It’s been a rollicking start, with 6 big shows opening up and showing their respective channels mean business in 2011. It’s been a smart move (primarily by Ch10) committing to your 2011 schedule a week before the ratings to get us all hooked and stick with them.
I offer, for your critical eye and consuming pleasure, my brief thoughts on Sunday & Monday’s new/returning offerings of note…
Biggest Loser: Families
Having each trainer (including new trainer sooky-la-la Tiffany) go to meet with the family and live with them for a period to understand how they operate was a great idea on a number of levels. If for no other reason than to have the super-fit-fanatics unleash hell on the families once they entered the competition proper. We’re at the morbidly obese end of the wedge here, people. This first ep set it up perfectly – the back stories teased, the waistlines wider than you are tall on display, the incredibly poor eating habits. I hadn’t watched The Biggest Loser before, but I’ll be watching this season for sure.
Modern Family
Ahhh… welcome back. Never leave me again. Ever.
Hawaii Five-O
Guns blazing, back story delivered before the credits, bombs going off, and welcome to sunny Hawaii. The cars are newer, the buildings are taller, but you still don’t have to think too much to enjoy it. Trucks bursting through walls, people fighting on shipping containers, and “Book ’em Dano”. I’m in.
My Kitchen Rules
Not a lot of setup compared to the first season from 2010 – it was “here’s the teams, we’re off to someone’s place”. We know there are 12 teams in 2 groups, we know we’ll all see the dinner parties from hell, we know we’ll all see the catty-ness reveal itself (already!)… the surprises, they must be coming (or we couldn’t call it a reality show, could we?). The good thing is it whets our appetite for MasterChef; the bad thing is that it’s no MasterChef.
Glee
It carried with it the momentum of the other episodes that preceeded it from 2010 – back when it was shown in 2010 in the states. This week’s ep, while good, was building to the Christmas ep (which we’ll see next week) which signalled the mid-season break for the show. But it was still the all-singing, all-dancing, bright, shiny and new Glee. And it was pretty good. The plot skipped along pretty fast. As it always does. No time to dwell on emotion here, we’ve got a song and dance number to do. And that’s just the way us gleeks like it.
Shit My Dad Says
Twitter has a lot to answer for, in so many good ways. It’s unlikely this will be one of them. Shatner milked all the gags for the professional he is, although I was expecting him to drop a “Denny Crane” at any moment. The laugh track didn’t stop. It’ll get another couple of runs (3 episode rule is enforced), however it’s in a very short leash.