"The Wonder Years"

This remake has heart and pathos and Dule Hill in probably the best performance of his life.  Not big on the comedy but huge on the soft, sweet feelings.  Nostalgia squared.  'Nuff said.

"Ordinary Joe"

One of the more complicated stories I've seen on network TV in a long time, this one is great but requires a massive amount of concentration.  Wonderful James Wolk plays the same man in three iterations of his life, each 10 years after his college graduation where he had multiple roads he could have travelled.  After clear delineations between the different storylines in the first episode you have to learn to recognize the sometimes-very-subtle shifts between the three men's stories.  It's made slightly easier by lighting and differences in the character "looks" (hair, dress, etc).  The entire cast, including Wolk, has to shift as well, slipping into slightly altered versions of the same persona.  It's not a small feat and the production does it as well as one can.  Our job as viewers is to follow along.  I am intrigued by the "what if" scenario.  Like "Sliding Doors" we always wonder what our world could have been if we just made a different call at a crucial point.  This show's major message is clear.  No matter what path you take there are challenges everywhere.  Turning right instead of left doesn't necessarily improve your life it just gives you a different perspective.  Worth the time.  A thinking person's show.  A real rarity in this day and age.

"The Big Leap"

So, of course, I'm not wild about the top new show ("La Brea") and the show I do like, "The Big Leap" is at the bottom of the ratings for the freshman pack.  I'm the first to admit it's not artful, but it doesn't have to be.  It's fun.  It's a terrific cast (Scott Foley, Piper Perabo and Teri Polo are joined by terrific fresh faces like Simone Recasner and Karen Rodriguez).  It's a great premise.  It has all the skeez of "UnReal" but is more PG.  Maybe the ratings are low because Americans like to believe that reality TV is, you know, real.  I don't mind the veil being pulled back.  It shows how we are addicted to the so-called drama of other people's problems and makes it clear that what we see on those shows is usually manipulated.  And it's got dance!  Worth an hour (or, you know, 42 minutes).

"La Brea"

The top new show of a lethargic fall TV season, I really want to like this more than I do.  I keep watching.  A little Sci-fi, a decent cast, but somehow it's not coming together for me.  For one thing, it's a little derivative.  With huge echoes of "Lost" and "Land of the Lost" there has been, so far, not a single plot twist which has surprised me.  It's also somewhat plodding.  Despite the urgency of the story there is not a lot of energy in dialog or action to deal with things.  Mostly, it's stuff like "planning" to fly into the mysterious rift, dealing with injuries and arguments about limited food stores, etc.  So, for me, this one is a current watch but I'm not making any promises for the long term.