neurological dryer lint

i always feel the need to hop to tv's defense. our culture simultaneously pours millions of hours a year into this form of media and then curses it for its terrible, detrimental effect on our minds. i won't claim that there isn't crap on tv, and that piles of time isn't wasted en masse every day across the country with mindless entertainment. the key word here is mindless, though - because it's not all that way.

all media - books, tv, movies, music, video games, sculpture, paintings, etc - are simply transport mechanisms to bring us content. the content itself is beneficial or harmful - and while there's plenty of drivel, there's also valuable, enlightening stuff that can teach us, expand our worldview, cheer us up, ease our pain... i smile, laugh, and tear up just as much thinking of stories from Tolkien or Doyle or Gaiman as i do episodes of TNG, the sopranos, and everybody loves raymond. hopefully in a few generations that bias will have disappeared.

that said. some of the editors of tvsquad have put together their fall lineups, and i dug the format. this is what we'll be tivoing this fall:

studio 60 on the sunset strip: two episodes in (and number three's on in an hour), and i'm all about this show. aaron sorkin gets to turn his cultural-analysis guns away from government and to the entertainment industry, kicking open the door for more compelling looks at censorship, responsibility, religion, drug use, and the role and influence of hollywood on america. i always thought bradley whitford was a poor-man's matthew perry, and the two play off each other much better than i'd hoped.

lost: some call it the best scifi drama ever... i think it simply fills a void that's out there now, and fills it well. while they dangle the carrot way too often in front of the audience, they do offer a storyline that's fascinating to me, and they know how to work the geek crowd. the mysteries might be a little silly at times, but i'm drawn to them nevertheless. the doomsday element - leaving the audience wondering if the fate of the world hangs in the balance with the resolution of the plot - keeps me interested.

house: a fantastic lead character who's sufficiently complex and says the stuff we all want to drew me into this last year... i just don't know how long they can sustain it. they're suffering from the smallville complex - redoing the same premise every episode with different diseases and people swapped out is starting to wear down. more overarching storylines will keep it interesting: see the billionaire buying out the hotel in season one as an example.

smallville: speaking of... i say this at the beginning of every season, but this one looks promising, assuming they stick to what the viewers want: superman. the premiere saw him in the phantom zone, saw him fighting a real supervillain, etc. and less of the high school who's-hooking-up-with-who garbage. i'll at least stick around half the season - supposedly there's gonna be a justice league ep with the flash, aquaman, green arrow and cyborg.

battlestar galactica: i'm going to take a stab at this show. the first few didn't do it for me, but the catch-up episode they just dropped, plus all the hype on geek sites, got my ears perked up. any other fans of the series wanna speak on this?

legion of superheroes: God love 'em, they're trying again... batman, batman + robin, superman, batman + superman, justice league, justice league unlimited and teen titans have all fallen by the wayside, so warner is taking another shot with the teenage-superheroes-from-the-future DC series. so far it's more of the same.

til death: great brad garrett comedy, hits close to home as i see renee and i as the newlywed couple and have often wondered what we'll be like in 20 years. the one episode i've seen so far was hilarious.

scrubs and psych won't be back til january, and family guy threw down two decent episodes and left the room for a while.