Jay Cronley: TV fall season autopsy indicates foul play
BY JAY CRONLEY World Staff Columnist
Friday, September 23, 2011
9/23/11 at 3:45 AM
Here's some good news.
The octopus did it.
How could this be such a positive development?
Please continue reading and hopefully it will be explained so that some may benefit.
Further proof of the severity of the global creative crisis has raised its silly head with the introduction of the fall television season.
Once an eagerly anticipated entertainment festival comprised of familiar faces and great surprises, the majority of the shows of the autumn season can be adequately reviewed by the question, "How bad was it?"
Norm! Help!: The flagship of the forensic cop-show fleet opened its run the other night, the CSI show set in Las Vegas that stars Ted Danson, who, if he doesn't already, will soon wish he was back tending bar at Cheers and holding his mouth open under the beer spigot.
The forensic shows ran out of plots about 2 1/2 years ago, but that hasn't kept them off the air.
This one was about a shootout and a stabbing in a Vegas tram car in which an adult entertainer carried an octopus in a big purse, the cephalopod mollusk biting a woman on the leg before being shot dead.
There are evidently dirty adult shows in Vegas featuring naked women who let creatures of the sea crawl all over them, the awful subplot here being offered on network television in prime time.
This nonsensical show reaffirms two unfortunate television certainties: one, they're out of ideas, two, there are no talented people around to write the rehashes and remakes and sequels.
Forget TV and curl up with a good book: What was supposed to be the funniest comedy in decades, "The New Girl," is flat-out terrible.
The girl is funny. Her three male roommates look like something out of any dinner theater group in a mid-minor city. If you like Zooey Deschanel, rent "500 Days of Summer," where the writing is better.
"Harry's Law" continues to contain dialogue unspeakable by real human beings.
"The Good Wife" gives every indication of turning into soap operas revisited, the workplace as an extended bedroom community.
Good fiction has roots in reality, plots that are possible, and characters who remind the audience of somebody actual.
This fall there is no good reason to stay away from books, your family and friends.
Original Print Headline: Fall season autopsy indicates foul play
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