After my previous somewhat heavy post lets pivot to something totally mindless and get to my annual run down of what TV shows I’m watching (or not) this season.

New Show I’m Watching

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Only the pilot episode of this show has aired so far, so I don’t have much to go off of. It’s apparently even weirder than normal pilots because it somehow went from being a half hour show on Showtime to being an hour long show on the CW. Thus the original 30 minute pilot was stretched to 40 minutes and aired. At any rate I did enjoy it enough to keep watching. It’s about a (maybe) crazy woman who is a successful lawyer but highly unhappy in her personal life. She quits her high powered New York job to move to a small town in California after running into her long ago summer camp ex-boyfriend and finding out he lives there. Oh and it’s also a musical. There are some occasional song and dance breaks. I’m into it and I did enjoy the songs they wrote for this episode, so it’s up my alley. Sadly based on the ratings I’m not sure this show will be around that long even on the CW.

The Muppets

I have no strong feelings one way or the other. I’ve seen most of the Muppet movies. I enjoy a good Muppet thing, but I’m not obsessed with Muppets like some people are nor do I have issues with watching Muppets being voiced by new people because Jim Hensen is no longer around to voice them. This version of The Muppets is different from what we have generally seen in the past in versions of The Muppet Show in that the show is in mockumentary format and revolves around the backstage goings on in Miss Piggy’s talk show. I have tired of the mockumentary format. It seems a little tired at this point and having it be Muppets doing it is just a bit weird, but if the show was good I could overlook it. The thing is I’m not so sure that it is good. I was reasonably amused by the pilot episode, but each subsequent episode has felt less funny and more tedious to me. I’ll probably keep watching for awhile, but it’s definitely not anything that I’m super in love with.

Grandfathered

This show stars John Stamos as a successful restauranteur and ladies man who finds out that not only does he have an adult son that he never knew about, but that his son is also a father making him an instant father and grandfather. Paget Brewster plays the mother of his son. Of the two new comedies on Fox the critics all seemed to prefer The Grinder, but I really like this one much better.

The Grinder

I didn’t even originally have this show on my list of things to watch, but so many critics seemed to enjoy it and it was on back to back with Grandfathered which I was planning on watching, so I figured I’d give it a try. It stars Rob Lowe as an actor who just finished a run on a highly loved show called The Grinder where he played a high powered lawyer. His father and brother, played by Fred Savage are actual lawyers in the small town where the family lives. Rob Lowe decides we wants use the lawyering skills he picked up from playing a lawyer for a long time to play a lawyer in real life as it were and help his brother win cases. It’s an ok show, but really I am having a hard time getting past the premise. I know it’s a sit-com, but really there’s just no way that Rob Lowe’s character would be able to do any of the things he’s doing.

Scream Queens

This is another show from Ryan Murphy creator of American Horror Story and Glee. I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of the first season of American Horror Story and don’t think it’s really for me. I did enjoy Glee in it’s early seasons, but eventually gave on it probably about halfway through its run. This show looked like some over the top fun. It’s sort of the vein of the Scream movies. It takes place in a sorority house at a university that is being stalked by a serial killer dressed as a red devil, the school’s mascot. It’s pretty much what I was hoping it would be. It’s only set for 15 episodes, and I definitely feel like that will be more than enough. Probably one season will also be enough too. Although based on the ratings I don’t think a second season would ever be under consideration and I hope that we at least make it through the 15 episodes it’s supposed to be.

Returning Shows I’m Watching

Big Bang Theory

Generally I still enjoy this show, but I am finding it a little ridiculous how they’re determined to force Sheldon and Leonard to keep living together. They need to let that go like they finally did with Raj not being able to talk to women while sober.

Empire

This show was Fox’s breakout hit from last year. I gather it’s not doing as well this year, but I’m still enjoying it. I worry a little bit about the fact that it has a longer episode order this season than last. I feel like this show could go off the rails very quickly if the writers run out of plots too quickly. I like the music and so far it’s fun, so I’ll stick with it until then.

Modern Family

I’m pretty much just still watching this show out of habit. It’s not horrible, but it’s not great either. I wouldn’t really miss it if I stopped watching it though.

blackish

Now in its second season I’m also still enjoying blackish. Now that he’s done with Hannibal it seems Laurence Fishbourne is going to be around more this season than last. It’s a nice smart comedy about race.

Nashville

Nashville is still it’s same old country music soap opera self. I haven’t run out of love for it yet.

