I occasionally suffer depression-related paralysis. Let me explain: when I am extremely depressed (physiologically, not emotionally, necessarily), I have trouble getting up the energy -- getting up the will -- to do anything. Occasionally, it gets so bad that I can't get myself to exert enough to move any part of my body, and I am functionally paralyzed. Often it doesn't get as bad as full paralysis, allowing me to move one hand to move the mouse as I surf the net with a half-functioning mind. Last night, I spent about an hour lying on the floor, unable to get myself to move more than one hand, which had a hold of my Blackberry. Now, I post what I wrote during that time. I will LJ-cut it because it's potentially depressing -- and kind of dull after a while. But it might be interesting for you folks:

Before we begin, a personal note: I’ve got a tentative job offer (tentative as the manager likes me, but she has to go through the Regional Manager). Don’t get excited, it’s nothing cool, just a seasonal job at See’s Candies. But, as my grandfather used to say, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (really, how many things can you NOT say that about?).

Also, two things:

-Rachel brought up Criminal Minds as something I should have reviewed. I’ll admit, I forgot about it completely, because I’ve never seen it. You see, in the season it premiered, there was another procedural about serial killers -- no idea who ripped off who -- that I chose to watch instead. That show, The Inside, crashed and burned, and I never got around to filling the void of “serial killer procedural” in my TV schedule. Perhaps I will get around to watching. Perhaps not.

-Last night’s Chuck: Bad: Nicole Ritchie guest-starred. Good: So did the guy from Boy Meets World. Better: Nicole Ritchie got her ASS KICKED. Ahh, TV, you fulfill so many guilty fantasies.

On to Part Two of the reviews!

Okay, so I keep getting comments in the vein of “why didn’t you review THIS?” (and people defending How I Met Your Mother). Originally, my intent was only to mention shows that were either a) new or b) had undergone a substantial change. Upon reflection, I failed at this, as I mentioned Supernatural and Pushing Daisies, neither of which made particular changes this season. So, in deference to those folks who asked “Why not THIS?” I will now review (or at least mention) every goddamn show I can think of that’s currently on the air.

[note: I actually wrote this thing in one sitting, but it's far too long for anyone to actually read. I shall post it in three component parts.]

Okay, time for my (apparently) semi-annual event: Reviewing the fall’s TV programming. As per usual (well, so far as a practice that has occurred twice in four years can define “usual”), I will focus on the new shows, but I will also make mention of a couple returning shows that seem to have undergone a relatively large change. So here we are, in no particular order:

How I Met Your Mother: This used to be one of my favorite sitcoms, that helped convince me that the three-camera sitcom is not dead. However, it has slowly been going down the drain. I’m not sure when it started, but its edge has been blunted (and honestly, it’s always been pretty middle-of-the-road), the jokes got less witty, and by the beginning of Season Four now, Neil Patrick Harris as Barney is the only reason to watch the show (and the fact that Alyson Hannigan is pretty. But you can just watch old Buffy reruns for that), and even he has been misused recently, with an episode in which his entire purpose for the episode was to be MIND-NUMBINGLY IRRITATING, to both the other characters and the audience. So, I might tune back in to find out who the fuck the kids’ mother is, but otherwise, I’m saying a fond farewell to what used to be a good program.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: This is a great show. Unfortunately, it is in great danger of dying, because it’s opposite Chuck, and The Big Bang Theory, and some popular game show or other. I say just move the damned program, but methinks Fox is more likely to ax it. If that doesn’t happen, however, Terminator has the potential to be a fantastic show. It had an abbreviated nine-episode run last year due to the writer’s strike, and is returning now in its second season. It’s a sequel to the plotline, and the spirit, of Terminator 2, specifically retconning away the crapsack that was Terminator 3 in the first episode. It’s smart, gritty, survivalist action, with questions of morality (is it right to kill a good man who is inadvertently creating an apocalyptic death machine), spirituality (does the Terminator have a soul, or even a real personality? No? Then why did she decide to learn ballet?), parenting, predestination, and all the things that made the first parts of the Terminator series great, but stretched out into a full series so they can really be explored. Plus awesome robot fights. With Summer Glau, who played River in Firefly.

