Happy Sunday everyone! The Emmy just wrapped tonight and though I didn’t watch it, it makes me think of some shows that are going to be premiering this Fall. I don’t usually have time to watch more than one TV series a week, but these three shows are intriguing enough I might have to blog less so I can watch these shows. This is in addition to Hawaii Five-O which is my guilty pleasure that’s returning Monday nights on CBS.
As some of these shows are premiering the same week as TCFF, I’d have to catch them the following week. But in any case, I’m quite excited for these:
Person of Interest (CBS, Thursdays 9/8c)
The first time I saw the trailer for this, I have to admit that Jim Caviezel’s casting caught my eye. I think he’s an underrated actor and has admitted that playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ made Hollywood reluctant to hire him. It’s a pity because he’s a talented and versatile actor and he definitely looks bad ass in this one.
This is one of the 10 newcomers worth sampling posted by AP via Yahoo last month, below is the description from that post:
An obscure software genius and an ex-CIA agent believed to be dead: This is the duo who dedicate themselves to preventing bad things from happening — even without knowing what the bad thing will be. This is an edgy thriller that links the video surveillance that blankets modern life with a computer program that identifies each “person of interest” — someone who, whether as a victim or a perpetrator, is about to be involved in a violent crime. Michael Emerson (Lost) is the obscure man with the software, and he recruits Caviezel, playing an off-the-grid ex-spy, to do his legwork.
Another reason this piqued my interest is the Minority Report-inspired storyline and talents behind it: J.J. Abrams (Lost) and Jonathan Nolan (yep, Chris’ brother who’ve collaborated with him on the screenplay of Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight). This is Nolan’s first TV project and he’s apparently been long interested in the idea of information-age overload, which enabled in part by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that led law-enforcement agencies to take surveillance to a new level. Quoted in USA Today, Nolan says, “The show is about two guys interacting with an all-seeing machine that can’t communicate with them beyond a string of nine numbers… We have all this information, but getting the relevant pieces out of it is tough.”
I hope the folks at CBS give this show some time to develop before they cancel this prematurely.
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Alcatraz (FOX, Mondays 9/8c)
[This one actually doesn’t air until Fall mid-season in 2012]
This is another one of J.J. Abrams’ TV projects that has a Lost connection as Jorge Garcia is one of the leads. The plot from EW.com:
Alcatraz follows a San Francisco police detective (Sarah Jones) who teams with an expert on the prison (Garcia) after a murder suspect turns out to be a Alcatraz prisoner who disappeared from the island about 50 years ago. It seems the killer wasn’t the only prisoner to vanish — or the only one to return. And now they must stop the Alcatraz escapees as they re-enter modern society without having aged — and try to solve the mystery of how this is happening, and why.
The trailer looks pretty gripping and I rather like Sam Neill. The networks seem to loooove procedural shows and this one has some of that, but with more puzzles and mysterious twists along with dynamic action stuff. A certain amount of mystery can’t hurt, but hopefully it won’t have too many twists though. I mean the reason I wasn’t too interested in Lost is that it seemed like all the enigmatic buildup gets to be too much that too many questions remained unanswered in the end. This TV.com article said ‘there oughta be a TV genre called “J.J. Abram-edies”‘ as this one has that similar formula.
Anyway, the 60s flashback stuff will be interesting to watch as well as seeing the world’s famous prison cell used as the real filming location. Oh, I hope the guy who plays Jack Sylvane (Jeffrey Pierce) is going to appear in more shows besides the pilot. He’s pretty easy on the eye 🙂
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PAN AM (ABC, Sundays 10/9c)
The shows above are rather dark, mystifying stuff. So I think this one about the glory days of air travel would be a fun one to end the week. I wasn’t expecting to see Christina Ricci in this but I think she’d add an edgy flair to the show amongst the cookie cutter drop-dead-gorgeous girls on TV.
Set in the ’60s, the drama centers on the loves and lives of stewardesses (led by Christina Ricci) of the iconic titular airline. Although lauded as symbols of sleek, Jet Age glamour, their personal lives are full of turbulence.
