TV Series I've Been Watching - Part 13

You know the format, let's get this out of the way. First, the series I've already been talking about:

• Doctor Who - a weird Christmas special introduced another companion. She is cute and perky and doesn't take commands well. Also, she dies twice already. It doesn't seem to stop her.
• Torchwood - no Christmas special and no news on a fifth season. I wonder if it will ever reappear.
• Criminal Minds - still on hold, but not totally rejected yet.
• Dexter - A weird seventh season sees Dexter in love, running away from mobsters and being helped by his police sergeant to cover up kills or even commit them. Then it all ended in a ridiculous fashion. Hint: watch Dexter's face when Deb jumps at the recently shot person in the last episode: it seems to say That is NOT how this is done! Stop it, just stooop!
• Fringe - Fringe is not better. I still watch it in order to avoid sci-fi withdrawal symptoms.
• True Blood - I can't wait for season 6. I do fear for its quality, but I also have high hopes.
• Weeds - the series has ended, finally, when all life has been squeezed out of it. I am glad it is over.
• The Good Wife - season 4 is running strong... ish. There are some new ideas introduced in the show that don't really fit well or seem to be needed in the picture, like Kalinda's husband.
• Haven - season 3 of Haven pits Audrey against a killer that takes people's skins. And she is also to disappear on a certain date in order to stop the troubles. And she is also courted by two guys who are insanely in love with her. What is a girl to do?
• Lost Girl - removed from my watching list.
• Falling Skies - season three has not started yet. I am curious how it will continue. Plus it's sci-fi.
• Southpark - some funny episodes in the October batch. Could have been better. Still good.
• The Killing - still on my watch list, being a police show and all.
• Suits - third season is about to start. It doesn't make much sense, but I like it.
• Breaking Bad - the fifth season has ended and there will not be a sixth. Still haven't had the inclination to watch it.
• Californication - the sisth season is about to begin. I can't wait.
• Beavis&Butt-head - It seems the show was quietly axed. I haven't heard anything about it for a long time.
• Homeland - I've seen two seasons of Homeland and it's pretty cool. Claire Danes is a bipolar CIA agent that fights to prove an American soldier rescued from the Talibans has been turned. She is also in love with him. Not much sense when you put it that way, but a lot of tension. The show is another American adaptation from an Israeli show.
• The Walking Dead - pretty hard stuff added this season, making it interesting again. Some characters even die! Almost got to "want" status.
• Game of Thrones - the show follows the books faithfully, even when removing some bits or rearranging others. However I feel it failed to fully capture the atmosphere of the book. We'll see how it goes.
• L5 - no second episode for a long time now and with the current economic climate, I doubt it will continue. Too bad.
• Mad Men - season six is to premier in 2013. I will keep watching it, because it is just great.
• Misfits - all new characters in Misfits, with some stories interesting, but now more towards shocking and/or disgusting. I've removed the "want" status from it, because the quality of the show is not as great as when it started.
• Sherlock - the third season of the series will begin probably late 2013. I liked it, even if a bit too... Moffaty? I really don't want to see more and more people acting like Doctor Who. One is enough.
• Spartacus - Vengeance - War of the Damned will start soon, in January. Too bad it ends the show, but then again, maybe it will be something meaningful and slim, without boring filler episodes.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire - vampire teens, with seer and wizard friends and fighting against the evil in their highschool? It's silly, but at least it knows it is silly. I watch it because it is easy fun.
• Continuum - a second season has been confirmed, but I don't know when it will start. Rather boring, but sci-fi, you know.
• Copper - a BBC America drama about Irish immigrants set "Five Points". I really liked it, with its depiction of rampant corruption and racism and classism at the beginnings of the city of New York.
• Longmire - a second season has been confirmed. I really like the show, even if about a rural cop in the middle of nowhere.
• Political Animals - it feels interesting and profound, but it is not really so. The impression is strong, though, and I may still had watched it if it weren't cancelled.
• The Newsroom - my wife loves this. I will watch the second season, but I can't decide if I like it or not.

And now for new shows:

