Prime Suspect - Pilot, S01E01

Although it's quite rough around the edges, I actually found myself enjoying this show by the end of the pilot. Unfortunately, I really don't get the premise. Hardworking female cop utterly surrounded by bully males? Are you kidding me? Affirmative action and sexual discrimination suits would be all over this thing.

Jane Timoney (Maria Bello) is a tough-as-nails cop trying to do her job well and coming up against a lot off resistance from the men she works with. They could have played it that she doesn't have the greatest of people skills, refuses to back down when she believes she's right, and won't ever cater to someone else's ego - those things are actually still true, but the impression given as to why she's having such a hard time at work isn't because she's a bitch but because the guys she works with are all sexist dicks.

And that's also one of the problems with the show. All the characters are jerks. You have a hard time liking most of them, even Jane who's the hero. By the end of the pilot, I liked her, but that was because there was method to her madness. Her ways work, they achieved the goals necessary, and she never compromises who she is or what her values are to get these things. That doesn't mean that I don't understand why other people would have such issues with her. The rest of the characters continued to come off as either dicks or putzes.

So, while the show is decently done and probably has an interesting and possibly even worthwhile route to follow, it's not for me. Was it for you?

Terra Nova - Genesis 1 & 2, Pilot, S01E01-02

Amazing! I absolutely loved this show. Distopian future meets time travel meets fresh start with dinosaurs. Crazy and exactly the kind of premise I can get behind. Plus, with the right amount of emotional family connections and more than a dash of mystery, who wouldn't enjoy this show?

Granted the CGI dinosaurs aren't exactly amazing. It's like they tried a little too hard to make them awesome, but didn't quite have the budget, so they end up being more mediocre than they would have been if less effort had been involved. Also, the Carnisaurus (aka Meat-a-saurus) and the Slashers aren't any kind of dinosaur that I've ever heard of. But let's not interfere with creativity when it is so much fun.

We started with a family, husband and wife and 3 kids, all thrilled to pieces over an orange, once again a rare treat. I couldn't help but wonder whether they would be able to make the peel into candy after they ate the fruit as 19th century settlers to North America used to do. But the thrill of the orange is forgotten when population control shows up, and we discover that a family is four and not five people. The world is a horrid place, the environment destroyed, the sky and air disgusting.

After this quickly introduced desolation, our heroes are offered a chance to go to Terra Nova, a place of hope far away from the world they now live in. Problem is, Dad's in jail and the youngest child who's not supposed to exist anyway isn't welcome. There was quite a lot of tension in the segment leading up to the travel through the time-rift into the past. Part of me hoped for a division between where they were going and where they had been. I would love to know more about this terrible picture of our future. Certainly we will learn more about it as our characters relate their new experiences as shocking and in other such ways, but I've always loved a good story about a distopian future.

Nevertheless, once through to 85 million years ago, the show continued to impress me. First off, they quickly explained some sciency thing about the probe sent through which apparently proved these passengers were in an alternate timeline, and that killing a butterfly would not change the future. I'm not entirely sure if this is to lull us into a false sense of security, or if it was an easy way to stop people from complaining about it.

Next, they also dealt with the crimes of our hero family like civilized people, and not like petit fonctionaires. No one cared anymore if there were 3 children instead of 2, and as long as all the people who showed up were useful, then that was good enough.

Finally, there was quite a bit of mystery. For instance, who are these 6ers? This secondary band which split from the main group could truly want to harm our heroes, or they might have very different motivations. Also, what is the deal with the symbols carved on the rock by the missing scientist. What does that all mean?

I can't wait to see this show again next week and to find out what is going to happen.

Person of Interest - Pilot, S01E01

Finally a pilot worth watching! I was beginning to despair for the new series being launched this Fall that almost none of them would be worth the time it takes to watch them. That said, Person of Interest is more likely to go on my list of Shows I Might Watch At Some Point rather than the Shows I MUST Watch NOW list. Still, I give it praise because I am interested in seeing more.

The premise was a lot more interesting than I originally thought. The cameras watching everyone, evaluating their intentions, and dismissing the potential evil of or danger to anyone if it did not reach 9/11 proportions, made far more sense than I expected. Big Brother is watching, but he only cares if what you are going to do will hurt a lot of people. Small scale doesn't bother him.

