Since I’ve been talking non-stop on the economy these past few posts, I am delighted to say that “YES! TV is back! And with a bang!” I finally have something else to talk about! Not that politics and the economy and other issues aren’t exciting anymore, but I’ve just been watching a lot of really great shows, old and new, and they’ve made me enthusiastic enough to push all that news brouhaha aside and get this blog back on track with the stuff I love talking about.

The cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, back for its sophomore season.
First and foremost, old shows that have come back: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, premiered last week. We all knew that Cameron was going to live (I mean, hello? How do you kill off Summer Glau, the awesomest Terminator ever?), so there was really no “Oh, whaddaya know?!” moment when she ended up emerging alive from the truck wreckage. However, it was corny to me how that awful rock n’ rolla music was playing in the background for like, 3 minutes while Cameron started to walk back up to the house. It was in horrible slo-mo too, and it was just so cheesy that I think I rolled my eyes enough to dry them up and had to go put some eyedrops in. But thank heavens some brilliant writer figured to add in a twist and she ended up coming back with a screw loose and intended to terminate Sarah and John. It was a fairly good season premiere; not as explosive as the first season, of course, but that is to be expected, I guess. Sophomore seasons are usually pretty tough on fledgling shows [see Prison Break, Gossip Girl] but with Terminator’s addition of the awesome Shirley Manson [from the band Garbage] to the roster, I’m sure this season will be pretty badass.

The cast of Greek on ABC Family
Another returning show is Greek, which I am absolutely in love with. See, I’ve been told that I watch politics a lot and that I seem to have too many opinions on things that matter, and that I need to enjoy Will Ferrell movies more (which I don’t intend to do, thank you), but I think that Greek makes the case for me that I’m not all that much of a bore. Greek is every bit the mindless fun that you want on your primetime viewing schedule, and I don’t mean that in an insulting way. When I say mindless, I mean that the humor isn’t crude or sarcastic like say, Real Time with Bill Maher, another show I happen to enjoy. The humor is clever, fun and current, you know, in the sense that it’s in a language that everyone speaks (e-speak, I call it, and it’s not the language you use to text, but the kind of language only young people can understand). Also, by mindless, I’m alluding to the fact that it’s a show centered around the Greek system: fraternities and sororities. It basically dives into all the stereotypes that are true for both groups: that they’re all about parties, drinking and slacking off in college. What I like about this show, though, is that the characters are really interesting, and the decisions they make often irritating but confounding in a good way. I like that the characters are all likeable, and that there’s just no one character that everyone hates. Also, with all the shows that feel like they need to end with cliffhanger episodes, it’s nice to actually watch a show whose episode controversies are resolved by 9:59pm. I also like the way they bring in new cast members. They don’t give them grand entrances or give them spectacular lines, they make them as relatable as can be, and so as an audience member you really feel like you’re developing an attraction to them. And finally, the songs on this show are pretty cool. They used Earlimart once and that really impressed me.

The cast of one of the best shows EVER, Mad Men, in an awesome Vanity Fair shoot.
One of my favorite shows of last fall was Mad Men, and the first couple episodes weren’t very spectacular, in the sense that they didn’t have the same pizzazz as the first season, but they were still very well-written, very visually-arresting, and of course, it’s always good to have the characters back. The nice thing about this show is that it was able to show that some changes happened after the last season finished. They set it up well and made sure that it was apparent to viewers that a year had gone by after the last season, and that the characters were changed somehow. For instance, Betty now takes up horseback riding, Peggy starts her new position as junior copy writer and she does end up keeping her baby (well, not technically, since her mom and sister take care of it), Joan Holloway is engaged and Sterling-Cooper gets a television department. One thing I didn’t like about this season was Don’s involvement with Bobbie, a manager of comedian Jimmy Barrett, a client of Sterling-Cooper. It irks me that Don keeps playing around behind Betty’s back (but that’s just the female in me, of course, nothing against the writers), but it was great when they had the episode where Don and Bobbie run into Rachel (who, if you remember, was one of Don’s conquests last season that came close to becoming an elopement) at a restaurant and Rachel gives him this look that is just so on point that I felt like screaming “YES! YOU TELL HIM!” at the top of my lungs. And also, I love that this show is so artistic. What I mean by this is that the writers have so much faith in their material and in their actors that they don’t even bother writing lines for certain scenes. They’d much rather demonstrate the gravity of a situation through actions or pictures. I love that they use metaphors a lot in this show. It’s so intelligent and refreshingly clever, and I feel like AMC is perfect for this show in ways HBO could not have been.
Another comeback that was spectacular? SNL of course! Tina Fey came back to play Sarah Palin, and it was spot on. Amy Poehler, of course, was equally hilarious. I think that segment will make history as one of the most watched and most buzzed about episodes in SNL history. Very well-written, well-portrayed, and the audience was obviously hungry for some Fey.