This series had a pretty big presence at Comic-con last Summer, at the time I had no idea why there was a faux Pan Am plane in the exhibition hall, that’s when I found out about the series. It reminds me of Catch Me If You Can, the era when working for an airline is such a coveted and cool career and air travel is certainly a heck of a lot more enjoyable 😦 I like the fact that women are the stars of the show here, and the trailer looks pretty amusing. “Are you wearing your girdle?” Oh boy, in that sense, I’m glad we’ve come quite a long way since then.
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Anybody else interested in any of these shows? Please also share which series (new or returning) you’re looking forward to this Fall.
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Unfortunately the show I’m really looking forward to is going to be a mid-season replacement. Awake with Jason Issacs on NBC.
Dave
Oooh, Jason Isaac? Thanks for letting me know, I didn’t even know about this one.
Jason Isaacs is awesome!
wow! looks real good! I want to see it. I’ll be honest though, it looks like it would make a much better movie than a tv series.
still, I’ll be recording it onto my dvr faithfully!
Can’t say that I’m excited to any of the shows you mentioned Ruth but I’m definitely excited for Hawaii Five-0 season premiere tomorrow night.
I am too, but unfortunately I have to help out w/ last minute TCFF stuff tonight so I’d have to catch up on the premiere on HULU or CBS web site 😦
Funny to see these choices as I am looking forward to the first two as well…before reading your post I was hoping that you would name them. The fact that J.J.Abrams is involved is enough reason for me to check them out!
Yay! I never watch anything that Abrams produced before but w/ Jon Nolan involved, it sounds promising!
I am the exact opposite to Nostra,
I probably will not invest in the first two, I lost too many years to LOST and I can’t do anymore JJ Abrams shows.
Pan Am though looks great!
Ahah, what with all those pretty ladies in those tight stewardess uniform, of course you’ll be watching Pan Am, matey 😀
Hi, Ruth and company:
Very intriguing choices!
I share your Guilty Pleasure for ‘Hawaii Five-O’. Scott Caan is so much like his dad from years ago, it’s ridiculous. A great treat to watch. Especially when Mark Dacascos (Iron Chef:America’s ‘Chairman’. ‘Crying Freeman’) shows up as Wo-Fat!
It’s going to be a toss up between ‘Five O’ and the season premiere of ‘Castle’ tonight.
‘Person Of Interest’ looks intriguing just for Jim Caviezel and its very early stage, precognitive ‘Minority Report’ feel.
‘Pan Am’ and NBC’s ‘The Playboy Club’ look like well detailed period piece answers to AMC’s ‘Mad Men’.
Though the photo from ‘Pan Am’ has an alluring ‘Stepford Wives’ vibe about it. Waxing nostalgic for when I was a kid during the ‘Jet Set’ days of the early 1960s. When flying on an airliner was an occasion to get dressed up and enjoy a unique experience..
Woo hoo, another fan of Five-O. Yeah, it’s fun watching Caan, he’s got his dad’s swagger for sure. I hope we get to see more of Dacascos in the 2nd season, he makes for a great villain. I’ve never been into Castle for some reason, despite Fillion. Maybe I just don’t care for his female co-star.
I think Pan Am looks fun for the reason you mentioned, Jack. The retro vibe and the nostalgia factor is the reason to watch for me. Yeah, too bad air travel just isn’t like it used to be!
Ruth, I’m with you on two out of three.
Person of Interest is set up on my DVR. Things I’ve heard so far don’t sound great, but I’m willing to give Abrams a chance. It’s really too bad that Alcatraz isn’t arriving until mid-season. That one is a must-see for me.
I will be skipping Pan-Am, though. It looks painful to me, even with Christina Ricci.
