Ready, Set, Record!

Every fall comes with several events many of us have grown accustomed to expecting and getting truly excited about. There’s the start of football, baseball playoffs, beautiful foliage and weather, Halloween and of course a new fall TV lineup! This year is no exception.

Fall 2011 is full of some great new shows and the return of many of our favorites. Students especially look forward to the new fall lineup each year as a way to relax in between class, homework and jobs.

“I’m really excited for season six of Dexter to start! But I would say that the new show I’ve been looking the most forward to watching has been New Girl and from what I’ve seen so far it’s been really good!” says senior Maryville student, Allison Gagnon.

Here are some of the new shows that seem to be the most popular so far and have gotten good reviews.

New Girl (Fox)

Premiered: Sept. 20, at 8 p.m.

Zooey Deschanel stars in this show as the peculiar cute girl, as usual, only this time she plays Jess, a recently dumped girl who moves in with three bachelors. The boys only take her in as a roommate because her best friend is a model but of course grow to love her quirkiness and decide to help her start dating again.

 

2 Broke Girls (CBS)

Premiered: Sept. 19 at 8:30 p.m.

TV Guide calls this hilarious new show a modern Laverne and Shirley. The show is about, obviously two broke girls, who work as waitresses in New York. There’s Max, a smart-mouthed girl who works two jobs (she’s also a nanny) and has a gift for baking cupcakes, and then there’s Caroline, an uptown heiress whose family is in trouble after her wealthy dad gets sent to jail. The two become unlikely friends who decide to start saving up their tips to start their own cupcake business.

 

Pan Am (ABC)

Premiered: Sept. 25 at 9 p.m.

Christina Ricci takes off as the star in this show that feels like a “Catch Me if You Can” spinoff. The show centers on stewardesses in the ‘60s working for the famous Pan Am Airlines. However their lives are not as glamorous they may appear as we watch them deal with love and other obstacles. The show’s executive producer is Nancy Hult Ganis, a real former Pan Am stewardess. Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times says that Pan Am shows the past in a little bit more attractive light than say shows like “Mad Men”. “The series is a paean to a more prosperous and confident era; even an airline terminal looks like a movie dream sequence about 1960s heaven,” says Stanley.

 

The Playboy Club (NBC)

Premiered:Sept. 25 at 9 p.m.

The Playboy Club is the other drama series set in the ‘60s and even premiered the same night and at the same time as Pan Am. The show is exactly what it sounds like; it follows Bunnies working in a Playboy club. Newbie Bunny, Maureen (Amber Heard) must get help from club keyholder and shady lawyer, Nick (Eddie Cibrian) after she kills a mobster in self-defense.

American Horror Story (FX)

Premieres: Oct. 5 at 9 p.m.

So many of us are suckers for horror films, so why not have a horror show? This horror-mystery series that stars Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton is about a couple, Ben and Vivien Sherman, who move to Los Angeles and end up in a home that has something lurking in the basement. Rumor also has it that a few of the characters may not exactly be alive…

 

Prime Suspect (NBC)

Premiered: Sept. 22 at 9 p.m.

Maria Bello shines in this show adapted from a British series about Jane, a detective trying to make it in the crime-fighting, male-dominated world. However Jane is not your usual bad-ass female cop who turns into a perfect housewife as soon as she gets home. Nick McHatton of TV Fanatic calls Jane “a dark character, filled with bright spots of dark humor and crudeness. She is interested in doing her job well and going over every angle, not closing the case as quickly as possible and getting a beer with the fellas after work.” McHatton says Bello’s depiction of Jane makes Prime Suspect “must-watch status” and gives it a four out of five star rating.

 

Ringer (CW)

Ringer was actually originally developed for CBS but ended up being picked up by CW. It features ex Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar but this time she plays two characters, identical twins Bridget and Siobhan. Bridget is a recovering alcoholic on the run so decides to claim she’s actually her wealthy twin sister. The twist is that her sister is thought to be dead and she inherits plenty of more problems when she takes on her identity.

 

Terra Nova (Fox)

Premiered: Sept. 26 at 7 p.m.

The long-awaited Steven Spielberg dinosaur drama series has finally arrived. Terra Nova is about the Shannon family who travels back in time to prehistoric Earth in order to try and save the human race. The premise is that by the 22^nd century the planet has been so mistreated by humans that it is dying, so people go back in time to live in a compound, Terra Nova, so that they can start over. The Shannon’s are fugitives on the run at first because in present time they have broken the law of having a third child. Of course living in this utopian-like compound couldn’t go 100 percent right and the Shannon’s and other humans are forced to battle with dinosaurs. David Hinckley of the New York Daily News says that “the dinosaur special effects are impressive and clearly hark back to executive producer Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” roots.”

 

Revenge (ABC)

Premiered: Sept. 22 at 9 a.m.

This show is a drama starring Emily VanCamp as Emily Thorne, a girl out for revenge on the people who destroyed her family. Emily sets off to the Hamptons and seduces Daniel (Joshua Bowman), who’s the son of Victoria (Madeline Stowe), the woman responsible for her devastation.  TV Guide calls it “a contemporary re-telling of The Count of Monte Cristo, but Emily Thorne makes for a much prettier little liar than Edmond Dantes.”

 

The X Factor (Fox)

Premiered: Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.

Simon Cowell’s hugely successful U.K. show has been adapted for the U.S. Cowell and Paula Abdul return as judges where the biggest prize in television history will be given out, $5 million. This show is not identical to Cowell and Abdul’s former show they judged on, American Idol. This competition is open to age groups 12 and up as well as groups. There will also be judge mentors, including L.A. Reid and Nicole Scherzinger for contestants, similar to The Voice.