The 2009/10 TV season (returning shows)

[KevinTBrown]

Since I started a "new shows" thread, might as well do a returning shows thread! And again, let's try to keep it to shows on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CW please. :smile:


I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing Fringe and Southland come back. Both ended on major "wtf?" cliffhangers. I'm also looking forward to new episodes of Lie to Me and Castle. Neither seem to pull in huge numbers, but the casts are great and the shows are just fun to watch. If you're not watching them, you may want to check them out. And the only bad thing about this season is having to wait until January for new apisodes of Chuck. :frown: But at least we are getting new eps! :smile:

What about the rest of you??

[Romero]

Chuck
The Office
House
Big Bang Theory
The Mentalist

[Calvin Government]

Chuck had a stellar back-half to its second season after a pretty good opening half and a so-so first season, and I'm hoping the upward trend continues, because that's a really fun show.

How I Met Your Mother continues to be a remarkably strong sit-com. Solid performances anchored in quick, clever writing.

Dollhouse ended its run with a remarkably strong series of episodes. Given how weak Buffy and Angel's first seasons were, and how much more intriguing the mythology of this one is, I'm more than happy to keep it coming.

Castle was alright, and I'll be happy to keep watching it. It wasn't anything special... but it was fun enough, and Nathan Fillion...

The Office/30 Rock are both pretty obvious choices.

Friday Night Lights only airs in the fall on Direct TV, coming to the networks in the winter/spring... but seasons 1 and 3 offered some of hte best drama available on network television, and I hope season 4 can keep it up.

... I think that's it for the fall. Burn Notice and Better Off Ted are gone 'til winter. I feel like I'm forgetting something though.

[AndrewCrossett]

Dollhouse, Lost, the winter season of Leverage, Castle, The Simpsons. Lots of stuff to catch up with on DVD.

Debating whether or not to give Heroes one last chance. I quit watching partway through last season in disgust over what they did to Elle (Kristen Bell's character) and the general growing crappiness of the show. And now to add insult to injury, they're setting Claire up in a romantic relationship with some girl who's not Elle. Man, was that boat ever well and truly missed.

[a. non]

Big Bang Theory
How I Met Your Mother; I enjoy it, but maybe it will finally go somewhere this season
Johnny Test being Uncanceled, returning with Season 4

[fireSTRIKE!]

Sons of Anarchy... tonight...
Fringe
Supernatural
Smallville

[Typo Lad]

Looking forward to more Bones. Fringe and Dollhouse will be watched, but can't honestly say I'm awaiting them like I am Bones.

[Ben Morgan]

How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, but mostly Dexter

[Typo Lad]

Almost forgot - The Mentalist.

[Duxdoom]

Chuck, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Degrassi the Next Generation

[veracity]

Dollhouse, Lost, the winter season of Leverage, Castle, The Simpsons. Lots of stuff to catch up with on DVD.
There's gonna be a winter season? I need catch up with this one since I was busy during the summer. Yay! I love Leverage.

Looking forward to more Bones. Fringe and Dollhouse will be watched, but can't honestly say I'm awaiting them like I am Bones.
Bones here, too. It looks so good.

How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, but mostly Dexter
Julie Benz (who plays his wife) is thrilled with Dexter this year from what I gather at her panels. Lord knows Charisma was pimping it out.



I don't really know what I'll be watching besides Bones and So You Think You Can Dance. I go through cycles where I don't pay attention to the TV other than HGTV. Currently I'm still there.

[Stressfactor]

Having just gotten into NCIS I am looking forward to the new season -- although I don't know if I'll bother checking out the spin-off NCIS[/B]-[B]Los Angeles -- the team dynamic wasn't all *that* great, and, unlike it's parent show, it looks like it's going to be gutting itself off from genres. As some have pointed out in the past NCIS gets to do almost every kind of genre out there -- it's priarily a mystery show but every once in a while they get to do a 'caper' style episode or they get to do an 'undercover' story or they get to do a more traditional 'epsionage' story. Since the new NCIS spin off is specifically about undercover work I doubt we'll be seeing too many mysteries -- they don't even have their own Ducky!

I also miss the age spread. NCIS is also a bit interesting for showing a variety of people at a number of different places in their lives -- Ducky is a 'senior citizen', Gibbs is older, Vance is older and settled with wife and kids as well.

The NCIS-LA cast is almost all uniformely young.

Anyway.... other shows....

I think Castle got stronger as the season went on so I'm looking forward to seeing it come back and I hope they are able to continue the forward momentum.

And (I know, this isn't network, but still....) I'm glad to hear that when Warehouse 13 ends it's season it will be coming back. Like with Castle, I think its been getting stronger and, given another season, will continue to push forward.

[friginator]

The final season of LOST. I can't wait.

[scout1279]

Supernatural is the biggie for me. I can't wait for Thursday. Bones is another absolute favorite that I am looking forward to, but I can't remember what the premier date is. I'm excited for the next season of Chuck, especially since Brandon Routh is going to be on it, but that's not starting yet.