            Oddly enough, they’ve dropped a number of plots from the first season that weren’t resolved--but neither were they really made apparent enough to cause major aneurysms that they’re being dropped. The second season is definitely a retool, fixing things that I didn’t even realize were broken about the first season. It is an excellent series--catch it before the jokers at Fox decide to replace it with another hour of Guess My Panties.

Eleventh Hour: A BBC import/remake, Eleventh Hour is about an FBI science advisor who runs around and solves crimes about the cutting-edge of science. Unlike, say, Fringe, this is about real science (or as real as you can get on TV)--and that might be where it went wrong. The first thing I heard about it was that fans were pissed that the remake made the two leads younger and prettier--Rufus Sewell instead of Patrick Stewart, and a younger, thinner girl for his female bodyguard (interesting to show the American audience vs. the British audience--the hot bodyguard that every guy hits on in the BBC series is the same woman who plays the “unattractive,” “fat,” Scottish clothing designer on Ugly Betty). I watched the American pilot, and was unimpressed. So I decided to check out the original and see where the Americans went wrong. And you know what? They didn’t! It’s a practically line-for-line, shot-for-shot remake, with only a couple bits that are too “explicit” for American TV and a few superfluous scenes cut for time. So the thing is--the original isn’t very good. It’s dull, and no matter how much you like to listen to Patrick Stewart talk, he can’t hold my attention for an entire episode. So Eleventh Hour is dull and uninspired, but for once, you can’t blame that on the translation. It was translated perfectly, it’s just that the source material wasn’t worth the effort.

Merlin: This BBC program (no, you can’t watch it on American TV yet. You need to steal it on-line or wait for a year. Stop bitching) is a fun, Smallville-type look at the early years of Merlin and King Arthur. Well, kind of. They decided to make Merlin into a teenager and still put him in the same place as Arthur--so they made them the same age, and Merlin is Arthur’s servant. And for some reason, Uther Pendragon is alive and well and Arthur is Prince, without step-brother Kay or anything else we might recognize from fond memories of The Sword in the Stone. Now, I’ll admit I’m not terribly familiar with the original legend, but I’m fairly certain that Arthur being an orphan was established when Arthur’s childhood was first mentioned. And I know that Merlin ain’t supposed to be his teenaged sidekick. Then we have the fact that Arthur’s love interest isn’t Guenivere, but Morgana, who is recast from half-sister and evil enchantress to a member of Uther’s court--and Guenivere is her servant and Merlin’s love interest. Okay… oh, and Guenivere’s Black. Not to sound racist, but there weren’t a lot of African women around in the Middle Ages--and their race would certainly not be completely ignored like Guenivere’s is in Merlin.

            Okay, so Merlin has made so many changes to the mythos that it’s pretty much unrecognizable as the King Arthur myth. And it has a tendency to hit the note of “Merlin knows there’s bad magic, but he can’t reveal it because magic is outlawed and nobody will believe him” a bit too often. But if you can forget the fact that it’s supposed to be Camelot, and ignore the occasionally anachronistic dialogue (mostly insults, oddly enough), it’s a fun generic fantasy romp.

