Fall TV Planning

The fall TV season is nearly upon us again, and I can’t wait! On the other hand, there are so many things I want to watch that I’m going to be overwhelmed within a few weeks. Thank goodness for DVRs, but there are still some timeslots that have three or four things I want to check out, and my DVR can only record two a time. (We’re not dealing with actually finding the time to watch all the shows…we’ll figure that out later.) Anyway, here’s what I’m looking at this fall. What’s everybody else watching? Anyone want to join me and Becky in chatting about the shows on YahooMessenger while we watch?

BTW, spoilers after the jump for all the returning shows I’m watching, especially: How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, House, Bones, Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, The Office, and Desperate Housewives.

Returning Shows

How I Met Your Mother (CBS, Monday 7pm CST; premiere 9/24; full episodes at CBS.com)
This is not the best sitcom coming back this fall (that would be The Office), but it consistently endears itself to me–largely because I want to marry Ted. I was not happy with a certain break-up at the end of last season, so we’ll see how the show continues from that. (CBS has especially crappy official sites, so I’m not linking them.)

Heroes (NBC, Monday 8pm CST; premiere 9/24)
I wanted Heroes to be my favorite new show last year; I’m not sure it quite lived up to my very high expectations, but it’s still a great show, and last season’s finale set up some interesting things for this season. (Official Site)

Prison Break (FOX, Monday 8pm CST; premiere 9/17; full episodes at Fox.com/fod)
Actually, this is a maybe watch. I stopped watching sometime in the middle of last year; I had a lot of other stuff going on, and I just didn’t care enough about them once they got out of the prison. I heard it got better after I quit watching though, so I’m half thinking about catching up. To that end, the second half of S2 is on its way to me from Netflix right now. But we’ll see what actually happens when I start getting bombarded with other shows I definitely want to watch, plus school should get more demanding one of these days. (Official Site)

Bones (FOX, Tuesday 7pm CST; premiere 9/25; full episodes at Fox.com/fod)
This is one of my favorite just plain fun shows. I don’t care if the forensics are bad. It’s fun. I didn’t really care for the abruptness of the finale last year, so we’ll see how they come out of that situation. But yeah. (Official Site)

NCIS (CBS, Tuesday 7pm CST; premiere 9/25; full episodes at CBS.com)
One of the rare shows I started watching in the middle (beginning of S3). Which I sort of hate, because one of my friends watched from the beginning, and he keeps bringing up Kate, who I only know through hearsay. Ah well. I love the interaction between the characters, especially Abby, who rocks.

House (FOX, Tuesday 8pm CST; premiere 9/25)
House is alone! Not like he hasn’t wanted that for years. They can’t keep him alone, though…the show’s already narcissistic enough. I’m curious how it’ll turn out, but I don’t at all believe Cameron and Chase and Foreman are ALL gone for good. I mean, come on. Cameron and Chase are too cute. But it is time that House and Cuddy admitted their twu wuv for each other. (Official Site)

Ugly Betty (ABC, Thursday 7pm CST; premiere 9/27; full episodes at ABC.com)
I am so excited for Ugly Betty! It was easily my favorite new show last year. Once I convinced myself to watch it. The finale was so sad, though. Is the first episode going to be sad? I hope not too much. I miss Amanda and Mark. They’re the best shallow, superficial characters ever! Except I don’t really think they are shallow and superficial. I hope they’re given more to do this year, but not so much that they become, like, annoying. (Official Site)

30 Rock (NBC, Thursday 7:30pm CST; premiere 10/4; full episodes at NBC.com)
This is another one that looked stupid when I first saw commercials for it (I think I predicted six episodes before cancellation). I was so wrong. Alec Baldwin is hilarious as the boss of the station, Tina Fey rocks as the put-upon sketch show producer–it’s all great. Looking forward to another good year of a sitcom I actually like. (Official Site)

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, Thursday 8pm CST; premiere 9/27; full episodes at ABC.com)
Oh, Grey’s. Please come back from that near-fiasco of a finale and become the show I love again. Please regain your sense of humor. And please don’t let George be gone. And please justify my obsession for another year. At least. (Official Site)

The Office (NBC, Thursday 8pm CST; premiere 9/27)
Hands down best finale last year. I hope they can top it. It’s sort of hard to know where to go after a finale that stupendous. I just hope we get some good Jim-Pam stuff, without jumping right back into the angst that carried us through last year. And where’s Karen going to be? She didn’t get the job with corporate, so…that could be weird at Scranton. Oh, why am I worried. It’s going to be awesome, as usual. (Official Site)

Numb3rs (CBS, Friday 9pm CST; premiere 9/28; full episodes at CBS.com)
I actually got behind on this last year, and didn’t care that much. Most of the time I don’t care for shows that aren’t season-arc driven, but I do like to have one or two that are more individually-based, just so I can have something to throw in on weekends and not have to work too hard to remember what was going on. NCIS sort of fits that category, too. But Numb3rs may fall by the wayside during the year; or at least has a large chance of being one of the shows that gets backlogged on the DVR until I get enough free time to catch up.

Desperate Housewives (ABC, Sunday 8pm CST; premiere 9/30; full episodes at ABC.com)
This was a good finale, too, wasn’t it? A lot of crazy things happened, which I think is good for a Desperate Housewives finale. Bree’s hiding Danielle’s pregnancy, which is just silly–I mean, everyone’s going to find out. Wisteria Lane finds out EVERYTHING. For example, Lynette’s cancer. Yeah, Lynette, TELL PEOPLE. SRSLY. Edie’s dead, which is just…I mean, Edie was a bitch, but still. The show’s going to be so different without her! And Susan and Mike. Aw. And Gaby. Sigh, Gaby. I love you, but you do stupid things. I think DH is one of those shows where anything could happen and I would still watch it. (Official Site)

New Shows I’m Hoping Will Be Good

I wonder if any of these will end up having their episodes online? None of the networks are listing them on the video on demand pages, but some of them probably will be once the season starts. ABC has been particularly proactive in this area. Yay ABC.

