Fall TV Preview: Thursday

Thursday is still Must See TV for me, so there’s nothing in the Worth Checking Out category just some high quality shows that demand your viewing.

Survivor- 7pm CST/CBS: Okay I’m not that big of a fan of Survivor Race War but as I’ve said time and again, somehow Survivor always finds a way to make these new wrinkles work. Based on the first episode I’m slightly encouraged by the contestants attitudes about the whole thing. Plus did anyone else notice that we started off with 20 contestants and only 1 was eliminated week 1. This makes it the biggest cast yet but since they’re still only out there for 39 days I’m guessing we’ve got some multiple vote offs in our future.

My Name is Earl- 7pm CST/NBC: When I heard about Earl last year I thought I’d check it out solely on my man crush for Jason Lee. The guy is one of the most under appreciated actors out there from his work in Kevin Smith’s films to his quality performances in crap like Vanilla Sky. Still I thought a new show from the creator of Yes Dear didn’t exactly sound like a good vehicle. One season down and I’m a believer. Earl is the kind of comedy that should last for years. It’s a classic sitcom in that you are basically watching the same episode every week and you don’t even care or notice. Hopefully they’ll keep the quality this season but I hope they watch the guest stars so they don’t become the new Will & Grace.

The Office- 7:30pm CST/NBC: While Earl is classic sitcom, The Office is another trailblazer. First for it’s doc style and second for the fact that it successfully took an English concept and translated it to the USA. Now entering its 3rd season the US Office has already produced more episodes then their British counterparts so the question begs where do we go from here. Personally I’d love to see a jump ahead in time much like the Brits did in between season 2 and the X-Mas special. Everyone knows if you put Jim and Pam together and happy right now the show will struggle so they need some angst.

The O.C.-8pm CST/FOX: I was ready to give up on Ryan and the gang this time last year but surprise, surprise they pulled out a great season. Of course they could have done shit and I still would have given the show a thumbs up thanks to killing off Marissa in the finale. So now the show enters college. This has derailed shows like 90210, Saved by the Bell and other high school shows in the past so it will be interesting to see how they handle it. Obviously I’m expecting Marissa’s less annoying little sister to hang around and probably introduce some new kids but everyone else in the cast is back so it will be interesting to see how everyone’s doing spread around the country. Of course I’m sure they’ll all end up in the OC by episode 4 but still worth watching.

That’s it for Thursday, I’ll see if I can scrape together any Friday or Saturday shows and then I’ll give you my ideal line up for your TiVo.