Wow. The pace is definitely picking up around here. Canadian funding deadlines are looming, VIFF is shifting into high gear, my online UCLA extension class starts today and TeeVee continues its deluge of new shows.
What's been on lately?
Chuck
I quite liked Chuck. Josh Schwartz is channeling the funny, pop-hipster bits from the OC. The action sequences were good, and there's some great comedy (the western showdown at the end may have been a joke we've seen/heard before, but it was well executed).
There are some problems inherent with the premise though. It feels overly familiar, hard to escape when every second show at the moment is an "ordinary man develops special abilities" show, but Chuck also reminds me a bit too much Jake 2.0.
Also, as others have noted, wouldn't all the super secret information in Chuck's head be obsolete after a couple of weeks? Last I heard intelligence was...ahem...time sensitive...
Journeyman
I'm a sucker for time travel stories, so I really, really wanted to like Journeyman, but it just left me feeling "meh."
The love triangle is interesting and offers some fun dynamics to play with. The scenes of Dan in the past, interacting with friends and family, were by far the best parts of the show. The modern drama (trouble with his wife, intervention, etc) fell flat because the audience is out ahead of the characters. We know that Dan's not doing drugs. We know he's not cheating on his wife (does time travel cheating count?). So all the speculation by his wife / brother / boss lacks drama because we know they're wrong.
I loved the murky morality of the time travel plot (he's going back in time to save a guy, only to kill him in the end), but it lacked cohesion in my eyes. I kept wondering what he was doing, how the pieces fit together, and even once it had all played out (turns out he was meant to save the guys unborn child) I couldn't help but think "what's the point of all that?"
Reaper
Reaper and Chuck are the same show. I found the sidekick in Reaper to be more obnoxious than the sidekick in Chuck. The comedy in Reaper was broader, more slapstick. It had some nice moments (love the dogs and the DMV), and the I think that the premise is better than Chuck (at least there were less logic gaps in Reaper than in Chuck). And there's nothing cooler than sucking up souls in a Dirt Devil.
Safe to say I'm a fan.
Cane
I love Jimmy Smits. He's almost enough to make Cane watchable, but in the end he can't save it. At the end of the day this show was flat out boring. I'm falling asleep writing this...
Heroes
Heroes is starting to piss me off. As I watched the first season on DVD all my old niggles (poor payoffs, annoying characters, muddled storylines) really started to come to the fore. The second season premiere didn't do much to alleviate my concerns.
The biggest problem with Heroes is the number of characters and plot lines they're trying to juggle. There are already too many, and the premiere introduced two more!
So the premiere had: Claire and HRG adjusting to their new life (which was good), Suresh infiltrating the company (Suresh irks me to no end), Parkman kicking ass and taking names (detective? nice!), Hiro in feudal Japan (and with a gaijin Kensei? WTF?), Ando and Hiro's dad sitting around drinking coffee and getting death threats, Nathan as an alcoholic with a beard, Peter tied up naked in a cargo container, oh and the two new people on the run in Honduras (if they were heading south they could guest star on Prison Break!).
Anyone else confused by all that?
Scary thing is it's only going to get worse if they follow through with their plan to incorporate a character introduced on Origins into the main show.
Anyways, so much was going on that the episode really just served to reintroduce everyone (with some heroes not even mentioned...Sylar? Nikki / Jessica?). I can't help but feel that they're just throwing bucket loads of stuff at the audience in the hopes that some of it's going to stick.
I think Heroes would be better off if they just focused down onto some of their core stories (Claire/HRG, Hiro, maybe the Petrellis) and get rid of the rest.
All in all there are a lot of shows I want to like this season, but most of them just aren't there yet.
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I think you'll find that some of these shows have improved. The first few episodes of Journeyman were not very compelling, but it got a lot better. I like the show a lot now, although it still has a few minor annoyances.
Heroes got better, too, although it still has problems as well. :)
I also have really been enjoying Chuck. I try not to think too hard about it as I watch it, however. I just find it fun.
As for the rest of the shows you listed, they don't look interesting to me. It could be the characters, or the premises.... They just didn't capture me.
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