A SNAPSHOT OF THREE NEW SERIES, THREE RETURNEES – THE BEST, SO FAR

By JOHN YOUNGREN

The new TV season is about a month or so old and there’s still a few new shows coming our way – “30 Rock,” NBC’s other show about a “Saturday Night Live”-type of show is coming this week – and a few shows I miss: “The West Wing” and “Alias” and “Battlestar Galactica” (but only because I can’t get Sci Fi and have to wait for the goddamn DVDs) being among them.
But that’s OK. Because, with the new season on the docket, I’m more or less entertained by three returning series and three new ones, all of which have had either impressive debuts and/or impressive returns.
Funny thing? You’re not going to find any sitcoms here. I like “The Office” but don’t kill myself if I don’t see it, and there’s not anything new that I find particularly compelling. Yet. (Oh, but for the days of “Friends” and “Seinfeld.”)
And, God forbid, there are no fucking reality shows here.
So for me, it’s the dramas, old and new. And in no particular order other than how I thought about them...
To wit:

1. “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip”
Monday nights, NBC
Admittedly, I was somewhat pre-disposed to liking this show. Aaron Sorkin has long been one of my favorite television writers, and his previous series – the massively underappreciated “Sports Night” and the consistently brilliant (at least when Sorkin was running the show) “The West Wing” – are two of TV’s best, ever.
Maybe it should be no surprise that “Studio 60” seems to be a mix of both. Maybe it should also be no surprise that “Studio 60” is so cool it’s hemmoraging viewers. Too smart? Too inside? Too much?
I’m worried that Sorkin’s words seem a bit overwrought at times. I’m worried that it seems like this is all rather much for a show about a televison show – do we have to take ourselves so fucking seriously? And I’m worried about where this thing is going past the seventh or eighth episode. The first show. The first focus group. The first cast defection. The first insert live feed to West Coast viewers (last night).
God, you can feel it, can’t you?
Still, with a crackling dream team cast – Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, etc., etc., etc. – “Studio” shined from its very first seconds. And you know what? It’s only gotten better since.
Dotted line: •••-/12

2. “The Nine”
Wednesday nights, ABC
Based on its pilot alone, I prepared to name this the best new series of the season, an honor I’d saved for “Studio 60” before viewing the first week of “The Nine,” a relationship-mystery-flashback drama in the style of “Lost,” but without the unbelievable desert island shenanigans, other worldly visions and polar bears.
The quick study cast – Tim Daly, Kim Raver, Chi McBride and Scott Wolf all play variations on characters they’ve done before – was instantly comfortable both with one another and for us as viewers; the cast is so appealing and familiar it was no problem to get caught up in the drama of their original hostage standoff, which drives the story for the rest of the season. In the pilot, we’re left guessing what exactly happened to the nine hostages during a tension filled hostage negotiation that lasted more than two days. Presumably, those mysteries will be addressed – and further questions raised – as the weeks go along.
I’m normally more skeptical when asked to go along for the ride – Christ, I gave up on “Vanished” after one and one-half episodes, which seems like a somewhat intelligent choice given the show’s ratings and critical drubbings – but with “The Nine” (and if Daly, Raver and Wolf are in), I’m in for the long haul.
Dotted line: ••••

3. “Brothers & Sisters”
Sunday nights, ABC
Much like “The Nine,” ABC’s new Sunday-night drama has a quick shorthand cast – Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Sally Field, etc., doing riffs on familiar characters they’ve created elsewhere. And the production team is clearly looking for a “thirtysomething” riff; this is a family that loves each other despite it all, arguing and joking along the way.
I’m not sold yet, but I’ll admit it’s somewhere to go on Sunday nights. And, in this odd age of every series on television following the “Lost”-“24” model of odd concepts unraveling themselves over the course of a season, it’s somewhat refreshing to stumble into a good old relationship drama, cleverly played by an exceptional cast.
Sure, it all gets a bit melodramatic once in while. That’s OK. I’m willing to see what happens with this family. Especially if they keep doing those “Grey’s”/”Cold Caase” music montages to close episodes while we stare into character’s eyes, like we did after the third episode Sunday night.
Damn you, clever producers who know music!
Dotted line: •••

The returnees...

