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Final '11-'12 TV Report Card
May. 20th, 2012 12:55 pmWe've still got a few dozen shows taped on our DVR from the recent TV season, but I think we've made our final assessments on everything.
We just erased Touch from our DVR after getting about halfway through the fifth episode (or so). Our main problem with it was that the scripting was cliched and talked down to us. I swear they had a script editor whose entire job was to enter lines of dialogue to explain things that particularly stupid viewers might not get. So Kimberly laughed at a line from this recent episode that was something like: "I haven't seen my mom in six years. She's schizophrenic." Like being schizophrenic was the reason this social worker hadn't seen her mom (whereas it was actually offered just to tell dumb viewers that she was, indeed, crazy). The worst was the father constantly repeating the numbers his son gave him, so that dumb viewers could make the connections. In this last episode we saw, about 975, we saw a "Flight 975" and Kimberly said, "the father's going to be mumbling 'Flight 975' sometime in this episode." Five minutes later, he was, and we turned the show off and erased all the other episodes.
We also recently deleted all of our store of Alcatraz. We'd actually stopped watching it months ago, as the serial killer of the week aspect just wasn't that interesting, especially with its oft poorly thought-out logic. My assessment was that they might be doing an of-the-week formula for a season, then planning to open up the show and make it more interesting in season 2 (as Millennium did). I might have been willing to watch the rest of season 1 with the promise of something more, but as soon as the show got cancelled, I was no longer interested.
We still have two shows on our DVR, which we plan to finish watching. Awake is generally interesting and pretty darn good and it assumes that its viewers are pretty bright. Despite the fact that it was cancelled, we're happy to see where the show ends up. (It's only still on our DVR because we didn't start watching it until a few weeks ago, due to how much was on the TV in the Spring.) We also have half-a-season worth of Grimm on our Tivo, but we generally find it good fun when we watch it, despite it being super light.
Beyond that, I think there were only two dramas that we were watching that survived the season for us. We thought that Smash was great, start to end (except maybe when it went too soap opera from time to time). We'll eagerly watch it next season, though I have some concerns they'll dumb it down after season 1's ratings (though it was actually a hit on NBC who still hasn't recovered from their Leno stupidity). We thought that Once Upon a Time was mediocre, start to end, but I became increasingly engaged by the story as time went on. Still not a particularly good show, but its subversive faerie tales often helped hold up the rest of the show. Biggest problem with Once Upon a Time: any scene involving the mayor.
Here's what I wrote about these and other shows in February. The TV tag has a few more discussions way back in September.
We just erased Touch from our DVR after getting about halfway through the fifth episode (or so). Our main problem with it was that the scripting was cliched and talked down to us. I swear they had a script editor whose entire job was to enter lines of dialogue to explain things that particularly stupid viewers might not get. So Kimberly laughed at a line from this recent episode that was something like: "I haven't seen my mom in six years. She's schizophrenic." Like being schizophrenic was the reason this social worker hadn't seen her mom (whereas it was actually offered just to tell dumb viewers that she was, indeed, crazy). The worst was the father constantly repeating the numbers his son gave him, so that dumb viewers could make the connections. In this last episode we saw, about 975, we saw a "Flight 975" and Kimberly said, "the father's going to be mumbling 'Flight 975' sometime in this episode." Five minutes later, he was, and we turned the show off and erased all the other episodes.
We also recently deleted all of our store of Alcatraz. We'd actually stopped watching it months ago, as the serial killer of the week aspect just wasn't that interesting, especially with its oft poorly thought-out logic. My assessment was that they might be doing an of-the-week formula for a season, then planning to open up the show and make it more interesting in season 2 (as Millennium did). I might have been willing to watch the rest of season 1 with the promise of something more, but as soon as the show got cancelled, I was no longer interested.
We still have two shows on our DVR, which we plan to finish watching. Awake is generally interesting and pretty darn good and it assumes that its viewers are pretty bright. Despite the fact that it was cancelled, we're happy to see where the show ends up. (It's only still on our DVR because we didn't start watching it until a few weeks ago, due to how much was on the TV in the Spring.) We also have half-a-season worth of Grimm on our Tivo, but we generally find it good fun when we watch it, despite it being super light.
Beyond that, I think there were only two dramas that we were watching that survived the season for us. We thought that Smash was great, start to end (except maybe when it went too soap opera from time to time). We'll eagerly watch it next season, though I have some concerns they'll dumb it down after season 1's ratings (though it was actually a hit on NBC who still hasn't recovered from their Leno stupidity). We thought that Once Upon a Time was mediocre, start to end, but I became increasingly engaged by the story as time went on. Still not a particularly good show, but its subversive faerie tales often helped hold up the rest of the show. Biggest problem with Once Upon a Time: any scene involving the mayor.
Here's what I wrote about these and other shows in February. The TV tag has a few more discussions way back in September.