It’s been a bad year for television and not just in a budget cuts, recession way. Many of the new shows which premiered this fall expected to be runaway hits, fell flatter than their non-existent storylines, with a few not even making it past their third episode. The only visible smash hit off the year, The Mentalist is nothing more than a grim, sophisticated knock off of the quirkier and definitely better Psych while Privileged, yet another tapered down and PG-13 take on rich and famous and completely fabulous teenagers who can’t seem to get through high school without everybody sleeping with everybody else has been left hanging in the air with no green light for a second season yet.

Shows that premiere in winter are seldom given the kind of hype that Fall line-ups receive. You’re already thinking, they’re on now because they weren’t good enough to be on in September along with the other new shiny on TV.  But Dollhouse has been the entire buzz for quite some time before it went on in February. Yes, it is one more high budget, sci-fi show based on an utterly ridiculous premise that the people at Fox seem so adept at coming up with. But just like the other super absurd show on Fox, a little marvel of directionless yet interesting writing I like to call Fringe, it has me hooked.

 People who can be made and unmade for specific tasks and engagements through a process of imprinting and then wiped clean when the job gets done: That’s what  Dollhouse is all about. Eliza Dushku plays Echo, one of the ‘actives’ of the dubious company with a sketchy past that has driven her to having her memories erased and becoming a blank slate or the Tabula Rasa. She floats around in her spa like residence, swimming and doing yoga and gliding clueless by her other inmates when she’s not being transformed into a K & R negotiator or a safe cracker by a narcissistic genius scientist, Topher (Franz Kranz). Throw in a Fed obsessed with finding the Dollhouse, a mysterious, Frankenstein ‘active’ gone wrong whose out for Echo, and a former cop with ethical dilemmas turned bodyguard to empty headed Echo who can’t help being a trouble magnet even if the poor thing can’t remember it and you have quite a show on your hands. Oh also, the thing about our doll- her slate is not quite so blank. She’s assimilating bits and pieces from each of her assignments and no one has realized it yet.

        Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse- She can be anyone you want!

Castle, which premiered on ABC this Monday starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic is a crime show about a bad boy author and a  prudishly cold homicide detective who partner up to solve a copycat case based on his book.  Think Brennan and Booth, but not really and you’ll get a sense of what Castle is about. Rick Castle is our rakishly, irresponsible (he hands a glass of champagne to his under age daughter, convincing her to generate wild stories about teenage years to tell her offspring someday) uber-successful author who doesn’t care for the rules, having just killed off the lead character of his books, much to the chagrin of his ex-wife/publisher and is going through the convenient writer’s block that has his upcoming book nine weeks over-due. Enter Kate Beckett, homicide detective, who has read every book he’s every written but is not a fan of him or his ways. Pit the stiff- upper lip crime fighter with the  ‘ I only speak in sexual innuendos’  crime author and you have a partnership that simmers and bubbles over with sexual chemistry unlike the carefully restrained and amusing even if , antagonistic bickering of our Bones duo.

The crime plotline is secondary at least in the first episode. Given that Castle has found his muse and next lead character in Beckett whom he intends to stick with for the purposes of ’research’ , it is likely to stay that way. The show is promising because of it’s ‘ I love to hate’ lead character even if it may not have the most engaging sub-plot. Hoping that it finds the right angle of humour if not substance, I think I’ll reserve my verdict until the next instalment.

Reaper comes back for a devilish second season

In other news, Reaper is back with a much awaited second season, taking the place of afore mentioned Privileged on CW. So, Sam is the son of the Devil. It’s official! A fact that doesn’t seem to bother him nearly as much as it should.  He’s found a possibility of getting out of his deal as bounty hunter after meeting a soul whose managed to get out of hell for good. Soc has an Asian step-sister, he has a completely inappropriate crush on and Ben is finding romance with a renegade demon who’s after Sam. Yup, seems just about right. The episodes so far have the same mix of quirky humour and action that made me a fan last season. Satan is temptation himself, playing his part to perfection as he goes about spreading evil because it’s fun and the trio manage to lead their directionless lives and sending souls back to hell, when they’re not goofing off work.

All in all, the winter line-up seems a little more interesting than Fall and hopefully with the reduced clutter of reality junk and other shows, some might actually get the  chance to develop into wholesome entertainment.