100 channels and something on...

I promise I won't talk about everything in the same detail that I did Kid Nation. It just seems like the kind of show where you have to explain what's going on in order to talk about it. With that in mind, here are some hopefully quick reviews of the other new shows that aired last week.

K-Ville: Mondays on Fox, 9:00/8:00 Central

K-Ville is a new police drama set on the mean streets of a New Orleans trying to rebuild in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Anthony Anderson (right) plays an officer doing his best to get the city back on its feet. Being a lifelong resident of the Lower 9th Ward, he has a lot of personal interest in getting the job done. Cole Hauser (left) is his new partner (his old one having deserted during the height of the storm), a man looking for redemption from his secret criminal past.

You can probably see from that attempt at briefly describing the two main characters what one of ths show's main flaws is: it just tries to cover too much ground. There's a lot of material to be used simply from the show's rich and unique setting (and believe me, they're already starting to get into major issues in the first episode) that the addition of such complicated characters is overkill. It can either be an issues show or a personal drama, but will likely be too muddy if it continues to attempt both.

There's plenty of pulse-pounding action as our officers run and gun through the city streets trying to solve the mystery of who's behind a series of attacks on a local charity, and the backdrop in virtually every scene is wonderful as the show is actually being filmed in New Orleans. Despite this, its shaky-cam action sequences and spastic cutting from scene to scene make it difficult to watch. Pilot episodes are often very different from the way shows end up being. Hopefully that will be the case here, too.

If you like cop dramas, the sights and sounds of New Orleans, or the high concept of the show, then you should give this a shot. Otherwise, you probably won't find a whole lot to like. You can catch up with last week's episode on the Fox website.


Back to You: Wednesdays on Fox, 8:00/7:00 Central

Back to You is a TV news sitcom starring Frasier's Kelsey Grammer (Chuck Darling) and Everybody Likes Raymond's Patricia Heaton (Kelly Carr) as the co-anchors of the Pittsburgh nightly news. Darling has returned to the station that launched his career 10 years ago after an explosive on-air tirade in LA has gotten him fired. Little does he know, he's also returning to the 10-year old daughter that he's never met, the result of a fling with Carr on his last night in town.

If there's one thing that can be said about this show, it's that Grammer can act. I never cared for Frasier as much as some, but here he brings a gravitas to the role that makes every scene he's in credible... and funny. Unfortunately, he can't be the focus all the time, and everyone else seems to make appearances solely to deliver bland and/or inappropriate one-liners. The Latina weather girl (played by Studio 60's Jeannie) is especially cringeworthy, as she singlehandedly delivers or receives every bad sexist joke you can possibly think of.

A lot of the comedies that I've been watching recently (The Office, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Arrested Development) are not filmed in front of a studio audience, so returning to this format was a bit jarring for me. It's never entertaining to hear so many people laughing to something that you find patently unfunny. With that being said, there were enough laughs in it to make me give it another try... maybe they'll tone down the stuff that's not working.

If you still like the old-fashioned sitcom format or can't get enough Kelsey Grammer, then tune in. You can watch last week's episode on the Fox website.


Kitchen Nightmares: Wednesdays on Fox, 9:00/8:00 Central

Chef Gordon Ramsay has brought his popular British reality show to America. You may already be familiar with Ramsay from his other Fox show Hell's Kitchen, in which he does something that involves running a kitchen and yelling at people (I've never seen it, but this is what I've gathered from commercials). Each week in Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Ramsay visits a different failing American restaurant. His goal is to identify its problems, fix them, and reinvent the restaurant to make it successful. After seeing the first episode, let's hope he doesn't visit anywhere I've ever eaten.

In the first episode, he visits a stereotypical Italian family restaurant on Long Island. The kitchen is barely functional, they serve rotten food, and one of the owners skims money off the top. After a lot of yelling and cursing (surprisingly little of it by Chef Ramsay), the restaurant has a working kitchen and a new menu. Everyone is all smiles.

Essentially, it's Extreme Makeover: Restaurant Edition. If you're into that sort of thing or just want to hear a lot of inventive swears, then this is the show for you. You can catch the first episode on the Fox website.


Gossip Girl: Wednesdays on CW, 9:00/8:00 Central

Gossip Girl is one of two new shows (the other is NBC's new Heroes lead-in, Chuck) starting this fall that are written and produced by O.C. creator Josh Schwartz. It's based on the popular teen book series of the same name and features a behind the scenes look at life in an upper class NYC prep school. The Gossip Girl (voiced by Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell) is an anonymous student who sees everything that's going on at the school and writes about it on her blog, that all the students just happen to subscribe to.

Serena van der Woodsen (isn't that an awesome name?) used to be the most popular girl in school until she secretly went away to a Connecticut boarding school. One year later, she's back and trying to pick her life up where she left it with her best friend Blair and Blair's boyfriend Nate (who we learn Serena had a brief fling with prior to leaving). Through a chain of events, she instead ends up starting a relationship with friendly outsider Dan while befriending his younger sister, Jenny. Sleek, sexy, funny, Gossip Girl is exactly the kind of show you would expect to see come out of a marriage between the CW and Josh Schwartz.

However, this being the CW you're going to run into some familiar pitfalls. Most of the main characters are supposed to be juniors or seniors in high school, but they're played by 22-year olds. It's not a big deal, if you're used to watching shows like this. Heck, the actor who played Ryan on The O.C. was 28 by the time that series ended. The main problem is that the younger sister, Jenny, is played by an actual 14-year old (Cindy Lou Who from The Grinch movie), so when the story calls for her to kiss one of the older cast members it creates a whole extra level of uncomfortableness.

There are only 11 books in the series and they seem to have already gone through most of the plot of the first one, so it'll be interesting to see if the quality of story goes up or down as they're forced to stray from established canon. If the creative team behind the show stays focused, I have no doubts that it's only going to get better from here.

If you're a fan of other guilty pleasure shows (and you know who you are), I strongly urge you check this out. If you give it a chance, make sure to stick with it all the way to the triumphant end of the episode. If I'd been on the ball, I would tell you to catch up by watching the encore presentation of the pilot that aired tonight, but since I'm too late for that you can watch it on the CW website. While you watch, you can even click links to buy clothes that the characters are wearing or to listen to music featured in the episode. What is the world coming to?

In other news, new Heroes tomorrow night! Woo!