I’ve gone on before in the past about how profoundly uninterested I am in legal dramas (or legal comedies, for that matter). It’s not that I’m necessarily anti-lawyer – quite a high percentage of friends from high school and college are lawyers now – it’s just that, for non-lawyers, the only time you generally deal with lawyers is when something’s gone horribly wrong. It’s sort of the same reason I am not particularly interested in medical dramas. I don’t want to spend my free time in a hospital or an office filled with lawyers.

So, clearly, I’m not the target audience for this show (aside from being the sort of person who will watch just about anything with Clancy Brown in it at least once), so I’m not sure I’m really qualified to say how successful it was. All I can say with any definitiveness is that I certainly won’t be watching it again.

I can’t remember where exactly I read about this show – some anonymous commenter talking it up as a show that does right everything Heroes completely failed to. I did some investigating, and it sounded good, so gave it a shot. I wasn’t entirely won over at first – the characters, particularly Nathan, aren’t particularly pleasant. The second episode was Nathan-centric, which was tough, but ended up knocking him down enough that his character seemed a little less one-note and grating as the series progressed. By the end of the series, I was pretty much totally won over, though I have the problem that it’s kind of a tough show to recommend to people.

My only other real complaint is the brevity of the season. I’m normally a big fan of the six episode season, but it seems like they had a lot of plot to fit in (as well as doing a “superpowered person of the week” model, which I usually associate more with American shows who have to fill a lot of hours). Seemed a little odd not to address Sally’s death at all, but I guess they have to save something for the next season.

I’m not entirely sure the show really needed a long hiatus mid-season, but who am I to question the wisdom of USA’s programming department. Given that the back half of the season was so short, it seems like it might have been a good opportunity to actual set aside the “client of the week” storyline and just plow through a whole lot of backstory. I’m not complaining about the “client of the week” stories – they were all pretty solid and enjoyable – but it does sometimes get a little frustrating that we only get backstory-advancing episodes at the end of the season.

Also, I will say that casting John Mahoney as the shadowy figure behind the conspiracy is a pretty odd choice. He’s not exactly menacing. We’ll see how he does next season.

My friend Kara has been trying to get me to watch Top Gear for a while, but the stunning quantity of episodes made it hard to know where to start. Last time I went to visit, she had me watch the African challenge, which pretty much won me over. I tracked down the 11th season and watched it at home over the course of a week. Very enjoyable. Some of the challenges weren’t particularly interesting, but that doesn’t make the show any less enjoyable.

This iteration didn’t really engage me quite as much as the first one did. I mean, it did make me want to get a motorcycle and go on a lengthy roadtrip, but it takes very little to make me want to take a length roadtrip. There seemed to be even more whining on the part of the stars (equally shared this time – last time, Ewan was the chief whiner). Having the participants of the show complain greatly about how awful the schedule is does not make for enjoyable viewing.

I started watching this series about a year ago and completely lost momentum. It’s clearly trying very hard to recreate Life on Mars, but it just feels too deliberate, particular the decision to try and tie in a childhood memory of her parents with the main plotline. While it’s not as wrongheaded as either of the two attempts at an American remake, it suffers from the same problem of trying to reproduce something that is just fine as it is. Maybe I was just too attached to the original to be able to appreciate this.

I really like Tim Roth, so it’s hard for me to admit that this show is really pretty bad. I suppose it’s not really their fault for premiering a few months after The Mentalist, but there’s something sort of joyless in watching Tim Roth explain how he determined someone’s deception. It comes across less like a neat trick and more like drudgery that everyone else is too stupid to see, which, in turn, makes the show feel like we’re stupid for watching it.

Also, I think I liked this episode better when I thought the congressman was named “Zeb Wild.” It conjured up images of a retired hair metal guitarist who’d somehow gotten elected to congress. I’d much rather watch that show.

I never saw this show when it was on, but, despite the highly dubious casting, I was always kind of interested by it. I’m a little iffy on Straczynski in general (I have never been able to sit through Babylon 5, but I enjoyed Rising Stars quite a bit) but I figured it was worth a shot. The premise of the show isn’t all bad (though cribbing plots from youthsploitation Roger Corman pics seems like kind of a bad idea), but the execution is just terrible. The acting is awful, and the dialogue is stiff and painful. I was sort of considering watching another episode, but decided it wasn’t really worth my time.

One of the elements of the first season of Mad Men I forgot to bring up was the “each episode of Don’s life leads to an insight for an ad campaign” that shows us a fictional backstory behind actual ad campaigns. It was a little cutesy, and made every episode a little too neat, but it did provide some structure, as well as being a way to show us Don’s skill as an ad guy instead of just asserting it. I wasn’t crazy about the conceit, but losing it (as they did in the 2nd season) leaves the episodes feeling a little unstructured. I had sort of forgotten that Weiner was the guy responsible for the later seasons of The Sopranos, but, by the 2nd half of this season, it was sort of hard to forget. The heavy-handed “Don goes to California” arc was a little overly reminiscent of similar sorts of storylines on The Sopranos (also, the blonde who offers to take Don into a life of nomadic hedonism is named Joy? Doesn’t that seem a little on the nose?)

The heavy-handedness extends to other characters’ storylines, but, since they don’t get the same level of screentime, it’s a little less irritating. Still, Betty chastises her friend for cheating on her husband, then she cheats on her husband! Peggy is lecturing by the priest to come clean to God, but instead she comes clean to Pete. It’s a little much. I mean, I’ll still watch it, but I’ll probably start dreading it as much as I did The Sopranos (which I still watched every week, even if it led to complaints).

Whatever complaints I had about Burn Notice during the first season have pretty much vanished. Fiona’s stupid Irish accent is gone, and she’s perhaps a little more of a likable character this season. Michael’s ongoing issues with his brother no longer threaten to drag the show to a halt. And they seem to have perfected the show structure of “help someone out, but reserve five minutes for advancing the arc story.” I’m kind of surprised to find myself feeling that this is my favorite show currently on television. It might not be the best show on television, but it’s the one I consistently look forward to the most.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I need to specifically praise this show for not only addressing one of my long-standing complaints with TV shows (i.e., that using a Taser on someone when you’re holding them will not end well for either of you), but integrating it as a plot point. Nicely done.