Laurel’s TV Picks

Best Bets

Series premiere of Kid Nation (CBS, 7pm)
Series premiere of Back To You (FOX, 7pm)
Series premiere of Gossip Girl (CW, 8pm; also on Sun)
Series premiere of Kitchen Nightmares (FOX, 8pm)
New Top Chef (Bravo, 9pm, 11pm, 1am)

News & Notes:

Plenty of links to TV news and such at TV Tattle though you may find some spoilery stuff in articles linked from there so be careful if you don’t like that sort of thing.

For daytime talk show guests/topics, check out the last section of yesterday’s picks.

Primetime Grid

Featured Pick

Series premiere of Gossip Girl (CW, 8pm; also on Sunday).

While I usually try to put a positive spin on the shows I watch and the TV world I cover, there are some things that make me cranky. Most of the time I try to follow the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” school of thought, unless something is so very bad I simply must say something. Or unless I’m covering all the new shows– I feel obligated to steer you away from the bad.

Gossip Girl is not a bad show, but it’s not especially good either. I hope, given Josh Schwartz’s involvement, that it might become a good show. Schwartz brought us The O.C. which didn’t sound like a good idea on paper, but which won many over (myself included).

The Cranky Gal in me wants to rant and rail against the CW for canceling Veronica Mars and Everwood. Yeah, it pisses me off. Could any new shows they put together be better? Doubtful. And why on Earth is One Tree Hill still on the air? Yes, I can be cranky.

Gossip Girl is at least loosely based on a series of books– I’m not familiar with them so can’t tell you how the show compares. This show, like The O.C. before it, follows a group of wealthy teens as they go to high school. These teens attend school in New York City, and their lives appear to be narrated by Kristen Bell (of Veronica Mars) who gives voice to a gossip website called “Gossip Girl” which covers the doings of the beautiful people who attend the school.

We’re given the impression that at least two of the teens aren’t wealthy or as wealthy as the rest of the gang; they live with their newly single Dad and attend the private school for the “educational advantages” or something like that. They aren’t popular, at least at first.

There’s no Cohen family here, alas; we don’t see much of the parents in the first episode, though the one Dad is likeable and there are a couple of rather snooty mothers. I am pleased that there seem to be two brother-sister relationships that are fairly close: siblings who are of high school age who don’t hate each other and actually like each other and have each other’s backs. I find that refreshing.

We join these rich kids as one of their own returns suddenly and unexpectedly from a year at boarding school. ‘Course that year at boarding school is made to be a bit mysterious: Was Serena really at boarding school? If not, where was she?

She’s had a falling out with her best friend, possibly because she just up and moved away “to boarding school” without telling her. And then there’s the fact that she may or may not like her friend’s longtime boyfriend. Yes, there’s teen drama here– what did you expect from a show called Gossip Girl?

Like so many of this Fall’s show, my feelings about the first episode are lukewarm. I didn’t hate it or actively dislike it, but I didn’t find much there to recommend it either. I know this sort of review isn’t especially helpful.

Give it a look if this sort of show sounds like something you might like; if you normally aren’t into shows that cover this territory, I don’t think this one will win you over.

Primetime

Series premiere of Kid Nation (CBS, 7pm – 8:07pm). DVR/VCR Alert: Runs seven minutes long. I suspect you may have heard a little about this show already; I have not seen the series premiere as it wasn’t sent to critics, but I’ve seen a trailer for it that looks more interesting than one would expect. The premise is: forty children try to form a new society in a 19th-century New Mexico ghost town. They compete for “Gold Stars” awarded by their fellow children for doing good in the town, the winners receive monetary scholarships and possibly other cool stuff. This is the show’s regular timeslot, the next episode airs next week on this night and time.

There’s a football theme to the Wednesday night premiere of Deal or No Deal (NBC, 7pm). Eight NFL Hall of Famers appear: Marcus Allen, Wayne Chrebet, Terrell Davis, Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, Jerry Rice, Kordell Stewart, and Rod Woodson.

MLB Baseball (ESPN, 7pm). Teams TBA.

Season/Cycle premiere of America’s Next Top Model (CW, 7pm; airs again on Sunday). It begins as thirty-three aspiring models board a Caribbean cruise ship. Oh boy!

Series premiere of Back To You (FOX, 7pm). Kelsey Grammer stars as Chuck Darling, a news anchor who ends up leaving a high profile gig in L.A. to return to a much smaller market. He ends up back holding a job he’s held before; Patricia Heaton (of Everybody Loves Raymond) plays his former co-anchor who is not too happy to be reunited with him. Fred Willard plays the quirky (of course) sports anchor. There are others who round out the cast but don’t leave much of an impression, at least not in the first two episodes. This is an old school traditional sitcom and Grammer and Heaton can do that in their sleep, but I just didn’t laugh much at the first two episodes. Well-crafted doesn’t always mean good, you know? It’s harmless and watchable, but that’s not exactly a strong recommendation.

