2012 TV Fall - The Final Wave

All my fall shows are now in full swing.

Last month I reported on the Pre-Wave shows, including Alphas, Warehouse 13, Doctor Who, and Grimm.

And then I gave my reports for the First Wave, which are the shows that mostly came out all at the same time, including Revolution, The Neighbors, Last Resort, Person of Interest, Haven, and The Office.

Here are my reports on the four shows that started relatively later ...


Fringe (2 episodes in): This last season is very interesting.  It appears that we'll be spending our last several episodes in the future, after the Observers have gone on the offensive and have taken over our planet.  The whole Fringe team had been ambered.  So, after having been revived some twenty or thirty years later, they are now trying to save our world from the Observers.

It's all interesting and all that, but some tidbits are bugging me.  The biggest being: how does this story fit into the grand scheme of things?  It was confusing enough in Season 4 to have some other set of parallel universes that was somehow orthogonal to the two existing universes in Seasons 1-3.  Why would we care about the one specific double-alternative universe?  (Much like in Star Trek where we keep seeing visits from that same one alternative Mirror universe out of an infinite number of possibilities.)

And now in Season 5, we have a time travel situation where we learn that the Observers are evolved humans from the future.  Since they messed up our world, they're going back in time to save themselves.  (This is much like one of the only two South Park episodes I've seen.)  It's an interest plot technique, but how does one beat someone who can time travel?  These Observers can go anywhere at any time.  They can stop you before you even start something.

Despite these annoying tidbits, it'll be fun to watch how our favorite protagonists fare.  Show those Observers who's boss!

Once Upon a Time (3 episodes in): It looks like the writers found a way to keep this show interesting.  Even though the curse is broken and everyone can remember who they really are, they are still stuck in Storybrooke.  Magic exists now, but no one can seem to figure out how to make it work consistently.  Plus, if anyone tries to leave Storybrooke, they'll lose their memory again.

This show remains a family favorite.

The Simpsons (1 episode in): Yes, I haven't seen the Halloween episode yet.  I'll probably watch it this week IN SEASON.  It looks like it'll be funny.

The opening episode, though, left much to be desired.  The whole family took a trip to New York so Bart could bring back the only girl who still halfway likes him.  Way too mushy for a season opener.  Plus, nothing great seemed to happy--no really funny moments beyond that racing scene at the very beginning.  I want my classic Simpsons back!
 
The Walking Dead (2 episodes in): Wow!  These first two episodes blow the entire 2nd season to the moon!  Our favorite protagonists have found themselves a prison and have decided to break in to get a really strong shelter around them.  Of course, this entailed some clearing out, and I swear they killed more zombies on screen in that first episode than they did in the first two seasons combined.

My friend jokes that it's as if AMC listened to complaints about there not being enough zombie kills.  If so, they certainly delivered.  But hopefully the kills will drop back down to normal levels so we can get back to the main reason why I'm watching ... the awesome story.

The first episode was awesome, and the second episode even more so--showing some scenes I'd never thought I'd see.  Keep up the good work, writers and actors!

PS. I still love how the opening credits music starts about 10 seconds before the credits actually appear on screen.  More shows need to do this.

Updates: Evidently, Touch has been pushed back to January, so it's coming off my Fall list.  Also, I'm still waiting to hear about Psych.  I'm guessing it will also start sometime around January.  This is all fine with me, as I have enough shows on my crappy Time Warner Cable DVR to last me a few weeks during reruns!

Also, since the 2nd episode of The Neighbors actually had some funny parts, I've decided to continue watching, though it's at the bottom of my view list.

Taking a Rest

I know the 20 or so of you will be disappointed, but I'm currently busy studying for an evil actuarial exam (#6 - the one about the financial annual statement and insurance regulation and every single boring actuarial topic you can imagine shoved into one test).

So this month, everything is put on hold.  No writing.  No submitting.  No nothing (except for maybe one or two blog posts).

But I'll be back in November to start things back up again.  First will be a NaNoWriMo Blitzkrieg devoted to writing 50,000 words of new short stories.  This will be followed by a few months of revising and submitting, and hopefully my first publication in 2013.

Happy writing to you!