What To Watch (And Skip) On TV This Week

[Administrator]

It's a brand-new week during the fall TV season, and that means a whole bunch of fresh television seasons and series. Figuring out what shows are good and bad can be a huge time investment, so we've gone over this past week's shows and summed up our thoughts on them.
Over the course of the next couple of months, we'll be looking at a selection of new and returning shows and giving you a quick breakdown of what is worth watching and what you should pass on. This week, we're talking about Vice Principals, Channel Zero, Gotham, and Fuller House.
Vice Principals

Neal Gamby is back and recovering from last season, when he was shot in the parking lot of the school. Now on the mend, he returns to North Jackson High School. He finds Lee Russell is now principal, and there have been a ton of changes, including the school's mascot. Gamby goes on a mission to find out who shot him, while adjusting to returning to work.
As far as season premieres go, this one was top notch. Last season ended on a sad note, with one of the main characters being shot, but Vice Principals gets right back to its comedic roots, even if its characters can be sinister and completely despicable. Early on in the episode, Gamby's over-dramatic recovery is wildly funny, especially when he's riding a chairlift to get up the stairs. Overall, it's a solid episode that does a fantastic job at setting up the tone and stories for the season. As far as absurdist dark comedies go, Vice Principals is one of the best.
Is It Worth Watching?: If you enjoyed Eastbound & Down or the work of Danny McBride, this show will become one of your favorites of the fall season.
Vice Principals airs on Sundays at 10:30 PM on HBO.
Channel Zero

The Syfy horror anthology series is back. This season, Channel Zero adapts the creepypasta "No-End House." The television version of the story follows Margot, a young woman dealing with her father's death, a year after his passing. She and a group of friends heads to No-End House, which is seemingly a haunted house with six rooms. However, the rooms get more terrifying and more personal as they venture through the house.
The first episode follows the original story exceptionally well, with a couple small liberties. While the show has a slow pace--which only adds to the horror--it doesn't make the audience wait to get inside the No-End House. It delivers the subject matter in a quick manner, all while doing an excellent job at defining this season's characters, even the ones who don't appear much on screen during the premiere episode. It improves on all the flaws from the first season--like delivering a more simplistic, easily digestible story and creating empathetic characters right out of the gate--and amps up the horror to create an engaging, yet unsettling, premiere.
Is It Worth Watching?: Without a doubt, Channel Zero will be a sleeper hit this year. It's deeply haunting, without entirely relying on jump scares. "No-End House" blows the first season out of the water.
Channel Zero airs on Wednesdays at 9 PM on Syfy.
Gotham

The fourth season of Fox's show is a chaotic mess. The slapstick plot follows Penguin, who is in charge of all crime in Gotham City and hands out licenses to commit crime; no, that's not a joke. Meanwhile, the GCPD are totally cool with it because overall crime is down. Bruce Wayne is in full-on vigilante mode, working to uncover Penguin's plot while a group of criminals without licenses have Dr Crane's fear formula and are terrorizing the city.
This episode was madness. There was so much going on, but at least the supervillains in flashy costumes (Mr. Freeze and Riddler) were gone, meaning the unwatchable campiness from last season was almost entirely absent from the premiere. Don't worry, it was still bonkers even without the costumes. The story is mind-boggling and involves huge jumps in suspension of disbelief to navigate. That being said, it was actually a ton of fun. I may have been having a laugh or two at the show's expense, but I found myself really enjoying it, in the same way that I enjoy the live-action Batman series from 1966. Gotham has a level of fun to it despite presenting itself as a dark and brooding series.
Is It Worth Watching?: Gotham is the car wreck you can't turn away from. If you're looking for something a bit silly and over-the-top, you may find something to enjoy in this onslaught of insanity. Gotham feels more like Schumacher's Batman series than Nolan's at this point, but I can't stop watching. It's not good, but it's not entirely ignorable.
Gotham airs on Thursdays at 8 PM on Fox.
Fuller House

Oh boy. It's summertime, which means tons of free time for the kids in the Tanner household, except for Jackson, who has to go to summer school because of his low grades. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Stephanie find out that Kimmy's husband, Fernando, may be cheating on her. All of this is surrounded by canned laughter, applause, and the occasional quick cut to a baby being cute.
Understandably, you may be wondering why I even watched Fuller House to begin with. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator, even when you know going in that what you're about to watch will be bad. While the original network series wasn't a laugh riot, it had its moments--unlike the Season 3 opener for Fuller House. It's painfully slow and unfunny, and its writing is stuck in the early '90s, which does not play well today. There are plenty of shows that "aren't for me," but Fuller House is barely suitable for kids.
Is It Worth Watching?: No. Even if you're the type of person who falls into the nostalgia trap, this won't satisfy you on any level. Getting through the opening musical number was excruciating.
All three seasons of Fuller House are available on Netflix.
Come back next week when we're talking about Star Trek: Discovery, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Nathan For You, and Marvel's Inhumans.



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