1. “Grey’s Anatomy” (season 2)
Thursday nights, ABC
I’m a little uneasy with all this McVet vs. McDreamy bullshit that’s leading off the third season – just get it over with, for God’s sake, Meredith – and there are times when “Grey’s Anatomy” (ostensibly a medical drama, but actually more along the lines of “Melrose Place,” but without the bombings and Heather Locklear) feels a little, well, precious.
But fuck me. It’s fun, and sexy, and flirty, and provocative. The women on this show are really hot, and the guys are heroic (except for George, who’s just kind of pathetic). I don’t particularly think of this as what goes on around a real hospital – but those tanks and helicopters bursting through the doors of the ER on “E.R.” didn’t exactly do much to convince me, either.
Instead, what “Grey’s” does better than almost any other show on TV right now is respect its audience: It plays to its strengths, and its weaknesses. It understands what works, and what doesn’t. “Grey’s Anatomy” is like a good-looking girl who knows that if she wears her hair this way or her makeup that way, she’ll really be smoking. It knows its assets. And it goes to them every single week.
Dotted line: •••-/12

2. “Lost” (season 3)
Wednesday nights, ABC
Uh, I don’t know. What’s everyone else thinking?
Me? I’m a little ambivalent. I watched the season 3 premiere and thought it was well-done, tense and clever. Still, I couldn’t help but feeling a little cheated. Maybe I’m tiring of the game. Maybe I’m tiring of being lost.
I don’t like shows where there are no rules, or where they can keep changing the game. I don’t mind a little hocus-pocus here and there – they killed Angel on “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” but a mysterious higher power dropped him back to Earth the next season – with these supernatural shows. Hell, I’ll even encourage it: I think they should have left Jennifer Garner’s real-life pregnancy out of the final year of “Alias.” (They could have explained her burgeoning belly as the result of aliens, or something.)
But, “Lost?” Yeah, I don’t know. “Twin Peaks” pissed me off about halfway through its second season, when it still couldn’t quite resolve the mysteries of Laura Palmer’s death and I decided, “who the fuck cares?” And “The X-Files” incited me toward the end – they still didn’t really address the whole evil government conspiracy mythology bullshit and they were trying to play smoke and mirrors with the fact that David Duchovny was no longer in the show. I watched out of obligation, not anticipation. I watched because I wanted to see where it went but was disappointed when I ultimately realized it didn’t go anywhere.
I have nothing but respect and admiration for the basic “Lost” formula. I love its characters and actors. I’m knocked out by the work of its writers and producers. I’m sure I’ll keep watching, and my opinions will be all over the place. That’s how I felt all through season 2. They dragged their feet for episodes on end and then every once in a while would pull a fucking rabbit out and keep everyone buzzing.
So, God. Keep changing the rules. Think you’ve guessed this? We’ll try that. You zig. We zag. Just when you think you know what things mean … here’s a fucking polar bear in a cage, that'll throw you off.
That’s fun for a while. But it gets old. For a while, it’s “what will they think of next?” And then it becomes, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, twice – screw you.”
Dotted line: ••-1/2

3. “Boston Legal” (season 3)
Tuesday nights, ABC
First of all, had you told me a few months ago that the three returning dramas I’d be most interested in (pending the return of “24” on Fox in January) would all be on ABC, I’d be surprised. But then again, when you consider that most of what CBS has in its dramatic quiver are variations on “C.S.I.” (including all the shows that are not “C.S.I.” but could be, like episodes of “Cold Case,” “Without A Trace” and/or “N.C.I.S.”) And most of what NBC is showing are variations of “Law and Order.” So maybe ABC is where it’s at.
“Boston Legal” is unlike anything else on TV. It’s a legal drama like “The Practice” and “L.A. Law,” but it’s also a dramedy, like “Ally McBeal.” It’s from David E. Kelley, who wrote and/or produced all of the above, but it’s not particularly like any of those shows. In this one, it’s almost like Kelley threw out all the old rules and decided to do something that would just amuse him.
There are no particularly dramatic arcs on “Boston Legal,” and the show’s habit of breaking its fourth wall (it’s not uncommon for star William Shatner, in particular, to somehow refer to the show’s audience in a kind of meta-universe language of self-awareness) has made even its most serious moments and most blatantly political arguments less alarming and more pedestrian. But that’s OK.
For “Boston Legal” will always have James Spader, and Spader in his prime – far away from those John Hughes movies, and “Sex, Lies and Videotape” – is absolutely so fucking brilliant, you can’t help but love his coy wit, dry intelligence and dysfunctional by-play. This is a TV writer’s TV character, embodied by an actor who absolutely wants to sell the audience on his own sense of loss, loneliness, melancholia. My dream? Bring back one or two of “The Practice” attorneys to fight it out with Spader’s Alan Shore in a courtroom drama or two. When he was on that show, I’d root for them. Now, I root for him.
Dotted line: •••-1/2

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ON THE DOT: Now back in business (with a modified rating system) the “John Youngren Dot Com” blog (once known as “Pop Stew”) should be updated regularly. And remember, as always, this is just an exhibition; it is not a competition – so please, no wagering. To contact John, e-mail johnyoungren@mac.com