*** Television Fall 2010 ***

[bicker]

Season 5 of Big Love, coming this winter to HBO, will be its final season.

 

[bicker]

Sunday, October 31, 2010
Premiere:
The Walking Dead (AMC)

 

[gometros]

Caprica has been canceled.

Well, there's three DVRed shows I no longer have to watch.

 

[bicker]

The Best Teen Drama You Aren't Watching (and neither is your teen)

A lot of folks don't care for teen dramas on television. Those folks can skip this message completely.

Go ahead. Scroll down... or if this is the last message in the thread at this point, continue to the next thread and/or come back here later and rejoin us later in the thread.

Seeya.

Okay so everyone left reading likes teen dramas. There have been some really good ones in the past, most notably Veronica Mars. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was another popular one. My So-Called Life was one of the most critically-acclaimed. There was Smallville, the OC, One Tree Hill, Dawson's Creek, etc. Right now, we've got Vampire Diaries, and Hellcats, and so on. Some of those shows go beyond teenage years, at least eventually.

I had a spare DVR tuner, for the past few weeks and turned it on the latest entrant into this genre. And as I alluded to above, it's pretty good despite the fact that practically no one is watching.

The show is Tower Prep. Part of the problem surely is that it is on Cartoon Network, so folks assume it is a cartoon. It's not. It's a regular, live-action, teen drama. It's aimed a little lower in age than most of the others mentioned above. It is relatively well-done, given the small budget it must be operating on. The writing is mostly predictable but the actors are engaging and it's a pretty good result all things considered. It's set at a mysterious prep school, and the mystery angle is exploited to the extreme. It seems the producers are trying to produce the next generation of Lost viewers.

Quoting from Wikipedia's quoting of some reviews:

Brian Lowry of Variety said the show's mysteries might appeal to both kids and adults, calling it "a series that points the way toward a best-case scenario" for Cartoon Network's live-action programming.[3] Robert Lloyd in his Los Angeles Times review praised the show's energy, casting, and writing in spite of its modest production values.[4] Both reviewers noted the series shares elements with The Prisoner and other works such as Harry Potter, Lost and X-Men. Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club stated that while the pilot episode suffered from low production values and murky fight scenes, it benefited from a strong primary cast, Dini's use of superpowers, and potentially intriguing moments. Further, he specifically pointed to the involvement of creator Paul Dini and producers Glen Morgan and Darin Morgan as reasons he believed the show will grow into a compelling series.[5]

 

[gometros]

bicker - are you going to suck me into another show? The last teen oriented show I got sucked into (by my past teen daughter), was Kyle XY and it was canceled too soon IMHO.

The one thing that does drive me crazy is the tendency for certain networks to drift from their intended purpose. MTV got away from music videos and started showing regular programming. Now you're telling me that I can find live action shows on the Cartoon Network? Next your going to tell me that ESPN will be showing programming other than sports

 

[bicker]

We viewers don't necessarily reward channels for being specific-to-purpose. It works for some things, like sports, but other than that, often networks find they're better off providing a wide variety of programming, perhaps with a central core of programming around a certain affinity group, but not all their programming devoted to that one group.

 

[bicker]

Life Unexpected will finish out its original 13 episode order, and that'll be it. The show won't be picked up for the rest of the season.

 

[momrek06]

CONAN starts Monday, November 8th @11pm on TBS!!!

First guests will be Seth Rogen and Jack Black!!!

 

[bicker]

Sunday, November 07, 2010
Finales:
Eastbound and Down (HBO)

Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Returns:
Meet the Browns

 

[bicker]

Fans of Bones and Fringe should be aware that there will be new episodes of both shows broadcast on Fox this evening. The original schedule had the World Series scheduled for this evening, but that was changed after the World Series ended. Many DVRs have received updates from service providers alerting them to this schedule change, but because it occurred so late, some may not have. Fans of these series who generally trust their DVRs to record new episodes should check and make sure, for this evening.

My TiVo didn't get the update until this morning. It is now scheduled to record these two programs correctly.

 

[Pikester]

Fans of Bones and Fringe should be aware that there will be new episodes of both shows broadcast on Fox this evening. The original schedule had the World Series scheduled for this evening, but that was changed after the World Series ended. Many DVRs have received updates from service providers alerting them to this schedule change, but because it occurred so late, some may not have. Fans of these series who generally trust their DVRs to record new episodes should check and make sure, for this evening.

My TiVo didn't get the update until this morning. It is now scheduled to record these two programs correctly.

Thank you so much for the heads up.

 

[bicker]

Life Unexpected will finish out its original 13 episode order, and that'll be it. The show won't be picked up for the rest of the season.

Ditto for Undercovers, on NBC.

 

[bicker]

ABC has reversed its earlier plans to have reruns throughout December. They will present original episodes during the first week of the month.

 

[bicker]

Sunday, November 14, 2010
Finales:
Bored to Death (HBO)

Monday, November 15, 2010
Finales:
Weeds (Showtime)
The Big C (Showtime)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Premieres:
Glory Daze (TBS)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Premieres:
Human Target (Fox)
Finales:
Top Chef: Just Desserts (Bravo)

 

[bicker]

Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Finales:
Dancing with the Stars (ABC)

 

[bicker]

A very interesting move by Fox this past week... anticipated last year, but executed this year: American Idol will be broadcast Wednesday and Thursday (instead of Tuesday and Wednesday).

This is good news for American Idol, since it puts the results show on the most lucrative night of television. It's good news for Bones, bumped from 8PM to 9PM on Thursday, with an American Idol lead-in... it should benefit in two ways. It's good news for Glee, which gets to remain in its very comfy Tuesday 8PM slot.

It's bad news for Fringe which is banished to Friday night.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

Only curious but is 2 new epsiodes a week normal for A&E based reality shows?

 

[bicker]

Monday, November 29, 2010
Finales:
The Event (NBC) {Returning in the Spring}

Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Finales:
Sons of Anarchy (FX)

Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Premieres:
Top Chef All-Stars (Bravo)

 

[CourtasanSatine]

By the looks of the TiVo guide Paranormal State wraps up this week too.

 

[bicker]

Here is a good summary of the situation for the television series most in danger of cancellation...

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...rinks-as-more-shows-head-towards-cancellation

The biggest surprise for me is No Ordinary Family, which looked so strong when it started. It fell fast and hard.

Fringe, Human Target and Lie To Me are also a bit surprising, but then again not-so-much, in light of the fact that Fox knows it is losing 3 hours of prime time next fall, to make room for X-Factor. This is going to look a bit like NBC looking forward to the end of the 2008-2009 season, when it had to factor-in losing five hours of prime time to the Jay Leno Show.

The silver lining, here, is that it seems that Bones will make it through to next fall.