Chuck (NBC, Monday 7pm CST; premiere 9/24)
Espionage and comedy. With some tech geekery thrown in. What’s going to be wrong with that? Nothing in the premise, for sure, and the previews I’ve seen give me high hopes. NBC, don’t screw with my high hopes, okay? Ooh, dude, Adam Baldwin is in it. Rock on. (Official Site)

Journeyman (NBC, Monday 9pm CST; premiere 9/24)
Time travel. I love me some time travel. Usually, if a story involves time travel, I like it, even if it sucks. (Official Site)

Pushing Daisies (ABC, Wednesday 7pm CST; premiere 10/3)
A man can raise people from the dead by touching them, but if he touches them again, they die again. Interesting concept, but it looks like it could devolve into overwrought angst when he raises his dead girlfriend (wife?) but then can’t ever touch her. Still, the ad campaign is going for somewhere between Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me, both shows I really like. (Official Site)

Private Practice (ABC, Wednesday 8pm CST; premiere 9/26)
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Addison Montgomery? I probably have. But it may have been a while, since I don’t talk about TV here as much as I used to on livejournal. I’m planning on changing that, incidentally, just so you’re aware. Addison Montgomery is my favorite Grey’s Anatomy character (or close second to Izzie), and now she’s got her own show! I wasn’t terribly impressed by the pilot they interwove with a Grey’s episode last spring, but I think it was because it was interfering with Grey’s. On its own, I’m hopeful, because there did seem to be some interesting characters. (Official Site)

Bionic Woman (NBC, Wednesday 8pm CST; premiere 9/26)
This looks like it’s going to rock. I severely hope it does. Without Buffy or Veronica or Sydney Bristow or Max (Dark Angel) around anymore, I need me some rocking female super-protagonists. (Official Site)

Life (NBC, Wednesday 9pm CST; premiere 9/26)
I only started seeing ads for this one in the last few weeks, which is strange, since NBC has been promoting the hell out of Journeyman and K-Ville for months. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or not. Anyway, cop got screwed over and put in prison, now he’s out and back on the beat, but is also trying to figure out who betrayed him. Looks like it’s done with a good chunk of humor, which is good, but that also seems to make it fairly similar to USA’s Burn Notice, which I’ve been watching off and on over the summer. (Official Site)

Women’s Murder Club (ABC, Friday 8pm CST; premiere 10/12)
Haven’t heard too much about this one either, but I like procedural cop shows, and I like female protagonists. We’ll give ‘er a shot. (Official Site)

New Shows I’m Going to Try, But Don’t Have High Hopes For

K-Ville (Fox, Monday 8pm CST; premiere 9/17)
FEMA officers working to clean up New Orleans after Katrina. Ooh, I bet that’s what the “K” stands for. Yeah, I never thought of that before. Anyway. I’m not sure this looks interesting enough to stick with, but it premieres a week earlier than most everything else, so I’ll at least watch the first episode. (Official Site)

Samantha Who? (ABC, Monday 8:30pm CST; premiere 10/15)
Christina Applegate as an amnesiac. I like amnesia as a plot device, but I sense this is going to rise or fall based on Applegate’s likability, and while I don’t dislike her, I’m not sure she’s enough to anchor the show for me. A lot is also going to depend on the writing, which can so easily go completely down the drain. (Official Site)

Back to You (Fox, Wednesday 7pm CST; premiere 9/19)
Another sitcom I probably won’t stick with: Kesley Grammar and Patricia Heaton as news anchors who used to work together and are now working together again. I’m not having high hopes for the quality of this, and I’m actually surprised it’s on Fox; looks much more like an NBC or CBS show. (Official Site)

Kitchen Nightmares (Fox, Wednesday 8pm CST; premiere 9/19)
Wednesdays at 8pm are going to be tough. Private Practice, Bionic Woman, and Chef Ramsay’s new show. Becky got me into Hell’s Kitchen this summer, and I want to check this one out, too, in which he goes around to existing restaurants and reads them the riot act. But my DVR can only record two shows at a time, and it’s going to be the other two. Depending on what the networks end up putting on their websites; that may help me out some. (I’m going to try to be good and not download anything illegally this year.) (Official Site)

Moonlight (CBS, Friday 8pm CST; premiere 9/28)
Um. Good vampire opens a detective agency. Haven’t I already watched this show? Except it had David Boreanaz and Buffy stopped by occasionally? Yeah, this sounds pretty much EXACTLY like Angel, and shows that are this closely derivative are highly like to both suck and get cancelled (not to mention Friday nights are death slots). But I’m curious to see how it’s going to differentiate itself, so I’m going to check it out. (click for promo)

Dirty Sexy Money (ABC, Wednesday 9pm CST; premiere 9/26)
Okay, this is ONLY on here because Peter Krause is in it. And I have too much love for Sports Night and Six Feet Under not to at least see how he’s spending his time these days. But the show looks like a complete soap opera that happens to be in primetime, and doesn’t even have doctors or fashionistas or supernatural phenomena to make it interesting, the way my other pseudo-soaps do. (Official Site)

So that’s it. Do you think that’s enough? Anything else I should overburden my DVR with? And before anyone says My Name is Earl or Friday Night Lights or Supernatural, I want to watch those, but I’m too far behind and I’ll be DVDing them.