Pan Am - Pilot, S01E01

It starts with a gimick - who doesn't want to watch a show about 4 gorgeous women in the 60s breaking out from traditional roles to do something wonderful like travel the world. And then we add substance - what does it truly mean to have a life where you are always going to a new place, where the only thing you can count on is change? Add some CIA intregue and a dash of romance and broken hearts, and you have a show that I can't wait to watch every week.

Sure, the characters are pretty stereotypical. Maggie (Christina Ricci) wants to do more than travel the world - she wants to change it. And she's not going to conform to expectations or the rules either. Colette (Karine Vanasse) is the exotic flavour, a french girl who favours surprises as long as they aren't that the man she was sleeping with is married. Then we have sisters, Laura (Margot Robbie) who ran away from home and her wedding to discover herself, and Kate (Kelli Garner) who left home to do what she wanted in the first place and now feels a little cramped by her sister.

But, hey, I'm not looking for uniqueness here. I'm looking for sheer entertainment. I want to be interested, amused, enthralled, and if occassionally it's a little predictable, I can live with that. But, regardless, I don't actually know what the direction and feel of the whole season is going to be like. I can't wait to find out!

Dexter - Those Kinds of Things, S06E01

I did not think that anyone could be so creepy as John Lithgow as the Trinity Killer, but Edward James Olmos and Colin Hanks may give him a run for his money this season. The master-apprentice serial killer bond is one we have not explored fully, despite Dexter (Michael C. Hall)'s dabbling in it in various manners. It also gives us many possibilities for seasonal development since we are dealing with two men, instead of one, but Dexter and Miami PD don't know that yet.

Otherwise, we seem to have returned to the status quo. Dexter is back to killing other murderers and serial killers, and things are going well since his new baby sitter lives next door and really doesn't mind his frequent absences. She chalks his odd behaviour off to still mourning his wife. Angel (David Zayas) and Maria (Lauren Valez) are divorced already, but still have a running tension between them. Maria has been manipulating her way towards promotions, and may help Angel climb the ladder as well.

My favourite development is between Quinn (Desmond Harrington) and Deb (Jennifer Carpenter). As soon as the arguments started, I knew that Quinn was planning on proposing. I think these two are so well suited for each other, and I hope that Quinn's attempts to propose continue to get delayed until he does it right. Was he really going to ask her in that bar?

So the developments this season are likely to be very interesting, with a strong spiritual theme to them. I loved Dexter's conversation about God with Angel. Not everyone is able to be eloquent about their beliefs. And when Dexter went to speak to that nun to get his son in daycare, and she was so impressed that he bothered to come in person, while it never occurred to Dexter that he was doing anything that was unusual. Indeed, if he realized how markedly different his attempts to always do the right thing made him, he probably would not bother.

What are your thoughts on the new season?

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?

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.