Thoughts on midseason shows in the 2013-2014 TV season

Here are my thoughts on the midseason shows for this season. Since it is a long time since all these shows will air, a lot of the reviews could become outdated quite quickly. If you see a review crossed out, that means that the show was already cancelled before I even got a chance to post it. They probably deserved it. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before they all premiere. If any of them are summer shows or don’t wind up airing at all (like Murder Police), then I’ll just ignore the planned review and go without it. I’ve also included two fall shows that I should have mentioned sooner but haven’t because I didn’t plan on watching it or had some other strange reason about it.

The Goldbergs- This ABC comedy airs at 9/8 Central on Tuesdays. It is about a man’s life growing up in the eighties and is based on details that actually happened (although I’m not sure just how much). It can be pretty good and funny sometimes. Not quite sure what else to say at the moment since I haven’t seen that much of it yet. I give it three out of five stars.

The Arsenio Hall Show- This FOX talk show airs in the late night time slot at midnight in most time zones and eleven p.m. in the Central time zone, although it might air at different times in various different regions. Plus, it may air on more than just FOX. It airs five days a week and I think might even air on Sundays as well. I don’t know how often that might be. It could only be on rare occasions, often but not always, or all the time. As you can tell, I don’t really watch the show that much. I rarely tune in because the show is so bad; I find it quite hard to sit through a whole episode. I’m not sure what the farthest I’ve ever gotten through an episode is. There are plenty of other interesting things on and I’d rather go to bed than watch this. Its lack of humor is embarrassing. I don’t know why the audience is laughing at all. I give it one out of five stars.

Intelligence- This CBS drama airs at 10/9 Central on Mondays. It replaces the probably cancelled Hostages. This show is about a man with a computer chip in his brain. In fact, that seems to be the only thing they talk about the show in promos. “We’ve given a man information only found in a computer,” is more or less the plot of every episode. You can’t expect much from that. This show is generally boring and uninteresting. There was not much there and barely any of it was remotely good or entertaining. I don’t really like it at all and only had to watch the first episode to realize that I would never want to turn into it again. While it’s not the only show I’ve seen where I thought that about the show, that doesn’t give the show any excuse as to why I should watch it again. I give it one out of five stars.

Rake- This FOX drama aired originally on Thursday and then was abruptly moved to sometime on Friday where it could slowly die a death that this network is notorious for giving shows it airs. This, however, is not a good show they are screwing with by any means. It’s a remake of a foreign TV show so you know that it is probably crap. And you would be right. This drama is about a lawyer with his own set of problems. They crammed so much into the first episode that not much was really accomplished in the end. This show has some good parts, but not enough to save it from anything that a show might need to not be cancelled. I give it two out of five stars.

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon- This NBC show airs late at night Mondays through Friday at 11:30/10:30 Central or a bit later. It is the same Tonight Show that NBC is known for with its seventh (or sixth) regular host. This host is now Jimmy Fallon who was a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live before he had an ill fated attempt at a film career. Afterwards, he hosted Late Night for a while and then ultimately moved up an hour to this show. It is pretty much the same great show that he hosted on Late Night only it’s the Tonight Show instead. If you liked him before, then you’ll like him now. If you didn’t like him before, get a sense of humor and stop being a hater/troll. This show is pretty good and you might want to watch it if you don’t already have plans late at night. I give it four out of five stars.

Star-Crossed- This CW show airs at 8 Eastern on Mondays. It is about aliens living among humans in the future. It is inspired by racial events in American history. As usual for the network, it is a teen drama with characters in high school and supernatural twists. Well, this time it is science fiction twists, but it’s either one or the other on the CW. Despite it being the stereotypical type of show for this network, it is pretty good. The show is interesting and gives an updated version of racial dramas, even if the cast isn’t as racially diverse as one might like. It is among the good science fiction show that television gives us sometimes. I give it three out of five stars.

Enlisted- This FOX show airs at 9/8 Central on Fridays. It is a comedy about people in the army here in the United States. I haven’t seen that much of it. It isn’t bad or anything like that, I just haven’t had the time in the past to watch it and only did because it was paired with Raising Hope, a show that I do watch. It’s a pretty good show, even though it can be hard to tell what the real point of it is. I give it three out of five stars.

Late Night with Seth Meyers- This NBC show airs weeknights at 12:30/11:30 Central or a bit later. Based on your time zone, it technically actually airs early in the mornings on Tuesdays through Saturdays, although most people up that late forget that midnight is officially the start of the next day. Do people even care? Does it even matter when this show airs? The point is: Late Night now has its fourth host with Seth Meyers. I don’t know if there were ever guest hosts with this show. Regardless, I should give more of an actual review. If you didn’t already know, Late Night is a talk show. Seth Meyers had a long tenure on Saturday Night Live. He was the Weekend Update anchor for longer than anyone else on the show (although he did share his duties with both Amy Phoeler and Cecily Strong, the second of which is still the host with someone else now that he is gone). I’m not sure why people consider him to be a good person to host a late night show, but I would have to agree with them that he is a good host. (I have not looked up the reception of this show yet, I’m referring to whoever is in charge of this at NBC and other people who thought that this would be a nice idea.) Maybe Weekend Update gave him good practice for hosting a talk show, but whatever the reason, Seth Meyers is a good host in my mind at least. Now I have heard rumors that he was potentially a replacement for Regis Philbin on Live, but I don’t know how true that might be. If he was one of the guest co-hosts when Kelly was the only regular host, then that rumor might be true. In fact, this might have given more incentive to NBC to give Seth Meyers a talk show on their network, so that might be why he had great potential to be a replacement for a late night talk show host, should they ever need one. Of course, regarding the hosting of Live rumor, you’d think that he’d still be in a contract with SNL and not be able to switch there. But I shouldn’t be spreading rumors like this since I don’t know if it was true or not. Besides, they went with someone else to co-host Live instead. Back to the point, he seems to be a pretty good host of Late Night. His jokes and other bits work for the most part. He may seem a little timid as a host, but that could wear off once he’s been there a while. I give it three out of five stars.

