What's on

For thinking that there doesn't actually seem to be much in the way of the old classic at the moment, I have a surprising amount in the series link list in my cable box :

Leverage

Said stuff about this one a few days ago. I'm catching up through series 2 at the moment off the dvds because I'd missed one off air. I'd class this as a Looking Forward To but not necessarily a Watch Immediate.

What's a Watch Immediate ? It's either something so good I'm really caught up in the story and want to know what happens as early as possible. Or ... I'm scared of spoilers ...

Walking Dead

This one's a Watch Immediate cos I just know that a bunch of people are going to be talking about it tomorrow at work :-). It's an HBO series which means it's extremely well made. That doesn't necessary mean it has a classic or gripping story, True Blood is HBO but I gave up on that after 1 series because I found it boring ... The story in Walking Dead is still keeping me interested at the moment, despite a minor aversion to End Of The World stuff where there's apparently no hope in sight.

A Town Called Eureka

This was close to a Watch Immediate although at 1 episode a day, that can be tough to keep up with. It's the best scifi on telly at the moment which tells you two things :
It's getting cancelled soon
There's no other scifi on telly at the moment worth watching

Fringe

Except maybe Fringe, which is more horror story than scifi. I'm keeping up with this one at the moment but while it has built up the scale of what it covers, the ongoing story arc has got tired over the length of each season leading to several resets. It's still worth watching but I'm wondering how long it has left.

House

Medical comedy/drama ... Hugh Laurie as the central character adds in the dark comedy, with the other characters working around him. This is very definitely the House show. Trouble is, it's another one which is getting tired. It's being allowed to keep going because the early series were brilliant and made it popular but they're really running out of things to show and tell the viewer.

Sanctuary

What Amanda Tapping did next after Stargate ... This is darn close to a Watch Immediate. It's scifi that's built around individual episodes, although they'll go off on arcs when they need to. Unlike Fringe and House, they aren't scared to have fun with each other with this series.

Sanctuary is huge fun, although it's caught up in between a couple of channels at the moment so catching reruns could be tricky. I'll watch this one as long as it lasts, which will hopefully be a while. Definitely watch it if you're interested in scifi and haven't seen it. And Ashley > Kate.

Ice Road Truckers

To be honest, this is Train Wreck TV. They haven't had many wrecks yet live on camera so what you are shown can be somewhat pedestrian and routine. It's compelling for the people they have driving the trucks and the interrelationships between them. They don't always get on ... Oh and I'm a huge fan of the tiny trucker with big attitude : Lisa.

NCIS and NCIS:LA

Still enjoying this one even in its 9th season, which is a huge achievement. They still have almost all the original cast members around, although one or two of the faces have changed. I think the secret to keeping it going that long has been to not throw in that much to up the ante. So whereas Fringe has got confusing because of the massive changes they put in, NCIS keeps on rolling. I'm also watching NCIS:LA but this one is suffering somewhat I think because they think they're a lot cleverer than they actually are. Smugmode is very definitely active in the NCIS:LA office.

Lost Girl

Ok, so this one's a guilty pleasure. It's a lot of fun with some amazing looking ladies. Kensi steals the show here. Not really scifi again though, more Current Earth fantasy.

And there will be a few more (Falling Skies) that will appear when they start up again. Question though :

Where's all the scifi ?

Star Trek - the only Trek being made right now is on the silver screen.
Stargate - think this is all dead now
V remake - this was pants but got killed before it could tell its story
Outcasts & Defying Gravity - Outcasts was a struggle (the writing) but it's a massive shame that Defying Gravity got canned early. That was really shaping up into something awesome.

It's not a good time right now for scifi that takes us to faraway places and new planets. And that's a terrible shame. It's like there's a big baseball bat that the moguls have which says : "This scifi series is getting popular, kill it". But there's also some viewer expectation at work, as we've got used to high class visuals that are expensive to make. That's a shame too, as some of the best scifi (Star Trek original series, Babylon 5) was made on a midget budget on cardboard sets before the Shininess Expectation took over.

Have we become shallow, expecting shiny visuals over great stories ? (NCIS:LA is a case in point)