I have to catch up with Fringe and Dollhouse on DVD before I can watch the second seasons of either, and I think I'm going to give Castle another shot, since I love Nathan Fillion. I kind of lost track of all those shows about halfway through their seasons, and wound up having to delete them from my DVR because they were clogging it up. I figured if it was going to take me that long to watch, better to just wait for DVD. (I actually watch a lot less TV since getting DVR, since now I just record everything and then forget about it entirely.) Lost is another one that I am going to watch on DVD, but I have more time on that.

[AndrewCrossett]

And (I know, this isn't network, but still....) I'm glad to hear that when Warehouse 13 ends it's season it will be coming back. Like with Castle, I think its been getting stronger and, given another season, will continue to push forward.

When that show started I thought it was basically just a potpourri of "X-Files", "Men In Black" and "Bones"... and it is, kind of, but it's grown on me. Pete kind of annoys me, but I like everyone else.

[AndrewCrossett]

There's gonna be a winter season? I need catch up with this one since I was busy during the summer. Yay! I love Leverage.

This week's episode is the last one before the hiatus, and then there will be 6 new episodes starting in January.

[Stressfactor]

When that show started I thought it was basically just a potpourri of "X-Files", "Men In Black" and "Bones"... and it is, kind of, but it's grown on me. Pete kind of annoys me, but I like everyone else.

What's really srprised me is Saul Rubinek as Artie. Oh, I know Rubinek is a good actor but I figured that the series would end up using him as just kind of a 'filler' character but instead he's become a vital secondary character and instead of making EVERYTHING about Pete and Myka's past, they're made it more about Artie's past.

[veracity]

This week's episode is the last one before the hiatus, and then there will be 6 new episodes starting in January.
Ooh, yay. I'll have time to catch up then. I like the mini-seasons since January has a lot of dead space for me.

[Spiffy]

Since I started a "new shows" thread, might as well do a returning shows thread! And again, let's try to keep it to shows on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CW please. :smile:


I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing Fringe and Southland come back. Both ended on major "wtf?" cliffhangers. I'm also looking forward to new episodes of Lie to Me and Castle. Neither seem to pull in huge numbers, but the casts are great and the shows are just fun to watch. If you're not watching them, you may want to check them out. And the only bad thing about this season is having to wait until January for new apisodes of Chuck. :frown: But at least we are getting new eps! :smile:

What about the rest of you??
Fringe was the most improved show from the beginning of its season to its end. They totally turned the show around mid-course and brought it from mediocre to outright excellent. And the stuff I've seen about Season 2? VERY promising.

Southland bored me though.

Lie to Me and Castle were both solid, if unchallenging shows. Easy entertainment, but with more of a sense of fun that the endless procedurals (Lie to Me is probably technically a procedural too, but one with a different enough slant to make it interesting), and also less cheese than crap like "Desperate Housewives" and that ilk of soapy show.

Chuck coming back is of course the great victory for quality being preserved, especially in contrast to the rest of the CRAP NBC is going to have on. Endless hours of Leno yuck yucking? Ugh.

Shows not listed by you which might be interesting? Well, there were HUGE pieces of Dollhouse which REALLY turned me off. That said, when the show DID occasionally work, it almost made up for that. Given Whedon's past history there's at least SOME reason to hope Season 2 will be more consistent.

I am SO over the likes of LOST, HEROES, etc. I won't even waste time thinking about them.

Supernatural is the biggie for me. I can't wait for Thursday. Bones is another absolute favorite that I am looking forward to
To me, Bones is a show which was once like Castle is now. Good clean light fun. But its gone downhill every single season and now its almost unwatchable.

[AndrewCrossett]

Lie to Me and Castle were both solid, if unchallenging shows. Easy entertainment, but with more of a sense of fun that the endless procedurals (Lie to Me is probably technically a procedural too, but one with a different enough slant to make it interesting), and also less cheese than crap like "Desperate Housewives" and that ilk of soapy show.

It's been so long since dramatic shows were allowed to just be "fun" rather than "challenging," that shows like CASTLE and LEVERAGE almost seem weird when they show up now.

Shows not listed by you which might be interesting? Well, there were HUGE pieces of Dollhouse which REALLY turned me off. That said, when the show DID occasionally work, it almost made up for that. Given Whedon's past history there's at least SOME reason to hope Season 2 will be more consistent.

The last 8 episodes of season 1 were among the best stretches of television I've seen in a long, long while.

I am SO over the likes of LOST, HEROES, etc. I won't even waste time thinking about them.

I thought the last season of LOST was as good as the show's ever been. That said, I'm glad they put an end date on it. A show like that needs one.

HEROES began sucking at the moment the producers and writers decided to turn it into "The Never-Ending Sylar Show," with every other character and story sacrificed to the cause of Sylar's Amazing Badassery. They should have left him dead at the end of season 1 and moved on. But now the show is stuck in neutral.