Mind Games- This ABC show aired Tuesdays at 10/9 Central. But then it got cancelled, and rightfully so. This show was pretty dull. I don’t know if they’ll even air the rest of the episodes. So this show was about people trying to change other people’s mind without them knowing it. That sounds like it could be a good show, but that isn’t what I saw when I watched it. It seemed pretty pointless and I didn’t understand what it had to give me that other dramas didn’t. I’ll tell you what I didn’t get from it that other shows do: quality programming, something I’d want to watch, or a good use of time. So the show got cancelled due to a general lack of interest. I’m still including this review, but crossed it out since the show’s already over. Sorry that it took so long but since many shows aired very late midseason (or not at all, as might be the case), I was waiting to do these reviews until all the ones I was interested in aired. I give it two out of five stars.

Resurrection- This ABC show airs on Sundays at 9/8 Central. It is a pretty strange show. I’m not really sure where they are going with this. Basically, for some unknown reason, dead people somehow return as they originally were before they died many years later. Mystery of how and why this happened seems to be the central plot of the show. So it keeps you interested in it, but it never really explains what it has going for it. But, it is worth watching if you aren’t already into something else. I give it three out of five stars.

Crisis- This NBC show airs on Sundays at 10/9 Central. It is on the board of a good show worth watching and a ridiculous show that isn’t any good. I can’t tell which it is yet so I will say that it is the better show for now, although it doesn’t seem to be that good in the end. It is close enough to being good to let it slide into that region for the moment. You see, while a group of students from Washington DC, including the president’s son, are supposed to go on a field trip of some sort, they are all kidnapped and held hostage causing a nationwide crisis. We then see FBI agents get into the case to try to fix things or otherwise figure out a way of solving the case for the better. Where the show gets strange is the fact that the kidnappers get the parents of these children to do a bunch of crazy things to get their children released while trying to accomplish their various evil plots (the kidnappers are). So the show could be better than it is, but it works in some ways. I give it two and a half out of five stars.

The 100- This CW show airs on Wednesdays at 9 Eastern. It has been described as like Lord of the Flies, so take that however you mean it. I think that it is good, although only average in the end. This show has a bunch of teenagers in a supernatural/science-fiction setting like many CW shows do. So bear with me for a moment. In the future, the earth has been labeled as uninhabitable to live in so one hundred people are sent down to see if living there would work. They are called the hundred, the name of the show. While they are living down there, interesting stuff happens in the space station that they came from. So it seems similar to lots of other shows from this network. But it is interesting and good in the end. I give this three out of five stars.

Friends with Better Lives- This show replaces How I Met Your Mother on television. It airs on CBS on Mondays at 8:30/7:30 Central. This show follows stereotypical groups of friends that have different relationships and are at different points in their lives. But is this watered down premise actually good this time? Sadly, no. This show is just the dumb type of thing people make it out to be. The show offers nothing new to the television world and just gives us a bunch of old, worthless stuff we’re already used to getting from other shows that were all appropriately cancelled. This one will probably follow suit. I give it one out of five stars.

Bad Teacher- This CBS show replaces The Crazy Ones. Whether The Crazy Ones returns to the air in later seasons is currently unknown. It airs at 9:30/8:30 Central on Thursdays. This show is obviously about a bad teacher and is based off of a movie with the same name. Now I don’t really understand why people would think that bad show, I mean, Bad Teacher, would be any good. It isn’t. I don’t know if there are people who think that it is. As usual in a bad show, the characters are dull and pointless leaving no satisfaction as to why one would be interested in watching this show again. I’m certainly not going to bother tuning in again. This show isn’t even funny. I give it one out of five stars.

Now there are three other shows that I wanted to add to this list. They are Reckless, Crossbones, and the Quest. You see, despite the fact that their respective networks all said that they were going to air these shows sometime at midseason, there is little evidence to show that these shows will be part of the schedule any time soon. They may all be cancelled before they aired. They may be some sort of summer series or wind up on next season’s schedule. I don’t know what happened to any of them and I’m hoping that somebody somewhere does know so that they can tell me about what happened to them and why that happened. So I planned on reviewing them for midseason, but decided not to since they didn’t seem like they would in the end. And I do want to update the midseason shows at some point soon since the upfronts and cancellation news is coming soon. So enjoy these reviews for now and more blog posts, as always, will be coming later at some point, I just don’t know when.