Ah, mid-season. That magical time of year when TV networks get rid of all the crap which no one is watching and replace it with different crap that no one will watch. No one, that is, except me.
Hi. My name is Josh, and I'm addicted to TV. I'm that guy with the weekly schedule revolving around which shows I watch. The one who knows which writers write the better episodes of the shows I like. The one with the first two seasons of Felicity on DVD (and waiting with bated breath for the third, when it was at its best). Let's just put it this way: I have been watching The Real World since I was 12 years old. That's half of my life. I can name all 101 cast members. Try me.
Sadly, that skill rarely comes in handy. People often wonder why I devote so much time to a medium, the most common description of which is "it rots your brain." I really don't know why TV has such a bad reputation. No one questions me when I say I love movies or novels or even comic books. Yet there are just as many examples of brain-rot in those media as there are on TV. So here, from mid-season, are a few reasons why I'm not ashamed to love watching TV.
For one, it allows good writers from other media to really cut loose. That's often with mixed results, of course, as with two new shows from writers who've done some excellent work in the past. Cracking Up (Fox, Mondays, 8:30 p.m.), created by screenwriter Mike White, tries way too hard to uphold his reputation for edginess (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl) while combining it with his zany, crowd-pleasing comedy (Orange County, School of Rock). The result is a show with an off-kilter tone which isn't particularly edgy or funny, just tiresome. Despite an excellent cast (Jason Schwartzman, Molly Shannon, Chris McDonald), the show about a psychology grad student who moves in with a dysfunctional family to treat their multitude of neuroses plays like Malcolm in the Middle meets Charles in Charge, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Also trying way too hard is Stephen King, whose new series, Kingdom Hospital (ABC, Thursdays, 9 p.m.), is so self-consciously weird that it forgets to be scary. Based on a Danish mini-series from film auteur Lars von Trier, Kingdom is an uneasy combination of King's pet themes, including a character hit by a van in an accident almost exactly like the one King himself suffered a few years ago, and Twin Peaks-style eccentricities, including talking animals (one is an anteater!) and random dance sequences. It also stars '80s has-been Andrew McCarthy, who keeps making me expect Bernie to show up—and, really, he wouldn't be all that out of place. You spend too much time trying to figure out what's going on to build any suspense or be shocked by the supposedly scary ghosts. Still, you have to respect the guy for trying something new for once, considering how his books can easily descend into sameness. (Not that ABC respects King—they've moved the show from Wednesdays to Thursdays starting next week, where it'll die quietly against The Apprentice and CSI.)
Mid-season is good for experimentation in general, and it's nice to see a sci-fi show which doesn't focus on space travel for once. Century City (CBS, Tuesdays, 9 p.m.) is one part lawyer show and one part science fiction, and disappointing because it could have been so good. TV sci-fi has always been rich in exploring moral conundrums (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Star Trek: The Next Generation), and lawyer shows do nothing but explore moral conundrums, so this show should be deep and thought-provoking. Instead it's cheesy, preachy, and clearly about to run out of material in three or four episodes, which is probably right around the time CBS will cancel it. If you love all the speechifying they do on most lawyer shows, but you wish they could do it about nanites, then this is the show to watch.
I realize I haven't given much of a case for loving TV so far, but if nothing else, all of these shows are ambitious failures. The best thing, though, is discovering an ambitious success. Wonderfalls (Fox, Thursdays, 9 p.m.) is that show. The saga of a sullen, under-achieving twentysomething who works in a Niagara Falls gift shop and has souvenirs talking to her is quirky, fun and clever, despite a protagonist that some critics have labeled as unlikable. Unlike the wholesome Joan of Arcadia, which has a similar premise, Wonderfalls has thus far resisted becoming treacly or sappy, and I have to admit I like that the heroine doesn't ever seem to learn anything. Catch it while you can—like Kingdom Hospital, it's been moved to the Thursday-night time-slot of death.
So there you go. Four reasons to like TV, or at least to give it a shot. Now get back inside, out of the sun, and turn on your television.