But we need to go back a bit. What have you disliked so far?
Keith: That's easy: Six Degrees (ABC, Thursdays 10 p.m. ET), mostly because of high expectations. J.J. Abrams of Lost and Alias is the executive producer, and the cast includes Hope Davis, Campbell Scott, Erika Christensen, and Jay Hernandez. So far, so good. Except it isn't good. The high-concept premise—that its characters are connected by the famous-but-dubious six degrees of separation—is hoary to begin with. But so far, the show's done one of two things with it: shorten the degrees of separation to one by having the stories overlap, or throw in lots of random shots of one character walking behind another without the two knowing they're connected.
Worse, the stories are impossibly corny, from the limo driver who just needs one last score to put the street life behind him to the alcoholic photographer who just needs a break to get his life back together, and so on. Weaving a bunch of clichéd situations together does not a glorious dramatic tapestry make.
To the actors' credit, they only occasionally seem to let on that they're slumming it on television. But every time Hope Davis opens her mouth to deliver that dialogue, I know she's slumming. The weird thing is, two episodes in, I'm starting to find it queasily compelling for all the wrong reasons. I may keep watching.
I've got a similar problem with Jericho (CBS, Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET), which takes a fantastic premise—semi-mysterious dude is stuck in his small hometown during a probable nuclear apocalypse—and saddles it with every worn-out device that prime-time drama has scared up in the past few decades. The pilot alone had escaped prisoners, children in peril, and an emergency tracheotomy. It's a daring '00s idea executed like it's still 1978. What's next, is someone going to have to talk a non-pilot through landing a plane? Also, neither Skeet Ulrich nor Gerald McRaney fill me with confidence. Noel: I have a feeling I'll be done with both those shows—and NBC's Kidnapped (NBC, Wednesdays 10 p.m. ET) too—after about three episodes. My reading of Six Degrees is that it's essentially Desperate Housewives with less silliness and more earnest urban connection. No matter how hard I try, I haven't been able to shake off Desperate Housewives—although the recent storyline about Doug Savant's annoying baby-mama is testing my resolve—so I've got an impulse to hang in there and see where Six Degrees is going. (At the least, I want to know what's in that mysterious box.) But I don't think I can put up with many more quirky meditations on luck to find out.
Similarly, I want to know more about the worldwide apocalypse in Jericho, but I don't much care how Ulrich resolves his daddy issues. And I want to find out more about the oddball aristocrats involved in Kidnapped's titular crime, but I don't know how much more tough-talking police procedural hogwash I want to endure. I'm telling you, man, Lost aside—and unlike you, I'm more into Lost than ever, after last season's mind-bending finale—twisty TV serials are for the birds.
With one major new exception. (Two, if you count Smith.) I admit to being skeptical about Heroes (NBC, Mondays, 9 p.m. ET) going into it, but the opening episode was sly, funny, geeky, and full of promise for the weeks to come. I hope the creators don't take forever to bring all the storylines together and get the master-plot started, but for now, I'm enjoying the way the pieces are being put on the board. You liked it too, yes?
Keith: Yes, I did. It's edged out Studio 60 as my most promising show of the year. (Of course, as with Studio 60, episode two could change that.) I'm a soft touch when it comes to superheroes, but I think even discounting that, there's a lot to admire about this, specifically everything you mention, an eerie tone, and mostly strong performances. (Ali Larter… who knew?) I also got a sense from the pilot—to address your concerns—that there was an effort to make the plot truck along. We've got a looming disaster, an evil (?) mastermind, and connections between most of the characters. (Or at least confirmation that they're separated by less than six degrees without having a scene of one of them standing in line behind another at the coffee shop.) Also, the effects work, which is reassuring. We'll see if they pull it off in the long haul. So far, I'm optimistic.
I'm also intrigued by Ugly Betty (ABC, Thursdays 8 p.m. ET), although my interest is tempered by an increasingly reduced tolerance for camp. I know they're doing an American telenovela, and camp is part and parcel with that. But I love America Ferrera's earnest performance as Betty—the unglamorous journalist adrift in the world of fashion magazines—and could care less about the intrigues and machinations of the magazine world. (I did my time with The Devil Wears Prada already.) But I don't hate those elements, and so far, Vanessa Williams is kind of fun as the villain. And Gina Gershon was a lot of fun in her guest role. And I love the cameos executive producer Salma Hayek has done on the show within the show. Still, I'm mostly there for Ferrera, who can convey five different flavors of hopefulness and hurt in a single shot.
Noel: I'm intrigued by Ugly Betty too, but it's getting shoved aside in my Thursday-night scheduling jam. I was able to watch the first episode on its ABC Family rerun, but I doubt I'll see another one for a while, since on Thursdays I'm TiVo-ing Survivor and watching My Name Is Earl and The Office in real time. Anyway, Ugly Betty's apparently a hit already, so I'll have plenty of chances to catch up with it later, if I so choose. And I might just. I've got a little problem with the campy elements too—and the set design, which is kind of oppressive—but at least it's got a sensibility and a character base that isn't seen much on network TV.
The same could be said of ABC's Help Me Help You (ABC, Tuesdays, 9:30 p.m. ET), which stars Ted Danson as a neurotic celebrity psychologist in charge of a group of distinctively nutty patients. But while the group-therapy scenes are surprisingly funny—thanks in large part to Danson's well-honed comic timing—once the characters go their separate ways, the comedy dies. The show looks and feels a little different than anything else on TV, but it still isn't that entertaining.
Which brings us to The Class (CBS, Mondays, 8 p.m. ET), a show that looks and feels utterly conventional, but which, no matter what anybody says, I kind of like. I understand everything that's wrong with it: the "third-grade class reunion" premise is flimsy and stupid, the cast's racial makeup is far from diverse, and the show's structure is essentially Friends redux. But The Class fits well on CBS Monday, the home of the old-fashioned, studio-audience-invited, three-camera sitcom. The Class even operates under the guidance of James Burrows, the Cheers/Frasier/Friends/Will & Grace guru, who knows how to maximize the comic quirks of otherwise-bland TV characters. This is far from must-see TV, or even appointment TV. It's "let's see what's on" TV. And in a TV season where nearly every show is demanding I pay attention for 20-odd weeks, it's comforting to know that there are still shows I can drop in on just like, you know, whenever.
That's probably enough for now. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can look at some of the shows that haven't premièred yet, see how these shows are holding up, and check in on some of our returning favorites.
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