Monday night network television is lackluster, but we have our Monday Night Football on ESPN.  If I hear mention of the “wild cat” I might have to mute the TV.  Or for those of you into eating or drinking games, this might be your perfect opportunity.

House & Heroes look to be your best bets if you’re going to skip the opening kickoff. Also, Food Network has a new episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives which you can record and/or catch later.

8-9pm

1. Heroes (NBC) – 04×05 – Hysterical Blindness
2. House (FOX) – 06×05 – Instant Karma

8:30-11:30pm

1. Monday Night Football: New York Jets at Miami Dolphins (ESPN)

10-10:30pm

1. Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (Food Network) – 07×08 – Barbequed, Baked, and Brined

There are also MLB playoffs and NHL hockey on tonight as well.

Monday night network television is lackluster, but we have our Monday Night Football on ESPN.

House & Heroes look to be your best bets if you’re going to skip the opening kickoff. Also, Food Network has a new episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives which you can record and/or catch later.

8-9pm

1. Heroes (NBC) – 04×04 – Acceptance
2. House (FOX) – 06×04 – The Tyrant

8:30-11:30pm

1. Monday Night Football: Green Bay at Minnesota (ESPN)

10-10:30pm

1. Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (Food Network) – 07×07 – You Can Say That Again

Thursday is by far the best night of TV, but I think that it’s really dumb of the networks (FOX & The CW in this case) to put shows with similar audiences up against each other.  There shall be much “time shifting” going on this evening, you can count on that, thus making the “numbers” inaccurate.

Here are my top picks for the evening:

8-9

1. Bones (FOX)     05×01     Harbingers In The Fountain
2. The Vampire Diaries (The CW)     01×02     The Night Of The Comet

9-10

1. Fringe (FOX)     02×01     A New Day in the Old Town
2. Supernatural (The CW)     05×02     Good God, Y’All
3. The Office (NBC)     06×01     Gossip (30 minutes)
4. Community (NBC)     01×01     Pilot (30 minutes)

And don’t forget that we have Georgia Tech vs. Miami on ESPN from 7:30-10:30PM (Eastern)

Running through the 2009 Fall TV Schedule I don’t really see many shows that I’d go out of my way to catch, especially when it comes to the small crop of new shows. Of all the nights, Thursday is clearly the best with 2 or 3 shows that I like being on at the same time.

That said, here’s the rundown of what I might be watching this fall.

Monday Nights

• 8pm: Monday Night Football (ESPN) – Football. Enough said.
• 8pm: Heroes (NBC) – I watched season one but lost track during the shortened season two. If I ever get caught up I’ll watch it.

Tuesday Nights

• 9pm: Scare Tactics (SciFi/SyFy) – Funny show, but not one I have to watch every week.
• 10pm: The Forgotten (ABC) – I might catch the pilot just to see.
• 10pm: Bizarre World (Travel) – Sounds interesting, but for some reason Comcast doesn’t offer the Travel Channel in HD which limits the chances that I’ll remember to watch it.

Wednesday Nights

• 9pm: MythBusters (Discovery) – You have to love MythBusters, but don’t necessarily watch it “live” as it’s on over and over again.
• 9pm: Ghost Hunters (SyFy) – Probably the best of the “ghost shows”, but it’s fine to record and watch later.
• 10pm: Eastwick (ABC) – I’m really unsure about this one, but am willing to at least watch the pilot.  [Update: Now that I see a commercial for Eastwick I'm thinking that's a no-go trashy show. No thanks. That leaves me with no Wednesday night network TV suggestions.]
• 10pm: Destination Truth (SyFy) – OK show & a good combo with Ghost Hunters, but not one I always watch all the way through. It could really be trimmed down to half-hour episodes IMO.
• 10pm: MysteryQuest (History) – New series which the commercials look interesting. Probably something to record and watch later or OnDemand (if they offer it).

Thursday Nights

• 8-9pm: Bones (Fox) – If I’m watching TV live, this will be what’s on.
• 8-9pm: The Vampire Diaries (CW) – Wasn’t impressed with the pilot, but we’ll see.
• 9-10pm: Fringe (Fox) – Interesting sci-fi show with plenty of humor. It’s no X-Files, but it’ll do. Normally I have to watch this one later.
• 9-10pm: Supernatural (CW) – Speaking of the X-Files, this is where many people from that writing/producing crew wound up. Not one for the kids (and neither is Fringe), and one that I’ll have to watch later the majority of the time.
• 9-9:30pm: The Office (NBC) – Normally pretty funny & one that I own the previous seasons.
• 9:30-10pm: 30 Rock (NBC) – Another one that’s normally pretty funny & one that I own the previous seasons.

