I’m a big stats geek, so I always like trying to figure out how my shows are doing. Here’s an attempt at handicapping the 2005 fall season, two weeks in. I’ll be revisiting this in a couple weeks, natch.

So, NBC seems due for several cancellations, while Invasion, Kitchen Confidential and Just Legal also seem to be in dire straits. Inconceivable seems bleakest and I’m predicting that will be the next cancellation, but Just Legal also looks ready to drop.

Update: While I was writing this, NBC announced that The Apprentice: Martha StewartThe E-Ring will be switching time slots.

Oh boy, San Francisco city hall is getting The Daily Show treatment. I don’t know if this’ll be good or bad but it certainly will be facsinating.

Two San Francisco supervisors braved the dangerous waters of national comedy this week, risking ridicule by answering "fake news" questions for Comedy Central’s "Daily Show" about their vote against the USS Iowa being berthed in town and the local political culture in general.

"I think we’re going to get punked," commented Ammiano after the  television crew had departed onTuesday, adding that he expected to be heaped with the same sort of sporting abuse that most guests receive on the comedy show’s prerecorded interviews.

Daly is one of the more notorious newsmakers in San Francisco. An empassioned populist who has a tendency to lose his temper in public, he’s one of the easy targets for local humorists. He even got into near-fisticuffs with former Mayor Willie Brown… y’know, the city’s previous easy punchline. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the segment goes.

(Found via SFist, who also suggests a drinking game.)

Though, really, the USS Iowa? I see the potential for comedy but isn’t there more milage in Johnny Moseley’s Filmore Street ski jump?

If anyone has it as a category in the office pool (okay, no one has a fall TV office pool but it sounds fun), Prison Break is the first new show to get a full-season pickup. However, the show originally announced as going on hiatus in January (to be replaced by 24) so I’m waiting to hear how Fox will schedule the remainder of its season.

Also, I was relieved to see that The Office’s has gotten additional episodes ordered, since it draws such a small (though, according to NBC, very upscale) audience… perhaps the DVD sold well enough to keep it going? Ratings are up from last season, but it still loses a large portion of My Name is Earl’s lead-in. The original, hesitant order of six episodes has been increased to thirteen.

Man, I’ve gotta pay better attention to these things. Had I known, I could’ve been part of a real life fanboy rampage (and maybe have seen Serenity for free.)

An impatient mob nearly turned ugly last night at 1000 Van Ness, thanks to Joss Whedon. His new movie Serenity opens Friday (to confirm the obvious, it’s F**KING AWESOME; we’ll review it later this week) and last night the TL movie theater held a free sneak peek. Capitalizing on the buzz that "Firefly" (the show on which the movie’s based) generated online, Universal let bloggers reserve seats in advance, with the condition that they blog about the movie.

Aw, I could’ve blogwhored for Serenity, a film I really want to do well… not just because a big opening weekend for Serenity betters the chances that I get my Wonderfalls movie (damnit, I’m going through serious Brian Fuller withdrawal, I’m almost ready to seek out his Voyager episodes) but I’ve also totally fallen for Firefly reruns on the SciFi channel.

Worse, the attempt to cultivate blogosphere buzz overwhelmed traditional preview promotion efforts.

"The screening is overbooked," hollered a media rep to a long line in the lobby. We’d estimate that about 200 people were waiting with free-sneak-peek passes; without blogger credentials, they were made to wait as long as an hour only to be sent packing.

As frustrating as that sounds there’s a part of me getting a small powertrip to hearing about bloggers taking over something like this. Heh indeedy.

Now, is Dreamworks offering free movie passes for blogging about Wallace and Gromit? ’cause that’s my other anticipated fall film.

Update: I see Ian was also there, but didn’t get to see Serenity… or get the substitute movie passes, either.

My dream TV  project right now has Lupe Ontiveros and Amy Hill cast as the leads. Maybe they’re roommates or neighbors, but I just think these two actresses need to lead a project and would be hilarious together. (Hill was funny enough on her on to get me to  watch Pauly and The Naked Truth… hm, she’s on Hot Properties, too? Donde los yikes!)

Logo really needs to follow the path other fledgling networks have gone and pad their schedule with short lived but critically acclaimed shows that fit the channel’s niche. I wonder if Trio would let them license their "Brilliant… but Canceled" mark and call the block "Fabulous… but Canceled". They’ve already got Wonderfalls, but there are so many other short-lived, queer-themed shows they could pick up. (Action!, High Society, Strip Mall and Dead Like Me quickly spring to mind… oh, wait, was the gayest part of DLM the creator?)

And why isn’t Brothers on the network’s schedule? Sure it wasn’t a great sitcom but it certainly deserves to be noted as a major step for gay characters on TV.

(If you’re not familiar with Brothers — and you’re probably not — it was a Showtime sitcom that lasted for five seasons that focused on three brothers living in Philadelphia. The show started with the youngest brother’s wedding, which gets called off when he comes out.)

