Fall TV

Okay, okay. Friends have been asking for my recommendations for fall television viewing, and I haven't written much about the topic (except for reality TV favorites). It's already well into the season, but perhaps it's not too late to join in on shows already in progress. You can always catch up via reruns and DVD releases later on, anyway. Here's what I know:

ABC
New shows: I watched an episode each of Ugly Betty and The Nine. Neither of them is in my weekly DVR lineup (gotta limit how much TV I watch, ya know), but I really enjoyed them both. The latter especially has an intriguing premise: we watch in the premiere as a bank robbery takes place and then flash forward to 52 hours later as the robbers are captured and the hostages released. We don't know exactly what has occurred during the interim, but the following episodes reveal those details a little at a time. Why are this person and this person so close now when they were strangers beforehand? Why are this person and this person so distant now when they were in love when they entered the bank that fateful day? Why can this person remember nothing from the incident, and why won't her dad (who was there with her) talk about it? And why did this person have a swatch of her hair cut off during her time inside the bank? Weird and promising.

Returning shows: Dancing with the Stars is interesting. Celebrities are coupled with professional ballroom dancers, learn a new style of dance each week, and try to wow the judges and the voting viewing public so that they may return the next week. Co-host Tom Bergeron's humor is enticing, and the drama concerning participant Sara Evans recently added spice to the show.

Desperate Housewives is regaining the unusual combination of humor, drama, and mystery that it featured its first season but lost last year. I don't watch Boston Legal regularly, but the occasional episodes that I have sampled are always entertaining. Candice Bergen, William Shatner, and James Spader are hilariously quirky. Lost still surprises me, keeps me on the edge of my seat, and makes me care for characters one week whom I disliked the week before. And Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is always good if you need a feel-good cry/emotional release.

CBS
You ought to be watching The Amazing Race on Sunday nights if you're not already. It's highly addictive and easy to get into at any point of the season. Enjoy the adventure of couples racing around the world, engaging in local challenges in each country, outwitting one another, bickering with their partners, and hoping to win $1 million in the end.

I started with the new series Jericho but dropped it due to lack of time. I enjoyed it, however, and its ratings continue to rise. The scenario: what if residents of a middle-American city discover that they may be the sole survivors of a nuclear war?

NBC
I watched one episode of Kidnapped and enjoyed it for its combo of dark writing and dark acting. A wealthy couple's son is kidnapped, and the search lasts throughout the season. Along the way, secrets are revealed about everyone connected to the kidnap victim or to the search itself. Intriguing. I watched a couple episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and found the writing smart and the acting appealing. It's a behind-the-scenes look at the efforts to rejuvenate a late-night comedy/variety show on a fictional network (clear parallel to NBC and Saturday Night Live). Too little viewing time in my week prevents me from committing to either show for the long haul, however. I have yet to sample the new trivia competition 1 vs. 100, but I've read good things about it, so I plan to (if only for one episode). The contestant faces 100 opponents. He/she must answer every question correctly and hope to outsmart the 100 on the way to the $1 million top prize. And I haven't watched Friday Night Lights, but critics have hailed it as the best new drama of the fall and a surprise for anyone expecting your typical "feel good" celebration of American high school football culture. Might be worth sampling.

Two new shows that are on my weekly DVR list are Heroes and 30 Rock. Heroes actually shocks me from week to week! What if a handful of people from around the world suddenly awoke with powers such as flying, reading minds, or stopping time? This is not a stereotypical superhero show in which these folks adopt alter egos and take up crime fighting. Instead, they struggle to come to terms with their new powers, all the while escaping dark forces that target them because of their powers. Spooky! 30 Rock stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin--'nough said.

FOX
Move along, people. Nothing to see here.

Okay, nothing currently on here to see. 24 won't return until January to tell, one hour per week, another harrowing real-time tale in the dangerous life of secret agent Jack Bauer. Celebrity Duets was entertaining (pairing non-singing celebrities with singing superstars in a weekly sing-off against other duos), but its season has ended. So You Think You Can Dance hasn't started its new season yet, but we enjoyed watching that from time to time last season as hopeful dancers compete for the top spot.

CW
This new network, a hybrid of UPN and WB, is the new home of Veronica Mars, one of the most excellent shows in television history. It's smart and sassy, like me (ha!). The last two seasons, Veronica was a high school student whom classmates and adults often turned to for part-time detective services. Invariably, the cases she solved turned out to be bigger deals than at first they seemed, and her sleuthing usually outsmarted that of local authorities on big cases involving murder. Now she's a college freshman, and she's navigating the waters of university life while working to uncover the identity of a college rapist. A quirky mix of seriousness, mystery, comedy, and young adult life. Watch it!

FX
The next season of The Shield will be in the spring sometime, most likely. It's a riveting, dark, addicting look at some intriguing characters portrayed by excellent actors. The central character, Vic, is a cop out to get "the bad guys" and willing to resort to illegal means to capture them--and if there's a way for him to profit while taking down the criminals, all's the better. Does the end justify the means? And how do those who work with or against Vic change as a result? I'm not a fan of cop shows or crime procedurals as a rule, but the writing, acting, and production values of this show have me sucked in.

SciFi
If you're not watching Battlestar Galactica because you don't "do" science fiction shows, then you're sadly underestimating this show and how it's reshaping that genre of television. I speak as though I'm a long-time fan, but really, besides having watched the pilot and a handful of episodes here and there, I have not been a viewer until this weekend when I caught up on the episodes that recently kick-started season 3. And if I can become addicted this quickly and understand the backstory this clearly with so little experience before now, so can you! In this version of life in the universe, humans have colonized a planet called Caprica and created robots called Cylons to serve them. Over time, Cylons evolved into beings sophisticated enough to rebel against their makers and demand autonomy. In seasons 1 and 2, they attacked Caprica and forced the surviving humans--the lone representatives of the human race--to take to their spaceships (the lead one named Battlestar Galactica) on a race to evade the Cylons and find the mythical home planet called Earth. When I started watching this weekend, the humans had colonized a habitable planet they called New Caprica, only to be occupied by invading Cylons who hoped to co-exist. Their treatment of the humans, however, has clear parallels to major events in our own history: the American occupation of Iraq, the Germans' treatment of Jews during World War II, etc. It kept me on the edge of my seat with its bold storytelling, its realistic reimagining of the human story in this universe, and its intriguing characterization. I highly recommend it.