Surfergeeks

That’s right boys and girls – it’s time for the new TV season recap!

Wow, there’s a ton of new shows on this year, and oddly enough, not one of them starts with “CSI:” or “Law & Order”.

As y’all know, Nikki & I are HUGE TV junkies. Well, in this part of the recap, I’ll look at some new shows and some returning shows. There are still a few shows that haven’t premiered yet so I’ll post about those after they do.

I’m going to attempt this in some sort of order. I’ll go with new shows first, then tackle the returning shows.

The War At Home – FOX Sun 8:30pm
This show stars Michael Rapaport as a father/husband. The rest of the cast appears to be unknown. It’s a half-hour sitcom. If you watched and enjoyed FOX’s ‘Quintuplets’ last season, you’ll probably enjoy this. I swear the writers came from that show to this one – and brought along a few scripts.

Kitchen Confidential – FOX Mon 8:30pm
A comedy starring Bradley Cooper (Will from Alias) and co-stars Nicholas Brendan (Xander from Buffy). Cooper stars as the head chef of a new restaurant and must deal with the antics of a slightly criminal staff while also coping with his rather checkered past. Throw in a pinch of your usual comediac restaurant hijinks, stir, simmer for 22 minutes and you have a pretty decent sitcom. I don’t think it’ll last though.

Prison Break – FOX Mon 9pm
This show was actually supposed to launch back in late June/early July. It was then pushed until late August. The show centres around the character of Michael, an engineer who went and got himself arrested and sentenced to prison. On purpose. Why would anyone want to do that, you ask? Well, you see, Michael’s brother, Lincoln, is at the prison; sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit (queue A-Team music). Mikey’s big plan is to bust him and his brother out of prison. Easy to do when you designed the prison. So we’re a few episodes into the show and it’s just as compelling as the first episode. From what I see, the ratings should keep this show alive throughout it’s first season. The writing is good and it keeps us coming back every Monday night. If you haven’t started watching this show, it’s probably not too late yet to get into it, but I wouldn’t wait much longer or else the plot will have progessed too far to fully understand what’s all going on.

Bones – FOX Tues 8pm
This show stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz. Deschanel plays the starring role of Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan. Boreanaz plays tough FBI guy Seeley Booth. These two work together (with the help of other’s in Bones’ lab) to solve crimes – using bones as the starting point. Think CSI – except without cool gadgets. Lots of bones. Though there is a cool holograph thing that they seem to enjoy using. This is based on a Canadian author’s works whose name escapes me at the moment. Jen knows it, maybe she’ll comment.

My Name Is Earl – NBC Tues 9pm
Okay, I first saw commercials for this during NASCAR races – really the PERFECT place to promote this show about a redneck loser. The commercials didn’t really explain exactly what it was about, but it did star Jason Lee. I was really on the fence on this one. The commercials made it look stupid, but it has Jason Lee. Lee has been outrageously funny in almost everything I have seen him in (which is pretty much all Kevin Smith flicks). So I decided to check it out. We’re two episodes in and it’s a pretty funny show. Ethan Surplee co-stars as Lee’s not-so-bright brother. For those who don’t know/remember, Ethan Surplee played the part of Willam in Mallrats – the dude trying to see the stereogram picture. It’s hard to say if this show is going to make it or not. We’ll see…

Invasion – ABC Wed 10pm
The first episode of this new series benefitted following the season premiere of Lost. This story centers around a hurricane that rocked Florida. But was it really a hurricane? Or was it a cover for some type of unknown (alien???) activity. All is not well in the everglades. It’s an interesting show. We’ll probably keep watching simply because we can record it but I’m not too terribly into it yet. I think that it’s strong Lost lead-in will keep the viewers from switching to Law & Order (or whatever Fox & CBS are showing) so it should at least make it through the season.

Reunion – FOX Thurs 9pm
This is most definitely another one of those ‘unique’ series that FOX is trying. It worked for 24 so let’s modify it a bit and try again. Both Nikki & I were skeptical at first, but have found that we actually enjoy it. The unique part of this series is each episode deals with the lives of six high school friends post graduation. Each episode is essentially a year of their life. The first one starts in 1986. The second one is ’87 and so on. It also mixes in clips from the present as there is an attempt to solve the homicide of one of the friends in present day. Another refreshing show. It’s in a tough time slot though, competing with Survivor. Hopefully it makes it – we want to know whodunnit.

Okay, that seems to do it for the new shows. I thought there were a lot more than that. Guess I was wrong.

I was going to do all the shows in one post. But I’ve changed my mind. I’ll make another post in a bit about the returning shows. Probably sometime Friday or Saturday. By then all the shows we watch will have returned and it will a complete post.