Related note: Am I the only one that nostalgically remembers "The Red Room" on The SciFi Channel which reran shows like Otherworld, Probe and She-Wolf of London?

HBO really should buy the rights to rerun episodes of Celebrity Poker
Showdown. That show would be even better with the swearing uncensored.

At this point I keep scanning the TV industry coverage waiting for Arrested Development, Kitchen Confidential and The Office to get handed their walking papers. Hopefully my fear proves to be unwarranted.

Well, my favorite TV Critic opened some floodgates today:

You may recall that periodically I have written a TV 101 column about the inner workings of the television industry. Well, it started out as a Q&A column. Somewhere along the line, the Q’s got dropped. Now, I’m bringing them back. Much like the Ask Mick LaSalle column on Sundays, most weeks I’ll be answering your questions about anything related to television — shows, networks, my topic choices, influences, favorites, why I seem to have a thing against Tony Danza and Angela Lansbury and a thing for "ALF" and Martha Stewart.

You ask it (within bounds), and I’ll answer it. You may have noticed through the years that I rarely write in the first person, though I have dealt out a considerable amount of pointless personal information, so if you want to ask "Is it easier to write a column fueled by Diet Coke or red wine?" in addition to "What are your five favorite shows?" — I can probably answer that as well.

So I dared to send in a question I’ve been pondering for a while:

Are ancillary markets affecting the network programming decisions? The  the success that Futurama and Family Guy saw after cancellation (especially with new Family Guy episodes pulling in strong numbers in a time slot that’s been problematic for Fox) seemed to vindicate the fans who claimed the show would have been a success with a consistent time slot and better promotion. Did sales for the season one DVD help Arrested Development get a renewal in season two… and is there hope that Arrested and Kitchen Confidential will see a full season (despite those painful numbers… I don’t think Profit did so badly) so that Fox can try to make their money back on the DVD release? Movies have owed more and more of their profits to post-theatrical sales, is TV making a similar shift?

I deleted a bad joke about buying the straight-to-DVD Futurama movie and Serenity tickets to get my Wonderfalls movie, deciding it was just too damn desperate for validation as a TV geek. (Hey, I liked Profit! I liked Wonderfalls! Doesn’t that make me one of the cool kids?)

My Name is Earl is a comedy that tries to balance cynicism with heart. A challenge that it masters in its first time out.

The titular character, Earl Hickey, is a not-too-smart thug who begins to reexamine his life after winning a big lottery prize, losing the ticket and then hearing Carson Daly talk about karma. Karma (a philosophy Earl thinks was created by Daly) explains how that windfall was snatched away from him, inspiring Earl to make up for the awful things he’s done in his life. Earl makes a list of every misdeed he’s committed and decides he must make amends for each of them, though his past victims aren’t always happy to see him come back into their lives.

Much of Earl’s success relies on Jason Lee’s performance as Earl. Earl may have had an epiphany, but he’s not a changed man. Earl remains a dim bulb, as lazy and selfish as ever. He may have found a new philosophy, but it’s one that goes against his nature and one that he struggles to satisfy. Lee’s performance is reminiscent of Nick Cage in Raising Arizona, as other reviewers have noted, but that performance captures Earl’s internal conflict very well.

Earl is usually accompanied by his brother, Randy, who is just as dumb and lazy but tends to follow Earl’s lead rather than come up with his own ideas. While he goes along with Earl’s attempts to redeem himself to the universe, he doesn’t share Earl’s newly found philosophy (nor he does he seem to understand it) and constantly nags Earl to take the easy way out of his endeavors. He gives physical form to the temptation Earl constantly feels to return to his previous, disastrous lifestyle.

The show makes heavy use of voice-over narration, a dangerous story device that usually bogs down a show in needless exposition. However, the show makes the narration work, putting us into Earl’s mind and helping to understand Earl’s rather simple view of life. The comedy mixes pity humor — Earl and his circle are a sad, clueless bunch with a taste for trash culture — with a decent amount of sentimentality as Earl works towards his redemption. It’s an effective combination.

One thing that makes this show charming is that Earl seems to genuinely want to do good — admittedly it’s for selfish reasons, but there seems to be a genuine desire to be a better person, even if it’s only for better karma. The pilot sets up a situation where Earl has to make some personal growth to make his amends — Earl tries to resist, but the hard hand of karma sets him back on the right track. In some ways Earl feels almost religious as he tries to understand the consequences that his past actions have wrought and to make a more positive impact on the world.

A more positive tone amongst the cynical humor differentiates Earl from other comedies with sad, unlikable lead characters because the show’s perspective seems to want Earl to succeed in his attempts, finding comedy in the earnest stumbles Earl makes in his quest to make amends. That makes Earl easier to watch than shows like The Office or The Comeback, where much of the comedy emphasizes the characters’ pitfalls.

