TV: More Fall Season 2005 Previews

First impressions on a few of the new CBS shows:

I love Paula Marshall. I think she's beautiful and funny and wonderful in every show she's ever been in. Unfortunately, she has killed every show she's ever been in stone cold dead. Her last show, Cooking Lessons, didn't even make it to the air. Like Ted McGinley, she's a serial show-killer. The upshot of which is: don't get hooked on Out of Practice (even if it does also feature Stockard Channing and Henry Winkler). Hey, this will be her first kill on CBS! Way to go, Paula!

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Check out the photo for How I Met Your Mother. Okay, that's Alyson Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris, that's very nice, but that's not what caught my eye. Look at the gal on the left (who, by using the process of elimination on the cast list, must be the improbably named Cobie Smulders). What the hell is she looking at? Is she not aware that they're taking the cast picture? Everyone else is looking right into the camera, big, fake, shit-eating grins plastered across their faces, hiding the fact that they all know this show is doomed (or am I projecting?). But not Cobie. Cobie finds something off to the side to be of much greater interest. Is there a tasty spread on the craft services table? Or perhaps she's just cross-eyed. Or doesn't follow instructions well. Maybe she just finds Doogie too repellent to even keep in her peripheral vision.

I believe I have now given more thought and time to this one picture than I ever will to the actual show.

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This is the kind of show that makes me want to smack someone. First of all, that title: Ghost Whisperer. Are they serious with that shit? Horse Whisperer was a lame enough name; good job on giving it that extra little twist to make it even lamer. Second, it claims to be "inspired by the cases of famed psychic James Van Praagh." Which infuriates me. For the last time*: psychics are bullshit. They are con artists, nothing more. Basing a TV show on the chicanery of such a charlatan is tantamount to endorsement of his "powers"; it aids and abets the deception and exploitation of the gullible and bereft. I felt the same anger about Medium. Which of course brings us to number three: this could not be a more blatant rip-off of Medium. Hot babe with psychic powers solves crimes. Come on! Can't you at least pretend you're trying to be original? And finally, we have the star: Jennifer Love Hewitt. Really? In a drama? I'm out! You folks know I will watch practically anything. I'll tell you what: I will never watch this.

Still waiting for any new show to grab my interest, create some anticipation. Nothing yet.

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*Not a guarantee that this is actually the last time.