Fall TV Preview: Day Six 2006

Finally, Friday...

Psyched about this season’s new shows? Looking forward to your old favorites coming back? Don’t know what to watch? Well, catch up, already! The season’s been underway for a month!

Last time, I checked out Thursday’s broadcast lineup. Thursday is hell night for me, with the DVR box working overtime and a VCR catching the fallout. Today is all about Friday, the sixth and final day of new broadcast TV (Saturday is a virtual wasteland of sports, reruns and “investigative” news reports).


Friday’s New Shows: What’s Hot?
There’s only one new show slotted for Friday -- Men in Trees. Totally skippable.


Friday’s New Shows: What’s Not?
Men in Trees (ABC, 9 pm). Anne Heche is a relationship expert forced to rethink her outlook on life when she gets stuck in a small Alaskan town, filled mostly with men. First of all, Anne Heche as a relationship expert? Ha, I say. Ha! But beyond that bit of casting humor, this Sex in the City meets Northern Exposure thing looks completely unappealing. Anne Heche, people. Why is she even famous?


Friday’s Old Shows: What’s the Deal?
Ghost Whisperer (CBS, 8pm). I used to give this show the cold shoulder. It had the stink of Touched By An Angel all over it, and I had no desire to watch a “heartwarming” show with all of its morals in the right place. Then I saw a commerical where Jennifer Love Hewitt (the whisperer herself) confronts a scary little dead boy. I watched the show. Kinda creepy. Toward the end of last season, the producers seemed to realize the horror stuff worked. They gave us more of it, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s no Supernatural, mind you, and there’s a good amount of “go into the light” sentimentality, but watched late at night, Ghost Whisperer can actually wrangle a couple of chills out of me.

Close to Home (CBS, 9 pm). Jennifer Finnigan plays prosecutor Annabeth Chase, and the title refers to the fact that the crimes on this show happen in Everytown, USA. Ya know, close to home. Which…okay, I guess. But as far as I know, none of my neighbors have run prostitution rings, have hypnotized their children full of false memories, or have killed their kids’ nanny and hid her in their trunks. Maybe I should move to a more lively neighborhood.  Anyway, it’s an entertaining little series. It’s not as sharp and fiesty as The Practice, in fact, it’s practically humorless -- but the mysteries are engaging and it’s easy to get pulled in once you’ve watched the first act.

Las Vegas (NBC, 9 pm) seems to be following NBC’s Third Watch model. Take a show that’s successful in its Monday night slot, move it to Fridays, then watch it die. Not that I care. I dropped Las Vegas a long time ago, with it’s bad acting, desperate attempts at being “edgy”, and charmless Love Boat-level plots. But fans of this series had better enjoy it while it lasts.

And that’s it for Friday and for my Fall TV Preview.

Next time, I’ll revisit some of the new shows I judged -- I mean critiqued here. Having watched an episode or two of each, we’ll see if I was right -- or if I’ll have to eat my words (damn you Studio 60!).