Some notes on the new TV season, or at least what I’ve seen of it.



New Buffy -- ehh. Giving Dawn something to do other than need rescuing is a good thing, I suppose. I don't care for or about her own little “Scrappy Gang.” And I’m not really thrilled with the back-to-high-school angle, but if getting these leftover high school tales out now means the Buffy Cartoon idea is DOA, then I’m all for it. I suppose with the exception of last season, where Buffy had to, y’know, come back from the dead and all --the season premieres have been kind of lackluster (Buffy vs. Dracula, anyone?) Odd to see such a seemingly inconsequential episode coming directly from Joss, though. With luck, that’s all part of the plan.



Firefly -- Jury’s still out on this one. I enjoyed much of the premiere, and I especially liked that they’re allowed to kill people for laughs. I hope FOX continues to let Joss keep plenty of anti in his antiheroes.



John Doe -- Hey, this was pretty damn good, I thought. Except for the voiceover in the premiere; that can go away. But I’ll be happy to keep the VCR running another hour on Fridays.



Twilight Zone-- Of course I have the most to say about the show I saw the least of. I watched a little over half of the new TZ Wednesday night. What people forget or overlook about the original Twilight Zone is that many of the episodes were, at their cores, morality plays. And heavyhanded ones at that. So, I dunno...points for sticking to the original spirit of the show, even if following that path will turn off viewers (including yours truly).

In the one segment I watched, a white guy, whose failure to assist a panicked black man in the street the night before led to the black man’s death at the hands of skinheads, gradually assumes the physical appearance of the dead man, and then of course runs into prejudices from his neighbors, wife and, of course, a meeting with the skinheads. This didn’t make me ruminate on society’s ills and what I can do, as an individual, to make this world a better place. It made me think of the brilliant National Lampoon Yearbook Parody, which includes a mock high school literary magazine in which the male drama flake writes a story about waking up in a world where whites are a substandard race persecuted at the hands of blacks. Oooh, edgy.



The other segment, with Shannon Elizabeth, lost me after about 5 minutes. I had a Sopranos tape to watch. I know it’s not fair to judge an anthology show after half an episode, but I’m sure there are a lot of good horror and SF --which is what people really love and expect from the Twilight Zone -- short stories out there. Why waste time with segments that are as obvious as the Vic Morrow episode from TZ-The Movie.



and speaking of The Sopranos -- We’re getting tapes from a work connection within a week of the episodes. The woman who replaced Fairuza Balk as “Danielle” - the undercover FBI agent sucking up to Adriana -- is pitch-perfect. And I like Fairuza.