Charlie Hunnam, the star of the new FX show, Sons of Anarchy.
On to the newcomers in primetime. My new obsession is Sons of Anarchy on FX. Okay, so I’ll admit that the reason I got drawn to this show was because of Charlie Hunnam. I am obsessed with him, and have been obsessed with him since Abandon and Nicholas Nickleby. He’s a really good actor, and it helps that he’s really good-looking too. I’ve noticed in his movies that he’s really intense, and I wanted to see how he would play this rough-and-tumble, tough-talking member of a California biker group called Sons of Anarchy when he has starred in a film like Nicholas Nickleby, of course, based on the Charles Dickens novel, a completely opposite character of Jackson in this new show. At first I was a little skeptical when it started because I could see that he actually changed the way he walked so it looked more tough and rough, and as someone who actually knows who this guy is and has seen him play completely different roles, I was surprised at first. Later on I came to realize just how great of an actor he is. Now, enough about Charlie Hunnam! Sons of Anarchy, I think, is one of the really true gems in this fall line-up. It’s dramatic, well-written, perfectly-cast, riveting, but also soft and poignant when needed. I never thought I would be interested in a show like this. I mean, I’ve never been into films that were big on bikes or gangs and violence, but this one is actually different. It gives you an insider’s perspective into the way things work. Normally, the movies that are made about gangs are outsider stuff–for instance, they represent gangs or exclusive biker clubs like these from an outsider’s perspective. Sons of Anarchy shows how these gangs operate, how intelligent they are and how organized, and they also show that they are real people, with senses of humor and charm. I also like that they are character-driven and that they don’t rely on being flashy and promoting senseless violence. Also, coincidentally, the actress who played Rachel in a show I talked about before, Mad Men, Maggie Siff, is part of this show! I really like her and I think she’s a very eloquent actress. Other members of the awesome cast include Ron Perlman, Theo Rossi, Mark Boone Jr., the awesome Katey Sagal, and the seriously underrated Johnny Lewis. Got nothing to do next Wednesday? Watch Sons of Anarchy!

