Quick thoughts on some of the ABC shows coming this fall

TV by the Numbers has a helpful post with embedded trailers for the new pilots that ABC has ordered and put into the fall schedule. I watched the ones that looked interesting to me, and here are my thoughts:

The Inhumans



The trailer doesn't show anything, but I'm a sucker for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Inhumans have been embedded into the story DNA of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a few seasons now, so I'm already invested.


Ten Days in the Valley



This stars Kyra Sedgewick as a single mom who's a writer for a TV cop show. Her daughter gets kidnapped, and somehow life starts imitating art - as in, the storylines that she's writing. I think I'm going to give this a pass. The trailer - at least, as much as I watched before deciding it's not for me - is pretty grim, and I don't think I want to sign on for a serial where the main storyline is "where's my child?" I mean, I did for the Ashley Judd-vehicle Missing, which turned out to be pretty good, but that ended well because the show lasted only half a season and tied up the main storyline. If Ten Days in the Valley is a hit, it'll get renewed.... I guess it's possible the writers will come up with a new hook for a second season, but it's still a pass.


The Crossing


 

This looks pretty weird. Bodies wash up on the shore, and 47 of them are alive. It appears that they are from the future(?). It kind of reminds of the Sci-Fi Channel series The 4400, which I liked a lot, so I'm willing to give this a try. As with all high-concept serialized dramas from ABC, however, one must factor in the risk of a strong start dragged down by too many out of control storylines - FlashForward is the prime offender in this category, but V, Lost, and others suggest it's a trend.


Deception


 

I'm normally not so much into crime of the week procedurals (Hawaii 5-0 being a notable exception, but that's more for the island scenery and the character banter than the actual mysteries), but this entry in the civilian with special skills helps law enforcement as a special consultant category looks polished. The civilian with special skills is an illusionist, making this sound like Castle with David Copperfield instead of Richard Castle. Well, I like watching magic acts, so I'll give this a try.


For the People



From Shonda Rhimes, this show pits fresh new Assistant U.S. Attorneys against fresh new Federal Public Defenders. Rhimes-produced shows are batting .500 for me - I like Scandal and (the canceled) The Catch, while I've never watched Grey's Anatomy and I quit How to Get Away with Murder after the pilot episode. .500 isn't a bad average for TV shows, but I tend not to like law related shows, especially ones that take themselves too seriously, so I think this is a pass for me.

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I'll continue to give quick and dirty thoughts on the new pilots for the other networks.

Fall 2015 TV: a disappointing new crop of shows so far

Not every TV season can be like fall 2001, which saw the debut of Fox's "24," ABC's "Alias," and CBS's "The Agency," not to mention - for reality TV junkies - CBS's "The Amazing Race." But so far, fall 2015 isn't even close.

I watched the pilot episode of Fox's "Minority Report" and decided that was enough for me.

Since then, I caught the second half of the NBC reboot "Heroes Reborn," which was very strange and also boring, although I didn't watch much of the original series, so perhaps there's something there for long-time fans. I watched that part of "Heroes Reborn" because I was waiting for NBC's "The Player," starring Philip Winchester and Wesley Snipes. It's another one of these "guy who helps out a different person each episode" kind of shows, maybe like CBS's "Person of Interest" with more unrealistic movie-style action. I thought it was okay, and Winchester (most recently on Cinemax's "Strike Back") does have screen presence. I didn't set a TiVo season pass, but if there's nothing else on, I could imagine watching an episode. There's a thread of an arc set up in the pilot episode, but it's mostly episodic, I think.

I tried CBS's "Limitless," which is set in the same world as the Bradley Cooper movie (and Cooper shows up briefly in it). I didn't see the movie, but I did read the novel that the movie is based on. This is about the drug NZT, which supposedly unlocks the full potential of your brain. Here too I found the pilot bland and dull.

Then there's NBC's "Blindspot," starring Jaime Alexander (Lady Sif in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), about an amnesiac woman who wakes up naked - well, covered in a burlap sack - with tattoos all over her body. Each tattoo is the key to unraveling the mystery plot of the week. This has shades of "The Blacklist," "Prison Break" (Michael Scofield had a huge network of tattoos inked on himself to help him with his prison break plot), and "The Bourne Identity." It's held up decently through two episodes, although I seriously doubt that there is any coherent explanation as to who inked her and why. I like these big concept shows, but ever since "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" demonstrated that their showrunners were making things up as they went along, I'm leery of expecting anything that holds together.

Finally, I watched the pilot episode of ABC's "Quantico," which is kind of like "How to Get Away With Murder" if it were set at the FBI Academy instead of law school, and terrorism instead of murder. It may verge on ridiculousness, but at least it's interesting. I'm mildly skeptical of what season 2 would look like, if there is a season 2, because I really don't want the terrorism flash-forward plot to drag out more than one season.

My recap of the fall 2014 TV season

Now that the fall 2014 TV season is over, pretty much all network shows are going into repeats or hiatus until after the new year, and in some cases, until late winter/early spring. Overall, I thought it was mildly disappointing even compared to recent years, and a far cry from the golden era of the mid-2000 decade, when "24," "Prison Break," "Lost," and "Battlestar Galactica" were all on the air at the same time.

New Shows

There were a number of new shows that I was excited about: "Gotham" (Fox), "How to Get Away With Murder" (ABC), and "Scorpion" (CBS). But "Gotham" ended up being too relentlessly grim and bleak for my tastes; since we know(?) how the show will end, Detective Gordon can't win against the bad guys, and things will just get worse and worse. It certainly seemed well-done, though.