And that is where the main characters come in. Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson) designed the Big Brother machine, and told it to dismiss the little things, but through some tragedy we will hopefully discover in the future, he began to care about those so-called "irrelevant" issues. Having more money and time than he needs or cares about, he hired John Reese (James Caviezel) to prevent these bad things from happening. Reese gets a job from the deal, and a purpose of trying to save people. Both of these men are missing parts of their souls after devastating circumstances and it will be interesting to see as the series progresses how much their accomplishments help to fill that hole.

It's clever, it's intriguing, it's interesting, and it is a little different from the other shows out there. Certainly worth checking out.

A Gifted Man - Pilot, S01E01

What a terrible, terrible show. I didn't like the main character at all, the person who somewhat redeems him and is his love interest is dead, and his decision to see a medium to try to rid himself of this haunting made no sense for such a strong believer in science.

This is a rule that shows should not break: Don't try to get me invested in a romantic relationship where one half of the party is dead! Unless of course the dead one is a vampire or something of that sort...But not a ghost! Not simply dead. I have no interest in caring about a character I know isn't going to be around much, or isn't ever going to be able to BE ALIVE.

And if that rule being broken wasn't enough to prevent me from becoming interested, nothing else was going on anyway. The medical stuff that usually can entertain regardless of character plot lines, like murder investigations in cop shows, was so secondary that I couldn't care. He's a doctor, but the pilot didn't focus on that; it's simply the career he chose. So we didn't really get to see any cool medical science.

All we got were grumpy people being nasty to one another and really not helping in situations which were going badly, the impression that people are all pretty stupid and do very little to preserve their own lives, and the reminder that when it comes to love, most people wait until it's too late or leave too soon. Why would any of that interest me?

The Big Bang Theory - The Shank Reflex Analysis, S05E01 and The Infestation Hypothesis, S05E02

Oh The Big Bang Theory, the one and only half-hour sitcom that I watch. I am usually so annoyed by the constant onslaught of jokes, most of which are not particularly funny and only there because the premise necessitates continual attempts at humour rather than simply being amusing when one really can be. Yet, as in all previous season, The Big Bang Theory makes me laugh without seeming to try too hard.

First order of business - addressing the Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) cliffhanger. Alright, so they didn't actually have sex, but that wasn't from lack of trying or intention...it just didn't get that far. And I was a little surprised that Penny wasn't a little more upset over Leonard (Johnny Galecki) finding out since I had recalled she was aware she still had feelings for him. I was disappointed that he didn't realize that he still had feelings for her. But perhaps that is just the part of me that continues not to like Priya (Aarti Mann) particularly.

That said, I am happy about the direction of season 5 which reportedly is not going to focus so much on the relationships as on the goofy adventures of our favourite scientists and the women who deign to have them in their lives.

Of course, the tension between Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) and Howard (Simon Helberg) over her being more successful that him seems to have been forgotten, and much as I don't mind less drama, I do hate when plots are dropped.

My favourite moment was the prolonged make out between Raj and Howard. Okay, so they were not actually kissing each other, just using fake mouths connected via the internet...not, other than the lack of germ transmission, they were totally making out and it was hilarious.

Otherwise, I laughed, I loved it, and I can only hope that Sheldon (Jim Parsons)'s neuroses will continue to be a little more logical than they were getting in season 4. What are your hopes and expectations?

Charlie's Angels - Pilot, Angel with a Broken Wing, S01E01

What is with all the premieres this fall? Is it just me, or are a lot of them mediocre and lacking anything that will give them staying power? I suppose many people don't have the same tastes as me, but it's hard to believe that Charlie's Angels is going to get a big and faithful audience.

It was really cheesy, in that 1970s I'm reminiscing about the original Charlie's Angels but trying to make it up to date and somehow accomplishing neither kind of way. It lacked the sweetness of nostalgia while keeping silly storytelling devices that do not work anymore. And amid that campyness, it just got way more serious than I wanted to deal with when we watched one Angel be tortured.

Certainly, I was surprised when within the first 5 minutes, one of the Angels was killed in a giant explosion. A clear reminder that these women are replaceable, and hopefully an indication that the odds are going to be serious. Except that shortly after, when a man with a machine gun riddled a boat the girls were on full of bullets, not one shot so much as grazed an arm. I'm sorry, but if you dive off a boat and someone is shooting up the water, it's quite likely you will get hurt. I was disappointed that they all got away clean from that.

I also simply can't relate to these girls. They have a past that is not perfect, but they are beautiful and highly capable and not able to feel grief for very long so life is really just a big party. That's not my life, and I'm not sure why I would want to watch someone else live it.

It's possible, again, that audiences will like this show more than I did, but it simply did not have what a good show needs in 2011.