TV

My Opinion of some New Shows

24 Hours	The action never stops in this excellent show. Each episode is supposed to have taken place in one hour of the same day, thus the title. I really look forward to this one!
The Agency	Another excellent series concerning the adventures of the CIA and it's operatives. I like it.
Education of Max Bickford	Good acting and very human plots. A bit slow at times, but a good series.
Smallville	A story of Superman's early years. Clark Kent is a teenager, and just beginning to understand his powers. Cleverly scripted, well cast and acted. It's enjoyable for comic book buffs.
Enterprise	Another series of Star Trek stories. Enjoyable, but not something I hate missing.
Citizen Baines	Good actor in a slow moving story filled with annoying Characters. Not my cup of tea.
Undercover	A special tem of government agents. Another shoot-em-up. Nah!!
Thieves	A silly take off on an old Bruce Willis series. The stories are unbelievable and too silly to laugh at.
Philly	Another lawyer show. The lead is a fine actress, but her character is too long suffering for me.
Wolf Lake	Werewolves with yellow eyes. It's a loser.
Alias	Good choreographed fight scenes, but stupid premise.
Scrubs	Shallow and silly.
Crossing Jordan	A beautiful young woman who happens to also be a coroner. She solves cases before the police even get close. Nah!
Witchblade	This show has been adopted from a successful comic book. It's a mixture of mystery and magic. The heroine, a New York police detective named Sara Pezzini, comes into possession of an ancient artifact, a seeming bracelet. As the plot evolves, it becomes obvious that the bracelet endows it's wearer with supernatural powers. Moreover, when danger presents itself, the bracelet turns into a mailed glove, which becomes a formidable weapon. The story teases the viewer with the question, did Sara find the glove, or did the glove choose Sara? But wait! Evil forces know that she has the glove and covet it for their own dark purposes. The show seems a cut above the ordinary and is worth a look see. No word so far on when this series might start again.
My Opinion of Shows from Last Season and Beyond
West Wing	Has become my hands down favorite. Excellent acting, engaging story lines and strong characters make this one I look forward to every week.
The Practice	This remains one of my very favorite shows. Every episode is a grabber, and it just keeps getting better and better. David E. Kelly rules!

Law and Order	A hard hitting series with good plots that is still one of my favorites.
NYPD Blue	The cast is undergoing some changes. New characters are interesting and stories are enjoyable,
Boston Public	This is one of the better shows from last season. The plot is about a Boston High School. Central characters are the principal, his assistant and the various teachers. The student body includes everything from nerds to athletes. Also portrayed are unconcerned, concerned and overly concerned parents. One of my favorite characters is that of a dedicated older teacher, who means well but is totally out of touch with his student's generation. The part is portrayed by Fyvish Finkle, (last seen on Picket Fences). The executive producer of the show is David E. Kelly (no wonder it's good). Try it out for something a bit different.
CSI	(Crime Scene Investigation) Investigators use forensic science to solve crimes. Scripts keep getting better and more interesting. I look forward to it. It's become one of my favorites. Good acting and good scripts.
100 Centre Street	After viewing only one episode I am very impressed by the quality of this new show. Solid stories and good acting. The cast is led by Alan Arkin. It's going to be one of the best new dramas this year. It's a winner! Try it. I've watched a second show. Now I'm hooked. I'm beginning to think this show is too cerebral to last.
Ed	I missed this one at the beginning of the season. It's an unlikely story of a successful lawyer who returns to his small home town, buys a bowling alley and pursues his high school sweetheart. It has a certain charm about it.
Providence	The success of this show has obviously set the tone for several new shows, such as Ed and Gilmore Girls. They all offer a small town ambiance, and involve the trials and tribulations of their leading family members. A very clever idea used in the premier episode was to have the family matriarch die, but she continues to return in each succeeding show as a part of a dream sequence. The writers use this device to set the premise for the evening's story, or show the unconscious conflicts of the leading lady. It's fun and very effective. The first season of Providence was pretty good, but the stories are now becoming somewhat predictable.
Ally McBeal	Though I no longer care if Ally will ever find the man of her dreams, I still enjoy this show. Mostly I enjoy the supporting characters. Peter MacNicol continues to tickle me as the odd character he portrays argues cases in the courtroom. Lucy Liu and Greg Germann each lend strong, inventive support to story lines, and the singing of Lisa Nicole Carson, Jane Krakowski and Vonda Shepard keep this show high up on my list of favorites. (Another David E. Kelly Show)
Frasier	It still has a great cast, and I still enjoy an occasional show, but it's beginning to fade.
ER	I guess I've become jaded. The chest cracking, blood spurting scenes no longer shock me. Despite losing Clooney and Margolis, this series still has a fine cast, but something seems to be missing. Where once I looked forward to it every week, I now don't care if I miss it or not.

