Channel Surfing: Journeyman

I wanted to like Journeyman because Kevin McKidd is in it (he was great in Rome and as a drunken hooligan in Trainspotting) but hasn't this concept been done before? If I had ever watched Quantum Leap maybe I could comment. So this dude starts suddenly finding himself ending up in the past for short periods of time before returning to the present, where his family is a little miffed at his disappearing act. In the 80's (and you know it's the 80's: people have big hair! and wear weird clothes! and listen to 80s music! and if you still don't get it there's a a billboard for Less Than Zero!) he has to help save some random people for some reason. Also he runs into his long dead fiance (uh, she was alive in the past, she's only present-tense dead).

That brings us to an intriguing question: if you travel back to the past and screw your present-tense dead fiance in the time frame that you were dating her, are you cheating on your present-tense alive wife? And if not, what if you find out that she might not actually be dead but that her present-tense self is also time traveling? Would screwing this version of her then be cheating since she's from the same time that you're married? Dammit, Back to the Future did not prepare me for these sort of questions!

Anyway, dude does things to help other people and then manages to prove to his wife that he isn't crazy and actually has been time traveling (actually a decent ending with "I'll always come back to you" or something along those lines). Regardless, there's no time to keep up with this sure-to-be-canceled NBC gem.

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Channel Surfing: Chuck

I didn't even mean to watch Chuck. I was sitting around chugging as much water as possible for the fourth consecutive evening (long story) and realized it was on. End result? Pleasantly surprised. Yet another show from the folks behind The O.C. (we get it Josh, settle down), various show runners have said it's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets The Office" (no, Chuck is a computer geek who lives with his sister and her husband and can't get a date, so no Brad and Angelina) or "Bourne Supremacy meets The 40 Year Old Virgin" (no, Chuck may strike out with the ladies but he's not an ass kicker secret agent like Bourne).

Anyway, screw that. It seems like a light hearted take on the spy show schtick - somehow Chuck gets government secrets downloaded into his brain and gets flashes of intel and insight about secret agent stuff. The CIA and NSA want him back/dead/something or other and his sister (and her husband, Captain Awesome - roll with it, it works) just wants to help him get a lady. Good thing the CIA agent sent after him is a smoking hot chick who spends some quality time in her underwear with weapons. Not as good is that the NSA agent is Adam Baldwin who wants him dead. Chuck seems like a likable nerd, some of the jokes made me laugh, and it was an overall quirky show.

Of course the pilot has a scene with a Shins song playing while characters sit staring contemplatively at the ocean - O.C. gold! It'll get another watch, which is more than I can say for the show following it on NBC (maybe if that show was called Gyros and was about a Greek restaurant owner it wouldn't be ripping off "Watchmen" so shamelessly).

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Channel Surfing: Gossip Girl

A show by the people behind The O.C. about privileged private schoolers in Manhattan - let's see how Gossip Girl can differentiate itself from that "amazingly fresh to head slappingly formulaic crap" Fox gem, shall we? The pilot starts with Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" so it's got the hot-indie-rock-hits-from-last-year thing going for it. One of the main characters has Peter Gallagher caliber eyebrows. There's the outsider/invisible guy who has a crush on the popular girl and whose dad isn't part of the hoity toity society they live in, and his freshman sister who's trying hard to become part of the cool crowd (that,uh, works out well for her). However, it's narrated like Sex in the City as written on a Gawker-like gossip blog, and all the characters seem to hang on the blog's every word from their identical Sidekicks (apparently Apple didn't pony up the dough for a set of matching iPhones).

On The O.C. the main characters sometimes still behaved like your average high schooler - the usual "big deal" episodes were made over drugs and sex. Here we have one of the girls decide that it's time to cash in her v-card just to make sure her boyfriend doesn't go for her returning best friend/enemy (please die if you ever use the term 'frenemy'). Ditto for casual drinking (in bars that apparently don't card anyone) and drug use and equally casual attempted rape (twice in the episode by the same character!). All the mothers we meet in the pilot seem to be cloned from Season 1 Julie Cooper bitchy/evil/self-absorbed molds and have the same "I know secrets about you so watch out" conversations that their kids are having. Also we have a father who tells his son to keep dating the girl he broke up with because the father is trying to get a big contract from her mother and they need it to keep their family from going bankrupt. Like Jimmy Cooper if he was evil!

Bottom line, after reading the above it doesn't sound like this show is all that great. The title is also incredibly ... well, embarrassingly girly. However, the ladies on this show are ridiculously hot. I mean, not even funny hot. Just plain hot. And they're drinking and doing drugs and having sex and being catty toward each other. So I'm going to have to play this one by eye.

