MY GENERATION
Premieres Sept. 23 at 8PM on ABC
Eight high school seniors (“the jock,” “the nerd,” “the wallflower”) in Austin, Texas are rejoined 10 years later by a documentary film crew to see who’ve they become. Shot in faux-documentary style, it frustrates what could have been a rich soap, made even more infuriating by how awkwardly and superfluously it incorporates events from the last decade. Still, the young cast seems willing and perfectly able to deliver under pointlessly restrictive circumstances, so it’s worth holding out for things to turn around. This is too much ambition being channeled too narrowly. Grade: C+
$#*! MY DAD SAYS
Premieres Sept. 23 at 8:30PM on CBS
After being laid off from his job at a magazine, Henry (Jonathan Sadowski) is forced to turn to his stubborn and mouthy father (William Shatner) for help. Based on the eponymous Twitter feed by Justin Halpern, the translation from the concise, 140-character soundbites to a sitcom is flawed, fleshed out in a routine sitcom fashion that renders the biting tweets effectively zingless. A digital source trying to be fed into an analog receiver. Grade: D+
Aleks Chan is a contributing writer to The TV Addict. He has seen every episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER four times, has once referred to his DVR as his “best friend,” and has only seen the pilot episode of THE SOPRANOS — and has no intention to apologize for it. He lives in Austin, Texas. His name is pronounced like Alex. Email him at alekschan.thetvaddict@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@alekstvaddict), or his own blog, Screen Reader.