anarchy.

i'm so relieved that homeland - whose second season i couldn't finish - is getting terrible and i never have to go back to it

New shows:
Brooklyn-99 - like Parks & Rec skipped ahead to season 2 - they're already on good footing, awesome cast
Trophy Wife - knew nothing about this beforehand, turns out to be mildly charming w/likeable cast
The Blacklist - utter garbage, but I love James Spader and am endlessly entertained by him in this stupid stupid show. I mean they had one episode where they brought Tom Noonan on as a serial killer called The Stewmaker, and that was one of the better episodes.
Super Fun Night - probably cancelled, pretty middle of the road in quality, but as with these other shows I like the cast and hope they end up in better produced/written sitcoms

On the fence:
Agents of SHIELD - only watched the first 4 eps or so, mean to catch up, but i'm not super enthused about it
Raising Hope - never really a top shelf show to begin with and eventually succumbing to the My Name is Earl curse of diminishing returns, but Garret Dillahunt / Martha Plimpton have supplanted the leads (great move) and this is probably the final season anyway so I'm hanging in there while they burn off double Friday episodes

Good returning stuff:
How I Met Your Mother - final season, shockingly good compared to the crap last few seasons that were so up and down, the renewed focus is good. Sentimentality hooray!
New Girl - still climbing in quality, bringing back Damon Wayans was a great move
The Walking Dead - just as dumb, just as fun as ever, show's basically been consistently watchable since end of season 2
Misc Cartoon Network stuff I continue to love: Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe (new and charming)

S2 of Revenge was pretty much garbage but S3 has been quite redeeming but like you said with Nashville, it also feels so expendable at this point.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine would be great if it was just Andre Braugher and Chelsea Peretti but I can't stand Andy Samberg as a lead (he's only tolerable in small doses).

I've never gone from being super-excited about a show to giving up on it quite as quickly as I have with Homeland.

steven universe, rick + morty

the big fix between seasons 1 & 2 for the office us and parks were them figuring out how to write the lead so maybe they can fix it, i'm fine w/ samberg (eg had no problem w/ him as a lead in hot rod) but agree they have some work to do there. braugher's been fantastic. i hesitate to recommend a denis leary project but the job, his cop sitcom from the early 00s, is pretty great imo, i like it better than rescue me though it helps it got cancelled after one season and didn't have time to go completely off the rails like rescue me.

oh shit I forgot

New Shows:
Blacklist - I could watch Spader in this all day long. It's totally rote but he KILLS it every week
Brooklyn Nine Nine - gets funnier every week & totally worth it for Joe Lo Truglio & my girlcrush on Chelsea Perretti

love joe lo truglio so much, neck and neck between him and ken marino for fave member of the state.

only thing i don't love about brooklyn 9-9 at this point is how often samberg's (and sometimes peretti's) motivation in a scene appears to be "ain't i a stinker?"

gave up on every other new show though i could see going back to a few once given the season 2 all-clear

The only shows I've watched with any regularity of late are S.H.I.E.L.D. (which is mostly cute and undemanding and not nearly as bad as everyone keeps saying, and which is supposed to start getting much much Marvel-ier after the break, so I'm hangin' in there) and HIMYM (which is mostly painful and cartoonish and not nearly as good as everyone keeps saying...there were some lulls prior to this season, but I never had so much trouble sticking with it before) and The Eric Andre Show (which makes me laugh super hard almost every episode).

Best new show I've seen this year is the waaaaaaay underrated and underexposed Nathan For You:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2rgzsO-AMM

New shows I'm sticking with:

Rectify
Hannibal
OitNB
Masters of Sex
Moone Boy
Nathan For You
Inside Amy Schumer
The Americans
Orphan Black

Returning shows I gave up on:

The Walking Dead
Homeland

Oh, yeah, Orphan Black was good value. As was however many episodes of Hannibal I've watched thus far. Will be returning to those.

So very smugly pleased with myself that I saw through the Homeland hype machine by the end of season 1.

I'd maintain that it was mostly great up until "Q&A." That's where the series really ended in my brain.

Until and including, I should say.

I hung in for another half a season, but much of my credulity fizzled along with Brody's bomb.

Am I really the only person who thinks Getting On on HBO is the best current show on television? Everyone should try it.

I intend to! The majority of my TV watching time of late has been devoted to an umpteenth rewatch of Roseanne, and I'm thrilled that Laurie Metcalf is back on TV.

oh, u know what else is good? alpha house on amazon prime.

Yeah, would like to watch that for similar reasons (plus Trudeau's previous televisual effort, Tanner '88, being one of my favorite shows ever).

Oh yeah, if Hannibal counts as new, then yeah, I'm sticking with that one. I tried The Americans for like, five or six eps and I just couldn't get into it. Same with the ten minutes of Getting On I watched.

Wow, you went in for 5 or 6 episodes and still didn't get into The Americans? The S1 finale contained THE MOST INTENSE bit of television I've seen anywhere all year.

I dunno, maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there or whatnot, but FX dramas on the whole have this kind of "HBO but not quite there" aesthetic that annoys me.