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Tuesday, May 17, 2011
David Walton and Amanda Peet in "Bent."

The Peacock has sent links to trailers of its new shows to TV critics, and I'm offering them up here so you can get an advance look.

It's a mistake to write off or embrace any TV show from a four-minute preview, but the clips do provide insight. From them, I'm excited about some series that didn't interest me from their written description, and I'm turned off by others that sounded intriguing at first blush.

My favorite drama turns out to be Grimm, a crazy-sounding concept about a guy who can see supernatural beings underneath their benign human disguises. It's scheduled Friday after Chuck, in an NBC attempt to get a sci-fi/fantasy block going.

My favorite comedy is Bent, a romcom in which a newly divorced, and very serious, Amanda Peet feels sparks for her handsome remodeling contractor, who's a surfer with gnarly friends and a crack-o dad played by Jeffrey Tambor. The network's holding that one for mid-season and going instead in fall with two sitcoms that look terrible, and one that has some spark.

NBC loves the Christina Applegate/Will Arnett-starrer Up All Night, so much that it's establishing a beachhead with it Wednesdays at 8, followed by workplace comedy Free Agents. At first glance, they do look very compatible. The previews are both horrible.

More inviting is Whitney, edgy and cute about an old (for TV, that means 30) unmarried couple whose relationship has lost some of its pizzazz. It goes Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. this fall while Tina Fey takes a break from 30 Rock with her new baby. I give a mixed review to the mid-season replacement "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea", at least partially because That 70's Show'sLaura Prepon has the lead, and I will forever be in love with Donna Pinciotti.

The NBC suits were waxing wondrously over Monday's The Playboy Club, set in the '60s at the Chicago Playboy Club. It's supposed to have a Mad Men vibe, but it's so grating, it only makes me mad. The Thursday-night American re-make of the PBS movie series hit Prime Suspect, starring Maria Bello, looks much better, though I hope they tone down the one-woman-against the million-mean-men theme, and lose the hey-look-how-clever-I-am promo line, "This fraternity is all Dicks ... and one Jane."

For winter: Doesn't American Idol's Katherine McPhee (2006 runner-up to Taylor Hicks) look splendid in the Steven Spielberg musical Smash? I can't wait. As to the policeman-stuck-in-two-different-worlds Awake, I'm going to wait to see more before delivering an opinion.

All these thoughts are subject to change, once whole episodes are available. What do you think of the new NBC shows?

Posted by Jonathan Storm @ 11:04 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:15 PM, 05/17/2011
    they should have kept LOLA!
    palmyra21


1 comments
About Jonathan Storm
My So-Called Life, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Survivor, I’ll Fly Away, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The X-Files, Northern Exposure, Roseanne, Gilmore Girls, NYPD Blue, Frasier, Ally McBeal, and, in the much-too-overlooked category, American Dreams, The Riches, Flight of the Conchords and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

TV has given us wondrous fare over the last 20 years, and Philadelphia Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm has been paid to watch it. He has also been forced to watch five cycles of presidential debates, Fear Factor, The Swan and Bill O’Reilly. There is no free lunch in life.

He’s still watching and talking to the folks who make TV, from mega-producers Jerry Bruckheimer and David E. Kelley to the little kids in Medium. And now he’s blogging about it, with insights and info that you won’t find anywhere else.