You can probably make two educated guesses from the title of this post. One would be that I’m completely insane and think that it’s already January 1 (which, given the day I’ve had, wouldn’t be entirely out of the question – although my personal preference would be for January 1, 2003 just to knock a few years off of my age). The other, of course, would be that I’m to the new television season, which we refer to in the business (us academics, that is) as a ‘year.’

I got really in to last year’s new season of television. My perennial standbys were gone: Friends had mercifully gone off the year after 10 seasons, Angel and The X-Files were gone, and dammit, I just needed something to fill the long evening voids right up until Ray and I discovered Blockbuster online (which has filled them up to a degree that’s rather frightening). So I settled down to watch all of the quality new shows, which all got cancelled one. by. one. I had a couple of winners (My Name is Earl) but as many losers (Kitchen Confidential, anyone?).

The lone new holdover from last season that I still watch is Bones, the Fox network drama that’s actually flourishing in its second season. I did not, as Ray constantly accuses me, start watching the show because I think that David Boreanaz (who played Angel on the show of the same name as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which you’re not allowed to make fun of if you never watched it) is hot (somewhat attractive, yes, but not enough to make me cross the street).

The show is loosely based on the career of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, and it’s just fun because of the Aaron Sorkin-like banter among the cast, and the vaguely David and Maddie type sexual tension between Booth (Boreanaz) and Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel, who clearly got a new personal stylist this year on the show). I like it for the same reason that I like Battlestar Galactica: the people who inhabit its world are real, and flawed enough that you could imagine having a beer with any of them.

Seriously, could you imagine running into one of the pompous assholes that inhabit the island on Lost? It’s a good thing they’re all on a remote island somewhere because that way the rest of us don’t have to deal with them. Don’t get me wrong – I still watch the show religiously. I just feel better about it if I make disparaging comments about the characters from time to time.

Bones is flowing much better in its second season, though. I still remember the following exchange of “oh dear God” dialogue from an episode in the first season wherein staff artist and party girl Angela takes Bones to a hip-hop club:

Bones: “I like this music. It’s got a very tribal beat, very instinctual, like what Descartes says about the survival of the tribal instinct.”
Random black woman # 1: “What? You sayin’ it’s tribal ‘cuz we black?”
Random black woman # 2: “No, fool. She usin’ Descartes to say she down with the music.”
Me: “Please change the channel.”

As I said. Things have improved muchly.

This season, the new show I’m rooting for is Aaron Sorkin’s new drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I’ve liked Sorkin’s stuff for a long time, ever since SportsNight (I did skip The West Wing because I had just gotten myself weaned off of ER when it premiered and couldn’t face the prospect of another self-important drama).

Sorkin’s grown up, it seems. There aren’t nearly as many conversations that take place walking quickly through corridors. Amanda Peet is actually a good actress! Who new? And it’s great to have Matthew Perry back on television – even better to have him playing a character who isn’t some derivative of Chandler Bing. And, of course, Steven Webber is a smarmy guy, but he’s been doing that since he was the less attractive brother on Wings.

One of the other things that I find admirable about Studio 60 — and we’ll see how long this lasts — is the character of Harriet, played by Sarah Paulson (she was the Pinkerton agent on Deadwood and had a blink-and-you-missed-it role in Serenity as the agent sent to investigate what happened on Miranda). Harriet is a Christian. She’s not afraid to be a Christian. She prays before show time. She’s not afraid to speak her mind about her personal moral code. And somehow, she’s not a ridiculous caricature of Tammy Faye Bakker or whoever the current Mrs. Swaggert is. She’s a real character. (Am I, a gay man, actually applauding the portrayal of a ‘real’ Christian on network TV? Hell yes, I am. I know perfectly well they’re not all like Jerry Falwell, and it’s nice to see one of them for a change.)

After all, one of the other shows I watch fervently (Battlestar Galactica) is so full of Christian allegory it gets a little scary sometimes. Although I will vomit if they attempt to make James Callis’ spineless Gaius Baltar into some sort of Jesus figure.

So, it’s going to be an interesting season. We’re also watching Heroes on NBC, but I gotta say that I was kind of bored with the pilot: they showed most of it during the previews…

P.S. I got the latest GQ in the mail today, and James Mervyn’s profiled in it, too. The article is a lot less glowing than the piece in The Advocate, though. I don’t hold grudges against him – he wasn’t my governor, and I wasn’t a 40-something year old politician who threw it all away to come out of the closet (under duress and threat of a lawsuit). I just don’t think he’s a role model, and I have a problem with The Advocate saying so. Miss Cleo, for the record, did not make the new GQ, and that’s as it should be.