What are you watching?

Dear Reader,

The fall season is underway, and we’re all settling into our TV routines. I don’t watch a lot of TV at home, because when I’m home I’m writing or reading, to be honest. Most of my TV I watch via Hulu or Netflix while I’m working, and I don’t always watch current shows. But here’s what I’m watching right now.

Once Upon A Time

The idea of modern fairy tales has me interested, but after watching the pilot I’m not entirely sold on this show. The story starts in a typical fairy tale kingdom, with a Princess who is a mixture of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, married to her Prince Charming and complete with their arch nemesis, the evil Queen and former step mother. The show switches between fairy world time and modern day, where the fairy people have amnesia about where they really come from. The idea is that a child sent into our world has grown up and must now save everyone. I’ve only seen the pilot, but the switching back and forth lost my interest. I’m going to keep watching, but I think it lacks the attention grabbing that Grimm has.

Grimm

This is another fairy tale story. Unlike Once Upon a Time (UOaT), this one focuses on a completely modern day story. The hero is a descendant of the Grimm family, is a police officer and learns about his family heritage. The hero must now hunt down the bad monsters and muddle through who his family is and what he needs to do. This grabbed my attention a lot more than UOaT, mostly because there was an immediate goal with the pilot episode. Where UOaT had a buckshot approach to it’s initial plot, Grimm was simple: save the kid. I’ll be watching this one, not casually letting it play.

Kitchen Nightmares

I have a thing about Gordon Ramsey. I’ll watch anything he’s in. While Kitchen Nightmares is possibly my least favorite show he’s on, the stories behind the episodes are touching. There’s less of the trademark Gordon yelling, but I can be okay with that.

Dancing with the Stars

I don’t watch this one so much as turn it on for background noise. The show has steadily become less interesting. The dances are still the only part I actually watch, but even those have been not as great. When they let Chaz go this season, the only thing keeping me watching is Max. I don’t bother with the results show anymore.

Glee

The show lost my interest last season, and the new episodes haven’t done a lot to make me want to keep watching, but I got really invested with watching The Glee Project, so I’ll continue to muddle through the season until Damien gets his arc.

The Sing Off

An acapella singing contest, The Sing Off is one of those shows I always hope comes back for one more season. I love the all boy college groups. This season The Yellow Jackets and the boys from Dartsmouth are my favorites, though Delilah isn’t bad.

Alphas

The last episode I watched lost me. This is an interesting show about people with mutant abilities trying to police the people with abilities that misuse them. While the first handful of episodes were really captivating, the longer it’s gone on the less I’ve liked it. It has a lot of government type characters, but the amount of force the government wields in the show bothers me. It’s just not believable, in my opinion. I’m giving this show another episode or two, but it might be the first off my line up.

Terra Nova

I wasn’t a huge fan of Jurassic Park when it came out. It terrified me, to be honest. I was also far too young to be seeing it. That said, this is like tuning in for a little prehistoric movie action each week. I’m surprised it’s on a major network. This type of show seems like it would do better on SyFi, but I’m glad to see it on prime time. The show is good, the acting and effects much better than I would have expected. It has me on a casual level of interest. Okay, so I’m really tuning in because of the love subplot between a daughter and a military boy. It’s super cute.

The New Girl

This is one of my two favorite shows on TV now. The New Girl is nerdy-cool-fun. I love Zooey Deschanel, and I was really excited to find out she would be on TV. I’m bummed that Coach left the show after the pilot, his replacement isn’t as good, but the show still has a lot of the same funny dynamics. I’m afraid that they are going to put Zooey’s character and the bartender roommate together eventually, but I’ll stick it out. I’m that committed.

Revenge

I wasn’t going to watch this show origionally, but I heard some good things about it and watched the pilot. I was so hooked I had to go look up more about it. I’ve heard that it’s based off the idea of doing a modern take on The Count of Monte Cristo, which I totally understand. No, it’s not exactly the same story, but the main character wants revenge for some pretty hefty reasons. While a lot of what goes on in the show isn’t that realistic, it’s such an engaging show I’m always wanting more. Totally the other of my top two favs this season.

So what are you watching?