Fandom Diary: It's Time for Fall Premieres! What's Pi watching?

[elegantpi]

I love the long stretch of show premieres unwinding through September and October. There are always some exciting new finds, and old favorites pick up where they left off at the beginning of the summer. Here's what I'm watching - what are you watching this season? If you create fanworks, what shows (new or old) are you making art, writing, vidding, or mixing for at the moment?

New Shows:

• CW's "Nikita" - The previews bring Dollhouse to mind in a tangential way. I love spy/assassin shows and am looking forward to tomorrow night's premiere.


• CW's "Hellcats" - OMG CHEERLEADERS. My husband and I watched the premiere tonight, and I've already written it firmly on my "guilty pleasures" calendar. It's not really my usual kind of show; I tend to like supernatural or science fiction themes, or at least a good conspiracy theory or caper. Cheerleaders definitely don't fit the bill. But I'm just going to throw this confession out there - I really did love the premiere, even though it's predictable and formulaic. I like the main character because she strongly reminds me of someone I know and admire, and to be quite honest, I love watching athletes tumbling across my tv screen. The music was great for me, also, but my tastes in music run to the mainstream and mundane, so that's probably not saying much. Anyway, I liked it.


• AMC's "Rubicon" - This premiered in the mid-season, a couple of months ago, and is now 8 episodes in. It's a conspiracy theory show that has the most elegant cinematography I have ever seen. It's gorgeous. The color palates are beautiful blues and pale greens and grays, interspersed with rich browns and dashes of red. It's just so pretty! Some of the frames you could actually print out as a photograph. I love the sound of the show, too - the way they sort of linger on the sound of coffee pouring into a cup or papers shuffling around.
  
  I'm super-interested in the story, although my husband finds it slow and hasn't bonded with the characters yet. By the fourth episode, as Grant, Miles, and Tanya were starting to gel as a team, I'd bonded with the team at least. Will, I like but feel distanced from; I can't stand Maggie and hope she goes away. Ingram is awesome; Spangler is odious. I want to see more teamy stuff from the three main API characters. And fic. I want fic. I've got a couple of stories started, but I'm noticing there's not much of a fandom for Rubicon just yet. Not a single story on AO3, even! I'm surprised, because the possibilities for smart, introspective storytelling are endless with this series.
  
  I amused myself one evening by tracking down exactly where in New York the "API" offices are located, since the show gave so many visual location clues - the ships, the bridge, etc. - and they turn out to be right around these coordinates in NYC: 40.705623,-74.004311. I know. I have way too much time on my hands. It's the tv studio building - Warner Horizon, I think. At least, some of the office scenes and the roof scenes are filmed there.


• NBC's "The Event" - I'm vaguely interested in this. I was also vaguely interested in "Flash Forward" and "V" last fall, and that never grabbed my interest, so I'm not bouncing on the couch cushions over "The Event". It could be awesome, or it could be meh. I'll watch and see.


• NBC's "Outsourced" - If you didn't see the movie "Outsourced", check it out. My husband is from an Indian family, so we always enjoy movies that spotlight Indian culture. I was amazed to discover that such an itty-bitty film has been made over into a television series, but I'm interested to see what NBC has done with it. I'm reserving judgment until after the first episode of course - it could be awful! - but I'm hoping it's good. I love multi-cultural shows that get it right - let's hope this is one of those. I'm sad that it's filmed mostly in LA, but the producers have mentioned wanting to film the second season on location if the first season is successful.

Old Friends:

• "Castle" - This show... I love it so much. I will watch it forever, as long as the writing stays snappy and the characters stay true. So far, there's only been one episode that's left me feeling meh rather than gleeful, and I can't even remember which one that was. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic just keep getting better and better, and I love the screen time that some of the peripheral characters like Ryan and Esposito have been getting.
  
  I also love the transmedia content for the show that has kept me entertained over the summer. Via both Facebook and Twitter, ABC launched a little mini-mystery that took place in The Hamptons while Rick Castle was hanging around there through the summer, finishing his novel. If you're a Castle fan and are not following Castle on Twitter, you should be. The mystery unfolded over a couple of weeks, mostly on Twitter, with pictures and a couple of real-time moments of suspense if you happened to be checking Twitter when Castle was being shot at or run down by a car. The 140-character bites of story were so well-written and in-character - I could easily imagine Castle driving the Hamptons chief of police insane with his meddling, as well as his eager determination to launch his own murder investigation. This understated but excellent transmedia experience kept "Castle" in my mind and whetted my appetite for the show's fall premiere. :)


• "Leverage" - I hope the writing for this season improves. While I liked the second season, the episodes lacked some of the punch, wit, and savvy that the first season episodes had in spades. Only a couple of episodes made me say, "OMG THAT WAS AWESOME" - whereas I was yelling that after every episode through the first season. I can't put my finger on what's missing, but there's something. Also, I can tell the writers wished they'd never introduced that "someone is blackmailing the team" story arc because it hardly got mentioned until the end, and even so, I don't exactly have a clear picture of what was ever at stake.
  
  Still, that's not to say I'm not looking forward to the premiere! These characters are some of my favorites in my whole history of television, and I can't wait to see them on my screen again.


• "Sanctuary" - on my must-watch list, but I need to get caught up with Season 2 episodes! It's easy to believe that Amanda Tapping is immortal - she doesn't age, she just gets more and more beautiful.


• "Warehouse 13" - another show that I really need to get caught up on (also because my husband would like the 23 episodes taking up DVR space to go away soon). I know, I know - it's been around long enough I ought to already have seen the majority of episodes, but there's so much tv and not enough time, and I can't watch tv all the time because I've also got a stack of books to read. So this one, I'm horribly behind on and haven't formed a bond with it yet. But I like what I've seen so far and plan to spend next week on a marathon watch so I can be ready for the season premiere. :)


• "Bones" - I kind of dropped off this show but have been slowly catching up on the episodes. I have to make sure my sister isn't around when it's on the screen, though - the graphic images would make her either pass out or throw up! They're almost too much for me to handle on occasion - but I am compelled to watch this for the sake of Brennan and Hodgins.


• "House" - Drama, drama, drama! Oh, and some needles and things. This falls on my guilty pleasures list, but I still love it.

Other shows I've been watching:

• "Rizzoli & Isles" - Another show I started watching in the mid-season, and one that I've had a sort of rocky relationship with. I was very excited to see a show with two smart women as the main characters. The first episode was awesome... right up until the point where the show writer took those two smart women characters and gleefully tore the Bechdel test to shreds, ritually burned it, and stomped upon its ashes. So the show sat lonely and neglected on my DVR for a few weeks while I busied myself with other things.
  
  When I grudgingly came back to go through the backlog of tv on my DVR, I decided just to watch my way through. And, Bechdel test epic failings aside, I like the show. And the "boy talk" does lessen in later episodes. And I love Maura. And I like Jane. And the show kind of made me love it in spite of my initial misgivings. So I'm sad to see it ending, and I'm sad that I'll have to wait until next year to have more to watch.


• "The Closer" - I bought the dvds after seeing a rave review of a recent episode on my LJ flist. I like this series a lot, and it's formula makes it easy enough to skip a season or two (can't afford the dvds!) and just start right in with the current batch of episodes. I adore the smart, fierce main character that Kyra Sedgwick nails down to perfection.

Shows I should be watching but haven't had time for:

• "Eureka"


• "The Big Bang Theory


• "Community"

A brief note on Stargate Universe - I'll be watching exactly one episode this season, the McKay crossover ep. Just because I want to see McKay sneer at everyone. I hope he sneers his way around Destiny for the whole hour.