Fringe: I am not sure how I feel about this. I really liked the premiere. The second and third episodes kind of left me cold. The fourth was quite good, and the fifth wasn’t bad at all. It’s so damned hyped that that makes me a little turned off, then I try to go back the other way, but I’m not sure if I go too far. The premise is good: It’s basically the X-Files, except that the investigations have official support, and everything is based around superscience (“fringe” science) instead of aliens AND ghosts AND technological conspiracies. The thing is, the characters are not that interesting. The three leads are an FBI agent, a crazy scientist (and I do mean crazy, he spent the last 17 years in an asylum), and the scientist’s son. The scientist is a fantastic character. It’s the guy that played Denethor, the Steward of Gondor (who jumped off a cliff while on fire, just to make sure his death was remembered, or so I must assume) from Return of the King, and sharp writing and an amazing performance make his insanity completely believable as well as very entertaining. However, one character can not a show make, as the lead is really dull, and the snarky son is underutilized (in fact, he has no job on the show other than “keep your father in line,” which means they have to really work to keep him involved in the cases). The supporting cast are simply exposition machines, and while the episode-specific characters are pretty good, the fact that they show up the lead cast is problematic.

            The show has a tendency to go too far. The third episode includes two crazy superscience problems, apparently unrelated, each of which could have supported an episode on their own. And it has the highest body count of any show I can think of. Your average cop or hospital show has one, maybe two deaths per episode. An action show might have two redshirts or guest stars and a half-dozen mooks bite it. Fringe opened with an entire 747 going down, killed a busload of people in the third episode, another six  in the teaser to episode five… it’s really quite absurd.

            It seems like I’ve simply been bashing Fringe. But if it had only bad things, I wouldn’t still be undecided on it. It explores interesting areas of fringe science, has an interesting arc plot running along underneath the episodic, it has some nice investigative and action sequences, and, as I said, the scientist is really damn fun (and has a lot of pathos, too). So I don’t know. Jury’s still out. You might want to give it a shot.

Crusoe: Do you remember when Lost started, and everyone thought it was going to be a serious Gilligan’s Island, with the question of how they were going to get off the island every episode? And how JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof surprised us by making it about how cool the island was? Yeah, Crusoe is the Gilligan’s Island thing. It is, unsurprisingly, the story of Robinson Crusoe, stretched out into an episodic format. The first episode featured pirates looking for treasure, but they were dispatched by the end, which leads me to conclude that we’re looking at Crusoe as Gilligan. In fact, he’s more The Professor--his island is a mass of Rube Goldberg devices, from crazy traps to a hamster-wheel bridge (no, I can’t explain it any better) to a ridiculously complicated signaling device right out of Wile E. Coyote’s repertoire. Of course, they’ve reworked the racist “Friday” character--he still takes his name from the day Crusoe found him and refers to himself as “Friday” in the third person, but now it’s because he’s “making fun” of Crusoe and the fact that the white man can’t pronounce his real name. Right. He still has a Wookiee Lifedebt to Crusoe--you saved my life, so I’ll be your slave, I mean friend, until you die. There are Lost rip-off flashback sequences throughout the show, but they fail to be entertaining or even particularly enlightening as to Crusoe’s character. And then there’s the coincidences. Okay, so Crusoe’s island happens to have pirate treasure on it. I’ll buy it, because otherwise it’s Cast Away on a weekly basis. Then at the climax, he figures out that the pirate treasure just happens to be buried right where he built his treehouse. Uh-huh. Then, he blows up the pirates, and guess what is right under there feet, unearthed by the explosion? THE GOLD!!! I. Don’t. Think. So. The only thing to watch Crusoe for is reasonably cool action sequences (a nifty swordfight in the premiere), some bizarre bamboo MacGuyver sequences, and the fact that the costumes and dialogue are a reasonable facsimile of the 17^th century. Otherwise, keep of off Crusoe’s island and go to Lost’s.

