Vacation Is Over

Since it's now the weekend after Labor Day, and summer is officially over, it's time for Miss Hedgepiggy to return to the grind.  And man, do I have things to say and opinions to express!  Fall season premieres start this week, although, to be honest, none of the new shows aside from The Mindy Project have me feeling anything other than whelmed.  But I'm very excited for the return of some of my favorites, and to get back to a regular schedule of healthy analytical opinionating.  Here's a list of what I will and won't be watching this fall - new shows, old shows, and shows that weren't good enough last year to make the cut now.

The Mindy Project

If you haven't watched The Mindy Project yet, and you are a functioning human with a brain, vocal cords suitable for laughing, and eyes that enjoy looking at attractive people, YOU ARE MISSING OUT.  The pilot has been up on Hulu for a couple weeks, and I highly recommend it to anyone.  Mindy Kaling!  Chris Messina!  Stephen Tobolowsky!  Richard Schiff!  Bethany from Mad Men!  Penelope from Gossip Girl!  A hot guy with a British accent!  Literally something for everyone.  It's smart and funny and aimed toward women in the same way that New Girl seems to be but is MUCH more interesting and not at all divisive and there are no stupid jokes about the ways that women and men are SO different to each other.  And it has Mindy Kaling, a fantastic actress and writer instead of the grating, dumb, obliviously saccharine star-who-shall-not-be-named of that OTHER show.  Most importantly, it is something NEW and DIFFERENT and it acknowledges the fact that not all funny, smart, and sexy people in the world are skinny white people.  183% MUST WATCH show of the season.  Everything else I could take or leave, but The Mindy Project is a straight-up glass of finely distilled awesome.

Ben & Kate

Again, the pilot is up on Hulu already, and I found it enjoyable and funny and adorable and since I've been looking for an excuse to drop Raising Hope from the schedule, Ben & Kate is it.  We'll see how long I stick with it, but for now, Fox is looking like they're really raising their comedy game.  Sorry, NBC, but my mind is still trying to accept the fact that you renewed Whitney.

Go On

I love Matthew Perry in everything and while I haven't watched Go On yet (it premieres on Tuesday at 9 on NBC) I've only heard positive things about this macabre comedy about a grief support group.  I'm really excited and I hope that THIS is the show that gets Perry back on my television for an extended period of time.  Not to mention that Lizzy Caplan (Perry's girlfriend) guest star spots seem inevitable...and more Lizzy Caplan is never a bad thing.

Guys With Kids

This show looks both really great cast-wise and really terrible concept-wise.  We'll see which one wins out.

I Will Probably Not Watch "The New Normal" Or "Partners"

Here's the thing:  I am bored by young white gay men stereotypes.  And while I actually have uncles who went through the surrogate process twice in order to bring my cousins into this world, they are (a) interracial and (b) old (they didn't get married until their 40s).  The New Normal is not going to be representative of their experience in any way, and even if it were, I probably still wouldn't watch it.  I am so fucking tired of the only gay people on TV being white gay men that I'm ignoring it on principle.  And I KNOW, Andrew Rannells is great, The Book Of Mormon is amazing, but I'm just not sure I need to see that earnestness presented on what already seems to be an overly-earnest show.  And I KNOW, a lot of people say that any positive gay visibility is a good thing, and I'm not really arguing that, but it still doesn't excuse the complete marginalization of queer women in the media.  We're ignored, patronized, and dismissed while white gay men are celebrated as harbingers of a new progressive era and it's TOTAL BULLSHIT.  Oh, and I was actually excited about Partners for about three seconds because I really love David Krumholtz and Michael Urie, and then I heard Linda Holmes talking about her experience at the TCA panel and how, content-wise, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about the show and it was just an exercise in narcissism for Kohen/Mutchnick (the creators of Will & Grace who wrote this show basically about themselves.  Ugh.).  So.  No to both of these, please and thank you.

Moving on to returning shows I'm excited (or not so excited but I'll watch anyways because I have OCD and sometimes they make me laugh) about.  My level of excitement is presented here in handy emoticon form.

Boardwalk Empire -  | :) 

Bob's Burgers -  :D

Castle -  | :)

Community -  :D

Cougar Town -  :)

Criminal Minds -  :)

CSI - :|

Downton Abbey -  :D

Fringe -  :D

How I Met Your Mother -  :\

SVU -  :|

Modern Family -  :\

Parenthood -  :D

Parks & Recreation -  :D

Psych -  :D

South Park -  :)

The Big Bang Theory (though honestly, I might be done with this one) -  :/

The League -  :D

The Office -  :/

Up All Night -  :)

The raised eyebrows on Boardwalk Empire and Castle represent anticipatory skepticism.

That is TWENTY shows!  That is a lot of shows!  And with applying to graduate school and working and modeling and living an actual life...phew.  Fall is gonna be pretty cray-cray.  Thankfully some, like Bob's Burgers and South Park, don't start until mid-season...but there are some other shows, like Suburgatory and Happy Endings that I've been wanting to start watching and catch up on because they've been recommended to me and look pretty fantastic.  However, a lot of my summer shows (Awkward., Weeds, Louie, Wilfred, Damages) aren't even OVER yet, so these next couple weeks are gonna be extra zoppity.  

So, I've dropped Touch, the weird, emotionally manipulative drama with Kiefer Sutherland (I actually dropped it in the spring once they killed off Danny Glover); Raising Hope because as much as I love Garrett Dillahunt and Martha Plimpton and Cloris Leachman (and I love them A LOT), Greg Garcia remains a crazy Scientologist and that show has been getting worse and worse as the baby gets uglier and uglier and there's just no room for attempted subliminal cult indoctrination and ugly babies in my life; Glee because Glee took something awesome and then ruined it in a million different ways; and there're probably other shows too that I'm forgetting because they were crappy and so it doesn't really matter.  

I'll try to write premiere recaps for as many of my shows as is humanly possible (excepting, of course, the crime procedurals which are my staple guilty pleasure (excepting, perhaps, Castle, because they finally HAD THE SEX)), and after a summer spent reading and swimming and really watching very little television, I'm ready to get back in the game.  Check back often because I promise regular updates are a GO.  In the meantime, I encourage you to cull through your own lists and see which shows just haven't been up to snuff recently...life is too short for shitty television.  Welcome to autumn!

Image via TVFanatic