“Worst Week” (Mondays, CBS): I laughed a lot at the pilot episode of this fast-paced sitcom, and I was impressed by its enthusiastic embracing of farce and slapstick. It’s a single-camera show (i.e., no studio audience) about a hapless man named Sam who meets, and consistently screws up in front of, his fiancee’s parents. Yes, it’s like “Meet the Parents” — except that unlike Greg Focker, Sam is a likable underdog whose eagerness to please is endearing, not annoying. So many sitcoms are ultimately about guys being screw-ups, so it’s nice to see one that admits up front that that’s all it’s about, and then runs with it. The pilot involved many delightful elements of farce (miscommunication, people presumed dead who are not dead, etc.), and while I got squirmy a few times when I realized how bad things were about to get for Sam, I soon started seeing that as one of the show’s virtues: It’s a hilarious story about a perpetual trainwreck, and thank goodness it’s happening to someone else and not me.

“Gary Unmarried” (Wednesdays, CBS): … And now, after that refreshing bit of humor, we’re back to the same old boring thing. “Gary Unmarried” stars Jay Mohr as a newly divorced housepainter sharing custody of his two children with his ex-wife (who’s now dating their marriage counselor, haw haw!). It’s another bumbling-dad/horny-men/sass-mouthed-teenagers/bitter-ex-wife TV show, and it stands apart from the thousand similar shows in no discernible way. I chuckled a couple times during the pilot — not enough to watch the show again.

If you have not already seen the Ortega commercial featuring Olympic gymnasts Shawn Johnson and the Hamm twins, you must watch it immediately. You must subsequently refrain from making vulgar comments. Personally, I find the unwitting double entendre of Johnson’s declarations to be the least trainwreck-y part of the commercial’s overall embarrassment.

Also: How did Paul and Morgan Hamm, who are twins and grew up together, come out pronouncing the word “Ortega” differently?

“Fringe” (Wednesdays, Fox): The new show from “Lost” and “Alias” creator J.J. Abrams is promising, though the almost-double-length pilot episode was filled with contrivances and clichés. Then again, it surprised me several times, too, so I guess you take the good with the bad. It’s about an FBI agent named Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) who’s recruited to help the Bureau investigate weird phenomena, with a civilian genius named Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his crazy scientist father (John Noble) assisting in an unofficial capacity. Now, how you can make a show about the FBI dealing with paranormal activity and not mention “The X-Files,” I don’t know. But the pilot suggests that, unlike in “The X-Files,” all the stuff they’re going to be investigating is somehow tied together — “The Pattern,” they keep calling it. (Yes, I know some “X-Files” things were tied together, but certainly not all of them.) An evil corporation run by a lady who has a robot arm is involved. Also, I believe they can reanimate the dead. Things like that keep me intrigued, the central characters have potential, and the writing is snappy. I’m gonna stick with it.

“Do Not Disturb” (Wednesdays, Fox): Traditional laugh-track sitcom set in an upscale New York City hotel, where the employees sleep with each other and make saucy remarks about the guests. Niecy Nash, hilarious as Raineesha Williams on “Reno 911!,” feels very reined-in and restricted as the hotel’s H.R. supervisor; Jerry O’Connell (aka the fat kid from “Stand By Me”) is a little livelier as the hotel manager. There’s absolutely nothing special about the show, but the pilot episode made me chuckle a few times, and the characters are all vaguely likable. I would say it’s the kind of show you watch if you’re flipping channels and it happens to be on, or if it comes on right after something good — except that we live in the age of TiVo, and such primitive TV-watching methods are outdated.

“Privileged” (Tuesdays, CW): This is a surprisingly watchable lightweight dramedy about a Yale graduate and would-be writer who gets hired to tutor a pair of hellacious teenage billionaire girls. The tutor, played by Joanna Garcia (who apparently was on “Reba”), has a perky, quirky vibe that reminds me of Sarah Michelle Gellar, while the two girls — one secretly studious while the other aspires to be Paris Hilton — have more angles to their personalities than I would have expected. There’s also some backstory with the tutor, who grew up here in Palm Beach and has an estranged sister and father still in town. I actually laughed out loud several times during the pilot episode, which breezed by rather enjoyably, and I was interested in what would happen to the characters. I just might keep this one on the agenda.

