New Fall Shows That I Love And You Should Watch
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! As a huge TV nerd, fall is my favourite time of the year because there’s so many new shows and most of the shows I love come back (though it also causes problems in terms of scheduling) so I decided to write a post about the new fall season. This post will be about the brand spankin’ new shows this year that I’m excited about and think the millions of readers of this site should watch or at least give a decent shot.
Glee
This is the one show that I cannot shut up about and that my friends will not stop making fun of me for watching and loving. But fuck them all, I love Glee and I’m proud of it. Glee is about the hilarious trials and tribulations of a high school glee club, its members, and the faculty surrounding it. Being about a glee club, of course it has a few musical numbers per episode which are usually quite entertaining and fun whether the song is a Queen or Journey cover or a musical number from Cabaret. I have downloaded a few of the songs from iTunes and am eagerly awaiting the first album (which I believe is out in November). The musical numbers are performed by a superb ensemble cast that all have their moments. The most recent episode is #5 so you have some catching up to do if you decide to jump on the bandwagon and if you’re already on the bandwagon: good for you, you like good things!
Community
My love of this new show can be summed up with: Joel McCale is awesome. I’d like to say that it’s not just him but it’s hard to think of someone else to play such a likeable asshole. And without that likeable asshole, the whole show would probably fall apart despite all the side characters and actors being great. Chevy Chase stands out, as the older eccentric guy going back to school who is also a little bit sexist and racist, along with Danny Pudi as Abed who has Asberger’s (as a joke in the first episode commented, “hehe, ass burgers”) and often references TV shows or movies (a funny example of which is in the pilot where he recites a speech from The Breakfast Club). It is quite funny, it has a fantastic cast, and there’s less story and more just funny here but it’s still great. It’s also supported by some great guest stars so far: the Spanish teacher played by Ken Jeong and the accounting (I think? not really sure what he taught in his episode, which was the point) teacher played by John Michael Higgins (you might know him from the Christopher Guest movies or Wayne Jarvis the professional attorney from Arrested Development). The third episode is the most recent but being a half hour show, that’s not much catching up to do.
Modern Family
The funniest new show of the year so far and I’ve only seen two episodes so that might change but screw it, I have my opinion and I’m sticking to it. I laughed out loud when watching the premiere of this show more than Glee or Community combined; it just had so many funny moments in it and ones that have great staying and quotability power (I’ll be quoting “Why the face” and “I can’t turn it off, it’s who I am” for a while). I was worried after such a good first episode that the second episode would show a huge quality drop off but it didn’t; it had just as many funny, quotable moments as the first and though there was a little bit of a sappy speech towards the end, it didn’t falter. It seems like a premise that has a lot of legs. It’s about three interconnected families: one traditional, one older man married to a younger woman of another race with a son from a previous marriage, and a gay couple that has adopted an Asian baby so they likely won’t run out of ideas for a long time since there’s just so many stories and angles they could approach it from. It just aired it’s second episode so it will be easy to catch up.
FlashForward
This show was HILARIOUS…well, not so much (though there was a pretty funny scene in the second episode involving blacking out in a bathroom). This post has been talking about all comedies so far so I’m just used to it. I’m a big Lost fanatic and as such was pretty interested in this show ever since it started being touted as the next Lost. It also doesn’t hurt that it is based on a book that I read and enjoyed years ago. That may cause some problems for me because if it follows the book i know I’ll enjoy it but I kinda know what happens and if it doesn’t it might not be as good a story. The story in the show is that everyone in the world blacks out for two minutes and seventeen seconds and sees their future (six months to be exact). With a premise like that it has both great character story lines and an overall story arch, just like Lost. It also has a large ensemble cast with a familiar face from Lost (PENNEH!) but my favourite cast member has to be John Cho, I’ve been a fan of his for a while now and think what may or may not happen to his character is quite interesting. I’m not sure if it will have the the same culture around it (e.g. tons of theory sites, podcasts, etc.) as Lost or if it will even be as good but I really like it so far and you should give it a chance if you haven’t.
