Pilot Reviews Big Shots and Gossip Girl

I contemplated not even doing Gossip Girl.  No one would notice, right?  I mean it's on the CW for goodness sake.  Most people haven't even heard of the CW and no one I know knows what CW stands for (for the record, neither do I), but I have taken on this responsibility, and so preform it fully I shall.  (Okay, sorry about the Yoda there, sometimes I get a little carried away.)  Anyway, the pilot reviews continue, and while there's been a string of mostly positive reviews, well, as they say, all good things must come to an end.

BIG SHOTS

I sort of had some hopes for this show, after all, I have loved each of the four stars in previous shows, The Practice, Alias, Sports Night, and Titus, the four of them together should be great, right?  Wrong.  Don't put all the blame on the actors, though.  This was probably some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard.  And actually, I think Christopher Titus has grown tremendously as an actor.  I really look forward to seeing him in something good.  His schedule will most likely be open pretty soon.  I talk a lot about the vaunted Josh's Choice for Best New Show of the Year award, well I'm giving Big Shots a "shot" at a different award.  Josh's Choice for Most Likely to Be Cancelled First Award.  Not only was the dialogue bad, but the storylines were forced and ridiculously predictable.  It was like, what would be the most ridiculous bad television story we can come up with next?  Oh, yeah, let's do that, we'll have the mistress and the wife be friends. That's good, but I have a better one, let's have a different character accidentally pick up a hooker with a penis, that'll be classic.  Yeah, but not as classic if a cop catches them.  Good point, we'll put it in the pilot.  Oh, then we can use the catch phrase "Track down the Tranny."  It'll be as big as "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World."  There is more, but I'm getting tired of rehashing a very painful hour of television.  This show had no redeeming qualities, and I really can't imagine anyone being interested.

Interesting fact: Four really good actors, who have been in really good shows, for some reason agreed to be in this one.

Pilot Grade: 1% (Because Titus's acting skills have actually greatly improved from his sitcom when he was just funny, now he's funny and he can act.)

GOSSIP GIRLS

This show should probably also be cancelled, but I recognize that I am no where close to the target audience for this show, and they therefore couldn't care less what I think.  I haven't read the books on which this series is based, so I don't know how true to them the storylines are, but for as well as those books sell, I figured the premise would be stronger than the one in the tv show.  There is a secret person who has a website and she calls herself, are you ready for this?, Gossip Girl.  She knows all and sees all, and then tells everyone about it.  And of course everyone is checking the website at all times for the latest gossip except for the two main characters who coincidentally all of the gossip is about.  Right.  Well, at least the dialogue is more believable than in Big Shots.  I'm assuming that 12-17 year old girls (at least some of them) might like this show, but I can't imagine anyone else being able to garner any enjoyment out of it.  The characters are completely unlikeable.  One of them has a rant similar to the one given by the youngest Darling son in Dirty, Sexy, Money, about how hard it is to be a rich kid from a rich family.  Boo eff-ing hoo.  In DSM, however, the great Peter Krause calls him on it immediately, and we're supposed to realize how utterly spoiled these people are to imagine even a moment of regret for the lives that have been handed to them.  In Gossip Girl on the other hand, I think that we're actually supposed to feel sorry for the character saying it.  Yeah right.  I'm sorry his character's so stupid.

Early in the episode there is this exchange.

Girl: Someone saw Serena getting off at Central Station.
Boy: Good, things were starting to get dull around here.
Me: Doesn't look like this is helping any.

Interesting Fact: The Gossip Girl is played by Kristen Bell, otherwise known as Veronica Mars, which used to be on UPN before it was the CW, and was a far superior show.

Pilot Grade: 13% (I might not have liked the characters, but I believed in them a lot more than the ones in Big Shots.)

Until Next Time, the positive reviews had to end at sometime, right?