New Show Review Thread (US TV)

don ramo

rather than people scouring through the 10-15 new threads about to be created for each individual show i thought it would be a good idea to have this one thread where people could probably give a paragraph about each new pilot they watch to give others a sense on of what they thought of them,

well try and keep it short and simple, if people decide to watch and get more invested the shows will have their own thread around here somewhere:)

ive only seen 3 pilots so far, all advanced previews,

Revolution, probably one of the more high profile shows this season, from the creator of Supernatural and produced by some of the team that made Person of Interest, Fringe and Lost, it centers around a girl called charlie who has grown up in a world where the laws of physics have been turned on their head for unknown reasons, it biggest effect is that electricity is no longer capable of being created, we follow charlie on an adventure that takes her away from what she knows as home, and follow her as she tracks down the only family she has left, her uncle, who is the only person who can help her get her brother back from the militia who have taken him hostage for questioning their authority and standing up for his father who ends up getting killed,

this show has been highly debated already around here, with a lot of people questioning the reasoning of why the society in the show has taken the direction it has, and the science behind it, but the pilot has intrigued me enough that im gonna give this show a fair go, there seems to be a good crew of people behind the scenes, people that have brought us some great TV shows and great films,

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Elementary, a modern take on Sherlock Holmes, set in present day new york, its mainly going to be procedural, but i expect a decent overall arc to run throughout the series, i got a Castle meets House kind of vibe off it, the Sherlock Holmes character is an extremely smart and intuitive individual who seems to have a very odd dark side to him, hes recently broken out of the psychiatric facility where he was detoxing for drug addiction, and has been set-up in one of his families houses in NY, his father has assigned him a sponsor to help him while hes still overcoming the after effects of his addiction, Joan Watson is a retired surgeon who has decided to sponsor people who have had drug addictions and she is hired by Holmes father to help Holmes reintegrate, she ends up helping him solves cases for the NYPD, the local precinct captain is a friend of Holmes and allows him to work as a consultant for the NYPD

so far Elementary has been the stand out pilot for me, it reminds me of last seasons breakout show Person of Interest, it will probably start out slow and get better as it goes along, Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Lui seemed to work very well together, and the supporting cast seem to work well also, i can see this being the breakout show this season,

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Last Resort, a navy seal team is picked up off the coast of Pakistan by a nuclear sub, the sub soon after gets ordered through a secondary network telling the captain he is to launch a nuclear attack on Pakistan, the captain questions the orders, and requests confirmation of the orders and refuses to fire until receiving the confirmation, he is later relieved of command and the vice captain is given orders to fire, after he also refuses one of the other American subs in the area fire on them with intentions of sinking their sub, after they get their boat back up and running they retreat to a remote island where there is a NATO controlled early warning system, and use the 18 nuclear missiles at their disposal to seize control of the island and send out a warning that if anyone approaches the island they will launch the missiles,

this looks like it could be a good show, the initial concept kind of surprised me, and so far it seems like a very limited show, the fact its based on the one island, there is a Washington D.C storyline running also, but the island will take up 95% of the story, i do hope it works out, as i think there is a big shortage of good character driven adventure shows around these days,

brian_t

don ramo wrote: »

rather than people scouring through the 10-15 new threads about to be created for each individual show i thought it would be a good idea to have this one thread where people could probably give a paragraph about each new pilot they watch to give others a sense on of what they thought of them,

I think it would help to the Channel it's on named alongside the programme name.

don ramo

brian_t wrote: »

I think it would help to the Channel it's on named alongside the programme name.

people around here know what channel its on;)

but when the eventually get shown here, itll be the usual, sky living, sky one, rte etc etc, what shown on 10 channels in america is shown on 4 maybe 5 here,

brian_t

don ramo wrote: »

people around here know what channel its on;)

Perhaps the thread should be renamed New Show Review Thread (US TV) then.

Mr E

I think it was implied, but fair enough - thread renamed.

Richard Dower

^ thread ... meet .... EPIC FAIL!

Mr E

:rolleyes:

stevenmu

Richard Dower wrote: »

^ thread ... meet .... EPIC FAIL!

Currently the thread has 133 views, it's not a run away success, but it's enough to see it get renewed for a second page.

