I try to not watch too much TV. I've got myself whittled down to a select few shows now, but I thought I'd give a handful of new shows a test to see what I thought. I'm not going to go over plots and premises here -- that's covered ad nauseum elseweb. Given that I'm completely hooked on Battlestar Galactica, I thought Bionic Woman was worth a look, since it's from the same creative team. Big mistake. After a couple of episodes, I'm just done. The characters' actions make no sense, there's way too much 'ACTING!' and there's not a single sympathetic character. Katee Sackhoff takes the things that made her Starbuck character from BSG unique (and *just* on the verge of annoying), and ratchets it up into the realm of the über-merde. It's sad that BSG has to sit on cable while this tripe gets the prime time high-definition spotlight. Ugh. Avoid. The series is high profile enough that they may let it ride out the season, but I think it'll be done by Christmas. From the trailers, Journeyman looked like my kind of show. I'm a sucker for time travel, mucking with histories, that sort of thing. I finally got around to watching the pilot Friday night, and I'm, if nothing else, still on the fence. I like the concept -- sort of a Quantum Leap meets The Butterly Effect -- and so far it's well written and acted. The casting is inspired, the characters act in believable ways, the mystery keeps me hooked, and I wasn't looking to hurt my TV set when it was done. (Did I mention Bionic Woman is a turd?) It earned a "Season Pass" on my TiVo, but because I didn't watch the pilot until Friday, I've missed one episode. I hope it's not too serialized. I suppose I could buy it from iTunes, but I'm angry at Apple right now. NBC lets me watch it in a browser, but ugh. The last new show I tried out this year is Chuck, and it was completely by accident. The promos convinced me that it would be a waste of time... that it was one of those shows I'd find completely annoying, and it would be gone before November. Well, one of those times when the TV was on while we were doing other things last week, the Saturday rerun of the pilot came on. I was out running an errand, but Tisha caught enough here and there while half-watching to figure out it was something I'd like, and she hit record on the TiVo. Sure enough, she was right. This show is smart, funny, well acted, and well written. It's a fantastic blend of comedy and action, which allows the show to not take itself too seriously (IMHO, a big failing with the aforementioned turd Bionic Woman). Worth watching, by all means. But again, and I can't say this enough, Bionic Woman is an affront to entertainment. I wanted to like it, much like I wanted to like Studio 60 last year. Luckily, this year, I caught on early enough to the crapulence and shan't get hooked on a bad show.