There has been a lot of buzz surrounding this year’s pilot season with the likes of Sean Hayes’ and Michael J. Fox’s new shows, and also Hostages and Agents of Shield to name a few. I’ve watched a lot of the new shows (not all, sadly – there just isn’t enough time) and here’s my take on a few of them:
Sean Saves the World (But I wish he wouldn’t) – Thursdays at 9 p.m. on NBC
Sean Hayes stars in this new sitcom, in which he recently gained full-time custody of his daughter from a previous relationship (yes, with a woman) and is finding it hard to juggle his job – which recently went under new management – and his family. The premise is the same, standard “modern famil”y sitcom that we’ve seen in the past few years and to be honest, I was hoping it’d somehow capture or be a continuation of his character on Will & Grace. The pilot was…pretty awful. It’s got predictable jokes, flat acting and utilizes generic stereotypes that I thought people didn’t resort to anymore. Jewish grandmother? Token black guy? Clueless father? I give it half a season before it’s canned.
The Michael J. Fox Show – Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. on NBC
Michael J. Fox’s new show, aptly named after himself, is also a family sitcom like Sean Saves the World…but it’s actually decent! Fox is a beloved retired news anchor in NYC who’s driving his family nuts. Most of the show is told through his family’s eyes and they can’t wait for him to go back to work. They eventually convince him (with meticulously sneaky planning) to return, and voila, all is well. The show acknowledges his Parkinson’s disease in a tasteful manner but it’s (thankfully) not the focal point of the show. I didn’t hate the show, but at the same time I didn’t love it. Give it a go and watch the pilot!
Tomorrow People – Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW
The protagonist is a high school kid who keeps hearing voices, waking up in strange places and has… super powers? Basically, puberty does some weird a$$ s@#! on this show! Turns out, this kid is a super-human with special powers like telepathy, teleportation and telekinesis – and there are others like him hiding in a sort of underworld. As always, there’s an evil corporation – this time the government – trying to wipe out the super-humans because they are considered dangerous and far too advanced for “mankind.” Plus, the leader of the evil organization is the kid’s father! What a shocker. The show isn’t very memorable and I don’t remember much of what I watched. Tomorrow People feels like a watered-down version of shows like Heroes and like with the Michael J. Fox show, it’s not horrible but it’s not fabulous. If you like everything on The CW, you might like this show.
Hostages – Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS
One of the most talked-about shows to premiere this year is Hostages. It stars Dylan McDermott from American Horror Story and Toni Collette, who is from recent films like The Way Way Back (Fun fact: she also played the mom in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense). I’m not the biggest fan of shows like Hostages (24, The Following, etc) and I really wanted to hate it. But I couldn’t. It’s fairly captivating and I finished watching the show with more questions than answers. However, there’s just one little itty-bitty concern I have: How is the show going to last for 13 or 14 weeks? The premiere ended (spoiler alert!) with Toni Collette’s character giving the president the wrong medication so she couldn’t operate on him, and thus be forced to murder him, and with Dylan McDermott & co. staying with the family until the next surgery date. Is every episode going to consist of Toni Collette thwarting every plan and then becoming a hostage again? I don’t like the show enough to want to watch it live every week. I’m going to wait until almost all of the episodes have aired and watch them all at once to see what happens.
Betrayal – Sundays at 10 p.m. on ABC
To put it frankly, I feel betrayed. And yes, pun intended. This show promised me a sultry and sensuous “affair” drama like you would not believe, and maybe even a murder or two. What I got was boredom – severe boredom. I was counting sheep throughout the entire show and prayed to whatever god is out that it would end. It has awful editing, snooze-worthy acting and is meh/bluh/yawn/take your pick of adjective overall. The show’s ratings seem to suggest that everyone feels the same way I do. I give it a few more episodes tops before getting axed.
Sleepy Hollow – Mondays at 9 p.m. on FOX
Sleepy Hollow is my favorite new show of the season. There, I’ve said it. Anyone who has spoken to me in the last couple weeks knows how I feel about this show. The show is a re-invention of the classic Sleepy Hollow story about Ichabod Crane’s mix up with the Headless Horseman. This Ichabod Crane however, is not the classic aloof and clumsy schoolteacher. He’s an Oxford-schooled Brit (played by Tom Mison) who was drafted into the King’s Army and then defected and joined us Colonials. Oh, and he married a witch who cast a spell on him so that when the Headless Horseman returned, so would Ichabod. And this is where the show begins. Someone awoke the Headless Horseman and he’s chopping people’s heads off. Ichabod wakes up in a cave and bewilderedly ambles about the town until he’s arrested for the murder of the town’s sheriff. Here in jail is where he meets Abby (played by Nicole Beharie), the new sheriff. Without giving too much away (because you should watch it), Abby and Ichabod become Sleepy Hollow’s newest crime-fighting duo.
And as much as I want Tom Mison for myself, I really hope these two become a duo off-screen. I mean, look at how good they look together:
Sleepy Hollow is currently on hiatus until November 4, giving you plenty of time to catch up!
And there are still more shows to premiere this fall! FOX’s new sci-fi show Almost Human premieres on November 17, with another new episode following the next day. And on October 25, the British-American show Dracula, starring Jonathon Rhys-Myers, will debut and subsequently air after Grimm on Fridays at 10 p.m.