2012 Season Premieres – Thursday and Friday

Part three of the new TV season is here, and we’re continuing with shows from Thursday and Friday nights. These were probably the two best nights as far as quality went, I didn’t dislike anything which is always a plus. Though the shows weren’t perfect, nothing is after all, but the flaws were minor enough to leave me with an enjoyable evening. If you missed the first two parts check out what we thought of Monday night, and Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Thursday

I remember back in the late ‘90s when Thursdays were “Must See TV”. A lot has changed since then, but Thursdays at least are still pretty good for TV. There a lot of shows on, and not all of them have even premiered yet, I’m still looking forward to the Always Sunny In Philadelphia premiere later this month!

The Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory is a show I’ve loved for years now, but I feel like it’s definitely gone downhill a bit in recent seasons. I’m glad they expanded the cast, but with the addition of so many extra characters it seems to have gotten away from the winning formula of 4 super nerds and one hot girl. We don’t really get to see Howard being ridiculous because he’s married now, and they seem to just find excuses for Raj to be drunk so he can have a few lines while one of the 3 main female characters are in the scene.

That all out of the way, I was torn with the season premiere. We had four different stories happening. Penny and Leonard, Howard and Bernadette and his Mom, Sheldon and Amy, and Raj with pretty much everyone plus Stewert. The good part was Raj was funny, and his awkward bromance with Stuart was unexpected at first, but since Kevin Sussman has been promoted to main cast member this season it makes sense.

As a season premiere and sitcom in general this was a good episode, I found myself laughing at a lot of the jokes and gags like I should. But as an episode of TBBT I feel like it missed the mark, it wasn’t too different from any other sitcom on tv, one of the main characters was in space during it. Hopefully they bring it back to their roots sometime soon and then I’ll be happy. Until then I’ll still be watching, and you probably should too.

Last Resort

Last Resort is definitely up there for best new series. I’m not sure who’s going to win yet, but if this show keeps it up, they might be it. I read an article a little while ago, it was basically one of those “If you like this, try this” but about the new season of shows. Last Resort was listed as “If you liked Lost, try Last Resort” and I’ve gotta say after the first episode I can see it. The settings are similar, tropical islands, only this new one has actual civilization not some creepy magic cults, well not yet anyway. And they both had a submarine in it, which is always cool.

The series premiere hopefully set the tone that this show is going to follow for the rest of the season, it’s got comedy, action, suspense, drama, love, just about everything you need to keep everyone interested. Frankly if the show keeps up, I can see it getting a big following like lost did. So you probably don’t want to wait and see, start watching now so you’re ahead of the curve.

Person of Interest

Last year when I learned about this show I was excited. The creator is Jonathan Nolan, brother to Christopher Nolan. And he’s co-wrote the last 3 Batman movies. Incase you weren’t aware, those were fantastic movies. On top of that you have Michael Emmerson who I loved in lost, and the guy who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ (Jim Caviezel) playing an ex-CIA secret agent. It sounded amazing on paper, so I gave it a shot. It got a little repetitive and was easy to fall in and out of interest with during the middle of the season, by the end I was completely hooked.

Season 2 picks up right where the first season left off. Reese is on his own trying to work ‘The Machine’ and find Finch at the same time. His ‘friends’ on the police force finally know they’re both working with him and have a lot of questions, though they don’t really get answered. And Reese as a character really gets a lot more depth to him. He’s always such a stone cold guy, even when he delivers a smartass remark. In this episode though he seemed more vulnerable, remarking to several people that he’s just trying to find his friend, and that he doesn’t really have many. We also learned a lot more about ‘The Machine’ and how it gives the numbers and things of that nature. If you missed the first season I recommend finding it on DVD or Blu-Ray and catching up quickly if the first episode was any indication this show is going to get crazy very fast.

Elementary

I’m not going to talk to much about Elementary, we’ve already got a pretty spot on review that covers everything I would have said. I will say that I’ve heard some criticism about this show and how it doesn’t stack up to the BBC show Sherlock. Does it really matter though? They’re two different shows, yes they’re using the same source material and taking it in different directions. Stop complaining about it and just enjoy that there are interesting shows out there to watch and watch them. Now go jump over and read that review on Elementary’s first episode.

Friday

Friday’s haven’t been good for TV since the ‘90s and TGIF. For the last decade it’s been the place networks send shows when they know they’re only on for one more season. Or when they want to get rid of a series because they know the ratings will drop. That being the case there is only one show I watched, and that’s Grimm.

Grimm (Friday Move)

I know, I know, Grimm premiered back in August, but it did go off for a few weeks and get moved back to Friday nights. If you haven’t seen this show yet, you’re dumb and you should fix it by watching the first season. It’s generally just monster of the week stuff with an over arching story to tie it all together. But for this show it really works, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Since we’re so far into the actual season I don’t want to talk about the recent episode for fear of spoiling anything, but take my word that I haven’t seen a bad episode yet this season. It’s not a show I recommend to just start watching randomly, go back and see it from the beginning so you actually know what’s going on.

This is one of those shows that needs as many live views as possible to keep it’s ratings good. It’s already screwed with the death slot of Friday nights, you know where shows go to die. But it did well enough last year to get a second season, and they even started it out on Monday nights, not really sure why they had to throw it back on Fridays though.

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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