TV PREMIERE WEEK: Opening Night Recap

In the attempt of becoming a more well-rounded TV analyst this year, I have committed myself to watching as many series debuts and season premieres as possible over the next few weeks (my poor DVR never saw it coming).

And, after a couple CW premieres ("Gossip Girl" and "One Tree Hill") and an episode of "The Hills" last night, I now realize it's going to be a lot tougher than I originally thought.

Seriously, it was like binging on SweeTarts for three hours.

I guess the good news is that if I can make it through that, I can make it through anything... right??

(I'll let you know after the debut of "90210" tonight.)

One thing I am learning, however, is that you can't get too critical of these types of shows. They are what they are; they are monster hits with the demos they are aiming for, and that's all the networks care about. "Gossip Girl" blew up last year in its first season and I wanted to see what the hype was all about for myself.

A couple things stood out on the night:

- Just from the show's characters, tone, and dialogue, it instantly felt like a watered down mix of the movie "Cruel Intentions" and the TV show "The O.C." My hunch was verified when I did a quick google search of the series and found that it was indeed created by Josh Schwartz... the creator of "The O.C." Hey, if it 'ain't broke...

- All in all, the episode wasn't terrible (I'd still rather watch this than an ep of "Two and a Half Men") - the girls were cute, the boys were brooding, the dialogue was snappy in a "no one really talks like this" kind of a way - but my biggest contention was that for a season premiere of a sophomore show, I had no idea what the hell was going on for most of the hour.

Seriously, I'm one of those people that HATES exposition. When I go to a movie theater, I will watch the previews then leave to go get snacks when the movie starts because I hate suffering through the setup and I'm always able to catch up with what's going on.

I give the "Gossip Girl" writers credit, because they stumped me.

There's this omniscient voice narrating the story but she isn't one of the characters. Some of the characters were in the Hamptons, some were in New York and none of them really seemed connected. I honestly didn't even know WHO THE MAIN CHARACTER WAS (or if there was supposed to be one) for the entire ep.

And I guess my point is that when you are kicking off your second season and you've gotten a lot of positive buzz after your freshman season and you know new people will be tuning in, don't you kind of want to go out of your way to make everything crystal clear as to who is who and what is going on? I mean, even shows that rely heavily on an ensemble cast ("Friends", "Cheers", "The O.C.") have a clear cut main character who holds everything together (Ask Paul, I plan to write a book on this topic).

I'm embarrassed that I just wrote that much about "Gossip Girl" but all that to say, that when I teach Television Theory 101 one day, this episode will be used as an example of how not to start a season.

- On the flip side, I've never seen an episode of "One Tree Hill" in my life but they did such a good job with the opening scene, I instantly knew what was going on. You could immediately tell where last season had ended and how this scene was a pay off for the dedicated fans of the series.

To be fair, this is "Hill's" sixth season (as opposed to "Girl's" second) so they've had more time to perfect the art; but like I said above, I believe it's more important to nail your premiere in your early seasons.

But I digress...

- I've never had any shame admitting that I loved MTV's "Laguna Beach" back in the day (just recently bought the first two seasons on DVD, thank you very much) but the L.C. spinoff "The Hills" is just unwatchable for me. Lauren and Whitney don't do anything anymore and Heidi's boyfriend Spencer has become so deplorable that he is now just an exaggeration of himself at this point ("Gossip Girl" would be AMAZING if Spencer was a character on that show).

On a random side note, every time I watch "The Hills" I imagine Stephen Colletti (Lauren's attention starved love interest from "Laguna") calling MTV every other day just to let them know he is available if they need him to stop by on the new show.

Whew...

I honestly didn't know I had that much in me on those three shows (savor the flavor because I can't see it happening again).

I am looking forward to recapping "90210" tomorrow and don't' forget season premiere of "The Shield" airs tonight at 10PM on FX.

Oh, and P.S. Did you happen to see all the new TV shows on DVD that came out this week??

Greatest.

I picked up "The Office: Season Four" this morning and hope to sneak some eps in between all the new premieres and football this week.

Ahhh, What a nice problem to have...

- Josh Mahler