Note: Click through the hyperlinks for trailers on YouTube for each new show.
Mondays
Most Promising Newcomer
Ride-Along (Fox, 9:00) - Somewhat strange that Monday's most intriguing new entry doesn't arrive until midseason. Ride-Along, a Chicago-based cop drama from Shawn Ryan (The Shield) won't appear on Fox's schedule until sometime in early 2011 but based on the trailer alone we're all in for this one. Shot entirely on location in the Windy City, Ride-Along promises to not only look authentic, but based on Ryan's track record of creating one of the best cop shows in TV history in The Shield, we're willing to bet that this one's going to be worth the wait.
NBC leaves Chuck on Mondays at 8:00: OK, we admit that we're unabashed Chuck fans at The Dirtywhirl who realize that the show's lucky to have even gotten a fourth season and that its audience will likely never grow from the small yet very vocally loyal cult that it is today. That being said, would it have killed NBC to try to expose it to a wider audience by pairing it with the buzzworthy (and entirely compatible) new JJ Abrams spy drama, Undercovers, or to give it a lead-in like the new conspiracy drama The Event (which actually follows Chuck at 9:00) instead of burdening it with leading off the night on its own? Chuck settled in at just over five million viewers this past season so why not see if you could boost that audience by giving it a better partner or shifting it to a later time? Like I said, we're lucky to even be getting another season but NBC could still be treating this show better.
Hour By Hour
8:00 - ABC's Dancing With The Stars will likely still rule the hour with CBS's comedies (the generally still funny How I Met Your Mother and the how-in-the-hell-is-this-still-on Rules Of Engagement) and Fox's aging House battling it out for second. Chuck should still attract its loyal audience but this could be the death knell (and deservedly so) for The CW's 90210. It struggled on its former Tuesday home and this slot is a helluva lot more cutthroat than that one was.
9:00 - Oh, Two And A Half Men, why can't you go somewhere where you won't hurt anyone? Your popularity is unfathomable and inexcusable. CBS, in one of the boldest moves of any network, moved hit (and Two And A Half Men partner) The Big Bang Theory to Thursday nights at 8:00 in order to make room for Men producer Chuck Lorre's new Mike & Molly, about two lonely fatties who meet and fall in love at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. I liked the leads in previous work (Melissa McCarthy from Gilmore Girls and Billy Gardell from FX's short-lived Lucky) but I have absolutely no interest in a torturous hour of Lorre-produced sitcoms that's unfortunately going to be this slot's ratings winner. (Side note: It kills me that Chuck struggles to find an audience while more than twice as many people tune in each week to see the fart and boner jokes of Two And A Half Men. Goddamn you, American viewing public.) Dancing With The Stars also bleeds into this hour for ABC. After that, it's toss-up-ville. Fox counters with Lonestar (from Party Of Five producers Christopher Keyser and Amy Lippman in their return to television after a ten year absence), a drama about con men in the Texas oil world. Its trailer seemed to suggest more of a cable sensibility than a network one, which was intriguing. Plus, Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki is in the cast so we're watching this. It'll cede its slot at midseason to the aforementioned Ride-Along so Fox could be your best bet for quality in this hour. NBC's entry is The Event, which seems like it could be interesting but the recent track record for launching high-concept serialized dramas (this one about a shadowy conspiracy) isn't very good, and I don't think that this show in particular is going to be the one to break that trend. It does have an appealing cast (Jason Ritter, Blair Underwood, Laura Innes, and Scott Patterson) so it could be worth checking out but I wouldn't get too attached. Finally, The CW's Gossip Girl could be in a put up or shut up year based on the amount of viewers it's been hemorrhaging lately.
10:00 - Very interesting race at 10:00 between ABC's breakout hit of the 2009-10 season, Castle, and CBS's reboot of Hawaii Five-O. Castle no doubt gets a huge boost from its Dancing With The Stars lead-in so it definitely has the leg up in this battle, but CBS is likely going to put a large chunk of its promotional muscle behind Five-O as they apparently have so much confidence in it that they felt comfortable moving CSI: Miami out of the slot it's held for the past eight years. The network also seems bound and determined to make a star out of lead Alex O'Loughlin (this is his third series for CBS in the past three years, following Moonlight and Three Rivers) and it has an appealing supporting cast (Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim's first post-Lost role, and Battlestar Galactica's Grace Park), not to mention built in brand-name appeal. We wouldn't be surprised if Hawaii Five-O is winning this hour by the end of the season. NBC's a total afterthought with Chase which, I swear to God, looks like the exact same goddamn show as USA's In Plain Sight, right down to the blonde lead US Marshal who wears jeans and a leather jacket. This could be one of the first shows to get the axe. Mark it, Dude.
What We're Watching/TiVoing
Chuck
How Met Your Mother
Lonestar / Ride-Along
The Event
Gossip Girl
Hawaii Five-O
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