As colorful as a parade, another fall season has begun on network prime time television. Each attraction is designed to capture your attention for at least the next 24 weeks or so. And each network is hoping you’ll be so pleased with its current offerings that you’ll not tune in elsewhere. There are many new shows this year. I decided to test drive six of them.

Here are short reviews of each:
1. “Back to You”, Fox, Wednesdays at 8pm Eastern. Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton return to prime time after brief absences (they were on “Frasier” and “Everybody Loves Raymond”, respectively) to portray rival TV news anchors. Grammar’s character returns to his old job after he is fired from the LA market for an on-air tantrum. His former co-anchor, Heaton, has no wish to share the spotlight or indeed anything with him again. The barbs they trade both on and off the air are hilarious. Fred Willard also stars as an eccentric sportscaster. The supporting players are pretty funny too, from the weather reporter with the fake Latina accent and the barely out of school news director, to the poor reporter who always gets the worst assignments. This is a pleasant way to spend a half hour.
2. “Chuck”, NBC, Mondays at 8pm Eastern. Hoping to cash in on the enormous success of “Heroes”, which debuted last year, NBC has sandwiched two promising shows on either side of it. The first of
these is “Chuck”, an hour long program that defies genre. The title character is the lead nerd of the “Nerd Herd”, a group of computer techs working at a superstore. Meanwhile, as shown in an over-the-top action sequence, an ex-friend of Chuck’s, working for a government agency, sends an 11th hour e-mail to Chuck containing all the agency’s
secrets. Chuck views the e-mail, a series of encrypted images, and these are burned into his memory as though he were the computer, which is ironic as his actual computer hard drive is destroyed shortly thereafter, making Chuck himself the only source of this information. Suddenly, he finds himself a wanted man as rival agencies, one represented by a gorgeous blonde who befriends him, compete to pick his brain as it were. The first episode of “Chuck” was part shoot ’em up and part boy meets girl, with a nod toward science fiction. It is not meant to be believable, which is what makes it so much fun to watch. I am eager to tune in again and find out what other outrageous things happen.
3. “Journeyman”, NBC, Mondays at 10pm Eastern. This 60 minute drama airs right after “Heroes”, which should help snag viewers initially. Scottish actor Kevin McKidd plays Dan Vasser, a San Francisco
journalist with a wife and son. One day, he falls asleep in a cab and awakens to find himself in a different cab. He believes he had a strange dream in which the date was 10 years ago, before his ex- girlfriend died. Dan shrugs it off and gets back to his life. But the next morning, instead of waking up in his own bed, he finds himself in Golden Gate Park 20 years ago! This time, he saves a man from being hit by a bus. And he realizes it was no dream when his wife informs him that he had been missing for two days. Dan decides that he needs to see his shrink. But as he’s trying to make an appointment with the doctor’s office, he vanishes right out of the car he’s driving! And he’s in a different year, but same place with the same people. He eventually realizes there is a reason for this, that there
is something he needs to fix. I thought this show had a rather slow start, but that may have been because I had just finished watching the action-packed “Heroes”. But about halfway through the pilot episode, “Journeyman” got a lot more interesting, so I am willing to watch further episodes.
4. “Reaper”, CW, Tuesdays at 9pm Eastern. This one is funny. Both funny ha ha and funny strange. A college dropout working at a handyman store has a rather memorable 21st birthday. He finds out
that his parents sold his soul to the devil, and the devil is ready to cash in on the bargain. No, our hero doesn’t have to die, but he does have to steer escaped souls back to Hell. The devil gives him a device, a demonic dust buster, in which to capture his first assignment. And wouldn’t you know the local DMV office doubles as a portal to Hell? But being Satan’s bounty hunter proves to be more difficult than expected. Kevin Smith directed the pilot, which may be
why I enjoyed it so much, but I don’t think he was in on the subsequent episodes. I was, however, hooked enough to decide that I want to watch it in future weeks. And I give it extra points for originality.
5. “Private Practice”, ABC, Wednesdays at 9pm Eastern. This is a spinoff from the fan favorite “Grey’s Anatomy.” Dr. Addison Montgomery, played by Kate Walsh, leaves the chaotic Seattle Grace
surgical team to join a seemingly laid-back Los Angeles wellness center. But the staff at the wellness center is anything but laid- back: two members are divorcing, there is a pediatrician who dates totally inappropriate women, the couples’ therapist doesn’t know how to cultivate a healthy relationship for herself, and the acupuncturist already has a thing for Addison. What’s worse, the woman who hired Dr. Montgomery failed to tell any of her co-workers. And it that weren’t bad enough, the owner of the clinic, a self-help guru played by Taye Diggs, accidentally sees Addison naked. All this adds up to an extremely awkward first day of work. Like “Grey’s
Anatomy,” “Private Practice” combines comedic moments with more serious medical ones. For example, the therapist must help a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder who is having a meltdown in a department store. And Addison’s first patient, a girl in labor, suddenly develops life-threatening complications. I saw the original
pilot during last season’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and thought it was interesting, but not great. Since then though, some of the things that didn’t work, like the unnecessary elevator scenes, have been dropped and the secondary characters, such as the one portrayed by Tim Daly, have been strengthened. I find it much more watchable now.
6. “Bionic Woman”, NBC, Wednesdays at 9pm Eastern. This is an update of the 1970’s hit series. The main character is still named Jaime Sommers, and she still has robotic body parts, but those are pretty much the only things the new version has in common with the old. The new Jaime is played by British actress Michelle Ryan. She is a 24 year old bartender dating a college professor, who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, and before the news has even had a chance to sink in, bartender and boyfriend are in a horrible auto accident. Jaime loses the baby as well as her legs, an arm, an eye, and the use of an ear. While she is unconscious, her boyfriend arranges to have her fitted with bionic implants. Turns out he is more than just a teacher. Jaime awakens to find out that not only has her body been altered, but that now she is expected to work with the group that gave her the bionics. She attempts to go back to her old bartending job, but she is confronted by a woman who is also partly bionic and who caused the accident. They have a knock-down drag-out fight, and Jaime finds out just how powerful she really is. This is a very fast paced show, and I found the plot a bit confusing. It was interesting over all, though, so I will probably keep watching to see if I can make more sense of it.
With so many new shows competing for our attention, some are bound to fall by the wayside. There were many more that I just didn’t have the energy to view, but I think I probably caught the most promising ones. Time will tell if the American public agrees with me.
Submitted by: Karen Brauer, Butyoudontlooksick.com, © 2007