Fall TV Preview

What I'll be watching when the fall TV schedule finally begins starting September 1st:

Returning Shows:

Gossip Girl: When last we left the Upper East Siders (and their friends in Brooklyn) Chuck had left Blaire standing on a helipad so that he could mack on a deeply unattractive Hearst; Serena and Dan were back together for a minute before breaking up again; Nate dumped Vanessa after 10 minutes of barely dating off screen with no fanfare and barely any acknowledgement; Serena and Nate were going to spend the summer together which seemed like a potentially disastrous idea to everyone who wasn’t Serena or Nate; Jenny was heading for an internship with Blaire’s mom; Rufus was nursing a broken heart after Lilly slept with him the night before her wedding and then dumped his tasty ass to marry the vaguely skeevy Bart Bass.

One Tree Hill: Before I remind us all where we left off with the folks in North Carolina, I thought I’d list the vehicular disasters that have befallen Tree Hill in the past: Peyton’s mom runs a red light, gets hit and dies; Peyton’s car breaks down, Lucas arrives with the tow truck to help, thus begins the first of the two most dreadful love triangles this show will ever know; Original Assy Nate “borrows” Peyton’s car for a drunken beer run, broadsides half a neighborhood, ditches car; Keith runs a red light with Luke in the car, gets hit and Luke ends up in a coma; Nate is depressed because Hailey has run off with Chris Keller to be a rock star and generally suck as a wife, so on a visit with his (hot) uncle Cooper, he drives a race car into the wall and ends up in a coma; Rachel steels the wedding limo at Nathan and Haley’s second wedding and when (hot) uncle Cooper tries to stop her, they drive it off a bridge – (hot) uncle Cooper ends up in a coma; Rick Fox attempts to run Nathan down with his car because he’s pissed that Nathan won’t continue with their point shaving racket but he misses Nathan and mows down a pregnant Hailey instead, Rick Fox is killed either by hitting his head on the steering wheel or by being pummeled by an angry Nathan, all of that drama causes Lucas to have a heart attack and end up in a coma; Dan is crossing the street, has a heart attack and then gets hit by a car. He’s probably in a coma but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure in the season premier. By my count that is three heart attacks, 7 car accidents and at least four comas on this show in 5 seasons.

Other things that happened at the end of last season include Brooke temporarily caring for a sick baby, Skillz having sex with Deb, Nathan being hot, and Lucas asking either Lindsey, Peyton or Brooke to go to Vegas with him and get married. If there is a God in heaven, it will NOT have been Brooke!

Samantha Who?: Sam had amnesia. You’re all caught up.

How I Met Your Mother: Ted dated Stella who may or may not be your mother. Barney and Robin slept together and I deeply hoped they ended up married to each other but I might be the only one.

House: In a pair of episodes that made me cry like a tiny baby who’d just been pinched, Cut-Throat Bitch died no matter how hard House tried to save her. Wilson’s heart broke into a million pieces. SNIFF!

Pushing Daisies: There was a whole thing with a pie maker and touching dead things and it was sweet and quirky and charming and fun but it was also last on my television about a decade ago so I don’t really remember where we left off. But I’m looking forward to having it back.

Friday Night Lights: Smash was going to go to a small college (where he’d get a lot of field time right out of the shoot as well as an actual quality education but probably wouldn’t get noticed by the NFL) because it made his mom happy and because he’d screwed up so royally by punching a racist kid that he really had no choice. Street knocked up a waitress he barely knew and begged her to keep the kid and be his girlfriend. Tyra and Landry made the best hot girl/dorky guy couple since Summer and Seth no matter who had to die to make it so. Coach and Tammy and Gracie spent every minute of every day being awesome and still managed to find the energy to be related to Julie. Julie realized she regretted dumping Matt’s fine ass for that totally gross Swede. Matt developed rage issues after his Guatemalan girlfriend took her cradle-robbing ways back to the mother country. Buddy made me love him by taking in the juvie kid with the spacers and being awesome when said kid had his juvie friends (including Weevil!) over and they stole Buddy’s shit. Lyla had to choose between her religious boyfriend Chris and the hotter than molten lava Tim Riggins after Tim told her he loved her. This should have been the easiest decision of her entire life but somehow she made it seem hard.

Dirty Sexy Money: Again, it’s been about a year since we’ve caught up with the Darling’s and their lawyer so I can’t really remember what happened. I know that Blair Underwood is a bad man and that Jeremy kissed Nick’s wife.

Private Practice: Addison was way less interesting in LA than she was in Seattle. The best part of the show were Cooper and Charlotte. Especially Cooper, who I find totally sexy.

Bones: Booth was dead and then he wasn’t. Bones was distraught and then she was pissed. Zack was Gormagon’s lackey.

Supernatural: Dean is in hell on account of he made a deal with the Crossroads Demonette to bring Sammy back from the dead a year before and neither brother is as smart or crafty as he is hot so they weren’t able to wriggle out of the deal.

Numb3rs: Megan left and really bummed me out because I freaking LOVE the romance between her and Larry. LOVE! Ooh, you know what else I love? The way Rob Morrow pronounces "Larry" like it has 4 syllables and how very good looking Colby (Dylan Bruno) is.

Heroes: I don’t have any idea where we left off because I quit watching when the Wonder Twins killed any interest I once had in the show. I’m going to rent the DVDs and trudge through them though because I heard that season three is back to being awesome like season one was.

New Shows:

Fringe: Why I’m going to watch: JJ Abrams and Joshua Jackson. Both of my favorite JJs together as God always intended.

Privileged: Joanna Garcia is really cute and who doesn't love Anne Archer? Whatever, it probably won't last long but it might be cute.

My Own Worst Enemy: Have you seen the commercials for this show? I’m not sure how it’s possible that Christian Slater looks exactly the same and yet 10 times worse than he did circa Pump Up The Volume, but he does. I like spy shows but really I’m watching this because I’m curious to see if I can like Christian Slater again or if he needs to live in my memory and my early ‘90s DVD collection.

The Ex List: I heard this was going to be really terrible and I kind of just want to see for myself.

The Mentalist: A couple of years ago there was a show called Smith on CBS that I REALLY liked. Simon Baker was in it. I am hoping that this show will fill the Simon Baker void that the cancellation of Smith left in my life.

Valentine: Right or wrong, I just really like Autumn Reeser. I wish this were a spin-off of her character from The O.C. but instead it’s a CW show that is bound to be cancelled about 20 minutes into the first episode. I’m going to tune in to see if Autumn is as bad as her recent resume suggests or as good as she seemed as Taylor Townsend.

Easy Money: You can’t really go wrong with Laurie Metcalf, plus Jay R. Furguson is a crush from way back and Jeff Hephner is uber cute, and a family of loan sharks is something I haven’t seen before on TV.

90210: When Brandon and Brenda Walsh first moved from Minnesota to Beverly Hills, I was 14. That made me the exact target demo for the original BH90210 and as such, I faithfully watched and loved the gang from West Bev every week. I am overcome with curiosity at what the new series will bring but as long as it continues to bring appearances by Brenda, Kelly, and possibly other former residents of the most famous zip code on the planet (seriously producers, pony up and pay Tori the same as you're paying the other girls because it just won't be the same without Donna Martin!), I’m totally in!