Continuing my look at the new television season, on Tuesdays, Janice and I have been watching Top Shot on the History Channel. We like the use of a range of archaic weapons, if not the cutthroat competitiveness of some participants.
In addition to catching up on genre shows recorded on Sundays and Mondays, I look forward to the eventual return of the sleuths on White Collar and Memphis Beat. Janice is taking a yoga class this fall.
I haven’t added comedies such as The New Girl or Two Broke Girls to my viewing schedule, but I liked what little I saw of them more than the Mad Men-inspired Pan Am or even the already canceled The Playboy Club.
On Wednesdays, most of the shows I’ve watched in the past few seasons are not returning: Reaper, Eastwick, and Human Target, to name a few. I still occasionally watch food TV such as Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and Man vs. Food Nation — Bitchin’ Kitchen is my current favorite.
The goofy sleuths on Psych return tonight. If you liked David Lynch’s surrealistic Twin Peaks (whose cast had a reunion on Psych) or the psychosexual horror of some of True Blood, you’ll probably like FX’s American Horror Story. It’s a bit dark for my tastes, but it’s better than most of the schlocky “reality” programming on SyFy or the History Channel.
On Thursdays, I’ve dropped spy show Nikita, which of course then got renewed. Also last season, I watched Undercovers, which got canceled, but not Covert Affairs, which also got renewed. I wasn’t impressed by the latest version of Charlie’s Angels, whose actresses are less jiggly, glamorous, or interesting than their predecessors and who are hampered by weak scripts.
I have picked up Person of Interest, created by Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight director Chris Nolan. Like that movie, it explores the implications of ubiquitous surveillance, and it’s a paranoid post-9/11 technothriller similar to the aforementioned Homeland. The distrustful team of a computer genius and a former commando inserting themselves into the lives of people who need help reminds me of The Prisoner, The Pretender, and Human Target.
I’ll save Friday, which is the most crowded night of the week for genre TV fans, for an upcoming post. What are you watching?
Gene's Worlds 