Thirteen Television Shows Worth Setting My DVR For, 13th

1. Chuck - It’s every IT hardware nerd’s dream come true — a mild-mannered geek becomes the U.S.’s most top secret weapon and resource, protected by a gorgeous, dangerous CIA babe and a scary NSA hitman. O.K. the last part might not be part of the heroic dream, but there has to be something to balance out the gorgeous babe. He’s living a duel life at a Best Buy-like store heading up the Nerd Herd (a Geek Squad rip-off) and trying to become Assistant Manager while fending off his sister’s attempts to meddle in his life all the while pretending he doesn’t have all of the government’s secrets locked in his brain which were somehow downloaded through an email sent to him by his ex-roommate from college. It’s charming and cute, though a little awkward and sometime a bit silly. I’m hoping it’ll get a bit more serious as the show progresses, but as an IT person, I was won over by Chuck’s saving the day by defusing a bomb via Internet porn virus.
2. Heroes - Heroes is the show for everyone whose parents told them they were “special” not “different”. It’s the show for anyone who ever ran around in Wonder Woman or Spiderman Underoos. It’s the wet dream of every role-player who ever sat in around a table somewhere with a empty box of pizza, a pile of dice, and a worn copy of Champions, Mutants & Masterminds, or GURPS Supers. It’s got superpowers, intrigue, backstabbing, government agents, cabals, scientists, drama, love, evil, good guys, bad guys you love to hate, guys and gals who don’t know if they’re bad or good yet…it’s got it all and a great story arc that just keeps getting better and you watch every week because you just don’t know who’s going to survive. In this show, anyone can be expendable.
3. K-Ville - O.K. I’m watching because I’m from New Orleans and one of my friends has a recurring role. They have a lot of work to do on the writing and the story arc structure. They need to stretch out the story lines over more episodes and not rush them. However, even if I sit on my sofa and nitpick every thing they get wrong (”That is so not Bonnabel and West Esplanade!”) or I feel angry at how little has been rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina, it makes me homesick and yet gives me that little fix of the old home town.
4. Journeyman - I have hopes for this show despite not being a fan of time travel stories. I think it has an excellent premise and some interesting twists — a dead fìance who’s trapped in time and space, a confused, upset wife who used to be involved with a bitter cop brother, a job on the line due to unexplained absences, and a Quantum Leap-kind-of job without a manual where he has to help people and it’s not always clear who he has to help. His marriage is in trouble, his job is in trouble, and his brother doesn’t get it. He has no control of when or where these adventures in time and space are going to happen, but at the end of the journey, there’s something Touched-by-an-Angel-feel-good about what he’s done. I just wish he’d figure out how to incorporate the end result into stories for his journalism job.
5. The Closer - The Closer is one of those off-season cable hits. Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is a heroine women can relate to because she’s real. She hides sweets in her desk drawer, she has flaws, worries about what her Mama and Daddy might think, carries a big purse, and is intelligent, observant, hard-working, dedicated, and compassionate. She doesn’t take bullshit from anyone and she doesn’t play office politics. She rewards loyalty and she’ll do just about anything to keep her team together. The Closer is a cop show but it’s focused on investigation and getting the bad guy to confess and usually there’s some sort of weirdness going on in the sidelines. Quirky and serious, I hate waiting for a new season to start.

Tuesday

6. Eureka — While it’s second season just ended, I keep my DVR tuned in to record any episode that appears on the Sci-Fi channel. Eureka is quirky Northern Exposure meets conspiracy-weirdness-driven X-Files. I love that everyone in the town of Eureka is brilliant or an expert from the dry cleaner to the diner’s chef — except the Sheriff, who is a Federal Marshall just assigned to the top secret government research town, where the scientists not only are too smart for their own good but they have too much money and too many resources for anyone’s good. It’s just too fun to watch the adventures of the Sheriff every week as he tries to save the day, the town or the world from the things that go awry from what too much intelligence, money, and government mixed together makes. Plus, everyone is always talking over his head that he usually has to bring it down to layman’s English — “Why didn’t you just say ‘Death Ray’?”

Wednesday

7. Bionic Woman - This new version of an old favorite is just getting started, but it’s definitely got a darker, more sinister feel. Of course, the special effects are way better than the original too. As a little girl, I always wanted to be Jamie Summers and as an adult, I love conspiracy-spy-stuff, so I can’t help but be curious where this new show is going. At least the bad wardrobe is gone.

Thursday

8. Supernatural - It’s the third season. They’ve killed off the major baddie from the first two season, but they’ve unleashed legions from Hell and Dean has made a deal with the Devil to bring Sam back from the dead in exchange for his own life so he only has a year to live and there’s no way out of the deal. Sam might not be exactly the same Sam before he died. The baddies are supposed to be real bad asses this year and there’s a mysterious blonde girl hunter going around kicking ass. I’ve watched it this far and invested 2 years. I’m upset about all the people they killed last season. They better make it up in a big way this season…and Dean and Sam are good-looking in a pretty-boy-kind-of-way.
9. CSI - It’s the only CSI I watch — the other two are terrible. I didn’t like the season opener, but they can’t keep Sarah off the team forever, right? I really like the lab techs and hope we see more of them again this season.
10. Burn Notice - USA’s Summer spy show about a spy who’s been worse than fired; he’s been shut out of the business, plopped down in Miami where his hypochondriac mother lives, stripped of his bank accounts, and put on a no travel list. The only people who will talk to him is his gun-running ex-IRA ex-girlfriend and a former Navy Seal, played by Bruce Campbell, who currently seems to be living off of Sugar Mamas. In order to make money, he starts doing odd jobs helping people get out of difficult situations like saving his mother’s friend from con artists, clearing a man framed for art theft, rescuing an old friend’s daughter from a prostitution ring, and more and all the while he has to deal with family issues, trying to find out who burned him and why, his ex-girlfriend getting friendly, his Navy Seal friend reporting his actions to the FBI, spies spying on him, and other craziness.

Friday

11. Monk - Oh my gosh, an OCD detective! Really, do I have to explain?
12. Psych - This is just a guilty pleasure. It’s such a silly show. The premise, for those who don’t know, is a super-observant guy who pretends to be a psychic and runs a detective agency with his best friend; they mostly do cases for the town’s police department and most of the cases are pretty off-beat. The two friends are basically guys who have never grown up, most of us know guys like this. They’re silly, they live in the 80’s, and while one keeps trying to be a serious grown up the other one keeps drawing him back into the fun silliness. The other characters are fun too. Sadly, this is also an off-season show.
    

Saturday

13. Torchwood - A BBC America show, this is a new discovery for me. Somewhere between Dr. Who, M.I.B. and X-Files, it’s definitely British sci-fi. The premise, as I understand it, is a team of super secret government folks who investigate extraterrestrial happenings in Cardiff which apparently is some sort of time/space portal. They collect alien artifacts, try to figure out what they do, see if they’ll be useful in some sort of upcoming event that their leader Jack keeps hinting at, and lock them up after they’ve studied them. They also capture aliens. Jack’s right hand person is the newest member who transfered in from the police after discovering Torchwood by accident in a murder investigation which turned out to be one of Torchwood’s members. She also discovered one of Jack’s secrets that he can’t die. In the third episode they had a female Cyberman. It’s got me curious to say the least.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

• Malcolm, neca, Wolfie, Vixen, Xine, a metamorphoself of gabrielle, Nicholas, Vicki Gaia, Lulu, LuAnn, Robin, (you could be next!)