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Channel Surfing: Back to You

It's been a while since I've managed to sit through a new multi camera, laugh track sitcom. Maybe I've just become snooty after getting used to Arrested Development, The Office, etc. Or maybe it's that most new sitcoms are actually terrible (I accidentally caught the pilot of 'Til Death and I still have nightmares). With that said, I didn't hate Back to You. In fact, I'll even give it another watch. Kelsey Grammer is (almost) always a winner; here he's taking Frasier's pompousness but making him, well, not so gay. He's a blowhard that seems to be able to back it up as a former small market news anchor that made it to the big leagues in LA before having an on-camera meltdown appear on YouTube. Now he's fired and back at his old job and dealing with former coworkers (who are made up of some great casting choices). Nothing that's really breaking the mold - although there is a nice (and obvious) twist that could make the show more interesting going forward. And Fred Willard is in it. Overall a better half hour than most of the refuse that Fox squeezes out its ass.

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Breaking Out of Prison Gets Even Harder

I'm a little bored and 24 isn't on (and let's be honest, last season was so uneven that my eye started to wander - I'm sorry baby, I was only looking, I swear! You're the only show for me, those other shows don't mean anything to me, it's just that I sometimes need coherent plot arcs that can cover half a season without stretching my patience!). Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, TV. Let's see what we can get going here.

Hey, Prison Break is back! What are Michael and Lincoln up to on their nice Panamanian vacation after Breaking Out Of Prison (dun dun dun)? What's that, you say? Back in prison, you say? Well shit, what's a guy got to do around here to get the fuck out of prison?!

• Previously on PB (Season 1): Lincoln was framed by The Conspiracy. Michael went into prison to break him out. Lots of people involved in intricate plan. Shit happened. More people involved. Broke Out Of Prison.
• Previously on PB (Season 2): Breaking Out Of Prison was just the beginning. Gang on the run, show name not changed. More intricate planning. Idiot son caused problems. Betrayals. Buried money found. Race to border. Shit happened, gang splits. Panama, but Agent Mahone tracked them down with help from T-Bag. Betrayals. Double crossing. Scheming. Almost everyone left alive ended up in Hell aka Soma Prison. Will have to break out.

Last season got a little off the rails crazy, but they've whittled the cast of characters down a bit. And they're in Panama. And back in prison somehow. There's some Conspiracy involved whose plot over the last two seasons may have been cover to set up the real conspiracy goal for this season (or something, I feel like Chris Carter was a guest writer on this Conspiracy arc). The evil silent dude is some sort of general and there may be some secret medical connection to Michael's prison breaking abilities for The Conspiracy's nefarious ends.

And they have a plan (cue Battlestar music)

Soma is real shitty (by network TV prison standards; one of the nancy boys from Oz could easily take this place over) and I know a lot of people will complain how unrealistic the whole deal is. But due to my former ability to work from home, I watched a lot of history channel and whatnot and saw a special on some Latin American prisons where the guards abandoned the place due to riots. And they looked just like Soma - grills and market stands and complete chaos and squalor. Except Major Bunny Colvin from The Wire didn't lord over the place with a shitty accent. Dude must have gotten a pretty harsh sentence for that drug legalization stunt he pulled in Bawlmore.

Somehow Michael and Mahone and Bellick end up in Soma together and people are big and bad and scary and Bunny wants Michael dead because he's a charismatic fucker and could challenge his rule. Don't question Michael's charisma, dude convinces everyone to dance to his tune and will Reach His Goal If It Kills Him. He's like Shawne Merriman in the Nike commercial I'm watching now, just buzzsawing through people to the soundtrack from Last of the Mohicans.

Uh, what else is going on? Lincoln is a free man. The Conspiracy wants Michael to break someone out of Soma for them (duh). Bellick is a prison bitch and is forced to clean the shitters and doesn't have clothes and no one will let him eat or drink (and illegal immigrants think they have it bad in the U.S. - ungrateful fuckers). So when some dude inside the walls gives him dead human to eat, he's cool with it. You think this wall guy is who needs to Break Out Of Prison? (dun dun dun) Uh, Michael and Mahone fuck people up. Then the plot decides to kick in and Lincoln's worthless son and Michael's worthless lady love smack addict have been kidnapped by The Conspiracy. They have to - wait for it - break the man between the walls out of prison or their loved ones will be tickled to death.

Annnnnnd Fall TV is back folks! Stay tuned to find the answers to these intriguing questions:

• If breaking out of prison is so hard that once you finally do it you end up running directly into a much worse prison, what's going to happen once they get out of Soma? Escape From New York?
• Will Michael ever realize he's wearing a long sleeve shirt and sweatshirt in fucking Panama or will the makeup artists continue refusing to draw his full body tattoos back on?
• Are the writers just phoning in this ridiculous New Conspiracy to callously capitalize on the success of this show?
• Where is the Soma prison doctor and how will Michael woo him/her into helping him escape?
• Why does network TV prison not scare me anymore after I was scarred for life by Oz?
  
• Where oh where is Sucre and will he find his lady love who is possibly trapped in a pit with only enough food for a couple days and snoooooooooooooore...
• And more!
  

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