Fall premieres, part one

Here's my quick and dirty rundown of fall premieres -- the one's I've seen so far, anyway.

“Castle”? boom! Haven’t watched it yet. “Harry’s Law”? BOOM! Haven’t seen it yet. “Unforgettable”? “Up All Night”? “The Big Bang Theory”? Boom, boom, boom, nada watcha yet.

I’m not even planning to watch “The Playboy Club,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Terra Nova.” If you find them to be entertaining you can have mine. The final season premiere of “Desperate Housewives” is recording as I type this and “Pan Am” I’ll have more to say about later this week. Also looking forward to “Hart of Dixie” on the CW, this week’s first season finale of “Alphas,” and the premieres of “Suburgatory,” “Happy Endings” and “How to Be a Gentleman.”

So, what have I seen? Well, let’s just take the rundown:

“2 Broke Girls”: I liked it. The continuing adventures of two mismatched co-workers, roommates and friends began with the driven, down-to-earth Max, played by the beautiful Kat Dennings, forced to work with the equally beautiful Beth Behrs as Caroline, an ethically challenged trust fund brat whose family is jailed for bankster fraud. They have a fight when Max’s boyfriend makes advances on Caroline and Caroline tells Max what happened. Max doesn’t believe her until she returns home unexpectedly to find the boyfriend in bed with the tambourine player in his band, so he’s out, Caroline’s back in and she’s hatched a plan: a storefront selling Max’s cupcakes, which she thinks they can do for something like $250,000. As of the pilot episode they’d scraped together some $300 in wages and tips and between Max’s moxie and Caroline’s drive to reclaim success, they’re gonna do it. Oh my god, it’s “Laverne & Shirley” for a post-recession era. “2 Broke Girls” airs Monday at 8:30/7:30c on CBS.

Hmmm, I was planning to keep these short. Well, “The New Girl” I couldn’t stand. Three 20-something guys invite a spot of angsty chaos into their lives when Zooey Deschanel as Jess, teacher and writer of her own theme music for her life, answers their ad on CraigsList. She’s suffered a huge breakup recently and is essentially a pile of emotional mess. The guys try to make her feel better so she’ll be less obnoxious as a roommate, and she helps them be less horrible as human beings, and together it’s a sitcom. I approved of its lack of laughtrack, but honestly it might have had one and it just found the show to be as not funny as I did. “The New Girl” airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX.

“The Office”: The first post-Michael Scott season kicked off with James Spader as Robert California taking over as first office manager and then CEO for all of Dunder-Mifflin, running the operation out of the conference room of the Scranton office, which seems like that would be actively impossible but it makes for such a funny, tense vibe as new office manager Andy Bernard tries to work with him on behalf of the staff and Robert sees the staff as his own personal playthings. But through it all, the relationship between Jim and Pam shines as the emotional center for the show and I’m just so happy that Will Ferrell is gone. “The Office” airs at 9/8c Thursdays on NBC.

“Community”: One of the lead-ins for “The Office” eighth season premiere was “Community”s third season premiere, which opened with a hilarious “Glee”-themed daydream in Jeff Winger’s head, fantasizing about the study group post Pierce. As it turns out, Pierce returned to the study group and Jeff had to leave, and found himself hanging out with Chang. There was some delightful awkwardness with the dean authorizing the use of knockout gas to get a monkey out of Greendale’s air vents and Jeff breathing the gas and having a vision a la the closing sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Then John Goodman as the vice dean for the air conditioning repair annex but in essence the real dean given that his program is actually profitable. Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC, and that’s what you missed on “Community!”

“Parks and Recreation” also got off to a great start last week. At April’s behest, Andy is going to be Leslie’s assistant while she’s running for office. She spent most of the episode trying to figure out how to break up with Ben so as to avoid a scandal. Ron spent most of the episode hiding from his first ex, Tammy One, played by Patricia Clarkson, who frankly I found to be wickedly charming. Ron can also go from mustache to full beard almost overnight. April took over while Ron was gone and really kept the office running. And as the public health P.R. person, Ann started receiving lewd pictures on her phone from every guy in Pawnee city government asking for a diagnosis of their junk. “Parks and Recreation” airs new episodes Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.

