Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the television week. Here’s our look back at my pre-season thoughts on what’s on the slate for this season.
7:00
The Big Bang Theory – Entering its 7th season, the show’s ratings continue to grow. Everyone is in a relationship now, so we’ll see how the show handles that.
The continues to be a ratings juggernaut while still being a good comedy.
Once Upon A Time In Wonderland – Originally conceived as a mini-series to air while Once Upon A Time was in hiatus, ABC execs were so enamored with this spinoff show that they moved it to the fall and gave it its own timeslot. Will 2 hours of weekly fairy tales prove to be too much? Only time will tell.
I made it through about 2 episodes of this train wreck before I had to drop out. Turns out there is a limit to the amount of fairy tales I can handle in a week.
8:00
The Crazy Ones – Robin Williams returns to television for the first time since Mork & Mindy, which is not something I would ordinarily be interested in. Add in David E. Kelley, who has been more miss than hit lately, and this would likely get a pass from me. However, the inclusion of one Sarah Michelle Gellar has guaranteed that I will at least check it out.
The show has done a tremendous job of toning down the Robin Williams factor to a reasonable level and has been one of the surprises of the new season.
Grey’s Anatomy – Back for a 10th season, the show was revitalized a bit last season with the addition of a new group of interns. Hopefully they can keep it up this year.
The show continues to entertain, even if it isn’t the ratings hit it was in its earlier days.
9:00
Elementary – The modern day, living in America story of Sherlock Holmes was decent enough last season. I’ll continue to watch until they give me a reason not to.
Continues to be an entertaining interpretation of Sherlock Holmes.
Parenthood – A strong season brings Parenthood back for a fifth season, and a move to the once-cherished anchor spot on Thursday night for NBC. Now that they’ve been given a full season pickup, we’ll see how the show does without the constant threat of cancellation hanging over them.
Like Nashville, I had let the show pile up to the point where the first few episodes were automatically deleted by the DVR for space. Unlike Nashville, NBC has the full season available via OnDemand so I was able to catch up.
Now it’s time to turn our attention to new and returning shows this winter:
Community – Dan Harmon has returned and the 4th season seems like nothing but a bad dream at this point. Early talk even points towards a possible renewal for a 6th season, meaning we would only need a movie to make the #sixseasonsandamovie hashtag prophetic.
Rake – I imagine someone sat in a meeting and asked “What if we remade House, but instead of a doctor, we made him a lawyer and, instead of Hugh Laurie, we got Greg Kinnear?” I don’t expect much, but I’m willing to give it a shot.