I don’t have too much to say about the CW’s new action series Arrow, but that’s not because I didn’t like it. The character, based on the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow, was previously brought to the small screen when he was introduced in Smallville, where he was played by Justin Hartley. For this new iteration, the title character, whose real name is Oliver Queen, is played by Canadian actor Stephen Amell, who does a fine job of playing both sides of Oliver’s identity: the hard-partying millionaire playboy, and the brooding and driven vigilante.

In the pilot we learn that Oliver and his father were the victims of a shipwreck. Oliver was the only survivor, and found himself stranded on an island for five years before finally being rescued. Exactly what happened to him on said island will, I’m sure, be the subject of flashbacks in future episodes, as he comes back to Star City a changed man. He keeps up the playboy persona to hide his real plans, which involves stopping a bunch of bad guys from further corrupting his city. He secures an abandoned building which belonged to his father’s company and makes it his lair. He builds himself an arsenal of bow and arrow related weapons and works out really, really hard. And between all the training montages and crime fighting, he’s got to reintegrate himself back into the world and with his family and friends.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because this is essentially the Green Arrow version of Batman Begins, and I’m okay with that. I loved the grittier approach that Christopher Nolan’s film took with the character, and that approach works well here with Arrow. All I know about the character is what I’ve seen of him on Smallville and the animated series Justice League Unlimited, where he was recruited by Batman, Superman and seemingly every other superpowered hero in the DC Universe because he had no powers, and because he fought for “the little guy.” If the producers of Arrow stick with a similar approach to the character, I think it’ll make for a highly entertaining action series, one that doesn’t stretch disbelief by adding villains with crazy, CG-enhanced powers. I’m not particularly interested in what happened to Oliver on that island (I’d rather they just got on with the crime fighting), but if the show can maintain the level of energy it displayed in this first episode, I’m happy to tune in for a weekly dose of superhero action.

Finally, a primetime soap I can get on board with. No crazy revenge schemes, no possessed apartments, just good actors doing good work in a clear and well-established setting. And the music isn’t bad either.

Connie Britton, so terrific on Friday Night Lights (and the only reason I watched as much American Horror Story as I did), is the perfect choice for main character Rayna James, a country music superstar who isn’t quite shining as bright as she once did. Her upcoming tour isn’t selling, and her label is threatening to pull their support for her next album unless she agrees to be the opening act for Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere), a young up and coming country star. Juliette is wasting no time trying to replace Rayna, first by having her songs recorded by Rayna’s producer, and by trying to get Deacon (Charles Esten), Rayna’s lead guitar player, to jump ship and join her own band. Meanwhile, the mayoral race in Nashville is heating up, and the city’s political bigshot Lamar Wyatt (Powers Boothe), who also happens to be Rayna’s father, needs the next mayor in his pocket, and decides to recruit Rayna’s loser husband (Eric Close) to run, leading to some family strife all around. Continue Reading

I’ve never read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (but that didn’t stop me from writing a book report on one of them in junior high) and therefore am not an expert on the character. I am a very, very big fan of the BBC series Sherlock, a contemporary take on the detective that stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. I didn’t care for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, but I did enjoy its sequel A Game of Shadows.

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This is going to be short.

CBS’s Made in Jersey is a new legal drama starring the British-born Janet Montgomery as Martina Garretti, a young lawyer who was raised in – you guessed it – New Jersey, and is working at some fancy law firm in New York. As the series makes abundantly clear in the pilot, Martina’s background and upbringing is instrumental in helping her defend clients, though it doesn’t exactly make her popular with some of her more discriminating colleagues. at work

As I expected, Made in Jersey fits the mold of every other CBS procedural. Where it tries to differentiate itself isn’t in the case of the week formula (which is as dull as ever), but with Martina, who looks and sounds like your stereotypical Italian-American Jersey girl but is obviously smarter than those stereotypes would have you believe. As for how certain viewers will react to the depiction of Martina’s family, I really don’t care. For a first episode there really isn’t any time to get to know any of them, so all we have are the broad strokes.

The show’s main draw (really, only draw) is the beautiful Montgomery, who’s a strong presence onscreen and gives a charismatic performance as Martina. Her Jersey accent sounds convincing enough (though I’m no expert), and I couldn’t detect any instance where her natural English accent revealed itself. I’ve liked Montgomery since I first saw her in FOX’s action series Human Target (though her character was a superfluous addition to the cast), and if I do continue to watch Made in Jersey, it’ll be for her.

There’s still a lot of new fall TV premiering in the next few weeks, but I don’t need to have seen them to know that ABC’s Last Resort, which premieres tonight, is one of the most intriguing, if not the most intriguing new show of the season. Set aboard the fictional USS Colorado submarine, the series follows the exploits of the submarine’s crew when, after questioning orders to fire nuclear weapons upon Pakistan (orders that were not relayed through official channels), another Navy sub attempts to sink it. Unable to surface without the possibility of being attacked again, the sub’s captain, Marcus Chaplin (played by Andre Braugher) plots a course for an island that will serve as a safe haven while he and his crew try to figure out why they were fired upon and who ordered them to fire on Pakistan. Continue Reading

Warning: this post contains many uses of the name Mindy.

The Mindy of The Mindy Project, who is played by series creator Mindy Kaling (of The Office fame), is what I imagine Kelly Kapoor would be like if she wasn’t such a moron. Both of them are pretty obsessed with their love lives and are well-versed in pop culture. The difference is that Kelly is a full-blown narcissist and Mindy (the character), while clearly self-involved, isn’t as bad. Her being an obstetrician helps establish her as someone who (at least occasionally) thinks about others. At the start of the pilot, the wedding of an ex-boyfriend sends Mindy on a drunken spiral that lands her in jail. From there on out she vows to take life more seriously, look for the right guy, advance her career, etc. There’s other people around too, like work colleagues Dr. Asshole (Chris Messina) and Dr. British Womanizer (Ed Weeks) and best friend Gwen (Anna Camp), but as the title suggests, The Mindy Project is all about Mindy. Continue Reading

As Kate (Dakota Johnson) explains in the opening voiceover, she and her older brother Ben (Oscar-winning screenwriter Nat Faxon) are products of a broken home. She got pregnant very young and was forced to become an adult much sooner than expected, while Ben’s lack of responsibilities have kept him stuck in “man-child” mode. Being a single parent is a full time job, meaning all other aspects of Kate’s life have been permanently put on hold, and Ben constantly dropping by unannounced to cause trouble isn’t helping matters. Continue Reading

It’s that time of the year again. Summer may be over, and Winter is coming (ha ha), but it’s Christmas time for TV lovers. We have a whole month and a half of returning shows to look forward to, along with the premieres of a bunch of new ones.

Last season I did my best to watch and write at least a little about most of the new fall shows that premiered. It took quite a bit of time, and it also resulted in me watching a bunch of not so good shows that I probably wouldn’t have bothered watching had it not been for the blog. So rather than go through that again, this month I’m only gonna be watching and writing about the shows that I’m actually interested in seeing, and skipping over the ones that don’t appeal to me (like The New Normal and Guys with Kids, for example). So hopefully you can look forward to pilot reviews of The Mindy Project, Vegas, Last Resort (which I’ve already seen and am pretty intrigued by), Elementary, Made in Jersey, 666 Park Avenue, and later on in October: Arrow, Beauty and the Beast, and Nashville. Today, I’ve got some thoughts on the pilot of the new sci-fi show Revolution, premiering tomorrow night on NBC (very minor spoilers ahead). Continue Reading