CBS Announces Fall Schedule

This morning CBS announced their cancellations and pickups for the Fall Seasons.
Gone are Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior, Mad Love, The Defenders and S#*! My Dad Says.
Moved are CSI, Rules of Engagement and The Good Wife.
Picked up are 2 Broke Girls, Unforgettable, How To Be a Gentleman, Person of Interest (which has my particular interest thanks to Michael Emerson being a star) and A Gifted Man

Preview: Dexter Season 5

It might not be based on a comic or science fiction, but Showtime's hit show Dexter (which is based on a series of novels) is always a hit at San Diego's annual ComiCon, taking place this weekend.


The producers screened the first trailer for the new season and my oh my does it look - well - killer.
Season 5, which has the tagline "Sins may be forgiven but conscience is a killer." premieres Sunday, September 26th.

Another awesome video for season 5:

Fall Show Preview: Nikita (CW)

Nikita is a remake of the USA Network show La Femme Nikita, which was a remake of the films La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return. The common thread with all 4 versions is that 'Nikita' is a street savvy but attractive punk type who is recruited by a top secret government group. Depending on the version she either 

• was a criminal, 
• was accused of being a criminal, 
• was in prison,  or 
• was actually executed. 

In all versions she is trained to be an assassin and a spy -- well versed in all weapons, computers, explosives, strategic tactics and the act of disguise. 

The previous television version shows us several years of Nikita at work in Division (a super secret group that not even the CIA knows about it would seem) before jumping ship. The CWs version harkens back to the latter film's take with 'Nikita' falling for a guy against Division’s rules. In the film, Nikita (or rather Nina) fakes her own death and leaves her guy behind. This time, Division finds out about the fellow and Alias style has him murdered. Which pisses off Nikita and she runs, vowing to bring them down. 

And that’s all before the show actually starts it seems. Which is my big issue with the show, at least as the trailer presents it. I don’t mind that they cast Maggie Q over a hot blonde like Peta Wilson. I doubt this role is really going to take that much in terms of deep acting skills and Maggie has shown through work like Live Free or Die Hard that she can handle bad ass action with some quippy lines tossed in. I can even get over the utterly white bread supporting cast where even the nerds are actually rather hot. But what really irritates me is shows the crap out a bunch of backstory in some long drawn out talking heads BS. I would actually rather that they show us happy Nikita and her boy for an episode or two (or at least the first bit of an episode) and then off him and let us see her do her thing. Or even go ahead and start it, as they say, in medias res, and show us that back story a la Lost with some flashback action, including some of that slick training stuff and early missions. 

That said, I know that promos aren’t always the best marker of a show and as a fan of the bad ass female character (yeah I have a girl crush on Sydney Bristow and Fiona, sue me), I’m willing to give this show a chance. Despite a strong feeling I will be disappointed in the end and this will be one for the snark.

Fall Show Preview: Hellcats (CW)

Take a smart girl from a poor family and put her at a nice college on a scholarship and you just know something is going to go wrong. It’s basically the first law of the universe. Make that girl totally disdainful of cheerleaders as half dressed airheads and the second law tells us that cheerleading will be the only way to her out of her mess. 

And thus we have Marti, who finds out a week before she’s going to be kicked out for not paying her tuition that this nice school cut her scholarship (who really cares why). And funny enough the hated cheerleading squad has an opening that just happens to include a scholarship. Which is double amusing because one presumes that they aren’t yanking money away from the girl that got hurt cause that would be tacky. So they seem to keep some reserve money for emergencies somewhere. Uh okay.

Add to this that Marti can’t seem to pull off the lame moves in the standard routines but then goes all Bring It On with some fly hip hop grooves and some serious tumbling skills, which land her on the squad and win her the admiration of the team captain, who she snarked in the extreme only a few days before. 

Yeah. Totally doesn’t make sense. But it’s a comedy so like who cares. It’s hip, it’s fly, we’ve got cool moves, some ‘yes cheerleading is a sport’ pride speeches (which granted it is) and a fun little love quadrangle between Marti, a team member, his ex (the hurt girl) and Marti’s best friend Dan who is also apparently not a richie rich type and until laws one and two kicked in, Marti’s co hater of all things cheer. 

Hellcats is typical cheeseball CW fare. And to make it more CW worthy, it was created by the network's own superboy Tom Welling. Which may or may not be a good thing for the network or Mr Welling's future producing aspirations. However, if this little peek is a  sign of things to come, this show will forever  be on my snark list. Go Team!

Watch the Preview for yourself, if you dare.