Ana Paquin and Stephen Moyer of the new HBO series, True Blood.
Another new show I am absolutely obsessed with is HBO’s True Blood. Now, when I found out that Ana Paquin was going to be in it, I was turned off by the show. She’s not my favorite actress, and seriously, her Rogue in X-Men was downright ridiculous and a little much, to be honest. But I figured I’d give it a chance, since it is about vampires, and it is created by Alan Ball, the genius behind Six Feet Under and American Beauty. Seriously, I’m beginning to think this guy can do no wrong. Also, it piqued my interest because at Comic-Con this year, there were posters everywhere of this drink called True Blood, and I seriously thought that it was an actual drink that was like, cherry-flavored or something. I actually went online to try and find the thing, and found out it was a show! Here’s where I ended up: http://www.trubeverage.com. So definitely great job to HBO for marketing this show, and props to whoever thought about the concept, since it was very clever. This show is set at a time when Japanese scientists develop synthetic blood for retail, True Blood, which now enables vampires to walk around like average, everyday people (only at night, of course). The story revolves around Sookie Stackhouse [Paquin], a regular waitress at a small town in Louisiana, who befriends a vampire, Bill Compton [Stephen Moyer]. I think it’s really interesting that they pitched the whole vampires-walking-around-like-normal-people thing as a minority war of some sort. They showed clips of vampires going on Larry King or something clamoring for more rights and less discrimination. I thought it was a very novel idea and one that was very well-incorporated in the first couple of episodes. The show is very explicit, so some people might be a little perturbed by the amount of nudity in it (although let’s be clear that The L Word still tops every list of shows with most nude scenes per episode), although the fact that it revolves around vampires should be disclaimer enough. I like that the humor is very straight to the point, and that’s what I like about HBO and FX–there’s no beating around the bush, and the characters (no matter how larger than life) can actually come across as normal people. I still think Ana Paquin is a little annoying as Sookie, but then she kind of reminds me of when Sarah Michelle Gellar was starting out as Buffy, and I hope that as the show goes on she will get better. Now, there is something to be said about the cute boys on this show. Stephen Moyer is perfectly cast as the vampire lead of this show. He’s definitely got the whole mysterious look going for him, and it helps that he’s sort of an unknown actor [The Starter Wife, and the lesser-known Prince Valiant with Katherine Heigl]. Also, a lot of parallels with Buffy, which I assume has some sort of inspiration for this show. David Boreanaz had the same thing going for him, in that he was a virtual unknown (he was discovered while walking his dog down the streets of New York) and it really helps when viewers don’t know who the heck you are and you just show up and you’re spectacularly good-looking. Ryan Kwanten (who plays Sookie’s brother, Jason) is also very much the eye candy. Anyway, enough of the crush talking. This show is really very well-written. It’s hilarious, it’s creepy, intriguing, and definitely a show that sets itself apart from what’s on TV today.
And finally, Fringe. Now, I’m not totally sold on this show yet, but I’m giving it a chance. I had seen the pilot when it had leaked on the net months before, and I had been sorely disappointed by what I had seen. I thought Anna Torv was miscast and I think she didn’t really do well as Olivia Dunham. She appeared charmless and unlikeable and even in the second episode, I found myself less and less riveted by her character and more and more welcoming of Peter [played by Joshua Jackson] and Walter [John Noble]. Fringe is basically The X-Files but exploring fringe science. I don’t care what anyone says, that’s what it is in a nutshell. Anyone who thinks it’s nothing like The X-Files is delusional. Creator J.J. Abrams said himself that the show was inspired by The X-Files and The Twilight Zone, and I think that the inspiration is very clear. Now, I’m not even going to waste my time by enumerating the various things about this show that are eerily similar to The X-Files, but I will say that this show is visually well-done. I liked the location stamps, although as the show goes on I find them rather irritating now. I think the set decorators and the prop and make-up department did a fine job pulling off the horror with the plane crash. I think that John Noble is great in this show, portraying sort of a mad scientist helping the FBI. One fundamental thing that this show has done differently than The X-Files, and which I will gladly give them credit for, is that it doesn’t seem to have the big over-arching storyline that The X-Files had well into seasons 6-9. I do think that the show tried a little bit too hard to make the characters interesting, and I feel like the writing may have been much sharper and less predictable, but I am intrigued enough to give the show a second chance. And of course, Lance Reddick is in it, so we’ll see if he does well enough on this show to leave Lost for.
That concludes my long post on TV’s fall comeback. I’m sure that as more shows come back for fall, such as Heroes, I’ll be blogging on TV topics more. Let’s just hope the TV line-ups continue to get more exciting so I won’t have to talk more about politics.

















































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![Bruce Wayne [Christian Bale] ponders his predicament in The Dark Knight.](http://l.yimg.com/img.movies.yahoo.com/ymv/us/img/flickr/96/95/002613399695.jpg?x=660&y=660&sig=9fgA1BKmvIbgHeSwUsT1Bw--)

