This week brought good news for some shows and ambiguous-but-probably-foreboding news for others. CBS surprised everyone by ordering full seasons of all five of their new series, including the critically scorned Twitter-based sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, Tom Selleck's new hit Friday night cop drama Blue Bloods, and Hawaii Five-0. The CW also announced which shows they'd be picking up for a full season: the eight season wonder One Tree Hill (the show that won't die), and freshman series Hellcats and Nikita. Notably absent was Life Unexpected, whose hopes for a full second season are not looking good. But let's move on to some recaps of this week's noteworthy shows, only two of which were mentioned above (yes, that was a shot at all the stupid shows that got full season pick-ups CBS and The CW)...
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It was another week of great TV, darkened only by the news of what we'd all feared: ABC will be premiering their new reality competition Skating With The Stars this November, allowing them to continue wasting three hours of air time a week on has-beens and celebutantes making fools of themselves to music, even after this season of Dancing With The Stars has ended (God willing). If this premise sounds familiar to you, it's probably because it's nearly identical to Fox's Skating With Celebrities which only aired for one season in 2006. But by all means, please try it again, ABC.
But enough bad news, let's discuss the good news, namely the winning shows of the week... The question isn't why should you watch Terriers, it's why aren't you. This buddy crime drama on FX about a pair of scrappy private investigators (the show has nothing to do with dogs, by the way, despite its title) is easily the best new drama of the TV season, providing a delightful cocktail of compelling characters, intriguing mysteries, and witty dialogue. What amazes me most about this show is how it manages to balance the procedural aspect of the week-to-week crime cases with the serialized character arcs and underlying, interwoven criminal conspiracies they encounter. Even more impressive is the amount of character development they've managed to accomplish in only five episodes. Hank (Donal Logue) is a recovering alcoholic and an ex-cop who happens to still be in love with his ex-wife, who's now engaged to another man. Britt (True Blood's Michael Raymond-James) is a reformed criminal who met Hank while he was breaking into a taco stand. Supporting characters include Britt's fiance Katie (Laura Allen), Hank's mentally unstable MIT graduate sister (played by Donal Logue's real sister, Karina Logue), and Hank's former partner, Detective Mark Gustafson (Rockmond Dunbar), who is perpetually sucking on a plastic cigarette holder (they say it helps people quit smoking).
While the show is dark at times, the gritty noir feel of the show is lightened by its sunny California setting and the comedic chemistry between the two leads, Logue and Raymond-James. Terriers achieves that rare blend of drama, mystery, and comedy. And it does so with genuinely good storytelling, something many shows on TV lack these days. So rather than watching a rerun of CSI: Albuquerque or whatever dancing show you recorded yesterday, how about tonight you give Terriers a try? New episodes air Wednesdays at 10 on FX. You can catch up on the first five episodes here. Another exciting week of television has come and gone, and it seems that the new shows are starting to distinguish themselves as either "keepers" or "soon-to-be-canceled." The first new show to get a full season pickup, I'm happy to say, was Fox's comedy Raising Hope. The outlook isn't as good for some other new shows (Chase, The Whole Truth, and Running Wilde, for instance), but more on that later. Let's start from the beginning...
First of all, let's have a moment of silence for a fallen TV gem: Lone Star, Fox's critical darling slash ratings vacuum, was canceled this week after airing only two episodes. Meanwhile, Outsourced and three Chuck Lorre sitcoms are still at large. Is there no justice? Let's not dwell on the negative, though. There were plenty of entertaining moments in television this week...
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