Back To You is paired with a sitcom with another Everybody Loves Raymond alum in it. I’m talking about the season premiere of ‘Til Death (FOX, 7:30pm). I’d say Back To You looks quite good compared to this one. Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher star as the “old married couple” who for some inexplicable reason sometimes hang out with their newlywed neighbors. Well, they’re their neighbors and the men work together, but still. In the premiere, Garrett and Fisher end up telling each other things that the other does which they find embarrassing. Yes, you probably saw this done much better on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Series premiere of Gossip Girl (CW, 8pm; also on Sunday). Covered above as my “featured pick”.

Series premiere of Kitchen Nightmares (FOX, 8pm). This is a new U.S. version of the U.K. series. Ramsay should also be familiar to anyone who watches Hell’s Kitchen on FOX. In this show, Ramsay visits a restaurant and looks it over and then he tries to make it over in a rather short span of time. So you get lots of Ramsay pointing out serious flaws in the way a restaurant is run, which can be entertaining if you like that sort of thing. In the first episode, he faces a family restaurant where everyone argues and one very annoying mobster-wannabe is the biggest problem. I enjoyed the episode, though I found the about face made by one person rather abrupt. An hour-long show is a very brief period for this sort of transformation so everything seems to happen fast.

A Grey’s Anatomy special (ABC, 8pm) titled Come Rain or Come Shine: From Grey’s Anatomy to Private Practice which focuses on the character Dr. Addison Montgomery and features lots of clips, I’m sure. There’ll also be previews of Private Practice and the new season of Grey’s Anatomy.

Four new episodes of Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (TBS, 8pm, 8:30pm, 9pm, 9:30pm).

Rerun of last season’s finale of Criminal Minds (CBS, 8:07pm). Let’s just say that a case gets really personal when Keith Carradine returns as a very nasty serial killer. Mandy Patinkin gets a lot to do in this episode, he’s now left the series for some unknown reason (there’s much speculation, but still nothing concrete) though he will be back in some capacity this year for one episode.

Garcia: (to herself, as she waits alone) “Gorgeous tech kitten found in lonely, dark parking lot, throat slashed ear-to-ear. Horrific. Tragic. With the very files of one of the most prolific serial killers ever.”
  from Criminal Minds

Baseball Tonight (ESPN2, 9pm).

New Top Chef (Bravo, 9pm, 11pm, 1am, lots of additional airings).

New Inside the NFL (HBO, 9pm).

A drug kingpin and his crew try to bust into the lab on a rerun of last season’s finale of CSI: NY (CBS, 9pm).

Peyton: Have you seen Mac?
Sid: No, have you checked the other side of the building?
Peyton: Yeah, I have. Twice.
Sid: Well, I imagine he’s looking for you, you’re looking for him, and you’re both circling the building… Stay put and he’ll find you.
  from CSI: NY

Late Night

Gen. Wesley Clark on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central, 10pm and midnight).

Naomi Wolf on The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 10:30pm and 12:30am).

Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Garlin, Against Me! on a rerun of The Late Show with David Letterman (CBS, 10:35pm).

Dane Cook, Ali Larter (of Heroes), LCD Soundsystem on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (NBC, 10:35pm).

Brad Garrett, Joy Behar, Rogue Wave on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (NBC, 11:37pm).

Dr. Phil McGraw, Kaley Cuoco, Bob Dubac on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (CBS, 11:37pm).

David Spade, Evan Rachel Wood, Mute Math on Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, check your local listings).

Jeff Goldblum, Paolo Nutini on Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC, check your local listings).

Thursday Daytime

Courtney Thorne-Smith, Rusty Wallace, John Edward on Live with Regis and Kelly (syndicated, check your local listings).

Reba McEntire on The View (ABC, check your local listings).

Sean Penn on Oprah (syndicated, check your local listings).

Jessica Alba, Gary Vaynerchuk on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (syndicated, check your local listings).

Barry Manilow, a caramelized apple dessert, how to make a chile pepper wreath on Martha (syndicated, check your local listings).

Elliott Yamin, a look at body language and how it might affect your love life on The Rachael Ray Show (syndicated, check your local listings).

Women with issues about how old or young they look “celebrate their true age” on The Tyra Banks Show (syndicated, check your local listings).

A look at surgeries to erase one’s “ethnic identity” on Dr. Phil (syndicated, check your local listings).