I watch too much tv. And I love tv. Television went through kind of a dark period in the reality show age, but I really think it’s getting it’s form back. I don’t have cable, but I still manage to work in a very respectable volume of programs. I actually do quite a bit of my tv watching on the internet. Sometimes my shows conflict, sometimes I have to work, and sometimes I actually leave the house for fun. But ABC has almost all its shows available to watch online, and NBC is adding more and more. Anyway, the new fall season has started and here’s my assessment of the new shows I’ve seen so far:

Biggest disappointment: Bionic Woman. Based on the promos, I had high expectations for this show. But it’s crap. Real crap. I was really looking forward to this one, hoping it might fill the gaping hole Sydney Bristow left when Alias was canceled, but it totally let me down. The acting is terrible, and the dialogue doesn’t help. The action is pretty good, but there’s enough talking in between the rainy fighty bits to ruin it. Maybe now that they’ve laid down the exposition background foundation stuff, there will be less to say, but I’m afraid the main character will still have lines. And that’s really where this show fails.

Biggest surprise: Chuck. I wasn’t even going to watch this show because the promos looked so bad, but where Bionic Woman had a strong premise and shitty acting and dialogue, this one has kind of a meh premise but really funny, smart acting and great dialogue. Chuck is actually a surprisingly likable guy and has more social skills than the usual tv tech guy, so you don’t cringe every time he opens his mouth. The female lead is pretty kick ass, Jayne from Serenity plays a government agent, and Chuck’s sister and her boyfriend aren’t as stereotypical as they seem. I’m not sure how long it can last on this premise, and based on my reaction to the promos, I’m afraid it could get canceled too early if people don’t start watching it soon, but I really liked this show.

Biggest Waste of Michael Vartan: Big Shots. Complete shit. I couldn’t even finish the pilot. Total, absolute, un-ironically misogynistic crap. I mean, it wasn’t even worth sitting through 42 minutes waiting for the Michael Vartan parts. Just awful bad.

Biggest Dark Horse: Dirty Sexy Money. Oh man. This show is an amazing combination of comedy, action, and drama and I knew absolutely nothing about it before seeing it on abc.com. It has actors I love (Peter Krause and Donald Sutherland) and an interesting combination of family drama and mystery deception kind of stuff. Plus pretty people wearing nice clothes. Lots of relatable characters and believable conflicts. One of the things I really liked is that the wife of Peter Krause’s character clearly loves him and forgives him when he does forgivable things. It’s a nice change from the usual neurotic, harping shrews that are historically married to the kind of fallible hero that Peter Krause plays. In Dirty Sexy Money, you actually believe that Lisa is Nick’s ally, and it’s refreshing not to have that husband-who-lies-to-his-wife tension.

Biggest Guilty Pleasure: Private Practice. The Grey’s Anatomy Spin-off. If there’s a list of words that shouldn’t be combined when coming up with ideas for a new show “Grey’s Anatomy” and “spin-off” have got to be pretty close to the top. But I actually liked this show too. I like the supporting cast, and I was surprised that it actually had some medical (and psych!) stuff and wasn’t all relationships and feelings. I’ve even gotten over the fact that they replaced Evil Robot Francie with some other actress that wasn’t in the pilot as Addison’s friend Naomi.

So all in all, there are some pretty good new shows on right now. Which is great, because Lost doesn’t start again until February, and ANTM and The Office don’t come on often enough to last me until then.

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