Some Thoughts on Monday Night’s Premieres

Oh man was there a lot of television on last night, I don't even know where to being.  We had two hours of Heroes, Top Gear, Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Boston Legal, and How I Met Your Mother.  And, Chuck and My Own Worst Enemy didn't even air last night.  Things are going to get awfully busy on Mondays this fall.

So, let's start with the end, Boston Legal.   When production wrapped at the end of last season, Boston Legal still hadn't been renewed for this season, and consequently the season finale was meant to serve, if needed, as a series finale.  Denny and Alan finished the season by going fishing and there was a great scene of the empty offices at Crane, Poole, & Schmidt.  It was more serious than Boston Legal usually gets, but it worked wonderfully. 

Consequently, they got renewed for this season and had to start the whole thing up again.  It was not really a problem in terms of story, as all that had to happen was for Denny and Alan to come back from their fishing trip, but it did mean that the great last season in the season finale wouldn't close the show.  They now are left with needing to find something better to do this year. 

I tend to think they can manage to figure something out.  It is true that I'm convinced that the series' best days are behind it (and departed at around the same time as Julie Bowen, Mark Valley, and Rene Auberjonois), but the wind hasn't completely left the show's sails yet.  And, while I was happy to see the show return to my TiVo last night, I was moderately disappointed by the episode itself. 

First, there was only one case and it was a case the episode didn't go into great detail about.  Instead, we were left with the usual "Alan had a relationship with the opposing counsel" story, and Denny having Denny-type issues (in this case, his little soldier stopped being able to salute).  At this point I can't even suggest that they could have bolstered the episode with a second case taken on by some other attorney at the firm, because I have no idea who is still on the show.  Their revolving door of lawyers leads me to disbelieve anything I see in the opening credits about who is there, so I'm not even going to go by the names listed in them.

I still honestly believe, and maybe I'm only fooling myself here, that they can and will do better as this last season progresses.  I think that come the series finale I'm going to feel as though I'll miss the show, and I know that won't happen if the plots are as shallow as they were yesterday.

You know what, we're only going to talk about one other show from last night, I could do hundreds of words on my liking the Heroes premiere but also being pretty sure that the show will never recapture the first season's wonderfulness.  That one of the problems with the show disappearing for 10 months is that when it started last night I had no idea what was going on in anyone's life because I didn't remember last season's fine.  But, I'm not going to do that, instead, HIMYM.

I have to say, they have my curiosity piqued.  I'm not yet convinced that Stella is the mother of Ted's future children, but it seems like a definite possibility at this point.  She seems truly committed to Ted, and even if Ted doesn't know anything about her (as last night taught us), he seems committed to her too.  I'm a little ambivalent about whether or not she turns out to be the mother, I think the show can work either way.

My bigger problem is that I'm in no way ambivalent about Barney hoping for a relationship with Robin – I just don't know how I feel about it.  That's right, my feelings are strong, but I'm not sure what they're saying.  It seems to me like they could work as a couple, that there's actually some sort of logic there that makes sense, but I'm not sure that I want Barney to change his lothario ways.  If the show can make it so that Barney remains Barney and can still be with Robin, I think it'll be great, if they can't do that, I'd rather not see the relationship take place at all.  And, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I don't want Barney to spend weeks on end pining for Robin, that's not going to work for the series. 

But, enough about me and what I think, give me your thoughts.  Were you amused by anything last night or have you given up all hope on the season already?