Friday Nights

• 8-9pm: Smallville (CW) – Tied with Bones for my overall favorite that’s on TV right now. What’s not to love about Superman?
• 9-10pm: Stargate Universe (SyFy) – We’ll see if they can pull it off again.
• 9-10pm: Dollhouse (Fox) – I never finished watching Season 1 and was surprised that it was brought back.  It’s OK and I may get caught up if I have the time.
• 9-10pm: Ghost Adventures (Travel) – The most recent of the trifecta of “ghost shows” that I’ll watch on occasion (the other two being Ghost Hunters & Paranormal State). This one borders on the absurd with them “provoking” and supposedly finding things everywhere they look. Interesting nonetheless.
• 10-11pm: Numb3rs (CBS) – I really like this one, but just haven’t had a chance to watch it for the past few seasons.  I think it’s time to get the DVD’s and catch up.

Saturday Nights

• College Football (Various) – Again, it’s football.

Sunday Nights

• 8-11pm: NFL Football (NBC) – And more football!
• 8-8:30pm: The Simpsons (Fox) – A staple that I haven’t been able to watch many episodes of lately due to Football, then forgetting to turn on the TV Sunday night once football season is over (which isn’t a bad thing I suppose). Time to start recoding these again and skipping the commercials.

Midseason Shows (a.k.a. You may see them, you may not)

• Chuck (NBC) -  Our favorite geek is supposedly coming back midseason.
• Day One (NBC) – Sounds like a new twist on Jericho.
• Past Life (Fox) – Sounds interesting.

Gone For Good (a.k.a. Canceled TV Shows)

• Goode Family, The (ABC) – A summer series by Mike Judge (Beavis & Butt Head, King of the Hill & Office Space).  Your typical Judge humor focused on hippies this time.  I didn’t figure it would last (and ABC probably didn’t either by running it in the summer), but there are rumors flying that it may land somewhere else, which is always the case with cartoons.
• Harper’s Island (CBS) – An OK murder mystery series that went a few episodes too long this summer. I have no idea why anyone thought it’d be back though. The title’s too limiting for it to be an anthology series.
• King of the Hill (Fox) – See Simpsons above.  Funny show that will be missed.
• My Name is Earl (NBC) – This past seasons had many “really not right” moments, but overall it was funny.
• Pushing Daisies (ABC) – By far the best on the list of canceled shows. ABC should have their broadcasting license revoked for ditching this one.
• Reaper (CW) – Funny show that only stuck around two seasons because it was on the CW (the “major” networks would probably have pulled it a few episodes in). This will be in my home library soon.
• Stargate Atlantis (SyFy) – I watched the first two season and lost interest for some reason…like split seasons, not knowing when it was on & having a life.  It was OK, but wasn’t Stargate SG-1 by any stretch.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) – Season 1 is in my home library and I’ll add season 2 at some point. I’m not surprised to see it go, but thought Dollhouse would be shown the door first. (But of course Dollhouse is probably cheaper to produce than TSCC.)

So there you have it. My extensive list of TV shows (minus a few here and there of course).  Let me know what you think and feel free to leave a message for Blue Shotgun Radio at 317-565-4250.

I’ve been looking at High Definition (HDTV) channel lineups for here in Indianapolis and am kind of disappointed.

Here’s what Comcast (my only cable choice) offers:

1. A&E HD
2. Cinemax HDTV East
3. ESPN 2 HD
4. ESPN HD
5. FSN Midwest HD
6. HBO HDTV East
7. HD Theater
8. MHD
9. National Geographic HD
10. Showtime East (HDTV)
11. Showtime HDTV East
12. Starz HDTV
13. Starz HDTV East
14. TNT HD
15. Universal HD
16. Versus/Golf HD
17. WFYI (PBS)
18. WISH (CBS)
19. WRTV (ABC)
20. WTHR (NBC)
21. WTTV-4 (WB)
22. WXIN (FOX)

And from the list above, I wouldn’t get any of the “premium” channels and I can only see myself watching local channels (which I can get in HD over the air) and the sports channels.  But the sports channels are enough to tear me a bit…the main reasons I’d buy an HDTV are for sports and movies.

