Hart of Dixie - Pilot, S01E01

The thing about train wrecks is that while they are horrible, you simply can't look away. Hart of Dixie didn't even have that going for it. Again, like A Gifted Man, I found myself slugging through the episode out of a sense of duty. I WILL watch all drama premieres, regardless of whether or not I think I will like them. Sometimes they surprise you. The surprise I got with Hart of Dixie was how bloody awful it was.

I hated Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson)! I completely agreed with her chief of staff - the girl had the bedside manner of a newt. Perhaps that is an insult to newts.

She was just a boring, idiotic, stuck-up and self-centred twit. How am I supposed to like a character like that? Granted many of the other people in the town were equally jerks, but when the lead isn't likable, we have a problem.

Plus, as a girl who grew up in a small town, I don't like the backwaters way we're being represented. I mean, sure, Zoe's judgments are presented to make her look like a bigot (again, not a word I should be using for the hero), but Lemon Breeland (Jaime King) is so much the stereotypical former prom queen that still thinks she's awesome cause she never left home cliche I couldn't stand it. And what kind of a stupid name for a girl like that is LEMON.

So all I can say is terrible! Come on, CW, Hellcats was way better than this. And so is Nikita! If you are going to cancel something, at least replace it with a show I would consider an improvement. No wonder One Tree Hill keeps getting renewed. And Hart of Dixie is not the next One Tree Hill.

Boardwalk Empire - 21, S02E01 - Premiere

The return of Boardwalk Empire didn't feel so much like a return as a continuation. It's back on, I'm back to watching it to find out what happens next, and it's continuing the story from about where we left off. As an episode, it was what we expect, but as a premiere it was a bit dry.

The set up for the season happened in the season finale. Nucky (Steve Buscemi) is still running Atlanta, while his brother Eli (Shea Whigham) and the boy he raised, Jimmy (Michael Pitt), may or may not be conspiring to take it all away from him. By the end of the episode, I remained unsure of which course of action they planned to take.

Nucky's relationship with Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) remains strained. Clearly neither of them is actually getting what they want out of it, though I'm not sure of exactly what that is. But they are in a much healthier relationship than what Agent Nelson (Michael Shannon) has going on with his wife, or with the chick he knocked up.

There was a fair amount going on, especially in regards to the racial conflicts of Black and White communities, but it's not until the end that something tangible really happened. And I'm not even sure where they are going to take Nucky's arrest for fixing an election.

I'm happy to keep watching this show, as I do like it very much, but I was a little disappointed that the premiere didn't stand out from an average episode of the series.

The Playboy Club - Cancelled

The Playboy Club was the first series this season to get cut after only 3 episodes, soon followed by Free Agents, a sitcom. Both were produced by NBC, a network with constant complaints from fans who say they don't give shows a chance. But the ratings for The Playboy Club were lower than the decolletage of the bunnies, so you can't really blame them.

I truly enjoyed the pilot of this show, and found it has a lot more going for it than most of the other shows which premiered this season. A lot of people who saw the pilot liked it, in fact. Too bad so few people watched in the first place. If you start low, you aren't getting any higher. It takes a lot of buzz and interest for ratings to grow, and if your pilot gives numbers that are likely to get it cancelled, no one new is going to check you out.

I didn't even get around to seeing the second episode yet, and now I doubt I'll both with it or the third, but that decision probably came before the show was cancelled. I didn't watch it when it was on - it was in competition with Castle - and when it came time to choose what I would watch in my spare time, The Playboy Club simply didn't get priority. Who's going to make the effort for something that's not even going to get it's 13-episode order on the air?

What are your feelings on this shows cancellation?