Sanctuary: This is a (relatively) unprecedented show. Created as an online “webisode” program, but by professionals (mostly Stargate alums), and filmed mostly on green-screen, Sanctuary was picked up by Sci-Fi after they’d streamed the equivalent of their first two episodes on-line (which they then re-filmed for the regular show). So. Unprecedented. Too bad it’s not very good. Now, it’s not terrible, but it’s not something I would have invested millions in to convert from web to regular TV. The lead is Stargate SG-1’s Amanda Tapping, with a really weird and forced-sounding English accent, surrounded by a handful of nobodies. The premise is that there’s a lot of really weird stuff out there (much like X-Files, Fringe, or Supernatural--or Buffy), and the leads have taken it upon themselves to protect people from the bizarre, and the bizarre from normal people. It’s unclear exactly what the rules of the universe are--the “monsters” mostly seem to be described as mutants, but the second episode featured the Morrigan from Celtic mythology (well, sort of). I wish we had a clearer picture of what is and isn’t allowed in this world, because I don’t know if I should be surprised if aliens crash out of the sky in the next ep. Also--it’s kind of boring. I’m not sure if this is because they’re used to not having any money, or what, but it’s a supernatural action/investigation show with shockingly little fighting or neat effects. The characters aren’t compelling enough for me to particularly care when they get their asses kicked, and I’m never sure what resources they have at their disposal, so I’m not sure whether they really are in trouble or not. So, I’d stay away from this one (and curse Sci-Fi for cancelling Stargate Atlantis, which they probably did so they could afford Sanctuary), unless it gets better. It is showing signs of getting better, but it’s got an awfully long way to go.

Valentine: Valentine is an odd duck. It lies at an uncomfortable level--too weird for the mainstream, but not quirky enough to really hold the attention of the geek crowd. Plus, it’s really quite sappy. The premise is this: Aphrodite, Eros, the Pythia oracle, and for some reason Hercules are still around in the present day, and run a business bringing soul mates together. When they realize that they don’t really get modern people, they hire a romance novelist to help them out (because all shows need human characters, apparently). Plus Eros has a “lust gun.” A little out there, right? But it’s obviously aimed at regular folks--the Greek Gods have for some reason renamed themselves with names like Grace and Danny, and they flip-flop between completely downplaying their godlike-ness (the only real nifty supernatural powers we’ve seen are the aforementioned lust gun and the oracle seeing the future in a Jacuzzi--yes, a Jacuzzi) and explaining ad nauseum the history and role of the Gods. The soul mates they deal with are really, really sweet with each other, which is either heartwarming or stomach-turning, depending on your mentality, and they don’t spend more than the teaser setting up their love for each other, because Fate says they belong together. This is either a way to easily move on to the conflict, or incredibly lazy writing. Not sure. And then there’s the fact that the episodes appear to be airing out of order, which is always a sign that the network suits don’t have confidence in the show. As is the fact that aside from a handful of ads for the premiere, it has not been advertised at all. So, I don’t know. I think it lives on a tightrope between too weird and too normal, and it’s probably going to fall off soon.

Pushing Daisies: Now this show lives--practically defines--weird. It’s about a piemaker who brings people back to life, including his dead girlfriend, who he now can’t touch or she’ll die again. They fight crime. They live in a nameless city that exists in a “no-time” with flatscreen TVs and record players coexisting, and one of the best gags this season was when they found a crashed clown car--and retrieved about fifteen corpses from it. With nobody calling attention to the fact. So. A wee bit quirky. But brilliant. Incredibly smartly written, with brilliantly funny and heart-wrenching performances from all the leads (in my mind, though, Kristin Chenowith as the manic Olive Snook takes the cake), and bizarre but fascinating crimes in worlds as diverse as dog-breeding, perfumery, and a Catholic nunnery. The love story between the piemaker and his “alive again” girlfriend is also incredibly sweet, but without being maudlin or saccharine, and instead truly touching. If you know me, you know I think Firefly is pretty much the be-all, end-all of television drama--and Pushing Daisies at least equals it, if not pushes it off its pedestal. So. Watch the damn show. Buy the DVD or find it online so you can see the last season (it was only nine episodes because of the strike. Easy-peasy). Enjoy. Laugh. Cry. Cock your head and go “huh?”