I don’t really want to get satellite TV because I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t had issues with it. “Oh, it’s windy.” Or “Oh, it’s snowing/raining.” Or “Oh, the suns out today.”  Or, “Oh, Jupiter is in the way.” Or, “Oh, it’s Tuesday.”  Seriously, who hasn’t heard this from people?  As much as I might complain about Comcast prices and service, outages aren’t that common of an occurrence (it does happen though).

AT&T’s U-verse (which I’ve heard good things about and has an amazing HD lineup), isn’t available in my area (not surprising since I can’t even get a decent DSL connection…which is crazy since I live inside Indianapolis city limits in a large neighborhood and very close to many businesses).  I’d probably opt for that if it were an option.

I’ve been reading up on HDTV for a while and with the Februaury 2009 “switch”, it’s time to get on board, so I’m curious as to what any “early adopters” out there have experienced and would suggest.  In my looking over the past few moths, it is very clear that HDTVs have made an amazing stride in both quality and price drop.

So with that, I ask:

• What are your experiences?
• What are you doing for your TV viewing?
• What about Blu-Ray players?
  • Sony PlayStation 3 vs. Stand Alone Players
• What about HDTVs?
  • LCD, DLP or Plasma?  (I personally like the LCDs for the picture and price.)
• What about DVRs?

• Seems we have an election based on VPs…so many roads you could go down with that one. #
• I think my Firefox woes are fixed…seems to be an extension crashing it, though I don’t know which one… #
• But I’m having issues with Thunderbird now. Desktop hangs on d/l sometimes. Notebook won’t load the folders I imported. Vista? #
• My kids sneak off to eat apples and tomatoes (not together)…I guess that’s better than candy. #
• I’m happy to have a clean desk…now I can actually think when I’m working. Note to self: NO MORE CLUTTER!!! #
• Just realized trash is a day off due to the holiday. http://is.gd/2dir #
• The smell of veg. beef stew is in the air…fresh tomatoes and onions from the garden. @jeffstanger, you’re coming over tonight, right? #
• @PodcastPickle That’s funny. Sort of like mail from Google ending up in my gmail spam folder. in reply to PodcastPickle #
• @bnpositive how about Batman laying it down on the new “metro” Superman? in reply to bnpositive #
• @jeffstanger How about a Mystery Men 2 or Tick movie? in reply to jeffstanger #
• Anyone catch NBC’s “McCain Votes Against Vets” 1/2 second shot? Let’s assume it’s not intentional… #
• @bnpositive Which one? Both? We’ve got to have a viewing! in reply to bnpositive #
• OK, what did I just miss at the RNC? Anyone know what that was? #
• @CleisDesign Wondering that myself. in reply to CleisDesign #
• @OldManMusings What were they trying to sell? Funny nonetheless. in reply to OldManMusings #
• @nickilaycoax Honestly my gut is to remove gov from schools…but with gov funds (many local) that won’t happen in reply to nickilaycoax #
• @nickilaycoax I wouldn’t say better, but different. There’s no one way for kids to learn and that’s part of the choices out there. in reply to nickilaycoax #
• @dcagle Cool! in reply to dcagle #
• Not sure why I’m watching this…never watched a political convention in my life. Must be getting older… #
• Fight! Fight! Fight! Now that’s the America I’m talking about! Lets rumble! Break out the warheads! Whoo Hoo!!! #
• “Camera Pool” Ah…so no responsibility of any one network…guess that’s good sort of. #
• @bnpositive but were they made in America? If so, that’s creating US jobs… in reply to bnpositive #
• Enough talk of politics and schooling…I’m calling it a night on Twitter. #

CompUSA is going out of business and it looks like stores will begin closing early next year. While I like CompUSA and it’s sad to see it go, the one in Indy just isn’t convenient for me to go to and shopping online or heading down the street to Best Buy is much easier (and often cheaper).

Related to the closing, I wonder how this will affect Chuck if NBC brings it back after the Writers Guild of America Strike is over.  (From what I’ve heard, parts of Chuck are shot inside of a CompUSA store outfitted to mock Best Buy.  Circuit City might be an option as long as their financial situation has gotten better.)