It does only score a 2.0 with the important "thanking" demographic, but the "thankers" are notoriously fickle and often only join a thread when it has gotten to multiple pages.

But really, it'll take a few more posts to see how it will develop, the pilot post was packed with entertaining content, but the rest of the posts have been mostly filler. More posts like the first could see this become one of the most watched threads this season.

don ramo

Richard Dower wrote: »

^ thread ... meet .... EPIC FAIL!

yeah but the shows will have to air before they can be reviewed and talked about, i just happened to have seen 3 of the pilots in advance, so i said id give my 2 cents of what i thought of them,

if people feel like adding fair enough, if not i think ill be able to bounce back :D

DeWitt

Revolution: Liked it, didn't love it, but it looks promising and I really liked the cast so I'll be sticking around.

Elementary: Don't have much to compare it to in terms of the BBC version, but as procedurals go it was pretty nifty and I liked the Sherlock/Watson tag team.

The Mindy Project: God awful, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if it's canceled in the first few weeks. The cast deserves better, especially Chris Messina.

The New Normal: Could be fun. I'll give it a few episodes to win me over. Definitely some genuine laughs in the pilot.

Last Resort: My fave of the fall pilots thus far. Strong story, superb cast...things can only get better. Hoping this one sticks around

Ben & Kate: Meh. I didn't take to the cast all that much, but it was watchable. Nothing special.

opr

Revolution: It was dumb. The premise was dumb, the show is dumb, the actors are dumb, the sets looked dumb and the story lines were dumb. Just awful from start to finish. Dramatic over the top ponderous lines which make you want to chew your arm off. I didn't even find any of it fun which usually gives something like this some redemption. Honestly I despair watching stuff like this so much. How do people so devoid of talent keep getting money poured into making stuff like this. If it's the chase to find the next Lost then maybe someone should tell them it was primarily a character driven drama that developed into something a little more strange, not the other way around.

Last Resort: This was fun. I kept hoping they would have the equivalent of SeaQuest's Darwin on board but alas it was not meant to be It's over the top, down right cheesy in places and the plot is outrageously ridiculous but it all seemed to come together well. The pilot at times I thought had a wonderful 80's action movie vibe off it. It was exciting, face paced and overall a wonderfully enjoyable ride. I can't wait to see more.

Opr

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Revolution - I enjoyed it and will watch more. Can see it being a winner for NBC, but if it were on Fox or ABC it wouldn't last the season.

Last Resort - Freaking Amazing! Haven't been this excited about a TV Drama since Prison Break began.

Go On - Love It, Love It, Love It! Matthew Perry = Win! I have this flagged as the next Community.

The New Normal - The Pilot screams potential. Again as its on NBC, could do well, but don't think it would last long on a higher rated network.

Guys With Kids - I was pleasantly surprised. Much better than I expected it to be. Nothing spectacular, but a strong cast and worth giving a few episodes to see how it progresses.

Animal Practice - "Red Alert! Red Alert! It's a Catastrophe!" - Big fan of both Tyler Labine and Joanna Garcia, but man this show is a pile of poo.

don ramo

The New Normal, about a gay couple who decide they want to have a baby, so they hire goldie (georgia king, whos surprisingly scottish) to have their child, with one of them providing the sperm, but along with goldie comes her daughter whos about 10ish, and her old fashioned grandmother who is totally opposed to what goldie is doing, so far its seems fairly balanced with as many hits as misses, so id say ill watch a few more episodes,

Go On, mathew perry plays a radio sports presenter whos wife has recently died, his best friend who is also his boss at the station insists on him getting help to cope with his wifes passing, at first he tricks the therapist on letting him off, but later has a bit of a breakdown and decides to go to therapy, ive watched the first 3 episodes, and like the new normal its very hit and miss, but its shown me enough to warrant more viewing,

Basq

Been away for the last week so missed the majority of shows premiering but what I did see:

The New Normal: Have only seen the first episode, and not a big fan of Murphy's comedy. It tends to come across as always verging on edgy yet safe. And we all saw what happened the once very promising 'Glee' once the network execs got their hands on it. It became saccharine, overwrought and downright abysmal. I don't expect close to the same target audience or runaway success with this show, but it's a question as to how well it'll deliver. I'll tell you one thing - Ellen Barkin has gotten bloody old.

