Tuesday Night Reviews

CAVEMEN- Remember last week when I previewed the Cavement pilot and said that the show may be better than the pilot I saw over the summer because they clearly couldn't air the original pilot? Well, I was half right. ABC scrapped the entire original pilot episode. They changed everything except the fact that these guys are cavemen and that they live in a horrible, discriminatory world. What I was wrong about was this show getting better. If anything this new version is far worse. It is now just boring and obvious instead of being willfully idiotic. For some reason, I watched episode 2. It was even worse than the pilot. Cavemen will be off the air by month's end.

BONES- Ok, seriously, why is this show so obsessed with cannibalism and kinky sex? This episode is mostly about the latter; but also features an allusion to the former. I have to say "pony play" is a fetish I was not familiar with. It doesn't sound like fun and brings up many logistical issues. Bones has lost its ability to engage viewers in the mystery. At times it's too wrapped up in its office politics. The writers grasp that the banter among the characters is what separates this show from the glut of procedurals on the air so they play it up at the expense of the procedural elements.

DANCING WITH THE STARS- Bye, bye Wayne. I'll miss your....nothing. I will miss nothing about Wayne Newton. I didn't even think he was worth making fun of. I watched the last 2 minutes of this show on Wednesday night and watched the filler earlier today. I can't say I missed anything, except the mildly inappropriate dance that accompanied Hannah Montana singing with her dad. Eastern Bloc dancers just can't turn down the sexy, even when they're dancing to a song about a father lamenting his daughter growing up. I'm not sure they were sending the right message there.

HOUSE- I'm not going to bother making fun of the obvious problems with House this season. Tonight he stuck a knife into an outlet to prove to a patient that there is no such thing as an afterlife. They've also turned this into one of those reality competition shows while pretending to do a parody of them. This whole "So You Think You Can Be America's Next Top Doctor Project" bullshit would be much more interesting if Fox hadn't already issued press releases telling us exactly who is going to stick around this season. I don't like shows that use adorable, kind animals to emotionally manipulate me, either. Increasingly, it's becoming absurd the level of bullshit they let him get away with, especially considering both his patients died tonight. SPOILER WARNING: I also don't understand what the hell happened to paralyzed guy and his pills. If Olivia Wilde just forgot to give them to him, why didn't he say something? If he wanted to die and specifically didn't take his pills he couldn't do anything to them because he doesn't have use of his body and someone would have noticed a cup with pills in it just sitting on his table. END OF SPOILER
REAPER- This show has kept up the standard from the pilot episode- a feat few other freshman programs have been able to accomplish. Bret Harrison is extremely underrated. I love him here. Tyler Labine and Ray Wise also excel as Sock and the Devil, respectively. Missy Peregrym continues to be incredibly hot but incredibly boring on screen. She's the one weak link in this very strong cast.

LAW & ORDER: SVU-Sabrina, The Teenage Witch guest-starred this week. So did Beaver from Veronica Mars. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us this week. There was entirely too much going on by the time the episode's trial ends, and then they throw in yet another storyline, just for kicks.

What's on Kongye's TiVo- Thank God I Have Other Plans Edition

Overall tonight is going to be a poor night of programming. There isn't much on and the stuff that is there isn't all that exciting. This is a good night for it, since I'll have to catch up on this stuff when I get home late tonight.

CAVEMEN- 8pm, ABC- Review to follow. May as well see if they made a completely new pilot so that it's not as offensively horrendous as their last attempt.
CARPOOLERS- 8:30, ABC- Probably the only episode of this shows I'll ever watch. The pilot wasn't available at Paley or online, so I'm stuck with watching this crap with the masses.
BONES- 8pm, Fox- "Except for babies. Babies taste a lot like fish." Bones is so cannibal obsessed, let's see if they can find a way to put one into this week's episode.
REAPER- 9pm, The CW- Promising pilot, let's see where they go from there.
DANCING WITH THE STARS- 9pm, ABC- 59 minutes of filler, then Mark Cuban will be sent home. I do want to applaud this show for its new "Masters of Dance" series, which promised to showcase the best dancers from various genres on results nights. I hope they keep it up with deserving guests and I hope that dance snobs can refrain from bitching that the people who come on DwtS have sold out.
LAW & ORDER: SVU- 10pm, NBC- SVU was a surprise highlight of my week last Tuesday night. Let's see if they can raise the crazy bar again this week.

HOUSE- Sorry Greg House, your ratings are too high and your last episode too boring. You have been demoted to torrent status. Give me a good week or two and you may get your spot on my TiVo back.

Reaper- Definitely Worth a Viewing

Remember how I was all mean and hateful to Chuck the other day? First of all, get used to it; I’m a mean and hateful person by nature. More importantly, REAPER is premiering tonight and it’s like Chuck, only good.
When I say it’s like Chuck, I mean it’s pretty much exactly like Chuck. Granted Bret Harrison works in a Home Depot instead of a Best Buy and he becomes a bounty hunter for the devil instead of an annoying piece of shit that Adam Baldwin should kill as soon as possible; but otherwise the premises are pretty similar. Sam is a loser; but he’s actually a loser because his parents sold his sold to the devil before he was conceived and felt so guilty about it that they never forced him to work hard, so he never achieved anything. On his 21st birthday weird shit starts to happen, the devil shows up, and his parents tell him about the soul-selling stuff. The devil comes back and explains that he expects him to return escapees back to Hell. The rest of the show is Sam coming to terms with that and learning how to do his new job. Obviously he’s initially comically horrible at it and we go through some pretty standard story arch stuff. The plot isn’t the most appealing part of this show. I wouldn’t say it’s extraordinarily original. However, this show is funny, sweet, appealing, and smart. Bottom line is that it keeps you watching. Bret Harrison is just one of my favourite actors out there right now. He’s in a very uncomfortable Hollywood circle, since I just found out he’s friends with the likes of Adam Brody. He can be forgiven for that because he’s just that good. A couple of years in Vancouver working on this show should help. Man, Brody is totally gonna be sleeping on his couch in like a month.
*Aside to Bret: Dude, ditch the Seth Cohen. That whole cast is a sinking ship. In fact, do everyone a favour and put him out of his misery. Does he have any range beyond high school comic book geek?
The rest of the cast is great, too. One of the best ways of doing the devil I can remember. I appreciate that he’s not over the top, he’s a guy I think I’d like to hang out with. The love interest in a little boring; but give her time. One of the show’s strengths is that it does its sweet scenes very well; they fit in with the overall tone of the show.
I’m going to do a whole Chuck vs. Reaper entry at some point because it’s amazing how similar these shows are on paper and how much Reaper owns Chuck in every category. This show is what Chuck wishes it were.

Verdict: I think this is a really good direction for the CW to go in. It works for a young audience, it can get males interested in the network, and it has a family viewing potential for families with teens. I think it’ll go a couple of seasons.

Would I Watch It? Definitely; but there probably won’t be blog entries devoted to it.