TV or not TV? That is the question
As a self-proclaimed television lover, there’s nothing I approve of more than a night — or day, whatever — spent basking in the warm, eerie glow of my computer, diligently screening episode after episode of series both new and established. Given the roulette of shows making their fall debuts, it’s tough for both my hard drive and my attention span. But this type of on-demand escapism is also immensely fun and rewarding, especially when a promising pilot rises from the load of crap network execs routinely pummel us with during this time of the year.
First off, there’s New Girl. Rolling out online two weeks before airing on old-school TV, the Fox comedy stars alt-avatar Zooey Deschanel as Jess Day, a dorky girl who moves into an apartment with three dudes after catching her boyfriend cheating on her. While I did enjoy the jokes — “tiger boobs,” the fresh Dirty Dancing and LOTR references — I doubt I can drill my molars full of ballerina flats-wearing, Katy Perry-looking indie cuteness every week without eventually wanting to punch the screen.
As far as roommate programs are concerned, I see New Girl as an artsy, flaky bookend to ABC’s Happy Endings, which kicks off its second season on September 28. I can only take so much quirk.
Meanwhile, back in the 1920s...: Downton Abbey, led by Hugh Bonneville and Dame Maggie Smith, is the first British series to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the “most critically acclaimed television show” of 2011. Twinsies
When it comes to ridiculous twists and turns and all-around brain-dead fun, nothing beats ABC Family’s The Lying Game and the CW’s Ringer. On paper, the two dramas sound bizarrely alike: Both feature girls who assume their twin sister’s identity.
The former, however, takes place in high school and features daytime soap actress Alexandra Chando — a deadringer for The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev — as Emma and Sutton. (The Lying Game, by the way, is based on a series of novels by Pretty Little Liars author Sara Shepard.) The latter, meanwhile, boasts Sarah Michelle Gellar (also the show’s executive producer), Fantastic Four’s Ioan Gruffud and Life Unexpected’s Kristoffer Polaha. Having Buffy on board may guarantee a built-in fan base, but Ringer has a long way to go if it wants to slay its competition. A scene in the premiere episode involving a boat — and apparently a blue screen — looked hilariously crude and low-budget.
From Vampires To Witches
Deja view: Like the CW’s Ringer, ABC Family’s The Lying Game also features a girl who assumes her twin sister’s identity. To beef up its supernatural block, the CW has paired its successful brand The Vampire Diaries, now on its third season, with newbie The Secret Circle, which follows an orphaned teenager who returns to her mother’s hometown and finds out that she’s from a family of witches. It’s most likely a product of demographics and market research, but so what? The Secret Circle is turning out to be my guiltiest pleasure.
Dark like The Craft and sassy like Charmed, the freshman series is familiar yet intriguing in equal turns. The cast, led by Life Unexpected’s Britt Robertson as Cassie Blake, benefits from the show’s excellent photography and the plot, soon to be filled with more magic, stands to be enhanced by the special effects. After a summer watching werewolves, The Secret Circle might just fill the Teen Wolf-shaped void in my life.
Brit Wits
Last, for slightly more sophisticated fare, my money’s on Showtime’s Episodes and ITV’s Downton Abbey. For instance, you’d never think that Matt LeBlanc would be anything other than Joey Tribbiani, but Episodes, his acclaimed comedy shown on both Showtime and the BBC, proves that the former Friends star can do more than “How you doin?”
How you doin?: The TV industry-skewering comedy has Matt LeBlanc playing himself as an actor miscast in what was originally a high-brow series. Joining him are Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig as the British writer-couple whose lives get turned upside down when they move to Los Angeles.The show’s premise — that successfully translating high-brow British television for American audiences is not without its pitfalls — makes his role playing himself, alongside English actors Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan, even more awkward… and meta. With brilliant characters, most of whom conspire to make a mess of other people’s lives, Episodes has thankfully been renewed for a second season of nine, well, episodes. Told you it was meta.
As for Downton Abbey, the UK costume drama not only returned to the small screen for its second “series” (British English for season): It has done so bolstered by its triumph at the 63rd Emmys. Set during the reign of King George V in the 1920s, the tale of the aristocratic Grantham family and their servants has won over both critics and fans with its mix of drama, trickery, romance, and pitch-perfect period detail. In crude American terms, Downton Abbey is a soap, but somehow all that Britishness makes it seem more scholarly.
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Casting a spell: Starring Britt Robertson as Cassie Blake, Kevin Williamson’s The Secret Circle looks set to be a great companion piece to his other supernatural show, The Vampire Diaries. 
