What’s on TV?

The fall season of 2011 has begun and we already have the first casualty in Playboy Club.  This is the first time I decided against recording any new shows that simply sounded interesting.  Normally, I queue them up and watch them at some point later on, often after the first season is over or the show has even been cancelled.  This time, I decided I already have enough backlogged TV to watch.  So, I’m waiting to see which shows get renewed for a second season and people are still talking positively about towards the end of their first season.

Here’s what interested me, but I’m also curious what everyone else is watching…For me, I watched the first 3 episodes of “new” Two and a Half Men and am fairly unimpressed.  Ashton Kutcher is no Charlie Sheen… and I mean that in a bad way.  While Charlie’s public fall from grace was a predictably ridiculous, over-hyped, catch-phrase-addled abomination of epic proportions, Ashton simply does not compare to the acting prowess of Charlie Sheen.  That’s pretty sad, too, when you stop and think about it.  Maybe it’s because Charlie actually didn’t have to do much acting.  Charlie was just being himself.  Perhaps Ashton should bring his own personal life into the show by starting to date Alan’s mother?

While Terra Nova did interest me, which, considering all the media coverage it received shouldn’t be much of a surprise, I just couldn’t bring myself to invest in a show which has so many things going against it:  budget issues being #1.  The premise isn’t half bad, with a bit of Land of the Lost meets Sliders (or maybe Back to the Future is more appropriate), but it’s just begging to be cancelled.  I simply don’t see how it could possibly meet expectations for a show of its magnitude.

To build on the “save for later” mentality I mentioned using in the past, I will add that we’re just finishing up Defying Gravity.  This was one of the shows I saved from its original premiere and decided not to delete it because there’s such a shortage of science fiction on TV, especially involving space.  The show is actually pretty good and I’m a little disappointed it was cancelled.  Thankfully, there were 13 episodes and it didn’t end conclude after the ones which actually aired.  Like Terra Nova, I suspect that Defying Gravity was cancelled due to budgeting issues and failure to reach an audience in a network-defined timely fashion.

Of course, I am still watching a number of other returning shows, such as Boardwalk Empire, The Big Bang Theory, and The Mentalist.  The funny thing is, I’m looking forward to more mid-season premieres than anything from the fall lineup.

Now, I ask the Missing Remote readers…  Am I seriously missing out on some awesome TV by not watching any of these new fall shows?  Or, did I make the right decision and there’s really nothing worthwhile at this point?