The summer TV season is upon us, and for me, it usually means that basic cable dominates my DVR. But before we get to those shows, there were still a couple of shows that I had to finish.
Some Good: I tend to rotate my premium cable subscription depending on which series have finished and could be viewed in entirety on demand. I'm about to switch over to HBO to watch Game of Thrones, but I currently still have Showtime, where I just finished watching and enjoying Shameless. It's very much in the Showtime style where the plots can get pretty out there, but the producers have done a pretty good job of trying to include comedy, drama, and emotion into each episode. The characters are well-developed and very well acted, and I look forward to watching the second season.
Some Bad: A series that I won't be looking forward to the second season of, but will probably still watch begrudgingly, is AMC's The Killing. If you search online, most of the reviews will be similar. It started out with potential, then just became slow and directionless. Just a bunch of red herrings and meaningless plot points about characters that I couldn't get myself to care about. But whatever, most of us continued watching it just to get closure and find out who the killer was.
SPOILER ALERT***
Except that they didn't reveal the killer! While I originally thought that they would wrap this up and offer a new case in season 2, the producers apparently did not feel that way. It was a big slap in the face to those of us who persevered just to see it reach its conclusion. I didn't get anywhere this upset from the Sopranos ending.
END OF SPOILER ALERT***
As for the summer season, the USA network tends to dominate my DVR. Most of the shows are light and entertaining, which perfectly fits the summer theme. In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Burn Notice, Psych. There are a lot of them, some better than others. My favorite is still Burn Notice, the first of the bunch that really helped put USA on the map for original series following their "characters welcome" theme. It has been a while since last season, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun the new season premiere was.
Some New: USA is also adding two more new shows to that lineup, and the first one, Suits, had an ok pilot. I'm usually not much for legal dramedies since the end of Boston Legal, and I don't expect that I will put this one or TNT's Franklin and Bash on my DVR. However, they're not bad and I certainly would watch them over some random rerun.
Some Old: Speaking of reruns, BBC America is showing Battlestar Galactica from the very beginning. I've heard a lot of praise from friends about this series, and even though I've only watched the miniseries and the first two TV episodes (BBCA is airing two per week), I definitely have to agree with them. While I'm not completely sold on all the characters, the tension and drama have been captivating. As opposed to Spielberg and TNT's Falling Skies, which had a such a huge premiere that there were talks of a second season renewal already. I found it boring, I didn't like any of the characters, and most importantly I didn't feel any of the kind of tension that would arise from the direness of the situation.
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