More New Shows

by Marko Peric

All the way back in October I ran a review of some of the new fall TV shows. Of the five shows I looked at, two have been canceled already. Both of which aired on ABC (which is having a terrible time coming up with watchable shows since Millionaire's ratings have tanked), by the way, and both of which failed to receive a Good rating from me (John Stamos' Thieves drew a Bad while Jason Alexander's Bob Patterson managed but an Ugly). Thing is, some shows that I've watched started a bit late this year, and anyway five was plenty of shows for one review. So here are a few more new shows. These aren't the midseason replacement shows, which are only now getting started. I'll get to those soon enough, I'm sure.

24 (Fox/Global Tuesday Night): TV Guide calls it the best new show of the season, and not without reason. It's easily the most innovative. The concept is unique — the show is set over the course of one day and plays out in real time. Each hour long episode is one hour of the day. The show also makes some use of splitscreen views, sometimes showing simultaneous events, other times with multiple angles of the same scene. So that said, how is the show? It's good. It might not be the best new show of the season, but it's good. The acting is superb (and I should point out that the bulk of the actors are Canadians), the writing is tight and well developed, and it's hard to predict what will happen next. I can honestly say I've been surprised several times, and that's not easy to do. Any show that can surprise me is Good. A caveat, though — it's violent. We've had eight episodes so far, and I've lost count of the dead people already.

The Tick (Fox/Global Thursday Evening): He is the wild blue yonder, and he's already been cancelled. Which isn't surprising, since a clever, funny, and seriously offbeat superhero comedy without a laughtrack wasn't going to work when scheduled opposite Survivor and NBC's juggernaut Friends/Will and Grace hour. There's not much that will stand up to two top ten shows. One would almost think that Fox put The Tick and The Family Guy (another innovative and funny, funny show) in this time slot to intentionally kill them off. So, don't get me wrong, I think The Tick is one of the funniest, and admittedly, oddest shows I've seen in a long time, and I love the show, but what Fox has done with it is downright Ugly.

Undeclared (Fox/Global Tuesday Evening): When I saw the promos for this show, I thought it looked dumb. I decided not to watch it. Then I decided to give it a try, as it was conveniently on immediately before 24 which I was taping anyway, so setting the VCR for half an hour earlier made sense. So in short I was planning to hate this show. I wanted to hate this show. I was all set to slam it. And then a funny thing happened — I liked it. It's a clever college comedy and like several of the new comedies I've been watching, it doesn't have a laugh track. Good riddance if you ask me.

The Agency (CBS/Global Thursday Night): Look, it's another CIA show! This is the year for these, as three of the four big networks launched one, and probably the only reason NBC didn't is because they have too much Law and Order clogging up their schedule. But about this show, it's the polar opposite of 24. While 24 is examining many angles of a single story for the course of the season, The Agency grabs a new plotline each week and runs for the end zone. You'd think this would make the show easy to get into, since there's no back story to know for any particular episode. You'd be wrong. The cast is too big and way too recognizable, and there's no main character to focus on. It also makes it hard to care about any of the characters. I can't even keep their names clear, I refer to them as the guy from Ally McBeal, the woman from ER, the tall woman, the old guy in charge, and Will Patton. Plus there's a bunch of others I missed. The writers apparently have been told that everyone has to have a good scene in every episode, and all the while there has to be all the exciting spy agency stuff going on, so this results in a lot happening every week. Now I'm the person who everyone asks "what's going on?" when we're watching something, because most of the time I can keep ahead of the story, but The Agency has so much going on I'm doing good to tread water. And then there's the Will Patton factor. He's a decent movie actor, but put him on weekly television and he's chewing up the scenery like a hungry goat. As my sister (who's usually the one asking "what's going on?") said, he's really Bad.

Undergrads (Teletoon Friday through Monday Nights): I'm including this animated show (which actually debuted on MTV last April, but I only started watching in the fall on Teletoon) for two reasons. First, it's not on Global or Fox, and I thought I'd given those networks more than enough time already in this column. Second, and most importantly, there's a good chance it won't be renewed for a second season, and this show really needs another season. It's far better than I thought it would be when I listened to a friend's recommendation and watched it. It's about four childhood friends that go off to different colleges and still try to maintain their friendship. So it's at the same time a buddy show, a college show, and a biting comedy. The characters are, as in most cartoons, somewhat exaggerated, but still within the realm of believability. They're also well written and although they all appear to be simple stereotypes, they're well developed and interesting. Chances are you'll relate to at least one of them, most likely the lovable everyman Nitz. A couple of quick caveats, though. First, this is ostensibly a college show, but no one ever goes to class. Second, this show is on late at night and rated TV-18 for a reason. This is not a kid's show by any stretch of anyone's imagination. Characters drink, fight, curse, and do all the other things you'd expect from poorly supervised college students. That said, if you aren't easily offended, watch this show then go vote in the online petition to help save it. The show is very Good and deserves another season.