October 2007 Television Highs
The Best of the Tube This Month
It’s October 31, the last day of the month, which means it’s time for me to start a new monthly tradition. This has nothing to do with the fact that today happens to be Halloween, the best holiday of the year (Incidentally, did you catch Ray Wise‘s depressed devil last night on Reaper bemoaning the commercialization of evil and how it makes people unafraid of him on All Hallows Eve?). Instead, the new Television Highs post will provide a summary of what I found best about TV during the month in question. Let’s jump right in, in no particular order.
October 2007 Television Highlights
- Discovering ABC’s unexpected gem Dirty Sexy Money…
This newbie didn’t register on my radar at all during the networks’ upfront presentations and the massive buildup to the fall season that followed. Is Dirty Sexy Money perfect TV? Heck no. But, it is perfectly entertaining in a way that helps you forget your troubles and tiredness for a brief hour. What more could you ask for from a sudsy show? It gets the job done, which I imagine is partially why ABC has requested additional scripts despite middling ratings. (The other main reason would be the looming writers’ strike, of course.) - Series 5 of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries on PBS’ MYSTERY!…
For some reason, I missed the preceding announcement that the show would be returning in September. Luckily, I stumbled upon it just in time anyway, literally a few hours before the season premiere. The fourth and final episode of series 5 (UK detective shows have a much shorter season life cycle than their US counterparts, but installments are twice as long at ninety or so minutes, making them basically movies) aired on October 14, and did it ever include one completely unexpected event that threw fans for an unimagined loop! Series 6 is already underway in the United Kingdom, and I hope we get it on this side of the pond sooner rather than later. - Sci Fi Channel’s Eureka closed its second season with a third already in the bag…
I wasn’t too thrilled with the ultimate developments in the second-season finale since Jack and Allison still didn’t hook up, although I’d heard before the season started that showrunners had promised their situation would be definitively resolved by season’s end. I guess that was before everyone knew they’d be back again next summer. - Discovering that NBC’s Life does indeed have life…
…thanks in no small part to English star Damian Lewis (who I was a bit shocked to find is only 36—he looks to be at least in his early forties on the show). Lewis’ Zen-happy, wronged convict-cop Charlie Crews is broadcast TV’s version of Tony Shalhoub‘s Adrian Monk on basic cable, without all of the phobias but just as arrestingly quirky and smart. - Only three new series officially given the boot…
Compare that to this time last year, and also take note of the generally less threatening atmosphere. Aside from ABC’s dreadful Cavemen, most new shows are lumbering along virtually unhampered by anything except widespread low ratings.- The doomed fate of Fox’s Nashville became evident first when the network pulled it on September 21, after just two poorly rated broadcasts. Cancellation was confirmed on October 19.
- Then came The CW’s Internet video hodgepodge Online Nation, which I saw not a nanosecond of and didn’t even bother to record. It was yanked on October 14 and officially axed three days later.
- CBS’ misbegotten closeted musical Viva Laughlin followed close behind. Not even the undisputed popularity of Blackpool, the British series in the same vein that it was based on, could help this sucker, and both it and movie-star executive producer Hugh Jackman were given the heave-ho on October 21. Two episodes aired three days apart garnered dismal ratings for the Number One broadcast network, and formal cancellation was swift the very next day. Ouch! Maybe they should have simply admitted the show was essentially a musical and taken it from there.
Life photo courtesy of NBC
