TV’s Mid Season Recap

December 9, 2006 | Justin

In my Fall season preview article I outlined an extremely large plate of TV that I was looking forward to this season. While a lot of returning favorites were on the list, there were quite a few newcomers as well. How well did they all fair? What am I still watching? Take a walk with me.

Monday’s proved to be exactly what NBC has needed for a number of years. Their new shows Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip have both received a fair share of critical acclaim. Ok, I guess I’m being modest. Studio 60 has received a quite impressive list of critical acclaim and Heroes has become the most successful new show on television. Both live up to hype.

Heroes follows various “super heroes” from around the world who are all discovering their new abilities and are being drawn together to “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.” This show brings back the comic book fan from my childhood and draws me in with the excitement of a serial drama with a touch of comedy thanks to the Hero character. That’s his name, really.

Studio 60 has far surpassed any expectations I had at the beginning of the season and is quickly becoming the single best show on TV. It carries a sense of humor that is witty and brilliantly penned but at the same time elevates itself from most television dramas to a place that few shows have ever reached. It was a shame a few weeks back when rumors circulated the internet that Studio 60 was going to be canned by NBC for lackluster ratings. In fact, it’s almost impossible to fathom that each week CSI: Miami almost doubles the viewers of Studio 60. Though NBC, almost the next day, ordered a full season. It may have been pressure from the critics but I’d like to hope NBC has more faith in this show then that as Studio 60 could easily be on for a very long time.

I don’t actually watch any live television on Tuesday — well if I do it’s a rare occurrence. However I do utilize the trusty DVR and watch Tuesday programing at my connivence. At the beginning of the season there was a lot of stuff I was considering watching on Tuesday nights. Though here at the midway point only one show has survived and that is the trusty Veronica Mars.

After renting the first season of Veronica Mars over the summer I have been hooked. Season three brought Veronica and the gang into their college years and, as creator Rob Thomas puts it, a growing up of the show. This was done in part to revamp the show as well as pick up the ratings. Moving to the new CW network was a crap shoot for Veronica Mars. An initial order of only 13 episodes was given with the understanding that if the viewers didn’t turn out, the show would be pulled. I’m not sure if it was the writing or the lead-in from the Gilmore Girl’s audience but something worked and this Fall Veronica saw the highest ratings of it’s entire series run. An entire story arc was wrapped up in the 9 episode fall run that involved Veronica solving a campus rape case. At the very end of the episode a lead-in to the second half arc was presented with a dead university dean. The future is looking bright for Veronica and that’s a good thing because the show is just quirky enough to be enjoyable.

Everyone knows that Wednesday’s belong to LOST and, well they still do but with a slight hesitation. Don’t get me wrong I love the show but I guess my hopes for the special six episode Fall season were too high. I was hoping for some sort of complete story arc but instead received little substance until the final two episodes. Those two episodes however restored my faith in the show — or is it the island? — and will tide me over until the end of January when the show returns for it’s uninterrupted run.

We left our castaways with the life of Ben (who although appears to be in charge of The Others seemingly takes his orders from a guy named Jacob who has yet to be introduced) in the hands of Jack who has basically given up his life to save Kate and Swayer — oh and Eko died. That’s pretty much what took six hours of multimillion dollar programing gets you. Sure, other things happened like Desmond discovered some sort of weird ability he may or may not have had pre-hatch meltdown and Locke returned to his sweet take-no-crap prior self, but we’re more or less back where we started. January will be big though, hopefully.

Thursday is another day that NBC, at least as of last week, has finally done right. The “Must See” comedy block has returned with My Name is Earl, which I’ve lost complete interest in, followed by long standing favorites The Office and Scrubs — and new show 30 Rock is thrown in as well.

This season The Office saw Jim leave the branch to avoid Pam and through a branch closing and subsequent merger come back with a new girlfriend. The hilarity of the show this season has been wrapped around Michael dealing with his new employees. At one point the transfers were all standing on a table to emphasize that everyone is to be treated equally (right), he outed a homosexual employee and locked the entire staff in the conference room with the idea of showing them that their job is better then prison.

Scrubs has been back for only two episodes but is in it’s full form. I mean, how can a show not be funny when Dr. Cox throw’s an entire plate of spaghetti on a three year old’s head in order to show him what it feels like. There is some weird stuff going on with everyone having a kid except Elliot but it’s hard to find fault with anything Scrubs does — or the music they utilize in each episode.

As you can see the list has been slimmed down considerably. There have been other shows that I have gotten into throughout the season but have lost interest in or were canceled. Standoff on Tuesday was mildly interesting until the World Series interrupted it by about a month. After that I just didn’t care anymore. Surprisingly Kidnapped was a great show that was canceled after five episodes. With credit to NBC, however, they decided to have the writers finish the story arc in 13 episodes and will, at some point, air the remaining episodes on NBC.com. The Nine, which ABC had following LOST held my interest for about 1.2 shows. It has since been canceled. ABC’s Daybreak, which replaced LOST’s 9pm Wednesday time-slot, has been pretty entertaining and has hooked me. It’s been designed as a 13 week filler until LOST returns. Hopefully it lasts that long. Another of ABC’s shows, Six Degrees, has disappeared from the schedule. Unfortunately I don’t think the network ever had much faith in this show even though it was on a level of it’s own — much like Studio 60. I hope it returns in the Spring but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’ve also thrown in a few Discovery Channel shows, thanks to the DVR like Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, and newcomer Man vs. Wild. While most shows have gone into hibernation for the Christmas break I get to catch up with Entourage on DVD. Spring will bring the return of all of these shows and potentially a few more to add to the mix. Most importantly day six of 24. Enough said.

That’s a good way to end it. Can you tell I’m tired?

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24, Heroes, LOST, Scrubs, The Office, TV, Veronica Mars