The Gilmore Girls	Another somewhat charming story set in a small town. It's about a single young mother with a teen age daughter, both of whom are doing their best to deal with varying life experiences. Snappy dialogue holds the viewers interest.
Dark Angel	Set sometime in the future, features a young girl who possesses physical abilities beyond the norm as a result of DNA manipulation. Clever plots and good acting. I think it's superior to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, a plot I never could quite accept.

Shows that have ended or been cancelled

Voyager (Ended)	I became a StarTrek fan with the original series. I loved the Next Generation spin off. I still wonder why that was ever cancelled. I tried to convince myself that DS-9 was good. In the beginning it wasn't bad, but the plots got thinner as it wound down. Then along came Voyager, and I hoped it would reclaim the standing that Next Gen. enjoyed. It's been on TV an incredible seven years now, and getting worse each year. Will these poor people ever find their way home? I no longer care! Well guess what? They made it back in the very last show, just in time to finish the series and the season! BTW, a new Startrek series is in the works. It will center on the Space Academy, and young Space Cadets.
The Fighting Fitzgeralds	An amusing show about a family: father, three sons, daughter in law and grandchild, all living under one roof. The family patriarch, played by Brian Dennehy, is the antithesis of Frazier. He's a blue collar, earthy type, beer drinking oaf, who has trouble expressing his feelings. It had its' amusing moments.
All Souls (Cancelled)	I just happened to catch the premier of this new show on UPN. As it started out, it appeared to be just another ho-hum medical show, but then the plot took an unexpected twist. The title refers to the name of the hospital, an archaic, forbidding looking building. Through one of the characters, the viewer is informed that the building is over 150 years old and was at one time a lunatic asylum. Moreover, there are "..strange and frightening things taking place there." Ghosts of those who died in the asylum lurk in the corridors, patients who are admitted for minor medical treatments disappear, and evil doctors secretly perform illegal experiments. EWWW! The first show was pretty good, but I wonder if the writers can sustain a full season of good plots given the shows odd premise. We shall watch and see! I guess they couldn't. It's been dropped!
Michael Richards Show (Cancelled)	This one is doomed. As the comical Kramer on Seinfeld, Richards was outstanding. However, on his own show his antics just don't seem as entertaining. The oft played laugh track just can't convince anyone that the dialog is funny. This one is now gone too.
Level 9 (Cancelled)	A high tech, super secret team of computer nerds acting as government agents. Using laptop computers they control satellites, security systems, cameras, audio bugs, etc. Lots of techno-babble, pretty thin plots.
Freedom (Cancelled)	Seems to be a cross between The A Team and Texas Rangers. Lots of kick boxing and physical stunts. Plots are fairly mindless. Not my cup of tea. I think this one has been killed too.
Bull (Cancelled)	A portrayal of the high rollers on Wall Street. It started out to be lots of fun to watch, but it turned into a sexy soap opera. It was a Summer replacement show. It could come back
The Big Apple (Cancelled)	This new cop show premiered on 2 March. It started right out with a complicated plot, made all the more difficult to understand by the need to introduce the main characters, all of whom speak in some mixture of street lingo and secret cop talk. The NYC police detectives seem perpetually angry, the FBI agents are very angry, the FBI undercover agents are really angry, the American gangsters are mean and angry, and the Russian gangsters seem pretty amiable. I'll watch it again and give it one more chance. I watched it again, it still doesn't grab me! Evidently it didn't grab anybody else either. It's been cancelled.

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