"Ringer," "H8R," "Up All Night" – This Week's Fall Season Premieres - Ed Martin

The 201112 television season kicks off next Monday and with it will come a crop of brand new broadcast shows that are widely regarded as collectively better than last year39s bunch That isn39t saying much but it39s something Meantime five fragile freshmen are bravely making their premieres a few days early One is already a media favorite one is a reality tossup and the others look to be the first fails of the fall Read on and check back next week for more brief reviewsRinger amp8211 The CW Premieres Sept 13Not terrible but not nearly as entertaining as all the media buzz would have you believe Sarah Michelle Gellar plays identical twins on very different life paths amp8211 one a junkie in recovery on the run from the mob the other a New York City socialite with grave issues of her own The rich one disappears and is presumed dead the other improbably and way too easily takes her place and perpetual complications follow some with potentially fatal consequences The firstclass supporting cast includes Ioan Gruffudd Nestor Carbonnell and Kristoffer Polaha How this works as an ongoing series is anyone39s guess but one thing39s for sure Ringer will have to pick up its sluggish pace if it39s going to compete For a far better take on the whole onetwintakestheother39splace thing seek out the similarly titled 1964 Bette Davis thriller Dead RingerH8R amp8211 The CW Premieres Sept 14The always agreeable Mario Lopez hosts this silly little thing about the meeting of annoying Clist celebrities and Internetempowered civilians who have spent way too much time online hating at them Once they39re brought together the famewhores try to win over the regular folks because they just can39t handle the fact that someone doesn39t like them I guess H8R could be a fun little timewaster but basic cable is full of such things amp8211 so why is a broadcast network with only ten primetime hours to call its own wasting one of them on thisUp All Night amp8211 NBC Premieres Sept 14The original premise of this utterly laughchallenged sitcom focused on a married couple coping with the exhaustive demands of caring for their brand new baby but someone must have figured out that once the kid is a year or so old said premise might begin to fall apart So now it39s the story of a working mom who is more harried than most because she works for a wacky talk show host but luckier than many because her unemployed husband can take care of the kid If your mind wanders count the beeped Fwords which are supposed to be funny even in excess Up All Night is up the creek amp8211 a total sinker despite the appeal of series leads Christina Applegate Will Arnett and Maya RudolphFree Agents amp8211 NBC Premieres Sept 14This remake of a successful British romcom which lost its rom and its com in the transition is a charmfree dud about the tentative romance between a weepy newly divorced publicity executive Hank Azaria and his recently widowed colleague Kathryn Hahn Give NBC credit for trying to make a sophisticated adult comedy about actual grownups navigating the relationship challenges that come with middle age Too bad they screwed up so badly Among its many other problems Free Agents has some of the worst work place sequences to cripple a sitcom in years They seem to have been cobbled together by people who live in TV land and have never stepped foot in a real officeThe Secret Circle amp8211 The CW Premieres Sept 15The lowenergy pilot suggests that this supernatural thriller about teenage witches and warlocks coping with the demands of their particularly harrowing adolescence needs a bit of work but generally speaking there is no reason to believe that The Secret Circle wonamp8217t develop into a fitting companion to its finely tuned leadin The Vampire Diaries It certainly helps that both shows are based on popular young adult novel series by the same author LJ Smith and are shaped by the same executive producer Kevin Williamson Having such appealing young actors as Britt Robertson Life Unexpected and Thomas Dekker Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles in the cast doesnamp8217t hurt eitherMore to come next week amp8230

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"Ringer," "H8R," "Up All Night" – This Week's Fall Season Premieres - Ed Martin

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"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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"Ringer," "H8R," "Up All Night" – This Week's Fall Season Premieres - Ed Martin

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