Memo to idiotic Emmy voters

Hour long shows can be comedies too.

This was a really strange year for TV and overall the nominations aren't terrible.

But these picks are way better.

Fall TV Top 5: Ugly Betty

Tonight is the night for the new series premiere I'm most excited for people to see: Ugly Betty on ABC.

There's a style, attitude and energy to this show that's like nothing else on TV. It's light, funny, immediately involving and features the actress who everyone has pegged as the season's breakout star: America Ferrera. And in her case it's not just empty hype.

I wrote a little about the show before (back when it was still called "Betty the Ugly," a literal translation of its original telenovela title) and I'm pleased that's it has received a good amount of pre-season attention. Pairing the show with monster hit Grey's Anatomy will hopefully work in Betty's favor (it's much better than the Friday timeslot the show originally was set for).

Hopefully there will be a backwards halo effect since Grey's didn't help lead-out Six Degrees much last week. Betty is a significantly better show and if it becomes a ratings success like the network's Lost and Desperate Housewives were in their first seasons it would be another victory for that all too rare breed: quality network television.

Hopefully it won't face the same sophomore slump as those shows, but I'm way ahead of myself there. Let's just get through the first season and hope we don't get a repeat performance of last season's ABC buzz series.

Looking forward to fall

I don't like writing about pilots for the broadcast networks' new fall shows so early for two reasons: first because the early pilots networks send out aren't always reflective of what will actually air (things can still be recut, reshot, recast or otherwise reworked) and secondly because not that many people have access to them and they won't actually air until September. So I'll save the detailed posts for later, but I've been looking for something good to mention here lately and a couple of the pilots I've seen so far definitely fit the bill.

They're not, however, either of NBC's heavily-hyped-by-entertainment-media Saturday Night Live-inspired "backstage" shows. I like the one by the woman who actually wrote for SNL a little better than the one by the guy who (for some completely unfathomable reason) wishes he had. But they both have strengths and weaknesses. Together they might make for a great show, but separately they're both too TV-focused to actually be interesting and simply not creative enough to stand out beyond their concepts and pedigrees. In other words neither one really leaves me wanting more.

At least that's one problem that another new NBC show, Heroes, doesn't have. The average-Joes-discover-they're-superheroes hour is derivative of Lost in a lot of ways, but unlike last season's glut of convoluted supernatural mystery offerings this one only borrows concepts from Lost that are well suited to a TV drama. If it maintains a strong emphasis on its characters (and improves its writing a bit) Heroes may even turn out to be better (less frustrating) than the hit island saga.

But we have to switch networks to cover the best of what I've seen so far. Three new shows from ABC suggest the network is looking to corner the market on TV's most involving, and best looking, series. According to Jim is going to look even worse on a network where everything else looks like a mini-movie, if the pilots for Betty the Ugly, Let's Rob... and Notes from the Underbelly are any indication. Yes two of them have terrible titles (and a case could be made that Let's Rob... is pretty bad too) but they're all interesting, well done shows that make the whole pilot thing look easy. Even though anyone who's ever watched TV knows it's anything but.

Notes is the least special of the three and suffers from an unfortunate lack of chemistry between its leads, and I don't expect it to be around very long, but it still looks and feels so much better than we have any right to expect from network TV. For most networks it would probably be a standout effort, but not here.

Especially because both Betty and Rob are so extremely good. They could be the best pilots of the season, but it's too soon for me to say (there's nine more shows to watch from ABC alone). Like the best pilots these two immediately place you in their world, establish a strong, distinctive tone and introduce you to characters you want to keep watching. Both have casts that immediately click (with very strong leads in America Ferrera and Donal Logue, respectively) and, very important since both are comedies, both have genuine laugh-out-loud moments (especially Rob).

It's still a long way till September, but in the network TV world it's never too early for hype. And these two deserve it.

So again:
Betty the Ugly
and
Let's Rob...