What’s the deal with the current crop of midseason replacements? It’s like the networks took their second tier shows that didn’t make the cut for the new season and released them all at once. I’m going to walk through them one by one.
The Wedding Bells – 2 episodes in and this dramedy about sister wedding planners is neither funny nor dramatic. I’ve liked Teri Polo since she played Rebecca on Sports Night and it’s good to see Kenny from Picket Fences again but this show is garbage. The characters are uninteresting and the show’s device where the characters gain insights into their characters and lives by seeing the people who come through their wedding business is a cliched device for sloppy storytellers. I won’t say I was offended by this week’s effeminate groom as much as I was bored. Basically, another show from the David E Kelly who gave us Ally McBeal, Girls Club and even Boston Legal rather than the genius who gave us Picket Fences, The Practice, Boston Legal and Chicago Hope.
Avi’s Show Rating: C-
October Road – If The Wedding Bells was garbage this show is a whole garbage dump. Boy leaves his hometown to go to Europe and doesn’t return abandoning all ties with his girlfriend, friends and family. 10 years later after writing a book using his old friends as characters (and not in a good way) he goes back home to find out that many of his friends hate him, he might have a son and shock of shocks their lives have moved on. Oh yeah, and he has writer’s block. Any one want to bet that he starts writing his next novel by the time this show concludes its initial run. The dialogue is terrible and makes me yearn for the poetic conversations on Beverly Hills 90210. The constant music-over (like a voice over but with music) is distracting. I counted no fewer than 10 songs in the hour. The one saving grace is Laura Prepon. She looks great and it’s good to see her moving on from That 70’s Show and I hope she finds a better show than this next season.
Avi’s Show Rating: D+
The Black Donnellys – I get the sense that there’s a good show somewhere in this story of four brothers, one of whom is the Michael Corleone of the family. The problem is that when you strip away the bloody murders and the posturing between the Irish and Italian mobs, there’s nothing here of interest. The brothers aren’t really that sympathetic and the stories are just kind of boring. If The Sopranos moved the mob story into the 21st century with its complexity, this one sets the genre way, way, way back.
Avi’s Show Rating: C+
Raines – The premise of a detective who solves crimes aided by the dead victim was too silly to get me to watch even one episode. It may not be as bad as I think but I will never know.
Avi’s Concept Rating: D
With all this bad TV there’s one silver lining – April and May is right around the corner with the final Sopranos ever, the return of Entourage and The Shield and more Heroes, Lost, The Office, Friday Night Lights and Veronica Mars.
Avi\'s TV Ramblings 
Have you watched the Riches? I have no idea what it’s about or if you’d like it, but it seems to be the only one with good buzz. Although it’s way too early to actually tell.
Though the Riches is a cable network show that usually rely on the poor showing of midseasons to gain itself some good publicity and lock on an audience (see Weeds, Entourage).
Avi, I hear ya, I couldn’t even make it through the entire first episode of The Black Donnely’s, October Road or The Wedding Bells, and I wasn’t even going to try Raines.
Meanwhile, The Winner is already off the air and I barely got a chance to check it out.
“October Road” sounds like a contender in the “So Bad It’s Good”-category.