Animal Practice: horrible, horrible, horrible. So much wasted talent in this show. hate to say it but maybe it was a blessing Huberman got canned. Predict it to be first to be axed.

The Mindy Project: it was decent enough but Chris Meddina stole every scene he was in. A comedy can't survive on the strength of one character alone. I normally like Mindy Kaling but expected a little better.

Go On: Absolutely loved the first episode of this. I really hope Matthew Perry catches a break too as his luck as of late with new shows has been fairly absymal. Looks like a nice mix of comedy and a "smidgeon" of sadness / drama - not every show can pull it off but when it does, it's definitely a promising sign!

Revolution: Just too dumb to comprehend. Mix in a largely very dull pilot with a cardboard cut-out cast (bar the always awesome Giancarlo Esposito) and throw in some very dodgy questions about this so-called "energyless future" and you've got it. Network TV - enough with the post-apocalyptic dramas. You've shown you really can't do it right!

Elementary As a massive fan of the superb Moffat-Gatiss BBC series, I was pinning myself to be hugely criticising this, but it's actually damn good. Jonny Lee-Miller is great and Lucy Liu is.... Lucy Liu. But it's definitely got enough potential and promise in there to stand it's own two feet and not be simply ruled out as another lazy remake. This is promising stuff.

On the watch list for the evening: Last Resort (Andre Braugher + Shawn Ryan = gotta be win!), next 2 episodes of Go On, next 2 episodes of The New Normal, The Mob Doctor (doesn't look like my thing), Guys With Kids (did a quick promo viewing of all the new shows, and this looked the worst BY FAR.. but hey, I'll give it one episode before I dismiss it) and Ben And Kate (from the promo I watched - it definitely looked like one of the more promising comedies of the new season).

stevenmu

Revolution: I'm going to go against popular opinion here and say that I enjoyed this. Compared to similar 'genre' shows of the last few years (The Event, Flash Forward, Alcatraz etc), it feels like a good step up in quality. The central premise, and a number of related items, is a little dodgy, but on the other hand it is only one episode in. I think a lot of the success of the show will depend on how these things are explained. But, so far anyway, I think it's a good show that I'll be looking forward to seeing more of.

Last Resort: The first few minutes of this seemed like a cheap SyFy TV movie, but once I got over that I really enjoyed it. There was plenty of action, tension, some good mystery and intrigue, and a couple of interesting plot lines set up. It's one of the more original things on TV recently and I hope it gets rewarded with plenty of episodes.

Elementary: The big worry with this was that they would just copy BBC's Holmes series (BBC had even announced that they would have the lawyers watching), but judging by the pilot they have gone in their own direction entirely, and it works very well. It seems like it will be much more procedural than the BBC version, it's basically House but solving crimes instead of medical cases. I don't think it's as good as the BBC version, but it's still pretty decent in it's own right.

Go On: I've watched the first 3 episodes of this. The first two were very good, with some real laugh out loud moments. The third was a bit more 'meh', but not bad either. This could find it's feet and be a really good comedy. But I think it will always be too aimed at the mainstream to be the next Community. It does deserve a lot of credit for dealing well with loss/death and still managing to be very funny, and Matthew Perry deserves credit for not being Chandler, he does a good job of playing a completely different person.

Basq

Watched the latest 2 episodes of Go On... very good although largely hit-and-miss. Some very funny memorable characters mixed with some clichéd unfunny characters. Definitely has promise but the writing needs a bit of polish IMO.

Actually thought the latest 2 episodes of The New Normal were far better than the pilot... it does scream of an agenda but as long as the writing stays fresh, I couldn't care less. Ellen Barkin has the majority of the best lines - albeit mostly racist and homophobic slurs.

The pilot of Kate And Ben had promise too I thought. While not as good as the promo made it out, it definitely has the foundations of a great comedic cast. And while not typically a fan of child actors - that kid is bloody adorable (ugh... what have I become!). And Nat Faxon is great - he won an Oscar for co-writing The Descendants with director Alexander Payne and Jim Rash (Dean Pelton from Community).

wes

Seen Last Resort and Revolution so far. Last Resort was excellent. Not too sure about Revolution.