• 666 Park Avenue - A show about the devil! I haven't started watching it, and it was cancelled already.
• A Young Doctor's Notebook - This is not really a series, but a mini series. Four episodes, each 20 minute long, about a Russian freshly graduated doctor coming to work in a really remote village. The show is brutal and funny at the same time. I doubt there will be a second season, but this one is worth it. Starring John Hamm and Daniel Radcliff.
• Arrow - I watch this, even if I don't really know why. It is yet another superhero series where the main strength of the guy is that he shoots arrows. I can't recommend it.
• Beauty and the Beast - Incredibly beautiful people acting as both beauty and beast in this ridiculous show that attempts to place the story in modern times. The beauty is, obviously, a cop.
• Blackout - God know I tried to like this show about political and personal corruption in England, but I couldn't. It starts bleak and intense, but quickly devolves into the surreal.
• Battlestar Galactica - Blood and Chrome - so far William Adama is introduced as a young and cocky pilot in a series of webisodes. The show has everything I loved about the first two seasons of BSG 2004. I can't wait for more.
• Elementary - the American Sherlock doesn't look or feel at all like a Sherlock. Instead it looks and feels exactly like so many US shows about gifted people helping the police. I still watch it, but the show is really not what it should have been.
• Emily Owens M.D. - I was caught into one of those times when one wants to see a true doctor show, with actual cases and medical dilemmas. No. Instead this crappy show seems like the poor brother of Gray's Anatomy, with those silly happy songs in the background whenever the female protagonist speaks with other women that are not her evil boss or highschool nemesis (I am not kidding, they added the highschool nemesis thing)
• Hatfields and McCoys - This American Civil War miniseries was filmed in Romania and stars Kevin Costner. I really wanted to see it, but didn't get around to it, yet.
• Hit and Miss - A new show I really know nothing about. Six episodes so far.
• Hunted - Oh, Melissa George as a secret undercover agent (and I do mean undercover). Beautiful, smart, trained to kill and yet fragile as a woman, she leads the show well until... it is put on hold! BBC really screwed up abandoning this show. Cinemax is in negotiations to continue doing it, in collaboration with BBC. Fingers crossed.
• Last Resort - The show started really well. An American submarine is ordered to nuke Pakistan, but through a secondary network. They request that the order be sent via the primary network, and they are shot upon. They manage to escape and hold fort on a remote island, threatening to launch on any country that even approaches the island. A great premise with very good actors. Unfortunately, the show started to lag a little, then suddenly was cancelled. I would like to believe that it was a nerve they touched with the script, but more likely there are too many stupid people deciding to watch reality shows instead.
• Made in Jersey - they tried to make "Working Girl" a series, with a New Jersey girl, no less, making it as a lawyer in the big city. It was a complete flop and it was quickly cancelled.
• Parade's End - another miniseries. The trailer looks really promising and I haven't read the book. As soon as I watch it you will know.
• Primeval - New World - I can't really say I don't want to see it. It is the American continuation or spin off from the British Primeval show. But it just feels bad in every way, even if Zane from Eureka stars as the lead character.
• Restless - a miniseries. A young woman finds out that her mother worked as a spy for the British Secret Service during World War II and has been on the run ever since. The synopsis sounds interesting. Two episodes so far, that I have yet to watch.
• Revolution - can you imagine a sci-fi show that I refused to watch? This is a horrible show, something that combines Xena with Flash Forward. Yes, it is possible. And it sucks!
• Ripper Street - this is not yet another Jack the Ripper show, instead it is set just after the killings stopped. A bit like Copper, with the police force of the time solving gruesome murders. Haven't got around to watch it, but it might be nice.
• Secret State - a British miniseries starring Gabriel Byrne. Four episodes, rather captivating, but lacking a proper resolution. Not to mention a happy ending, which British seem to avoid completely :)
• The Fear - A Brighton crime boss turns entrepreneur and then he goes crazy. Like mentally ill crazy. I haven't started watching this miniseries, but it might be interesting.
• The Mob Doctor - another promising series that gets cancelled for no good reason. This doctor woman is forced to work for the mod in order to get her younger brother out of debt. She is a brilliant doctor and she has to jumble her official cases with the off the ledger ones. Really interesting, even if a bit bland.
• Transporter - they decided to do a Transporter series. I couldn't get through half of the first episode. Everything that Jason Statham did well in the show, the ridiculous and pompous ass they placed as a lead did wrong. Every good redeeming quality of a movie that, let's face it, wasn't that great is lacking here. Avoid this waster of time!
• Vegas - Well, if we have to watch series about cops, at least let them be good ones. Vegas is a good alternative to Longmire, with the action set in the early years of Las Vegas where a farmer and former MP gets to become the sheriff of the town. Interpreted by Dennis Quaid, his character and the local mobster, also well interpreted by Michael Chiklis, make this series interesting and worth watching.
• Wizards versus Aliens - OK, go ahead: laugh! I did watch a TV series made exclusively for young children where a family of wizards fights a ship of evil aliens set to consume every bit of magic in the galaxy. It is an alternative to The Sarah Jane Adventures, only even sillier. I had fun.

There are several miniseries and shows that just arrived on my radar. No point in discussing something I know nothing about, yet. So far a lot of the shows I loved were cancelled, while stinking refuse of TV series thrive. I am almost to the point of not caring anymore. I hope my short list (yes, I was humblebragging) will help you decide which shows to watch or not watch.

Until the next post in the series about series!