The "How to Get Away With Murder" pilot was anything but boring. Unfortunately, included in "anything" was utter ridiculousness and a complete lack of any likeable characters. It's not that I expected it to be slavishly realistic about law and law school. One of the few law-related shows I enjoyed was "Boston Legal," which was hardly realistic. The difference is that "Boston Legal" didn't even pretend to be serious, whereas "How to Get Away With Murder" seemed to want to be taken seriously.

Finally, "Scorpion" was kind of like "Mission: Impossible" with all nerds + Katharine McPhee. It came across as a show about what Hollywood thinks geniuses are like.* It was okay, though implausible; but somewhere around the eight episode or so, I realized I'd had it running on the TV and had been paying no attention to it. I deleted the season pass and haven't missed it since.

* The scene in the Vegas episode where O'Brien defends himself in the bail hearing by arguing that it would be impossible to find a jury of his "peers" - meaning 190+ IQ persons - was kind of funny, I'll admit.

Oddly, the one new show that I've liked is one I wasn't planning on watching at first, and in fact, I missed its premiere; fortunately, it re-aired the following night. That would be "The Flash" (CW). Granted, as between Marvel and DC comics, I definitely prefer the former, and that bias is probably why I was going to pass on "The Flash." But it's actually a refreshing change from most superhero shows where the main character is brooding, damaged, etc. I just wish they would wrap up the unrequited love storyline....

There are some new shows debuting in the spring, but "Marvel's Agent Carter" is the only one I'm likely to give a chance. Besides, season 5 of "Justified" should be hitting Amazon Prime in a month or so, so I've got that to look forward to for any spare TV watching time.

Returning Shows

I've stuck with "Once Upon a Time" (now in season 4), "The Blacklist" (season 2), "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" (season 2), "Person of Interest" (season 4), "Survivor," "Scandal" (season 4), "Hawaii 5-0" (season 5), and "Grimm" (season 4).

I did watch a lot of "The Voice" as well, but my HD antenna was having trouble with the NBC feed for a while, and on top of it, I couldn't remember any of the contestants, which is not a good sign for a reality TV competition! I did like the episodes with Taylor Swift as the guest mentor, though. I'd come back to watch the show if they add her as a judge.

As for the rest, "SHIELD" seemed to continue the generally higher level of quality ever since the crossover with Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. "Person of Interest" too has gotten really good with the heavily serialized story arc of Samaritan vs. the Machine. "Hawaii 5-0" continues to offer outstanding scenery with a mash-up of "The Odd Couple" and the mystery of the week. "Grimm" has sent Trubel off somewhere, leaving it open for a possible spin-off, I suppose. And "Once Upon a Time" remains my favorite show on air right now, although I didn't think the winter finale had anywhere near the same impact as last winter's finale did. Then again, I continue to think last winter's finale should have been the series finale.

ABC's "How to Get Away With Murder": ridiculousness outweighs entertainment

I was very eager to watch the premiere of ABC's new law school/legal drama "How to Get Away With Murder," although I waited until after two episodes had aired before getting around to it. It's from the producers of "Scandal," which has managed to walk the fine line between ridiculousness and entertainment, so that was a point in its favor. In addition, I had once proposed to a law school colleague that we should create a pitch for a TV show that would be like "Beverly Hills 90210" set in law school; I figured this would be similar.

Unfortunately, while I found the pilot episode somewhat entertaining, it was so utterly ridiculous in its depiction of law school and law practice, and so lacking in any likeable characters, that I woke up the next morning and decided to delete the second episode and cancel my TiVo season pass. Here's why:

That NYT article about Shonda Rhimes

The New York Times stumbled badly with an article about TV producer Shonda Rhimes that described her at one point as an "angry black woman."

BuzzFeed has a long column that explains why the Times' TV criticism is "so bad." The "too long, didn't read" version is that, like everything else about the Times, a combination of arrogance and elitism results in imposing its own worldview on everything, which in this case ended up with a reporter with no background or apparent interest in TV as the chief TV critic.

Rhimes, of course, is notable for having created/produced "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice," and "Scandal," and is one of the producers of "How to Get Away With Murder," which happened to be one of the subjects of the "angry black woman" article. All but "Private Practice" are still airing today on ABC (with "How to Get Away With Murder" having premiered last night).

I never watched "Grey's Anatomy" or "Private Practice" (medical soap operas just aren't in my preferred topic of TV shows), but I have seen every episode of "Scandal" through the first two seasons, and the premiere of "How to Get Away With Murder" is sitting on my TiVo. And I would say that "Scandal," at least, does not show anything remotely resembling an "angry black woman" - to the extent I even understand what that means. How exactly is an angry black woman different from an angry white or Asian or Latin woman? (Was Meredith Brooks' 1990s hit single "Bitch" about an angry woman?)

"Scandal" does star an African-American actress, Kerry Washington, as political fixer Olivia Pope. And Pope certainly does have a take-charge persona (except in the interminable scenes with the President), but I wouldn't describe her as "angry." She's not Ms. Spock, of course; she does get angry at times, but that is in reaction to events or circumstances. She is not existentially angry. So it is hard for me to see the Times article as anything but a lazy attempt to construct a narrative - "hey, this African-American woman has her hand in three shows all on Thursday night on ABC, how'd that happen? I know, she's parlayed the 'angry black woman' persona into something marketable!" It seems like the column says much more about the reporter and the Times than it does about Rhimes, or TV.

"Orphan Black" has a science consultant named . . . Cosima!

BBC America's "Orphan Black," which is one of the few TV shows that I'm not going to be able watch live (or near live) after having cut the cord to cable TV, has a science consultant to help with questions about life sciences and cloning and the like.

And her name is Cosima!

I guess we know where the writers/producers got the idea for graduate student clone Cosima in the show.

Hmm, I wonder if Shonda Rhimes needs a TV loving law prof to be a law school consultant for the upcoming TV series "How to Get Away With Murder" ....