“Hole in the Wall” (Tuesdays, Fox): The Americanization of popular Japanese game shows is all the rage right now, but while “Wipeout” is genuinely funny, “Hole in the Wall” is merely loud and shrill. Literally everything that is said by the hosts and the contestants is yelled rather than spoken. The game involves three-person teams standing in front of a wall that’s moving toward them. The wall has shapes cut out of it; the contestants have to position their bodies to fit the cut-outs, lest the wall smash into them and knock them into a pool of water. The actual game play is certainly entertaining, but it adds up to about five minutes of a 30-minute episode. The rest is ridiculous posturing and trash-talking between the teams (so embarrassing) and cheesy banter between the hosts (soooo embarrassing). Thanks to TiVo, you could watch the enjoyable parts and skip the rest, but why bother?

I’ve updated my previous list of season-premiere dates to include brand-new series. There aren’t as many new shows this year as there usually are (more fallout from the writers’ strike), so it shouldn’t be too hard to check out the ones that look promising. It helps that several of the new entries are on the CW, which makes it easy to write them off.

I stole this from E! Online. (Thanks, Kristin!) Please note that this schedule is only for returning shows. The schedule for premiere dates of brand-new series is forthcoming. Also, note that times are for the Pacific and Eastern time zones. Everything airs an hour earlier in the Mountain and Central zones. (Why? These reasons.)

UPDATE: I’ve added the new shows to the schedule. They’re marked with an asterisk. This info comes from The Futon Critic. If something is wrong or missing, take it up with them.

Monday, Sept. 1
Gossip Girl (CW), 8 p.m.
One Tree Hill (CW), 9 p.m.
Prison Break (Fox), 8 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 2
The Shield (FX), 10 p.m.
*90210 (CW), 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 3
America’s Next Top Model (CW), 8 p.m.
Bones (Fox), 8 p.m.

Continue reading…

My friend Luscious Malone and I like to say this when we’re watching a movie or TV show in which an actor appears onscreen only briefly and only to do or say something dumb, demeaning, or embarrassing. For example:

“The good news is, we got you a part. The bad news is, you play Adam Sandler’s Elderly Sexual Partner #3 in ‘Zohan.’

Or:

“The good news is, we got you a part on ‘Lost.’ The bad news is, you’re going to emerge from one of the Others’ houses just in time to get shot.”

Last night I was watching an old TiVoed episode of “Law & Order: SVU” when I found myself saying this:

“The good news is, we got you a part. The bad news is, you play a forensics technician whose only line is telling Detective Benson at a Central Park murder scene, ‘My team’s looking for sperm clusters and foliage smears.’ Learn that line really well! Deliver it with gusto! Then be sure to put it on your demo tape!”

My team’s looking for sperm clusters and foliage smears. Yeesh. Thanks, SVU. You’re delightful.

Those of you who watch a lot of reality TV may find this montage amusing. Those of you who don’t watch a lot of reality TV may be reminded of why you don’t.

Do you enjoy listening to movie geeks talk about movies and TV and video games and movies? Me too! And the nice folks at Always Watching were kind enough to invite me on as a guest geek for this week’s podcast (which is entitled The Watchers). You can view a rundown of what we discuss, and also listen to the podcast itself, and also subscribe to the podcast, here. (A mild warning: I think there’s some naughty language at one point, though I don’t remember when or how much.)

We recorded it Tuesday night, at which time it also was being streamed live for whoever happened to be listening. The regular crew is David Chen (who’s a big fan of mine, inexplicably), Devindra Hardawar, and Adam Quigley; guests were me, Myles McNutt of Cultural Learnings, and Alex Billington of First Showing. A good time was had by all. I think they talked more than I did, though, because I’m nervous around strangers, especially when I can only hear the strangers and not see them.

If you’re a “Lost” fan, this video might be particularly amusing to you. It’s simply a montage of characters saying “What?,” presumably comprising every instance in seasons 1-3. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers.)

Note that while some of the What?s are the innocuous kind — “I didn’t hear you, so please repeat yourself”; “What’s wrong?”; etc. — most are the kind that means “What the hell are you talking about?!” or “What you just said is extremely alarming or surprising.” And that’s exactly the reaction you’d expect the people on this show to have on a regular basis. It’s kind of comforting to realize they’re as confused as we are. (Via SlashFilm.)