Do you have any links for early reviews of PoI? I’m just curious though I’d rather judge for myself anyway, can’t be that bad w/ Nolan writing it. Ha..ha.. Pan Am looks painful, even with those lovely ladies? 😉
I guess the only review I’ve heard so far on PoI is on the podcast Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan. In their fall TV preview, they spent a good amount of time discussion the pilot, and what they said (not just the negative review) makes me nervous. But I’ll check it out.
Yes, Pan Am may have some lovely ladies, but that might not be enough. Lots of shows fit that category. (:
Ah I see, well I think I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt as the cast looks great and I like what I’ve seen so far.
Yeah I suppose all of these shows have good looking women, but I just think Pan Am looks a bit different from the rest, we’ll see I guess 🙂
Alcatraz is the one that looks the most promising to me though I’m not sure that premise will be enough to warrant a whole series. Will probably start strong then fizzle.
I hope that’s not the case, Markus, but we shall see I guess. A lot of these shows are so hyped up that it’d be tough to meet people’s expectations.
What’s with all those TV shows, I still have to start watching The Wire and I missed last night episode of Breaking Bad 😦 That new show with Zooey Deschanel looks like fun.
Castor, watch BREAKING BAD pronto! Last night’s episode was SPECTACULAR!
Coincidentally, after hearing all the praise for WIRE, I’m checking that out next. When you start it, hope you enjoy, sir.
AndyS,
I can’t recommend The Wire enough. Best thing I’ve ever seen. Period. That said it’s not for everybody. You have to pay attention and the realism gets pretty gritty. The way it uses Baltimore as a microcosm for why America is failing is brilliant. It looks at the way politics, the media, the educational system, the police and the street all intertwine and conspire to keep the status quo and keep us from ever making progress on making a better tomorrow. The show’s tag line is “It’s all connected” BTW. How true.
Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle said it best, “The breadth and ambition of “The Wire” are unrivaled and that taken cumulatively over the course of a season — any season — it’s an astonishing display of writing, acting and storytelling that must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era.”
Dave
I’ve heard amazing thing about The Wire, I think that pretty much launched Idris Elba’s career right? I wonder why it was canceled if it was so well-received.
I don’t THINK it was canceled. When the show was airing, I’m pretty sure I heard that the series was ending at a predetermined time. Of course I don’t know 100%, but I think it was all planned. Which makes me all the more eager to watch the series. I LOVE shows that have the opportunity to end on their own note (a la THE SHIELD).
Dave – thanks for the write up, mate. I will definitely be checking it out this weekend once studies are done (this and BURN NOTICE, possibly). I probably won’t appreciate the politics of the show, but I dig me some gritty television.
Yeah it wasn’t cancelled. Although the final season was cut to 10 shows instead of the 12-13 in previous seasons. Give HBO credit for keeping it on the air despite poor ratings. I mean it won them a Peabody Award for HBO. David Simon did say he had an idea for a 6th season about the but decided to scrap it although check this article out. http://www.roc4life.com/profiles/blogs/simon-season-6-of-the-wire
Yeah… LOVED the Shield also. Great finale. Fun fact: Clark Johnson, Meldrick from Homicide: Life On The Streets, created the visual look for both The Wire and The Shield. He directed both the pilots and finalies for each series.
I meant to say the 6th season was to be about the large influx of Latinos in the population of Baltimore.
From what I’ve read: No shootouts (a gun is shot off by the police 3 times in 5 seasons and one was accidental). No car chases, no cliffhangers and no melodrama (while you’ll barely shead a tear you will feel the collective weight of the show as the season progresses). No fancy edits, slick cinematography and crimes went unsolved due to budget constraints, politics and lack of equipment (hello CSI?). Way too many characters to follow (75 at least) and too many black characters (minorities made up 75% of the cast… just like Baltimore itself). The slang was so current and authentic to Baltimore some of the actors who were from there hadn’t even heard it. You have to really pay attention. There are no likeable characters (everyone is flawed in some way or another). There’s a lack of stereotypes to latch onto (no character was all good or all bad ‘cept maybe Marlo who was probably a psychopath). Putting up numbers was the only endgame for the institutions (schools – Leave No Child Behind/police dept. – crime stats/the gangs – drug sales, turf and property/wealth accumulation) leading to a stalemate in getting anything done for the better. It’s been described as Dickensian with it’s book like plotting and panoramic view of the characters of an entire city. It did not play well in rural areas due to the urban themes. It has a VERYcynical point of view because the writers included David Simon (a newspaper reporter that covered city hall) and Ed Burns (a cop and school teacher) who are from Baltimore so the characterizations were spot on as they were taken from real life experiences.