“Raising Hope” is back and it opened with Kate MiCucci as Shelley, the daycare lady, who honestly I find to be just a fun character, singing a perfectly charming and oddly detailed song recapping the show so far for anyone coming in cold. Lucas Neff as Jimmy Chance, Hope’s father, was showing Baby Hope some old videotapes of himself playing the piano and he launches into a suspiciously talented rendition of the Black Crowes “Hard to Handle.” He apparently lost this musical genius in a tragic minigolf accident as a teenager and he can’t access it again. He thinks he does but he doesn’t. So sad. “Raising Hope” airs at 9:30/8:30c Tuesdays on FOX.

Besides, “Glee” provides plenty of musical television on its own. This year calls Glee Clubbers loyalties into question – Santana is kicked out for double dealing her club members – and Sue Sylvester takes her campaign against arts in the schools to the status of a federal campaign. Kurt’s boyfriend Blaine comes to McKinley and Kurt and Rachel witness their competition for placement in the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts, which destroys them a little – apparently, the lead newbie in “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from “Hairspray” was a non-winner from The Glee Project. Also, there’s a food fight when the Glee Club sings “We Got the Beat,” which is weird because they let them get all the way through the song first. If they didn’t like it, they could’ve expressed that so much earlier. And Blaine sings Tom Jones “It’s Not Unusual” with the Cheerios in the quad, which goes over somewhat better but still ends with a flaming piano. “Glee” seemed to be off to a good start. New episodes air at 8/7c Tuesdays on FOX.

“Whitney” was terrible, and not just because of the laughtrack. Taped in front of a live audience -- a live audience with an open bar, maybe. The show about a long-term live-in couple highlighted all the couplehood cliches by sending them to a wedding first thing. And Whitney tries to spice up their relationship with a little role-playing, but she’s not any good at it, and anyway the guy trips on his way into the bedroom and hits his head on the countertop, and now she’s in a hospital dressed as a naughty nurse. Unfocused, little character development and just plain not that funny. I’d give it a pass. “Whitney” airs 9:30/8:30c Thursdays on NBC.

“Free Agents” I tried watching a couple different times but between my being overtired and not finding the show to be remotely entertaining I gave up. I did approve of the bold choice not to use a laughtrack in chasing around these pathetic middle-aged losers, but honestly they might do well to siphon off about half the laughtrack from “Whitney,” and then both shows would have plenty.

And “Two and a Half Men,” Mr. Lorre, did you find that to be cathartic? Healing? Did you? All the snide, mocking comments at Charlie’s funeral in front of his mother, who was a cold, callous shrew even there, and Charlie’s ashes flung all over the house and Jon Cryer, and Ashton Kutcher’s accidental billionaire character buying the house and letting Jon continue to live there because now they’re best friends? End this. End this now. It’s the opposite of funny. It’s just plain freeqin’ sad and it has been for quite a good long while. “Two and a Half Men” airs at ... who cares? You want to know so badly, look it up yourself. I’m not your enabler.

Dramas

As for dramas I’ve seen this past week, I’m prepared to get much shorter:

“Criminal Minds” Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS. Opened with Senate investigation into the investigative practices of the members of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. First, it’s probably about time, but secondly, not in this case. Basically the committee chair took exception to the personal elements of the investigation surrounding Emily Prentiss’s supposed death. The team members were all interrogated individually and you’ve got some splainin’ to do but in the end they can do whatever they want because they’ve got something like a 100 percent solve rate and on top of that, suddenly, TA-DAH! Emily comes back. You can have mine, I won’t be tuning in.

“Prime Suspect” 10/9c Thursdays on NBC. The remake of the long-running UK hit became something pretty ordinary – Maria Bello plays Jane Timoney, a female homicide detective who joins a new squad and they’re all guys and they all think she was hired because she slept with a higher up. And then one of them has a heart attack and she takes over his cases and she’s now a predatory witch. But she’s just so insightful that most of her co-workers are grudgingly impressed, but one, heart attack’s partner, isn’t prepared to budge in his assessment of her. It’s more than a little cliché, especially with all the cliché cop shows we’ve endured in recent years. Despite the presence of Kirk Acevedo from “Fringe,” you can have mine – I’ll be giving this a pass, too.

“Body of Proof,” 10/9c Tuesdays on ABC. Dana Delany as Philadelphia coroner Megan Hunt is surrounded by the situation the actress left on Wisteria Lane, as she encounters a suburban swingers enclave and a meth lab in the wake of some mysterious deaths. I’ll watch – I like Delany – but there’s not a lot of “there” there and I completely own that.