A few story points of Killer Instinct probably sum up the show succinctly. The pilot episode features a serial rapist/killer who makes use of spiders with a paralysis-inducing venom to subdue his victims. The show focuses on Graham Hale, a Detective with the San Francisco Police Department, a cop who shows up at the scene of the crime unrequested — most people believe these deaths are due to natural causes but Hales the kind of detective that spends his free time listening to the police scanner and spotting suspicious trends that others don’t see.

So let’s see… we have a plot that’s an escalation of the CSI-style weird crimes and a forget-the-rules cop who makes brilliant insights others can’t. I’m not sure if I need to see more, even to spot how they try to make Vancouver look like San Francisco.

More of Crocodile Caucus’ Fall TV reviews:

• The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
• Bones
• Commander in Chief
• Everybody Hates Chris
• How I Met Your Mother
• Invasion
• Kitchen Confidential
• My Name is Earl
• Out Of Practice
• Prison Break
• Reunion
• Supernatural
• Surface
• Threshold
• The War at Home

Remember last week when I noted that Lynda Carter will be playing Mama Morton in the London production of Chicago? She’ll be playing another disreputable character next week when she makes a guest appearance on a two-part Law & Order/Law & Order: Special Victims Unit crossover story next week.

To those of you who know me personally and think me and my sweetie are too @#$% cute, check out Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman’s "How We Got Engaged" comic. Awwww, best wishes to a couple of my favorite comic creators.

David Carter does some manga math and concludes that "dollar for dollar, each release from Del Rey–a second-tier manga publisher–is right up there with the most that Marvel & DC can do."

So. It turns out there’s a vandal out there who speaks Japanese like most sitcom characters do. "Chew toe hamper hallway" indeed.

Aw, bummer, HBO cancelled The Comeback. I had just reached the point where the episodes become really addicting, watching it on VOD this weekend.

Ugh, so that wasn’t a just a joke when Brad Garrett hinted at getting his own Everybody Loves Raymond spin-off at the Emmys? Whatta revoltin’ development.

On the bright side, the new A Current Affair has been cancelled. I found the original campy, but this revival just made me realize how it was the beginning of the dumbing down and "Foxification" of the news.

The cloud to this silver lining? Geraldo Rivera’s getting a new syndicated news show. Le sigh.

The seventh season of Celebrity Poker Showdown will include Gina Gershon, Richard Belzer and Camryn Manheim. The season premiere will feature the husbands (and boyfriend) from Desperate Housewives.

Truth be told, I was never a big fan of American Gothic so having Sean Cassiday’s name attached to Invasion didn’t really rev me up for ABC’s entry into the mass of open-ended scifi shows with a single-word title. Still, it had an interesting concept (though, yeah, American Gothic had an interesting concept, too, and that didn’t translate to an interesting show) and watching Eddie Cibrian on Celebrity Poker Showdown convinced me that I could do worse than watching his handsome mug for an hour of so-so television (if it turned out that way).

Invasion shows potential in its pilot episode, though there’s also some major pitfalls. The series focuses a small Florida town that is being infiltrated by Body Snatchers-style aliens. The transformation leaves the invaders disoriented and, thus, the aliens use natural disasters as cover for that recovery period, making the disorientation look like the result of surviving the disaster.

In Invasion’s pilot episode, a hurricane hits and a lot of stupid behavior ensues.

Perhaps the foolishness would not have been as clear if not for recent events, but it seemed odd that a park ranger in Florida could have such a hurricane-unready home — why didn’t his home even have shutters? Sure the broken window was dramatic but it was drama at the cost of making a character look stupid, one I suspect we aren’t supposed to find stupid. Overall, I worry this will be another open-ended show that resorts to stupid protagonist behavior to put off the resolution to a dangling plot.

Invasion’s pacing has gotten a lot of flak early on and that seems deserved. Like American Gothic, there’s a lot of time devoted to setting the atmosphere… and the show (like American Gothic) does succeed at invoking a very creepy feeling. However, the pilot doesn’t get beyond the show’s set up. Knowing what Invasion
was about ahead of time, I spent too much time waiting for the show to get to a point when I was seeing something unexpected and unfamiliar. It’s probably a sign of the pilot’s poor pacing that the advertising’s tagline came late in the third act. I hope the plot starts moving along in the second episode, because my biggest problem with American Gothic is that the following episodes seemed to just run in place for so long.

The Body Snatchers-style plot could give Invasion a compelling “enemies could be anywhere” dynamic, except that Battlestar Galactica already has portrayed that theme spectacularly. From what we’ve seen in the pilot, it seems Invasion’s aliens kill their victims before taking over their lives. That eliminates the subtle, powerful drama that Galactica has accomplished with Sharon, an enemy agent who has developed deep emotional ties to her enemies who was an agent of subterfuge when those personal connections were developed. So Invasion’s challenge is increased — why watch this show when another one already captures the same dynamic so well? Invasion will have to find a unique perspective on its ‘enemy within’ theme when there’s a competitor that already has devised a compelling take.