Amazing Race

When I saw the cast for this season of The Amazing Race I almost bailed. I’ve grown weary of their stunt casting and long for the days when it seemed like real people who had actually ever seen the show and had actually applied to be on it and weren’t courted made up the teams. This season includes paparazzi and some people from TMZ. Those were the two that stuck out to me immediately and made me grown. Happily even though I’m still annoyed by their casting techniques it really hasn’t even come up for the most part. None of the teams this season seem super obnoxious, and I’m enjoying that for a change. I was sad that the team I was rooting for got eliminated last week, but oh well.

Brooklyn-99

Brooklyn-99 is by far the best sit-com that at least I’m watching on tv right now. I’m ready for them to bring the team back together again. I’m not sure why they already felt like they had to do something like send Captain Holt somewhere else. Hopefully it doesn’t drag on too long.

The Affair

I enjoyed the first season of The Affair which looked at the same story from two different sides. Now they’ve expanded and are showing the same story from four sides. That might be a little bit more than anyone needs. Now instead of the same plot line told twice across a single episode we’re getting it told four times over two episodes. That could get real old, real fast especially since they’re dragging out this murder mystery which I didn’t care about in the first season and care about even less as it drags on forever.

The Flash

I don’t have too much to say about The Flash other than I continue to enjoy it. I still don’t think Barry and Iris belong together, but at least she finally knows his secret because it was ridiculous that they were keeping it from her.

iZombie

I very much enjoyed the first season of iZombie and so far the second season is going well too. There doesn’t seem to be much of a sophomore slump for now. I think they’re going to have to clue Clive into the fact that Liv is a zombie who takes on the characteristics of the brains she eats soon though because otherwise the way she acts with him and some of the really awful things she’s doing and saying to him are really getting out of control and something he would bail on her for.

Arrow

Last season of Arrow started to drag for me a little bit. I got bored of the R’as al ghul storyline, and it seemed to drag on forever. So far it seems like we’ve moved on from that being the main focus, and can have a more interesting storyline with Damian Dahrk.

Vampire Diaries

I had no idea what this season was going to be like with Nina Dobrev leaving the show and thus Elena being gone. Since she was the central character it seemed a little ridiculous that the show would continue on without her, but at least based on the first episode I think the show can survive. I’m interested to see where everything they set up in the first episode goes.

Jane the Virgin

There’s only been one episode of this show so far this season, but so far it’s as fun as it was in the first season. I’m glad they quickly wrapped up the kidnapping storyline. It’s a nice bit of light fun in my tv viewing schedule every week.

Fargo

The second season of Fargo is really a sort of prequel to season 1 going back in time to the 1970s with some of the same characters in earlier times, but with essentially mostly a whole new story. This season is chock full of big name actors. I grew a little tired of season one by the end. We’ll see how this season plays out.

Shows I Plan on Watching

I am going to check both of these shows out, but let me just say that although I enjoy both the movies and tv shows I really am at peak superhero. Every tv show these days seems to be a superhero show or an anti-hero show. Can’t I just have some nice sweet character driven drama? I miss Parenthood and Hart of Dixie.

Legends of Tomorrow

Yet another show in the DC universe on the CW. I already watch Arrow and The Flash, so I might as well give this one a try when it finally airs.

Supergirl

This doesn’t start airing until November, so I haven’t seen it yet obviously. I’ve heard from one TV critic that it reminded her of Lois and Clark, which if that’s true would make me very happy.

Shows I’ve Quit Watching

Castle

I had really hoped that last season of Castle would be the final one. Once I reach a certain point with tv shows I tend to watch until the bitter end even if I’m not enjoying them so much anymore. I sort of thought Castle would be one of those shows, but apparently it’s not. I didn’t even watch the episode, but when I saw that they made Beckett and Castle break up again I was like that’s it I’m out.

New Girl

Last season I found I was barely paying attention to this show anymore when I had it on. I was happy with the way last season ended with Schmidt and CeeCee getting together and decided it was a nice way for me to end my time with the show too. Now I won’t have to live through the inevitable storyline where they break up again.

Life in Pieces

I’m sad that I didn’t like this show because there are so many actors I like in it like Colin Hanks, Dianne Wiest, and Betsy Brandt. However, I really, really did not like it. I am hard pressed to think if I’ve ever turned off a show without at least finishing an episode, but I only made it about halfway through this one before I said ok I’m done with this show.