My Own Worst Enemy: Jury’s still out on this. Christian Slater as a guy with split personalities--one is a regular guy, Henry (Jekyll) Spivey, and the other is the violent superspy Edward (Hyde) Albright. The premise is that Edward volunteered for a program to create a split personality nearly twenty years ago (so that he has no “personal life” for the bad guys to exploit), and almost everyone in Henry’s life is a spy whose job it is to fool him. Then they start “waking up” in each others’ lives, and throwing everything all to Hell. An interesting idea, but it is so far unclear if they can sustain it through a series. I’m a big Christian Slater fan, and while it’s very weird to see him as the unassuming Henry, it’s cool to see his range and enjoy him in his more usual-for-him Edward persona. Since I’ve only seen the pilot, I will reserve opinion until I see what they do with it--the pilot is never a very good indication of what a show is actually going to be like.

Kath and Kim: What the Hell is this? Apparently an import/remake of an Australian show, I can only hope that the original is better. Two talented and funny actresses (Molly Shannon and Selma Blair) are wasted on scripts that wouldn’t make a man on nitrous oxide laugh. I’m not even sure where the jokes are supposed to be half the time--I think the main gag is that they’re both shallow and stupid, but I’m honestly not sure when I’m supposed to be laughing (and I don’t, even when that’s identified). You know it’s a lousy script when Molly Shannon can’t make it work--I mean, Jesus, she made Superstar halfway watchable. Stay far, far away from Kath and Kim.

Worst Week: Here we have another dismally failed comedy. It takes the basic methodology of slapstick, takes away everything that makes it funny, and stretches it into twenty-two minutes. I watched the first half of the first episode and had to turn it off. After a short introduction to the lead character, during which we got little information except “he’s a nice guy” and “he likes his girlfriend,” bad things started happening to him. No rhyme or reason, no interesting reactions from him, not even very interesting bad things. Just shitty stuff happening to a nice guy. Sure, that might be funny for about two minutes, but you cannot sustain an entire show, let alone an entire series, on this premise. Beat the producers to death with sticks.

Supernatural: Why is nobody watching this? The adventures of the Winchester boys started out in the first two-thirds of the first season as just two hot guys saving hot girls from monsters, this is true. But for the last two and a half years, it has been an incredibly smart, fun (and yes, sexy) exploration of mythology, the nature of good and evil, and an examination of two severely fucked-up co-dependent brothers. In this season, the leads discover that God exists (or at least Angels do), and Sam takes hope, but Dean finds it depressing--because what kind of God would allow the kind of Hellish reality that Supernatural exists in? And after watching years of the emotional and physical torment that the Winchesters (and everyone they meet) go through on a regular basis, I really can’t disagree with Dean. Still. Seriously. Watch the show. Just prepare to be a little depressed right after the “that was awesome! moments.”

Heroes: Oh, thank the Gods, Heroes is back. And by that, I mean it left at the end of Season One and didn’t come back until now, Season Three. Now, this crappy second season phenomenon, or, as tvtropes.org calls it, “Sophomore Slump,” is not unusual--Lost lost its way in 2^nd Season, only to recover in Season Three; Veronica Mars slumped in Season Two, and then faced the extra problem of changing from high school to college in Season Three, but was cancelled just as it was finding its way; Ugly Betty collapsed for a while; Dark Angel blew its load in Season One, and wasn’t left with anything for the second season--not sure if they would have found a way to recover if they hadn’t been cancelled… anyway, my point is that a lot of shows, for some reason especially the ones that make a big splash in their first season, fall apart for a year. But if you can make it through, or skip it and read a season synopsis online or something, year three is often better than either year before it.

Heroes: Villains (because seasons need names, apparently), is wisely focusing back on the characters we care about instead of wandering through Mexico and New Orleans, and giving them interesting things to do--in particular, Sylar is attempting to reform (but in an interesting way), both Peter and Mohinder are running straight for the Dark Side, and Claire is finally getting off her ass instead of sitting around whining like she did for all of Season Two. So if you enjoyed this show two years ago and lost interest, give it another shot. Superpowers are awesome.