Hollywood Falls for the New TV Season
By Mary Beth Gentle
It’s over! It’s over! No more re-runs! No more retakes on Japanese Game Shows! No more bad summer TV! I don’t know about the rest of you, but those of us in the Hollywood cubicles are beside ourselves with excitement at the prospect of new TV to watch. Because it is finally that time of year again, summer is over, school is starting and the Fall TV season is upon us. Old favorite shows return and new ones try to capture an audience. And we, the audience, are ready to leave behind the drudgery of summer re-runs and settle in on our couches for our weekly favorites.
The line-ups have been set and the Networks are busily analyzing the rating numbers of the shows that have already premiered and trying to predict the numbers of the shows yet to begin. It’s a busy time of year. And not just for the networks, it’s busy in the Hollywood cubicles. And by busy I don’t mean the work that goes into the creating, posting and promoting the shows. I mean busy in the watching of the shows.
When you work in a Hollywood cubicle it’s important to watch, monitor and predict the success and failure of the fall season. I guess it is not that much different than working on Wall Street and keeping up on the latest hot stocks. Or any business for that matter, it’s important to know the product if you are going to predict it’s future. The only difference here, I have a DVR that is about to explode.
Returning favorites that cannot be missed include; Heroes, Chuck, Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to name just a few. The shows have had their premiere parties, their new season cast photos have been distributed to all the magazines and the recap episodes are all available on-line. Maybe it’s another sign that I may never run with the Hollywood Hipsters, but I for one can’t wait to see what villains the writers of Heroes have in store for us this season. Not to mention what the ladies of Wysteria Lane and the popular kids of Gossip Girl are going to get up to.
New shows that have been hyped just enough to peak my interest include; Worst Week, 90210, Fringe, Gary Unmarried, Kath & Kim, and Life on Mars. This is the first year in awhile that there are more than a few new sitcoms that hold some potential. Worst Week, based on a BBC series, follows hapless magazine editor, Sam Briggs, as he bumbles thru his week trying to impress his girlfriend and his future in-laws. Re-vamping a BBC show worked for The Office, here’s hoping it works for this one too. Gary Unmarried stars Jay Mohr as newly divorced dad of two traversing his way thru the changes in his life – basically the draw here is the humor of Jay Mohr. And who can resist tuning into the soapy retro fun of 90210 to see what has happened to Brenda and Kelly. These are a few of the new shows that are going to make it onto my ‘record list’- at least for the first few episodes.
Some of these shows are already a few weeks into the new season, which means that by the time I add in returning reality shows like Survivor, Dancing with the Stars and Amazing Race and cable shows like Entourage, Tru Blood or The Tudors. I’m looking at a DVR that will quickly be reaching maximum capacity. But, I guess if I am going to try to stay ahead in the Hollywood cubicle I need to stay on top of all that TV watching so I can throw my two cents in when the hallways turn to talk of which shows will make it and which shows will be cut. It’s like I’m my own little network!
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