Season Premieres have Arrived! Part I

Let's get things started with all the big premieres and hype!

The big premiere everyone was waiting for was obviously, Two and a Half Men. The first half of the episode was mostly standard far for the show (awful) and Charlie Harper's funeral was handled very poorly. The reveal of Ashton Kutcher's character was fantastic, but the character itself was very boring. The title of the show can't even be called Two and a Half Men any more because Walden is such a man-child. Jake is still immature and will continue to be immature, so Alan is the only one left as the responsible adult. Alan as the responsible adult? Charlie may have been a whore-monger, but at least he could balance his checkbook and make a decent living. The season premiere of Two and a Half Men was a BUST.

Earlier that night came the one hour season premiere of How I Met Your Mother. Last season left off with the revelations that Marshall and Lily are pregnant (for real), Robin still has feelings for Barney, and that Ted meets the Mother while being the best man at Barney's future wedding. The premiere started off at Barney's wedding where Ted is reassuring Barney that he "picked the right tie," an intentionally poor metaphor Barney used to refer to his choice of bride. At this point, it's pretty clear that Barney's bride will either be Nora or Robin. During their talk, Ted and Barney refer to Punchy's wedding as being the worst wedding they've ever been to, taking us to the present day. At Punchy's wedding, Robin considers telling Barney how she feels about him, but ends up getting him to tell Nora how he feels about her. The whole sequence is very un-Barney-like, but he's been changing a lot, especially since he finally met his father. The first episode in general was very boring, despite the dance number by Barney and Robin.

The second episode deals with Ted landing the cover of New York magazine, covering the demolishing of the Archadian at the end of last season and the construction of Ted's new building, noting him to be New York's youngest architect to have a building constructed. Although the issue was brought up in the previous episode, the magazine finally pays off in this episode, leading Ted to get dates with 2 different girls. One is highly educated and the typical intellectual girl Ted wants, while the other picked up the check. It's a tough decision for Ted, especially with the Architect's Ball coming up. Eventually, he decides to go with Robin in an unclever mix-up that anyone could see coming form a mile away. Meanwhile, Marshall has a job interview with a big environmental law firm coming up, but discovers by background checking himself, that a video of him drunk and streaking in college has hit Youtube. Despite efforts to get the video removed, Marshall accidentally makes a sequel to the previous video, which inadvertently makes him more popular with his potential boss.

The season premiere ends with Marshall seeing the girl hinted throughout the episode through song, Victoria, Ted's girlfriend from Season 1. Victoria left to culinary school in Germany, but broke things off with him when he cheated on her with Robin. It's becoming clear now why in the hell Ted began his story so early, since if he didn't get back with Victoria and (more than likely) take her as his date to Barney's wedding, he wouldn't have met the Mother. Overall, the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother was Average.

Monday also featured the series premiere of Unforgettable, a show about a former cop with Hyperthymesia, an incredibly rare medical condition that causes eidetic memory. She ends up being a witness to murder and must team up with her former partner/boyfriend who has coincidentally moved to New York City and continues to be a cop. The show has decent writing, but the acting is its strong point. Poppy Montgomery is a total unknown and I fear she will continue to be one. Her collagen-injected lips are unattractive and her inability to maintain an American accent is very distracting. She needs to take American accent lessons from Simon Baker and Hugh Laurie, 2 actors that people are usually surprised to learn are Australian and English, respectively. The series premiere of Unforgettable was Kind of Forgettable.

Tuesday night is the return of garbage with networks struggling to find shows to air opposite NCIS and Glee. Fox premiered a new show, New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel, and the 2nd season premiere of Raising Hope, the surprise success of last year.

New Girl is the story of a nerdy girl who moves in with 3 male roommates. The premise is simple and to the point, making sure that none of the characters are perfect and have their flaws on the surface. While a bit shallow, the dynamic will be changing in the 2nd episode since Damon Wayans, Jr. had to leave the show due to prior commitments to Happy Endings if it was renewed for a 2nd season. The series premiere of New Girl was Wait-And-See.

Raising Hope began the 2nd season by recapping the series premise and 1st season through song, cleverly aware of the fact the show is much more high-profile now and will attract more viewers by simply receiving a 2nd season on Fox. The premiere itself was pretty good, making sure to maintain the status quo and continuing to make Jimmy's life a living hell with his parents. The season premiere of Raising Hope was Expected and Awesome.

Glee's premiere hasn't exactly been a huge deal like Season 1 was, since Season 2 alienated fans and people from the music industry so much. Season 3 was set to begin with winning back fans from Season 1, but it didn't work , since ratings fell even lower than Season 2's premiere and a generally weak episode as people are waiting for the brand new cast of characters for Season 4. If trends continue, expect the show to be cancelled either this year or next year. The season premiere of Glee was a BUST.

Wednesday night was the big gamble, the series premiere of The X-Factor. I skipped it, but watched the auditions later.

America's Next Top Model, a show continuously ignored by the Emmys for best reality show started off its newest "cycle" with an All-Star cast of previously losers and runner-ups from each and every cycle. The majority of the cast are made up of runner-ups, but there are some fan favorites here and there, including recent stand outs like Allison, aka Creepy-Chan, Angelea, the "ghetto-fabulous" woman who the judges believed took the single greatest photo in Top Model history, Laura, the southern belle whose grandmother makes all her dresses, Kayla, the lesbian who was eliminated because she wasn't comfortable kissing a man, and Alexandria, one of the most hated contestants in Top Model history. Top Model actually premiered last week, but I put off the review because most shows premiere the 2nd-to-last week of September. The series premiere of America's Next Top Model was FIERCE.

The 2nd episode was even better, featuring the makeovers straight off. None of the makeovers looked bad at all, although Alexandria was a little too happy to have short hair and Bre was too emo about having short hair.

