Feature Article
ABC's Fall 2005-2006 Television Season: What Worked and What Sucked
by Justine Manzano
If you are a big time television watcher, it happens to you every year. You sit down with your TV Guide in front of you and decide which shows of the new season sound like they are worth your time. You choose a list, add them to your old faithful shows, and expect to walk out of the whole thing with a couple of spectacular new shows that you love and a few things you wished never aired.
In the Fall 2004-2005 season, I walked out with only Lost and Desperate Housewives to call my new favorites. The year before every favorite of mine had been cancelled and so, I needed a new and good influx of shows this year. The season turned out to be pretty decent and left me with plenty of shows to wait eagerly for next year. But, it also had me looking at shows that I had passed up on before and trying to get into them, as if the season wasn’t giving me enough TV to watch. And it also had me crying over wasting an hour or two of my busy work and school schedule to watch something so crappy. So, now that the season is at an end, let’s look at what worked, what didn’t, and possibly give you an idea of what to check out next year. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll explore the last television season’s hits and misses, TV station by station. This week let’s start with The American Broadcasting Channel or, as most humans know it, ABC. Enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: There are, of course, some shows that I haven’t seen that I am sure rocked…but I didn’t see them, so I can’t say anything about them. This article is only about my experience with TV this season. If I missed something, and you want it added to the G-Pop annals, send us your article at submissions@g-pop.net and let your word be heard.
Follow the links: Hey! You Actually Stayed Good!!! Where Have You Been All My Life?
How Dare You Cancel That Show??? Shows That Made You Want To Peel Your Face Off
Hey! You Actually Stayed Good!!!
Desperate
Housewives: In the sophomore season of this show about a series
of…um…desperate women without jobs, one of our main characters, Lynette
(Felicity Huffman), got a job and struggled to keep it despite the fact that her
husband got the same job. Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) dumped her gardener/underage
boyfriend, lost her baby, adopted a baby, lost that baby, got a housemaid, got
her pregnant with her baby (surrogate—nothing that dirty here!) and then lost
her husband to the housemaid…as only she could. Bree (Marcia Cross) became an
alcoholic, buried her husband, watched her crazy, murderous boyfriend kill
himself, found her other boyfriend in bed with her son had a nervous breakdown
and nearly watched her daughter get killed. Susan (Teri Hatcher) fell a lot,
was clumsy, went through three boyfriends, got herself into and out of several
misadventures and fell some more, always managing to be incredibly hysterical.
The only black family was run out of town and was gunned down by snipers, but
this was still the best of everything a soap opera can have. It was smart,
funny, and just what was needed to unwind on a Sunday night.
Lost:
After a season of fighting to discover the secrets of the island, Lost still
managed to stay at its prime. The series, which promotes supreme paranoia and
interesting theories about what exactly the island is and what the fate of it’s
new inhabitants will be, managed to introduce a whole new set of people who were
on the back end of the plane—the part that ripped off—this season. We also
watched Shannon, Libby and Ana Lucia die while learning what happens if we don’t
press the button. All the while, we got to indulge ourselves in conversations
like the one we had here at our very own message board:
http://gpopnetwork.proboards31.com/index.cgi?board=Movies&action=display&thread=1127628508.
To learn even more about Lost, check out my season 1 DVD review of Lost at
http://www.g-pop.net/Lost.htm. Don’t be surprised if I do a second season
DVD review as well.
Where Have You Been All My Life?
Grey’s
Anatomy: How could I have missed this one for so long?! I had heard about
it and it sounded interesting enough but I had no interest at all in medical
dramas and so I avoided it completely until my work buddy, Kimberly Burch,
yelled at me. I still didn’t watch it…I just paid more attention to the
commercials. Then, a recap episode was shown and I watched it, although I had
no plans to keep up with yet another show. I couldn’t believe what I’d been
missing! This show, which follows the misadventures of medical intern Meredith
Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and her fellow interns as they struggle to understand the
medical world and struggle with their romantic lives, most potent of all, Dr.
Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) an attending physician who fell in love with
Meredith in the first season of the show but neglected to tell her about his
wife. Learning to balance real life and medicine is not easy and the characters
of Grey’s Anatomy make it fun—it’s not the hype that’s worth watching. I tend
to ignore hype too, but don’t ignore this one. I tried, and it wasn’t worth the
hit to your pride. I even picked up season 1 on DVD…stay tuned for the review
in weeks to come.
How Dare You Cancel That Show????
Night
Stalker: With a cast that included hotties Stuart Townsend and Gabrielle
Union and a story that included werewolves, creatures, and a remake of a cult
80’s drama, this could have been a great series. Yes, I admit there were some
things wrong with it, but the show was fun and dark and had all of the great
qualities of an edgier creature feature drama. Stuart Townsend starred as Carl
Kolchak, a journalist who is accused of his wife and unborn child’s murder after
they are killed by something dark and scary that nobody believes exists. After
being acquitted due to lack of evidence Carl becomes obsessed with investigating
the stranger cases one can come across—anything suspiciously evil. And we got
an interesting little mystery and journalism show that didn’t quite seem to win
the love of the network, and got canned the week before they revealed exactly
what happened to his wife. Thanks ABC—you kept Invasion on and cancelled this?
What exactly were you thinking?
In
Justice: I know what you’re thinking…aren’t there enough legal shows on
television? Well, there wasn’t too many for this show to stay on
television. The show follows The National Justice Project, an independent group
that works to free people who have been wrongfully convicted of a crime. This
group is funded by hotshot political attorney David Swain (Kyle Maclachan) who
works with ex-cop Charles Conti (Jason O’Mara) as they and a ton of legal
interns fight to reverse the court decisions that put innocent people in jail.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with this show—it had a brilliant cast, a
heartwarming story and great character interaction. Unfortunately, this
mid-season replacement never got a fair shake. If there was ever a procedural
drama that deserved to continue, it was this one. It sucks that ABC didn’t have
the foresight. At least the brilliant Kyle Maclachlan gets to move on to
Desperate Housewives for awhile next season. ABC may know to love him, but they
should have loved this show. It’s a shame…
Shows
That Made You Want To Peel Your Face Off
Invasion: What a strange piece of crap this was! Invasion sounded pretty interesting at first glance. During a horrible hurricane, a small town is infested with aliens. I must admit that as far as this show was concerned, I only stuck it out for the series premiere. I loved Science Fiction, but this was cheesy Sci-Fi, and I didn’t like that. Plus, having the hero be some sort of animal control dude just came across as dull. And his brother as the stereotypical sci-fi guy who finally gets to use his know-how for the good of mankind was just depressing. Oh, and whatever child is stupid enough to run off in the middle of a hurricane looking for her cat would have deserved to get into big trouble. She’s lucky she survived at all.
Well, that’s it for this television station. Stay tuned for the next installment and keep your eyes peeled…next season’s gonna be its own kind of interesting. Enjoy!
Related Links: Lost: Season 1 on DVD