Of course I think this is what makes the show great but that’s just my opinion.
Heh, all the things you mention seem like the ingredients of a good show. Too urban and too diverse?? Seriously people, that is just sad if that is indeed the reason people don’t watch the show. I read an interview w/ Idris once that people literally drop to the floor when they realize he’s from England as they expect him to speak w/ a Baltimore accent.
A great story. Andre Royo, who plays Bubs aka Bubbles, a crack addidct who pushes a shopping cart around, was once approached by a real drug addict and given heroin in a brown bag while filming, as he appeared to “need a fix more than” the addict. Royo calls this his “street Oscar.”
Ha..ha.. I know, too many shows too little time! I really want to see The Wire but I don’t think I have time to catch up on it. I’m not a big fan of Zooey so no way I’ll be watching that one 🙂
I wish I could watch Breaking Bad but I don’t have cable. But there are too many shows on network TV as it is anyway 🙂
I dunno … I have not thought that much about the network television schedule. Currently nothing is in my DVR queue.
The TV industry is brutal. Just think about all those pilots for shows that did not even make it to air.
I think I have become a revisionist when it comes to watching TV (especially network products). I wait till they are well in before growing an attachment. In the past either the shows I have liked have not had long life spans or the shows I like become more and more turgid over the course of time (read House). I am looking for a happy medium.
Yeah, totally brutal. Even shows that do make it still risk cancellation if their numbers don’t meet expectation. Have you seen The TV Set with David Duchovny & Sigourney Weaver? It’s a satire about the TV industry and how much things get changed from the original concept to the final product, it’s hilarious but sad as well. I think that is wise what you’re doing, better wait than get disappointed.
have not seen but may give it a look-see.
a what sucks for working actors is that the field of opps seems to be shrinking due to the proliferation of reality shows.
love em or hate em soap operas employed ACTORS and often provided fertile training grounds for several working actors to hit the big time.
Now that is on its way out. Who would have thought the day would come where you could count on one hand the number of soaps on the major TV networks.
Here’s another mid-season replacement that was intriguing to me. The River with Bruce Greenwood from Spielberg and Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity). People on the comment boards are saying “where’s the anaconda?” lol. They’re also saying “oh no… another Lost.” I’ll take 100 Lost’s over all the reality shows, overdone procedurals or unfunny sitcoms on TV currently. Do you know there’s an new reality program called “Crime Scene Cleanup”? Shoot me now… and then they can clean it up.
Dave
I don’t watch any reality shows either, I used to watch Survivor and Idol for the first couple of seasons but lost interest. The rest of them just look horrible and horribly unnecessary! Ooh Bruce Greenwood is a great actor, which channel is this on?
ABC
If I could, I’d watch Alcatraz. Seeing how escape is meant to be impossible from The Rock, it’d be interesting to see how the show explains how the escapees managed to… Plus, I love Sam Neill 😛
I think Alcatraz has a bit of supernatural elements in it, at least the trailer makes it sound like so. Yeah, glad to see Sam Neill in it, did you know he was up for Bond at one time?
Hi Ruth and Clair, Funk here.
Hope all is fine and well.
If you like Sam Neill, you may want to check out where he played a spy in the 1983 UK series “Reilly, Ace of Spies”, 12 episodes of early 20th century spy-craft from Baku to the Russian Revolution this is one excellent series. Slowly paced, with some high tension.