Modern Family had a 1 hour season premiere, right on the heels of Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell winning matching Emmys for Best Supporting Actor/Actress in a Comedy and Modern Family winning Best Comedy for the 2nd year in a row. Although both episodes were very different, they were both excellent and hilarious, featuring every character on the show in appropriate amounts overall, although Haley was more or less ignored, in favor of Alex's story of getting her first kiss in an undesirable way, at least until Modern Family finally got rid of Haley's boyfriend. Overall, the season premiere of Modern Family was Expected and Awesome.

The X-Factor premiered to incredible hype, but that's all it ended up being. X-Factor is basically America's Got Talent's formula for having auditions in front of a live audience, but the acts are all musical (with no age restrictions) and the judges are Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and an African American record studio agent who is TOTALLY NOT Randy Jackson. The first acts fell flat and weren't very interesting, noteworthy since when American Idol premiered, there were no talent shows on TV, but now aspiring singers can go to American Idol, America's Got Talent, The Voice, and The Sing-Off. The X-Factor was defeated in the ratings by both Modern Family and Criminal Minds. The series premiere of The X-Factor was a BUST.

I skipped the season premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit because with Christopher Meloni gone, Mariska Hargitay will be paired up with a new partner for a single season before she departs as well. I have no interest in watching SVU anymore, just as the original Law & Order became unwatchable when Anthony Anderson joined the cast and how Criminal Intent became trash once Chris Noth left and Jeff Goldblum joined the cast.

Thursday night was NBC's night of praying for miracles. Ratings for Thursday night comedies have fallen steadily over the years, leading to a revolving door of television to sandwich The Office, which is also falling in the ratings.

The Big Bang Theory began with a 1-hour premiere, taking place mere hours after the previous season finale. When we left things off, Penny and Raj had slept with each other, Leonard was dealing with Priya moving back to India with her parents, and Wolowitz and Bernadette were officially engaged. Things are thankfully slight back to normal as Raj revealed to Penny that he was so nervous about sex with (a very drunk) Penny that after having trouble getting on a condom, he was unable to maintain an erection and they did not have sex. The other characters are unaware of this, but they did announce to everyone that it would be an isolated incident. Raj continues to have a crush on Penny, but it's very clear Penny still has feelings for Leonard. In the 2nd episode, typical hijinks resume, mostly concerning a new chair Penny acquired from the street that Sheldon feels in unclean, while Leonard is having troubles with Priya having cyber sex over Skype. Overall, I was actually impressed by the show, laughing much more often than I usually do (especially in the 2nd episode). Whatever dumb things the writers were doing last year, they got over them, writing much better comedic material than has ever been on display so far. Why aren't the writing material like this for Two and a Half Men? The series premiere of The Big Bang Theory was Unexpectedly Hilarious.

Community aired its 3rd season, beginning with more changes to the status quo, introducing John Goodman as the vice-dean of Greendale Community College, who will eventually turn students against the dean. Student Chang, formerly known as Señor Chang, will now be known as Security Guard Chang, employed by the vice dean, but mostly to get him to stop living in the air vents. Jeff and Pierce eventually made piece, when they both realized what jerks they had both been. The main humor in Community has always been the subtle gags seen upon closer inspection, but the episode made sure to not pull its punches and deliver straight up gags (although the chimpanzee knockout gas did have a subtle gag that was unnoticed by most on first viewing; the name of the gas is Chimpan-ZZZ). The series premiere of Community was Expected and Solid.

I skipped the premiere of The Office after finding out to my horror that Andy will be the new boss at Dunder-Mifflin. It only reminded me that in real life, Andy probably would receive the job, something we don't want to see in The Office. I'll be tuning out this year.

Prime Suspect, a British import that once starred Helen Mirren, premiered on Thursday night after the comedies to NBC's lowest rated fall premiere of all time, even worse than Outsourced. Although the concept is very strong, Americans are tired of police procedural shows and would rather watch comedies or reality television. I will have to catch the first episode some other time since it airs opposite my preferred Thursday night show....

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia aired its season premiere last week, but its 2nd episode was just as strong. Mac is fat, Frank wants to marry a hooker, and Dennis and Dee are still addicted to crack. It seems all is well in Philadelphia! After Frank proposes to his hooker girlfriend, she dies of a heart attack after having smoked an unbelievable amount of crack throughout the day. Although Dee at first proposes calling 911, Charlie reminds the gang that she is a hooker who died of a crack overdose in his apartment. Instead, they leave her corpse outside and call 911 from a pay phone all to the tune of "Pretty Woman."

The 2nd episode has the gang travel to the Jersey Shore, where Dennis and Dee have fond memories of the Boardwalk, Charlie has never seen the ocean, and Frank and Mac simply want to relax. Dennis and Dee end up having a horrific time there, witnessing two homeless men having sex, Dee's hair getting ripped out of her scalp, and witnessing a bank robbery and murder all while high on PCP. Charlie ends up having a magical night with the Waitress, but she remembers absolutely none of it, having been high on ecstasy. When Charlie describes the "romantic" night they had, the Waitress is disgusted byt the whole thing and continues to want to have nothing to do with Charlie. Although Frank and Mac get stranded in the Atlantic Ocean, they are eventually rescued by the guidos and come to learn that the guys on Jersey Shore are just jerks and that the guidos they met are great people who are lots of fun. It should be mentioned that these events all occur over a montage set to the tune of "Vacation." The series premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was Unbelievably Awesome.

Coming up in Part II will be my reviews on the season premieres of Supernatural, Fringe, Family Guy, American Dad, the much hyped series premiere of Terra Nova, and all the shows I couldn't watch this week, like 2 Broke Girls and Prime Suspect.