Here are just a few random thoughts on my impressions of the new TV season so far. RETURNING SHOWS West Wing – I forgot how much I missed it. If last week’s two hour season premiere was any indication, West Wing will continue to be the best show on television. ER – Severing a character’s arm. Is that the best they can do? Apparently the writers are so short on ideas that they have to resort to shock value. Newsflash to NBC - cable shows are gaining in the ratings not just because they are shocking. It is because in addition to the shock value they are very well written. If slicing Dr. Romano’s arm off is the best they have to offer, I might be looking elsewhere on the TV dial this year on Thursday nights. By the way, I wasn’t impressed when JAG pulled a similar stunt on their season finale last year; ER’s rip-off of it didn’t make it any better. JAG – Speaking of JAG, it went out on a very low note last year by blowing off a character’s leg. Yeah, I know they are trying to realistically depict war. Call me a prude, but since the show airs at 8pm when kids are likely to be watching, there was absolutely no need of them being that graphic. In fact, I was so annoyed that I almost skipped last week’s season premiere. I almost wish I had. In it we had one-legged Bud fighting for his life after getting his leg blown off by a land mine. Then the poor bugger dies on the operating table, only to magically come back to life when his young son makes some sort of psychic connection with him from thousands of miles away. Huh? By the end of the hour I wasn’t sure whether I was watching JAG or Touched By An Angel. Either way, the last two episodes of JAG have ended on sour notes. Hope they can turn things around. Third Watch – This is a show that I had all but given up on last year. But I did catch a rerun of the season finale a couple of weeks ago and decided to catch the season opening. The show has improved since I stopped watching, and is on par with its first season. It’s far from the best show on TV, but it is one of the better things on Monday nights. Survivor – I began to lose interest in this one last year. The first episode of the new season didn’t do much to reverse that trend. The show is going out of its way to be unpredictable. But all it really is doing is becoming more predictable in that the audience is now expecting the curve balls and anticipating them before they happen. Actually, I’m almost inclined to call the show deceptive. In the promotions for the show, it was billed as a male tribe versus a female tribe. Anyone who watched the show knows that lasted a good five minutes. I guess when you have stopped being able to come up with good ideas to surprise the audience, you can always just try deceptive promotions. The Sopranos – The new season has been disappointing so far. Boring is actually a better word. NEW SHOWS CSI Miami – I enjoyed the preview of this show during an episode of CSI last year, but I’ll have to admit that I was saddened to hear that they felt the need to start meddling with the show before it even hit the air. As soon as I found out that Kim Delaney had been added to the cast, my interest in seeing the show dropped considerably. She didn’t disappoint. She isn’t an asset to the show. And why exactly does David Caruso always have to play these overly intense characters? Try something different already man. At any rate, the first episode wasn’t bad, but I lost interest in last night’s second episode about half way through the show. I’ll likely tune in again next week, but if it doesn’t improve, that’s it for me. Firefly – Not bad, but not anywhere near what I would have expected of a show created by Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Joss Whedon. The quality was such in the first episode that I only bothered to catch the last few minutes of the second episode, and I don’t think I missed much. John Doe – I liked this show a lot more than I thought I would. Good premise. The first two episodes have kept my interest. Time will tell if a show about a guy who knows everything but his own name will have any legs. OTHER SHOWS These aren’t new shows but I have just started tuning in recently, as they have finally made their way to Canada. The Shield - I have to say that The Shield exhibits the same kind of quality that was found in the first couple of seasons of The Sopranos. It’s also nice to see Michael Chiklis back on TV. The Osbournes - While The Osbournes have been airing for a while here in Canada, it is only recently that they have been airing uncut (without bleeps). Having never seen the bleeped versions, I can’t imagine how they would be anywhere near as entertaining as Ozzy uncut.

¶ 10/01/2002 05:59:00 PM

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