November is TV sweeps month!

I've told pretty much everybody I know about this--that I am an unreconstructed optimist when it comes to new television shows. Nearly every commercial or article I read about the new TV shows makes them sound great to me, or at the very least intriguing. It's a real quirk of mine, considering how pessimistic I am about new releases from most other mass-media artists (authors, musical acts, filmmakers).

This season, I did manage to resist two new series: ABC's Cavemen and CBS' Viva Laughlin. Cavemen was the easy call, here. I never thought the television ads were that funny and honestly, stretching a paper-thin concept to a weekly half-hour? The best part here is seeing my reservations emphatically confirmed on my favorite review site, Metacritic.com, where the show easily achieved the lowest rating I've ever seen. Viva Laughlin seemed like an intriguing show, characters singing popular songs as part of a drama. After all, I'd heard of The Singing Detective for years, a BBC hit that got constant praise from domestic critics, and a small-town casino setting seemed like a nice tweak. Well, then I read Alessandra Stanley's review in the New York Times, wondering if the show was simply the worst of the new season, or the worst of all time? I still grabbed the TiVo copy and viewed the opening minutes to see if she was really telling the truth, that the characters don't actually perform the songs as honest singing performances. Like I couldn't trust her! It's true, the characters simply vocalize along with the original recordings (or sound-alike copies), murmuring the words and melodies instead of real singing. Bizarre and off-putting, to say the least!

CDs listened to today:

• Weezer: (eponymous blue album)