Disappointment vs. um… appointment
Posted by Dan
October 26th, 2007 at 01:10pm
In All Things TV Charts
It’s a little more than a month into the new TV season and it’s time to draw some conclusions. And, given my known love of information displayed in numbered lists and clearly-displayed graphs, here’s a chart plotting which shows have delivered on their promise and which have disappointed. The upper left and lower right quadrants are our “surprise” zones and these five shows defied our expectations for the better or worse.
Some have under-delivered. Viva Laughlin could have been a new favorite, but stumbled right out of the gate. Not just stumbled — face-planted, broke its leg and had to be shot. Some have defied even our high expectations. Pushing Daisies could have been a gimmick-ridden novelty, but turned out to be an incredibly charming, one-of-a-kind fantasy.
Take a look and see if you agree with our placements.
I might switch Reaper and Dirty Sexy Money, but otherwise, ‘Right on, Son!’
I’d trade Reaper and Chuck, personally. Man, looking at that graph just shows how few pleasant surprises there were this season! Sure, there were some shows that we expected to be good, and were, in fact, good, but many more disappointments than shows with low expectations turning out well.
I’d bump The Office up a little higher, although yesterday’s episode wasn’t quite as sharp. Elsewise, everything looks good.
I would give Samantha Who? a small bump leftwards and upwards only because I completely expected it to be terrible when its actually kind of good. I felt the opposite for Chuck: I thought it would be good, but it’s actually pretty terrible.
Love the chart! I would rate Chuck way higher, I think it’s better than Reaper. And Cane would def be below the line for me. And really high expectations for Viva Lauglin?
I love this idea. A lot of placements are dead on with my assessments, especially Bionic Woman (what a bitter, bitter disappointment).
Right now, I’d put Heroes in the lower half of the chart; the opening of this season has been painfully bad. I’d put Back To You way in the lower right corner — I was expecting bad, and it’s so far worse. And, suprisingly, I’d put Big Bang Theory up in the upper left quadrant with Samantha Who? — two shows I thought would be awful, but I’m enjoying a great deal.
I pretty much avoided just about any word concerning the new shows so I had next to zero expectations for all of them. Pushing Daisies is the obvious winner in terms of best new show, and I would probably put Chuck just above the borderline towards awsome. I find Big Bang Theory funny in spite of Kaley Cuoco, but my biggest surprise is Cavemen which I find laugh out loud funny. In terms of returning shows I would probably agree with the placements here of 30 Rock, Heroes and the Office. Oh, and I find the lead on Moonlight hot, so there.