A night of television

I'd been counting down the days to the Heroes season premiere on Monday night, and decided to make a night out of watching television. Something I rarely (okay, almost never) do. Here's what I saw and my take on NBC's Monday night schedule:

Chuck - I had heard a radio DJ mention the show yesterday as I was driving home from Pilates. She didn't say what it was about, but that it had good buzz. I figured I'd try something totally new for the 8 o'clock hour. And since it was on NBC, I might get to catch a Heroes teaser.

A good choice.

The show was smart, fresh and funny. I had no idea it would have a spy theme or have a connection to my alma mater, Stanford, so both of those were pleasant surprises. The scene with the "accountant" Bryce stealing the data was straight out of a summer blockbuster and rocked. I hope we get his backstory somehow as the season progresses. He reminded me of a hero from a romantic suspense novel. Another nice surprise was actor Adam Baldwin. I've liked him for years and he's worth watching alone. And **spoiler alert** the ending when he's wearing that uniform...totally perfect. Needless to say, it's a show I will be tune into again.

Heroes - I'll admit it, the show could do nothing but show shots of a shirtless Peter Petrelli and I'd be a happy fan (and we did get that at the end. That man just gets better looking all the time. Sigh...) But I gotta admit this episode wasn't one of my favorites. It seemed to be more of a let's-get-the-new-viewers-involved-first kind of show. A lot like how LOST concentrated on the Others rather than the Tailies.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I liked it, but the show didn't have me on the edge of my seat like most of last season. Though the voice in Molly's nightmare sounded a lot like Sylar and sent a shiver down my spine. There was lots of interesting stuff going on as we caught up with our favorite heroes and we met three new ones Maya, who is one scary chick and I can't imagine what her "gift" is, a surprising Takezo Sensei played by former Alias' bad guy David Anders, and Nick, a boy at Claire's high school who can fly. A new thread of Mohan and Mr. Bennet taking down the company was introduced. A character was killed off, too. I know there has to be a beginning, a page one so to speak for this season's Volume 2, I just hope the new intros, backstory, etc give way to the kind of story arcs viewers came to know and love last season.

The Journeyman - I really should have spent the ten o'clock hour writing, but then this show came on right after Heroes so I thought why not? The show featured a time traveler except he didn't know he was a time traveler. There's a dead fiance who's not dead (which means he must have told her to get off the plane and a whole bunch of other stuff, too, since her surviving didn't change the future). A wife who used to date his brother (I gotta admit this is a real ick factor for me even though in one of his travels we can see she was in love with the guy back then but that raises the question why was she with his brother.) A cute kid who loves his dad. A police detective brother. A gruff editor boss. But the episode felt clunky and was confusing to me. The guy had no idea what was happening to him and he "figures out" he's supposed to help this one guy. And suddenly he knows he's going to be doing this more??? Maybe I missed some key lines of dialogue at the end, I don't know, but I really wasn't intrigued enough to find out.

Have you been watching the new season premieres? What are your favorite shows? Are you watching any new shows?