More Premiere Week!

Jericho
And I had such high hopes for this show. The premise is good, and some of the stuff in the pilot was effective (little boy looking at mushroom cloud, answering machine-captured death), but that - IN THE PILOT - they resorted to such an old TV cliche as the "emergency tracheotomy" was very disappointing. On top of that half of the action and suspense in the pilot - THE PILOT - had nothing to do with the possible end of the world, but instead was the result of random car crashes. What!? You get one hour to hook us on this concept and you waste much of it on contrived standard-issue TV tropes? Why?

My Name Is Earl
Nice that they are abandoning the every-episode-must-see-an-item-get-srcatched-off-the-list bit. And if Joy is in prison next week, then it might mean they'll be going after some longer arcs too. Very welcome. I laughed a LOT at this episode, so I'm glad to see that some of the structural repetition that made last season sometimes-wearying is being jettisoned.

The Office
A bit of a cop-out I thought on the whole Jim-Pam thing, but I have to admit to being hooked on what will happen next. And opening up the action to a second Dundler-Mifflin office is inspired, and will take some of the weight off the core cast. The gay stuff was as uncomfortably hilarious as anything the show has done so far - I was watching through my fingers.

ER
OK, Jaquandor, I'll give you this. A bit too much Job-like travails for our friends. Sam, who has had much drama and tragedy in her life already is kidnapped and raped in front of her sleeping kid? And then she kills her husband in cold-blooded murder? And Neela goes right from her husband's funeral to a shot-up ER and one friend almost dying and another almost dying AND getting an emergency hysterectomy AND giving birth very prematurely? And Luka, he of the my-kids-were-murdered-in-a-war-torn-country backstory, has all of that happen to his child and girlfriend/fiance/whatever? And alcoholic, crazy-Mom-having, crazy-brother-having, husband-abandoned Abby has all of that happen to her? Damn, this is depressing stuff. Still, it's wonderfully done depressing stuff, and the ending with Sam was unexpected and wonderfully played. I ain't going anywhere soon.

Until Whenever