Fall 2007 TV: Premiere Week, Friday

I've now watched Life, and I enjoyed it. I've also watched Reaper, which I liked a lot, and Big Shots, which I very much did not. Reviews of all coming tomorrow. My Name Is Earl and The Office are taped, to be watched soon. I caught the season premiere of Ugly Betty, which I liked, for the most part. There was a lot of wheel-spinning: Betty's dad is still in Mexico, Henry is out of the picture, no, wait, he's back in again... but America Ferrera and Ashley Jensen are always entertaining, Amanda in the fat suit was a nice gag, and the scenes with Hilda and Santos -- I could immediately see where it was going, but it was still very affecting. However, Alexis getting amnesia? No, I don't think so. If that's the kind of road this show is heading down, I'll be getting off pretty soon. That just smacks of a desperate lack of imagination.

Friday is traditionally a lackluster night of programming. Let's see what Premiere Week brings us.

The CW has Friday Night SmackDown! (and yes, that's "SmackDown!" with a capital D and an exclamation point). I haven't watched wrestling for twenty years, and you know what? That has been time well saved.

ABC has two episodes of Just For Laughs, which is a prank show of some kind, and two episodes of 20/20. One of those shows involves a man in a gorilla suit. You guess which.

Fox has a new episode of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and a rerun of the most recent K-Ville. Nothing for me.

NBC has Deal Or No Deal, again, followed by the two-hour season 5 premiere of Las Vegas. The fact that Tom Selleck is replacing James Caan almost makes me want to watch a whole episode for the first time. That's right, I prefer Thomas Magnum to Sonny Corleone. So sue me.

And CBS starts off with Ghost Whisperer, which celebrates its third season of glorifying the con artists who call themselves psychics. This show actively harms society by professing to be inspired by "real-life" psychics, thereby manipulating the gullible and bereft into being more vulnerable to these frauds. You are a bad person if you support this show. Not that I'm judging. After that is new show Moonlight, about a vampire detective, which to me is more believable than a "real-life" psychic. And finally, there's Numb3rs, which really does have a "3" in the title. I haven't watched this show since Sabrina Lloyd left, but I enjoyed it; I just don't feel much of a need to keep up with it. Hey, I don't have to watch everything, believe it or not.