The biggest news in the geek TV world this week was that, only about a week after news came out that all of the major networks had decided to pass on David E. Kelley’s pilot for a new Wonder Woman series, NBC apparently changed its mind and picked up the show. It’s unknown exactly when the series will hit the airwaves, but it now looks like we will in fact be getting a new version of the original superheroine. Kelley is best known for writing popular legal dramas that sometimes lean towards the quirky side (the term “dramedy” was coined to cover Kelley’s work along with Aaron Sorkin’s around the year 2000). His previous shows include Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Boston Legal. His new series Harry’s Law debuted just this week on NBC. Back in 1999, he became the first showrunner ever to win the Best Drama and Best Comedy Emmys in the same year, for The Practice and Ally McBeal, respectively.
As for TV that’s already on the air, it was a pretty good week. We saw the debut of Being Human, a strong showing in a new Friday time slot for Fringe, and even No Ordinary Family had one of its best episodes. But I’ll say that the Pick of the Week goes to Fringe for its near-perfect return in “Firefly”, featuring the Observer and a strong guest starring role for Christopher Lloyd. Many episodes think they’re keeping you guessing but it’s obvious that a twist is coming. This episode put on a clinic in how to actually surprise the audience in storytelling. Not only that, it was a whole lot of fun. As for the move to Fridays, I have surprisingly good news: the ratings for the first Friday episode were actually higher than what the show was usually getting in its old Thursday slot, which is almost unprecedented. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
On to your weekly viewing schedule. This week sees the returns of Supernatural, Archer, Smallville, and The Vampire Diaries, as well as a new American SF debut on, of all channels, SoapNet. All times Eastern!
Monday
-Sarah’s gone undercover to take down Volkoff (Timothy Dalton!) on Chuck, and this week she’s going to need her hubby’s help. It’s “Chuck vs. the Gobbler”, on NBC at 8pm.
-That’s followed by a new episode of The Cape, awesomely titled “Scales on a Train”. I’m assuming this involves Vinnie Jones’ villainous thug character. This is on NBC at 9pm.
-Meanwhile, the American version of Being Human is only in its second episode and it has a pretty decent cliff-hanger to resolve. Check in at 9pm on SyFy.
Tuesday
Due to the coverage of President’s Obama’s State of the Union speech, most of TV is preempted this evening. That includes No Ordinary Family and V.
Wednesday
-SoapNet has the American debut of Season 3 of Being Erica, a Canadian show that I’ve heard some good things about. It involves a woman who can travel back in time to fix her own mistakes. Apparently ABC is remaking the show for American audiences, despite the fact that much of the time American and Canadian accents are indistinguishable, and many American shows are shot in Canada! You can check out the original at 11pm.
Thursday
-When The Vampire Diaries first debuted, it was met with Twilight-fueled derision, but these days its edging towards a slightly less naked-y True Blood, appealing to the “more insanity the better” crowd. It returns from hiatus with “The Descent” at 8pm on the CW.
-At 9pm on the CW, there’s a new episode of Nikita in which “Alex has a ‘kill chip’ implanted in her head.” Sounds like fun!
-But for me the big news is the return of FX’s hilarious animated spy spoof Archer. io9.com has seen the episode, and promises the show brings back the “outrageous deaths, unspeakable sex, and chaos” that made it so, so awesome. Tune in at 10pm please.
Friday
-This week on Young Justice, Bane appears, right off the news that the character is going to show up in The Dark Knight Rises! Coincidence? Probably. Find out at 7pm on Cartoon Network.
–Smallville comes back from hiatus with an episode that features both Black Canary and the return of Chloe. Is she a traitor? I doubt it. Anyway, it’s at 8pm on the CW.
-Liam Neeson voices Qui-Gon Jinn in an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars at 8:30pm on Cartoon Network, because he is awesome.
-They’re assembling the doomsday device on Fringe, which strikes me as a not-good idea. The episode is called “Reciprocity”, and it’s on Fox at 9pm.
-Meanwhile, Supernatural left us in the fall with a bit of a cliffhanger involving whether Sam would get his soul back, and not only do we deal with that this week, there is also apparently a story involving dragons kidnapping virgins! You had me at “dragons”. It’s at 9pm on the CW. Yes, much to my annoyance, Supernatural and Fringe are now on opposite each other.
-At 10pm SyFy continues its American debut of the most recent season of Merlin, with an episode called “Gwain”.
Saturday
-SyFy’s latest creature feature is Mega-Python vs. Gatoroid. Sounds lame, you say? What if I tell you the cast includes competing 80s starlets Tiffany and Debbie Gibson? Does that get your interest? No? The first showing starts at 9pm.
-Meanwhile, BBC America has the next episode of its American run of Primeval at 9pm.
Then it doesn’t look like there’s anything on Sunday, because they don’t put SF on TV at times people actually want to watch. Anyway, have a great week!