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Why Watch That

Television has consumed our podcast – there’s just so much to watch! As the Fall TV season picks up once again, the Critic and the Referee continue their discussion about what’s happening in TV land so that you can sort through all of the options with ease.

Gotham – (drama)

Created by Bruno Heller

Premiered on Fox: September 22, 2014

Plot: A new recruit in Captain Sarah Essen’s Gotham City Police Department, Detective James Gordon, is paired with Harvey Bullock to solve one of Gotham’s highest-profile cases: the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. During his investigation, Gordon meets the Waynes’ son Bruce, now in the care of his butler Alfred Pennyworth – a meeting that further compels Gordon to catch the mysterious killer. Along the way, Gordon must confront mobstress Fish Mooney, the Mafia led by Carmine Falcone, and many of Gotham’s future villains such as Selina Kyle, Edward Nygma, and Oswald Cobblepot. Eventually, Gordon is forced to form an unlikely friendship with Wayne, one that will help shape the boy’s future in his destiny of becoming a crusader.

Scorpion – (drama)

Created by Walter O’Brien

Premiered on CBS: September 22, 2014

Plot: Inspired by a true story, eccentric computer genius Walter O’Brien and his team of brilliant-minded outcasts cannot function normally in society. One day they are recruited by federal agent Cabe Gallo of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when a serious problem arises. Even though O’Brien and Gallo have history, he and his friends agree to help solve the problem and ultimately become the last line of defense against complex, high-tech threats around the globe. This team of masterminds is codenamed Scorpion, which includes O’Brien, one of the smartest people in the world with an IQ of 197, and his friends (as Agent Gallo describes them), Sylvester Dodd, a “human calculator” dealing in statistics, Happy Quinn, a “mechanical prodigy”, and Toby Curtis, a “world-class shrink” (a Harvard-trained behaviorist). Paige Dineen is a former waitress who translates the real world to them; they, in exchange, translate her young mentally gifted son, Ralph, to her.

Critic’s QuickTip: (according to the show) “A pack of Scorpions is called a cyclone.”

Sleepy Hollow – (drama)

Created by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Phillip Iscove, and Len Wiseman

Premiered on Fox: September 16, 2013

Plot: In 1781, Ichabod Crane, a soldier and spy in the Colonial Army, on a mission for General George Washington, kills the Headless Horseman, as the Horseman kills him. More than 230 years later, in the present-day, Ichabod rises from his grave, after the Headless Horseman (revealed to be Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), is summoned back from his watery grave by an unknown party. The resurrection of the one causes the other to also come back to life as a result of their blood mixing shortly after Crane decapitated the Headless Horseman on the field of battle.

Forever – (drama)

Created by Matt Miller

Premiered on ABC: September 22, 2014

Plot: Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is a New York City medical examiner who studies the dead for criminal cases and to solve the mystery of his own immortality. Since his first death 200 years ago as a doctor in the African slave trade, when he dies Morgan disappears almost immediately, and returns to life in a nearby body of water without clothes. Having also stopped aging, his long life has given Morgan broad knowledge and remarkable observation skills which impress most people he encounters, including NYPD Detective Jo Martinez (Alana de la Garza)

The Blacklist – (drama)

Created by Jon Bokenkamp
Premiered on NBC: September 23, 2013

Plot: Raymond “Red” Reddington, a former government agent and one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, surrenders at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He claims the FBI and he have similar interests in getting rid of dangerous criminals and terrorists. He makes an offer that the FBI cannot refuse and insists on one condition: Reddington will co-operate only with Elizabeth Keen, a rookie FBI profiler. Keen questions Reddington’s sudden interest in her, but Reddington will only reveal that she is very special

Modern Family – (sitcom)

Created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan

Premiered on ABC: September 23, 2009

Plot: Jay Pritchett sits at the head of a large and unconventional family. Now in his second marriage to his gorgeous young wife, Gloria, Jay has been given something of a second chance. Still, old habits are hard to break, and it’s trial by fire as he tries to adapt to life with the same passion and vigor that Gloria exhibits, which are matched by her precocious 12-year-old son, Manny.

black-ish – (drama)

Created by Kenya Barris

Premiered on ABC: September 24, 2014

Plot: A family man struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood. 

Nashville – (drama)

Created by Callie Khouri 

Premiered on ABC: October 10, 2012

Plot: A fading country music star comes into conflict with a rising teen star.

Grey’s Anatomy – (drama)

Created by Shonda Rhimes

Premiered on ABC: March 27, 2005

Plot: This drama focuses on the personal and professional lives of five surgical interns and their supervisors and the changes that come over the years.

Scandal – (drama)

Created by Shonda Rhimes

Premiered on ABC: April 5, 2012

Plot: Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a former White House Communications Director for the President of the United States who has left to start her own crisis management firm, Olivia Pope & Associates. Olivia has decided to dedicate her life to protecting the public images of the nation’s elite but is finding that no matter how hard she tries, she cannot leave parts of her past behind.

How to Get Away with Murder – (drama)

Created by Peter Nowalk

Premiered on ABC: September 25, 2014

Plot: A group of ambitious law students and their brilliant criminal defense professor become involved in a twisted murder plot that promises to change the course of their lives.

“Put [Voila Davis] in the background like [Bryan Cranston] in Breaking Bad…give her some paperwork at least – we’ll watch it!” -The Referee