{"id":154,"date":"2014-05-21T11:33:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T18:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/05\/21\/i-will-not-watch-most-of-these-tv-shows\/"},"modified":"2014-05-21T11:33:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T18:33:00","slug":"i-will-not-watch-most-of-these-tv-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/05\/21\/i-will-not-watch-most-of-these-tv-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"I will not watch most of these TV shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But I am an interested observer during every fall TV season. My household has not had a cable or satellite TV subscription for seven years now, but we have the Internet. And that&#8217;s all you need to watch TV these days, especially with my viewing habits: I don&#8217;t surf, I research.<\/p>\n<p>The five broadcast networks just announced their fall schedules, and out of the twenty-five new shows, there are three I&#8217;m definitely interested in, seven others I might try out if I hear good reviews, and three descriptions that make me cringe. (Note that those last shows might still become very successful, since a one-sentence logline can&#8217;t possibly capture the nuance which buoys or sinks a weekly series. Hell, I thought <i>Veronica Mars<\/i> sounded stupid before it premiered, and I ended up loving that show.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyway. My top three want-to-sees:<\/p>\n<p>1. If <i>Gotham<\/i> the TV show is even a quarter as good as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ISBN=1401220371\/curtiscchensfree\"><i>Gotham Central<\/i> comics<\/a> were, it&#8217;ll be worth your time:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0d1zpt6k5OI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/0d1zpt6k5OI\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/0d1zpt6k5OI<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>2. If the new <i>Flash<\/i> TV is half as good as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00BGI086Q\/curtiscchensfree\"><i>Arrow<\/i><\/a>, I&#8217;m in. And I love that they&#8217;re starting the show with a Scooby Gang right away:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Yj0l7iGKh8g?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/Yj0l7iGKh8g\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/Yj0l7iGKh8g<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>3. I&#8217;m not quite as bullish on <i>Constantine<\/i>, but you know, I even liked <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B0009MDPYM\/curtiscchensfree\">the Keanu Reeves movie<\/a>, so I&#8217;m cautiously optimistic:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uPE2oBnzROY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/uPE2oBnzROY\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/uPE2oBnzROY<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a coincidence that these are all based on comic books. TV and comics have more in common with each other (and classic pulp fiction) than many other forms of storytelling. Let&#8217;s talk about that sometime.<\/p>\n<p>And here are the seven new shows I might check out if I hear good things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Scorpion<\/b> could be interesting if it maintains its &#8220;(Hackers + Leverage) * Fast and Furious&#8221; vibe.<\/li>\n<li><b>State of Affairs<\/b> because I still miss <i>The West Wing<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Selfie<\/b> has John Cho so it&#8217;s automatically awesome.<\/li>\n<li><b>How to Get Away with Murder<\/b> because it&#8217;s Shonda Rhimes!<\/li>\n<li><b>Gracepoint<\/b>, starring David Tennant, which is a remake of the British series <i>Broadchurch<\/i> starring&#8230; David Tennant?<\/li>\n<li><b>Madam Secretary<\/b> because <i>West Wing<\/i>. And <a href=\"http:\/\/kfmonkey.blogspot.com\/2005\/10\/c-in-c.html\">this<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Identifying the three cringe-inducing blurbs in <i>Entertainment Weekly<\/i>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/insidetv.ew.com\/2014\/05\/15\/fall-tv-schedule-2014\/\">Fall TV complete schedule 2014<\/a> is left as an exercise for the reader.<\/p>\n<p>One last thing: can we all agree that <i>CSI: Cyber<\/i> is the most 1990&#8217;s title ever?  Including actual shows from the 1990&#8217;s?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis\" title=\"Curtis\" border=\"0\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But I am an interested observer during every fall TV season. My household has not had a cable or satellite TV subscription for seven years now, but we have the Internet. And that&#8217;s all you need to watch TV these&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41,16,12,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artcriticism","category-theiinmeat","category-thisbusinesswecallshow","category-tv","category-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}