Prime Time

We've had some season and series premieres here or there, but the fall season is back in full force tonight with the return of the most jam-packed night of the TV week. How packed? My DVR can record two things at once. There is a point on Thursdays when four shows watched by me and/or my wife are on at the same time. Good thing we have Hulu, huh?

Tonight the DVR went to ABC and CBS with the series premiere of Flash Forward, the season premieres of Grey's Anatomy and C.S.I.:, and the second episode of Survivor. Couldn't get to Community, which will have to be on the web. Most likely the same thing will go for 30 Rock. The fourth network is the CW with The Vampire Diaries (no, I don't watch it; the CW portion of my heart belongs to West Beverly High alone).

Only got to three of the shows tonight:

• We may very well be headed for one of the best seasons in Survivor history. If you haven't seen this season yet and you like the show, you're only two episodes behind and you need to catch up. Tonight's episode featured the greatest villain in show history -- it was a lock after only the first episode -- making a brilliant forward-thinking play and then continuing to psychologically abuse his tribemates. In fact, Russell and his tribe are so interesting that you almost forget the other tribe exists. We found out tonight that even the craziest person on the purple tribe didn't go completely nuts until she visited the yellow tribe and went on an inane (I meant to leave the 's' out) tirade. The winner of the night goes to Ben, who not only got kicked out of an immunity challenge for sweeping the leg, but also dropped one of the most overtly racist lines in show history by calling Yasmin "ghetto trash" and insisting she go back to "eating ketchup sandwiches and drinking Kool-Aid." And he didn't get voted out. This season rocks.
• Grey's Anatomy is Grey's Anatomy. What do you want? They followed up their surprisingly great Twilight Zone-ish season finale with two hours of pure misery and depression. For some reason, they've decided to make Derek into a big dick this season. The saving grace is that it looks like maybe Miranda feels the same way I do: why did George have to die and Izzy live?!?
• Brings us to the awaited series premiere of Flash Forward, the Lost-esque sci-fi drama starring Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, and Sonya Walger (Penny) among others (Dominic Monaghan is going to be the bad guy in future episodes). It shows a lot of promise. The special effects were more than a little fake, but luckily they got those over with quickly and focused on the psychological aspects of the entire world blacking out at the same time for 137 seconds and seeing six months into the future. Dark, well-acted, and intriguing. Looks like this may be the keeper of the new shows.