Those of you that know me know that I’m a bit of a TV junkie. So I always look forward to September and the start of the new season. Each year, I go through Entertainment Weekly’s fall season preview and pick out the shows that look interesting. Then I set my DVR to start recording. For most of the shows, my opinion of course won’t matter since whether I like it or not, they’ll be cancelled. (And it does seem that the more I like a show, the more likely it will be to get cancelled, but that’s a different issue.) But a few will actually survive and get added to my list of shows to keep watching. So this year, I’m going to do a quick review of each of the new shows I watch.
True Blood
HBO has been hyping this one for awhile. The premise is interesting: after the development of synthetic blood, vampires have, to quote the show, “come out of the coffin” and now live openly amongst us. In a rural Louisiana town (is “rural Louisiana” redundant?) a young waitress who happens to be able to read minds encounters a man who at least initially appears to be a nice vampire. The main attractions for the show are the aforementioned premise and Anna Paquin, how plays the waitress. Unfortunately, though, last night’s premiere episode was extremely slow. I know that they have a lot to introduce and get moving, but nothing much happened. I have a self-imposed three episode rule for new shows: I’ll almost always sit through 3 episodes of a show, just to give it a chance to find its legs. So we’ll have to see about this one. Normally, I wouldn’t be optimistic, but again with its unique premise, I think the show has some promise.
Hole in the Wall
Well, we now have a nominee for the dumbest show of all time. This game show – it’s being imported from somewhere, and given the stupid idea, I think the somewhere is Japan, where they specialize in stupid when it comes to game shows – involves two teams of contestants. The contestants are decked out in bright silver jumpsuits, and stand at the end of a platform. The big Styrofoam wall comes at them, and the idea is that they have to contort themselves to fit into holes cut in the wall. If they succeed, they score points; if not, they get pushed into a pool.
Yes, it is every bit as dumb as it sounds. But you know what? It was also entertaining. It’s not a show that trys to take itself seriously (obviously), and everyone seems to just be having fun. So why not enjoy the ride? Plus, it’s a half hour show. Add in commercials and the usual crap that game shows do to pad the time, and I’ll bet that the show has, at most, 10 minutes of actual game time. So am I willing to spend 10 minutes a week watching people try not to break a Styrofoam wall? Yeah.