Archive: US TV

Archives of reviews about US TV

US TV

ABC shows coming in Fall 2009

21 May 2009 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

ABC Upfronts

Argh. So many upfronts to cover. Today, at least, I’ll be covering ABC’s shows and hopefully – work willing – I’ll have looked at CBS’s and The CW’s new shows for Fall 2009 by the end of Friday.

Ah ABC. If only there was some language somewhere where ABC stood for “Night of the Long Knives”. Because you can pretty much guarantee that just about every show here is going to be cancelled by this time next year, just as last year’s got culled this week.

So prepare to not get too attached to: V, Flash Forward, Cougar Town, Eastwick, The Forgotten, Hank, Happy Town, The Middle and Modern Family. Argh. That’s a lot. It took me two hours to do this. I’m really not sure half these shows are worth two minutes.

Continue reading “ABC shows coming in Fall 2009”

A round-up of some of the finales I haven’t yet covered

21 May 2009 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Erk. So many finales, so little time. With the upfronts happening at the same time, and with actual work to do, how am I going to review them all?

I know. How about one great big entry that gets rid of a whole load of them in one go, albeit with The Mentalist and CSI: Miami still to come?

So after the jump, brief spoiler-ridden looks at the finales (and preceding seasons) of 24, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, Eleventh Hour, Gossip Girl and Prison Break.

Continue reading “A round-up of some of the finales I haven’t yet covered”

Promo for HBO’s Hung

20 May 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Work calls today, so I’ll be doing a full rundown of ABC’s new shows tomorrow (complete with vids, as usual). But HBO doesn’t submit itself to this upfronts thing (not having advertisers to worry about) so I can do its shows piecemeal.

This one’s called Hung and it’s about a guy with… Well, you can guess. A bit hard-up on his luck, he decides to use his amazing dimensions to make money as a male escort.

Years ago in high school, Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane) was athletic, popular and destined for success. Now, as a high-school teacher and basketball coach, he’s underpaid, uninsured, and embittered that his wife of 20 years (Anne Heche) has left him for her dermatologist. After a fire damages the rundown Detroit home he inherited from his parents, Ray’s fortunes reach an all-time low when his twin children, who had been living with him, move in with their mom and her clean-freak hubby. Lonely, run-down and at wit’s end, Ray attends a local self-help class whose mantra is to identify a personal “winning tool” to market for financial success. After a not-so-fulfilling encounter with a fellow attendee – an ex-flame and would-be poet named Tanya (Jane Adams) – Ray has a “eureka” moment. With the help of Tanya, Ray resolves to take advantage of his greatest asset, in hopes of changing his fortunes in a big way.