Adrianne Palicki, James Wolk and Eloise Mumford of 'Lone Star'

Credit: FOX

 Happy Thursday, Boys and Girls.

As promised, here's the first of several special Fall Preview installments of the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.

For this episode, we're discussing the eight network shows premiering on Monday and Tuesday night next week. That means "Lone Star," "The Event," "Mike & Molly," "Hawaii Five-0," "Chase," "Raising Hope," "Running Wilde" and "Detroit 187." 

On Monday, we'll probably do a regular-ish podcast with "Mad Men" discussion, as well as quick previews of a bunch of returning shows coming back next week. Then on either Tuesday or Wednesday, we'll review the new shows airing between Wednesday and Friday.

Does that make sense? Good!

Anyway, here's the breakdown if you want to skip to specific reviews of specific shows:

"Lone Star" -- 03:40 - 10:10

"The Event" -- 10:10 - 16:00

"Mike & Molly" -- 16:00 - 21:05

"Hawaii Five-0" -- 21:45 - 27:30

"Chase" -- 27:45 - 34:10

"Raising Hope" -- 34:15 - 39:25

"Running Wilde" -- 39:25 - 48:50

"Detroit 1-8-7" -- 49:10 - 55:00

As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. [Or you can always follow our RSS Feed.]

Mark Duplass of 'The League'

Credit: FX

Actors do TV shows for many different reasons, but Mark Duplass gave me a rather unique explanation when we spoke.

 'Boardwalk Empire'

Credit: HBO

As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. [Or you can always follow our RSS Feed.]

Dear tombstone... What a long and confusing season it's been... Love, Sookie.

Credit: HBO

After a frenzied penultimate episode characterized by poorly motivated character decisions, poorly hatched plotting, poorly staged revelations and cheaply discarded allegory, Sunday (Sept. 12) night's "True Blood" leaves Alan Ball and company with an almost insurmountable task in next week's third season finale. Somehow, the writers have one week to find a way to make us believe that this season wasn't all a random assortment of things that happened over the course of a few days in Bon Temps, a random assortment of things with barely any connection to each other and with almost not through-lines uniting characters. And speaking of characters, the writers have only one week to service a broad swath of beloved returning and new faces, some of whom were perplexingly dropped from the storytelling this season without any rhyme or reason.

Leighton Meester of 'Gossip Girl'

Credit: The CW

The third season of "Gossip Girl" was a bit of a disjointed mess.

A mascot and Matthew Perry in 'Mr. Sunshine'

Credit: ABC

[As I've already mentioned, and will continue to mention each and every one of these posts that I do: This is *not* a review. Pilots change. Sometimes a lot. Often for the better. Sometimes for the worse. But they change. Actual reviews will be coming in September and perhaps October (and maybe midseason in some cases). This is, however, a brief gut reaction to not-for-air pilots.]

Show: "Mr. Sunshine," ABC [MIDSEASON]
The Pitch: "Chandler Bing's Very Special Midlife Crisis"
Quick Response: [I hadn't been planning on doing midseason shows here, but somebody on Twitter asked specifically about "Mr. Sunshine," so I figured I might as well...] The elements are all in place for "Mr. Sunshine" to become a pretty funny comedy. You've got Matthew Perry, Allison Janney and Andrea Anders, all versatile favorites (plus a solid supporting cast). You've got a relatively unfamiliar milieu in the show's sporting arena backdrop. [I'm not saying it's a terrific milieu or that the pilot convinces me that it's necessarily a meaningful milieu, thematically, but I'm sure it's a milieu that hasn't been overexposed on TV. I'm now done saying 'milieu.'] With Tommy Schlamme directing the pilot with his signature walk-and-talks, you get a clear sense of a show that wouldn't mind being thought of as "Sports[Arena]Night." And there were definitely parts of "Mr. Sunshine" that made me chuckle, generally because of those aforementioned elements (and the un-aforemented elephants). What plagues the "Mr. Sunshine" pilot, though, is an obsequious need to over-explain the overall circumstances as if to say, "We promise there's a hook to this TV series. No, really!" See, Perry's character is celebrating his 40th birthday and realizing that he's been self-obsessed for so long that he no longer even knows how to make human connections, a fact I know because his character announces, "All of a sudden, I want to make a connection and I don't have the first clue how to do it" and because multiple characters reference his selfishness and whatnot. It's my suspicion/hope that once "Mr. Sunshine" stops needing to tell us that it's about a selfish guy trying to be less selfish and starts just becoming about a selfish guy trying to be less selfish, I might be able to relish Perry's trademark snarkiness, Anders' trademark perky loopiness and Janney's oddball eccentricities. Portia Doubleday, James Lesure and Nate Torrence also have potential.
Desire To Watch Again: "Mr. Sunshine," like "Running Wilde," is a comedy that feels unformed in its pilot form. And both comedies focus on unformed men trying to improve themselves. And in both cases, I'll give both shows multiple episodes to see how well and how quickly they find their voices. My ideal version of "Mr. Sunshine" makes a really good pairing with Courteney Cox's "Cougar Town." We'll see if that's how the show goes.

Previously...

Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's 'Detroit 187'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's 'Body of Proof'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's 'My Generation'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: NBC's 'Outlaw'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: NBC's 'Chase'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: CBS' 'The Defenders'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: CBS' 'Blue Bloods'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: CBS' 'Mike & Molly'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: NBC's 'Outsourced'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: The CW's ' Hellcats '
Take Me to the Pilots '10: FOX's "Raising Hope"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: NBC's "The Event"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: FOX's "Running Wilde"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: FOX's "Lonestar"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: CBS' "Hawaii Five-0"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: NBC's 'Undercovers'
Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's "Better Together"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: CBS' "Feces My Dad Says"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: The CW's "Nikita"
Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's "No Ordinary Family"