“Revenge,” 10/9c Wednesdays on ABC, brings Emily VanCamp as Emily Thorne, the daughter seeking vengeance for her family’s disgrace in the Hamptons. I’m going to say no, mostly because the show focused so hard on painting the elegantly super rich, super leisure class as tirelessly involved in charity work when they weren’t busy like bees tearing each other to shreds. I know I’m meant to have no sympathy for them – the haunted, beautiful and terribly wronged blonde girl is out for her revenge after all, and she’s the one I’m meant to be rooting for – but I can’t be sitting watching this every week waiting for them to die one by one, hating them before and not caring when they’re gone. In short, you can have mine.

“Grey’s Anatomy,” 9/8c Thursdays on ABC, Meredith was fired, and then she was unfired, and she and McDreamy’s Post-It marriage seems to be on the rocks. She makes an excellent case to Owen for her friend Christina’s abortion, and we get another window on her dark and twisted state of mind and her terrifying mother issues. I will be watching this show because I love this show, but this show could start pulling to a close anytime it wanted to. Too many people, too much fluff in among the harder drama.

“Person of Interest,” 9/8c Thursdays on CBS. I like Michael Emerson, I like Jim Caviezel. I don’t know that this show is especially well thought out. The machine they compiled to predict human behavior and prevent crimes based on likelihood would be instantly overwhelmed making the computations it’s meant to be making. That said, the concept is at least interesting, and I think anything interesting should at least be given a chance. I’d like to see where they’re going with this.

“Fringe,” 9/8c Fridays on FOX. Observer-centered storylines confuse me because I don’t know what their relationship with reality is. In that they’ve conspired to erase a person, Peter Bishop, from the timeline, and there’s a stable hub between the worlds maintained at Liberty Island, and the Olivias don’t like each other very much, and Walter is seeing glimpses of Peter here and there, which terrifies him, I guess I’d be interested in taking a step outside the show and seeing what consensus reality is as regards the removal of Peter from reality. But we’re dealing with shapeshifters and it’s all a big problem and I’m looking forward to seeing where they take this but as season openers go, it was more than a little confusing.

“Supernatural” wasn’t remotely clear. Former angel Castiel is now God, but he’s trying to contain the leviathans he swallowed from Purgatory, ancient powerful beasts, while they're trying to hold on in this world. And he put Crowley back in charge of hell, and he is wandering around smiting everyone preaching a ridiculous take on “what God wants.” Dean and Bobby are taking a wait-and-see approach – they can’t fight Castiel but they coerce the Angel of Death into protecting them for a time. Dean basically takes the down time to fix his car. Sam, meanwhile, may actually still be stuck in hell. So there’s a bit of a perception problem going on and I look forward to seeing how it is resolved.

Finally, just a few words about “Breaking Bad,” 10/9c Sundays on AMC. This season has been absolutely sick, the fist fight between Walter and Jesse a few weeks back was just intense, as was Walt’s conversation with his son – including the moment where he called Walt Jr. “Jesse,” just barely audibly. And let me talk for a moment about Anna Gunn’s portrayal of Skyler White. Who knew accounting could be so … well, I guess after the fall of 2008 we’re all pretty aware of how important accurate accounting is. But when her boss, Ted Beneke, is under investigation for tax fraud, Skyler realizes her name is all over the bad books Ted had her compile, and she could be investigated and that investigation would turn up nothing good.

Racking her brain for a way to stay out of jail, she creates a character. Skyler White, certified public bimbo. She finds the lowest cut thing she can wear outside a bedroom – and she doesn’t call a lot of attention to herself physically in this role so this was a great opportunity to showcase the girls. She proceeds to present the least qualified accountant it would be imaginable that someone might have certifed “Well, I ran it through Quicken and nothing red came up.” “You use Quicken to do the accounting for a firm this size?” “Oh, do you know about it? It’s awesome. It’s like having a calculator in your computer.” I freaking lost it. Ignorance of the law in this case isn’t illegal, she says. It’s just ignorance. And she basically lied to keep her boss and herself out of jail. Brilliant storytelling. And oh my God, Gustavo Fring! The man’s been walking into cartel bullet fire, drinking poison and holding it in until the last second. Really, this has been some cold, calculating stuff. Not that they’re getting away unscathed from their recent trip to Mexico, but they are coming away victorious.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on. I’m hoping to catch some more premieres this week and I’ll let you know what I think of them as soon as I can.