I’m interested in both PERSONS and ALCATRAZ, but I’m concerned about their longevity. After the initial burst of creativity, how will the show evolve to accommodate further seasons/storylines? Just curious how any of these shows expect to achieve third/fourth season status. Of course, a show about folks on an island ended up with six seasons under their belt and ending at a vastly different place then it began, so we’ll see.
All this talk about HAWAII FIVE-O really makes me wanna see it. Already has Grace Park, so that’s a plus. Consider it added to my Que.
Yeah, you just never know how far these shows can go. Obviously if the writing is consistently good and people respond to it well, those can be the next Lost. I have faith in Nolan’s credence, but then again this is his first foray into TV, so we shall see.
Five-O is good fun. Not the best-written out there but wholly entertaining!
You should do a monthly write up of the TV you watch. This blog already covers various aspects of entertainment, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone else also tackle TV. You would have at least one interested reader!
Yeah I might do that, what a great idea, thanks for the suggestion, Andy. I’ve done it a few times before, you can find all my TV write up under the Tube Watch category: https://flixchatter.net/category/tube-watch/
I checked out 2 new shows so far. The RInger simply because of Sarah Michele gellar, and The Secret Circle because Thomas Decker is in it. I might check out the Grimm series, and one other show i can’t remember the name of right now.
And feel like Christina Richie is one of the more courageous/edgy actresses around. I couldn’t see someone like Heigl even touching her role in Black Snake Moan for example
Oh also yesterday i discovered that just because a actress or actor is listed at the top of the imdb cast thing doesn’t mean they have top billing 😦
I think a lot of Buffy fans are excited for The Ringer. Oh I didn’t know Decker is in Secret Circle, but the show seems targeted to the young demographic. It reminds me of Vampire Diaries. Oh yeah, Ricci is definitely edgy so I think she’ll bring some flair to that show.
Yep, I have no idea why they list the cast that way, it’s in order of appearance so someone who’s famous or have won several Oscars might not be visible until you click on the full cast list if they appear in the middle of the movie. I think they should revise that, it’s just ridiculous.
Yeah, it got me thinking Deborah got lead role when that wasn’t the case. I really need to be more careful about that from now on
ALCATRAZ and PAN AM could be really interesting.
My two most anticipated of the new shows are ONCE UPON A TIME on ABC and the new show from my beloved Patrick Wilson, although I’m sad to see him going TV instead of getting some big movie roles 😦 He’s the only American thespian 😦
Once Upon a TIme was the show i was thinking of before. That hasn’t premiered yet right?
I think it premieres this week, but I’m not sure 😉
Hi Dezzy, yeah A Gifted Man looks intriguing. It also has the actress from the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice, good to see her on American TV.
Person of Interest: I’ve been waiting for that one for quite some time!! YES!!
Alcatraz: I hadn’t heard of it before you posted it! Sam Neill!! Thanks for finding me something else to be addicted to…on TOP of House, The Office, Person of Interest, The Sing Off, etc! My DVR will always be full.
PanAm: sorry to say, I don’t think it will stay on the air for too long.
Great post Ruth!!
it’s just too bad we have to wait a whole yr for Alcatraz!
Wow, how do you have time to watch so many shows?? I’m struggling to see even just 3 shows a week, but I’ll be sure to tune in to Person of Interest. Hopefully it’ll be around for a while.
I stand corrected yesterday on my way home I saw adverts for a new FX series from Ryan Murphy and company, American Horror Story. May be worth a look see: http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/ahs/
Glad you found at least one show you might like 🙂
Just looking forward to another great season of Harry’s Law with Kathy Bates on NBC.
Oh, glad to hear that’s still on.
I see like Hawai five-o. it’s on TV now…not really interested tho.I want them to bring back Lie To Me.
Person of Interest looks interesting, I like the actor since I saw him in Frequency. pan Am really not my thing.
the show I most interested to see is still SHERLOCK second season…I miss that snob and annoying modern day Sherlock so much.
I still have to see Frequency, my friend lent me her dvd and it’s still sitting in my basement. Oh yeah I know you love Sherlock, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing that.