The new Fall TV season has started (sort of), and now I’ve seen the first two new shows on my list (also sort of).

First out of the box was Prison Break, on Fox. Now, I find prisons depressing, so I wasn’t looking forward to this show. But, Diane Holloway from TV Blog and Laurel Krahn from TVPics.com seemed to like it, so I checked it out. Also, it has Dominic Purcell in it, and I loved him in John Doe. As it turns out, the show is very good. It’s episodic, which I like, and the writing is also good. So far, the plot’s been pretty predictable, but the show’s definitely been entertaining.

Not so much with my second experience, Reunion. The show has a quirky twist: it cuts back and forth between the present and 20 years ago, when a group of six friends graduated from high school (20 year reunion, get it?). Apparently, one of the friends has murdered another one of them. So, we get a mix of nostalgia show with murder mystery. The second quirk of the show is that each episode will deal with a different past year, as the show moves up to the present, revealing more of what’s going on. In the first episode, we even don’t know who the victim is yet. One of the friends is interviewed by the police, so is off the list. I suspect that this will be the trend for the next 4 episodes until, by the process elimination, we know who the victim is. Which leads to my biggest complaint about this show: It’s sooo cliche. Here’s an example:

Two friends get into a car. They’ve been drinking a bit. They’re talking and goofing off while driving. Surprise, surprise, they run a stop sign and are in an accident. Of course, this means trouble. It turns out that the driver is the “rich” friend and the passenger is the “poor” friend. Can we guess who’s had more to drink? Yup. So the “rich” friend convinces the “poor” friend to cop to driving, because he’s had less to drink (Warning, Will Robinson, warning!). He does. Then, the other shoe drops. The guy in the other car dies, and the “poor” friend is arrested for vehicular manslaughter. Everybody tells him not to worry, he has a clean record and will only get probation (Hah!). His attorney cuts a deal with the prosecutor, life is good (double Hah!). The judge throws out the deal and sentences him to 12 months in prison instead (it has to be 12 months so he can just be getting out for the next episode!). So, he gets just enough jail time to completely ruin his “full ride” athletic scholarship. Goodness gracious, where do they come up with this clever plot twists?

This is just a piece of the pie. The good news (for me) is that the show is on a high traffic night (Thursdays), and so, even with 3 DVRs going, I don’t have the recording bandwidth to include this show when the season is in full swing. Thank heaven for small miracles!

And, I have to add, they could’ve redeemed this show somewhat by focusing more on the music. Each flashback uses music of the year as background, but they don’t emphasize it enough. They really should be pushing that, a la Big Chill.

9/9/2005 11:46:35 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV
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