Another week, another round of TV. As the weather starts to cool down and season premiere’s are over (soon, 30 Rock, so soon) shows really begin to show us what they are going to be made of this season. There seems to be a five/six episode test for most shows and if they fail to wow you by then, they probably won’t. We’re fast approaching that for this season and here’s how we think they are stacking up so far.

Agree? Hate us? Really love FlashForward? Let us know what you thought in the comments.

Robert:

FlashForward
At first glance, FlashForward might seem like an attempt to re-bottle the lightning of LOST, but I think it has even more potential for success (or disappointment) given its premise. This week’s episode takes us one step closer to both. While LOST proved that a show can build a dozen strong characters with individual story arcs and maintain a deep, overarching narrative, FlashForward has a pool of nearly seven billion characters to play with. This makes our introduction to a Nazi war criminal across the world in a German prison all the more significant, as it gives us our first real glimpse outside of FBI Agent Mark Benford’s world. On the other hand, the way the story is resolved tells me that FlashForward may be taking the path of least resistance by using a new one-off character each week to push things along. This makes it easier for audiences to digest, of course, but means that, for a show that raises the stakes to include the entire world, we’ll only see things play out from the eyes of a few characters. That, my friends, seems lazy and uninspired.

Stargate Universe
Even though I really liked the Roland Emmerich’s Stargate so many years ago, I never tuned in to the Showtime series Stargate SG-1 because its focus on the more fantastical elements of the film didn’t really appeal to me. By the time I’d decided to give SG-1 another chance, the show had already moved to SciFi Channel and was on the verge of spinning off into Stargate Atlantis, putting me well beyond trying to play catch up. So to my eyes, the new series Stargate Universe qualifies just as much as a reboot as it does a spin-off and I love it so far. The show follows a group of evacuees who make an emergency jump through a stargate and find themselves on an ancient, unmanned ship on the other side of the universe. In the first three episodes, the show has found a unique flashback/alternate-reality way to keep its characters grounded in our present-day world and gone are the rubber-masked aliens in lieu of flawed human beings with mixed ideals and motivations. It feels like just the right mix of Star Trek: Voyager, Battlestar Galactica and yes, even LOST. I only wonder if longtime Stargate fans would approve.

Ellen:

Saturday Night Live
I’ll soon be coming around to collect from all of you who said SNL’s flirtation with political relevance last year has returned it to the glory days. Instead, the show has fallen back in love with itself, and it could be fatal. There has yet to be a good guest host this season; that the honor of being the most frequent female host ever has gone to Drew Barrymore is an indicator that the show’s penchant for celebrity has caused it to lose sight of its raison d’etre. (Even Ryan Reynolds dutifully busted out an Australian accent and an egregious cutoff shirt last week for a sketch about reality TV. Barrymore let a few silly hairdos stand in for character development.) The last half hour particularly smacked of time-filling desperation, with not one but two sketches revolving around how funny mildly dirty words are when repeated ad nauseum — just like the fourth grade. Judging by what worked this week, next week’s episode ought to consist of History Channel spoofs, Maya Angelou, “Weekend Update” and Will Forte in a fright wig reciting Usher lyrics.

The Office
I can vividly remember the last time I was excited about watching a wedding between two television characters. The year was 1988, the lucky couple was Maria and Luis, and the show was Sesame Street. (I had to look up the year on Wikipedia, which I couldn’t access back then from my Apple IIGS.) In his defense of “Niagara,” this week’s double episode of The Office, New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Alan Sepinwall praised the show for allowing Jim and Pam’s relationship to unfold without artificial obstacle, from illicit kiss in Season 2 (right before what was going to be Pam’s first trip down the altar) to dating, long-distance separation and pregnancy. While Jim’s transfer to the Stamford branch in Season 3 may look in retrospect like a time-buyer, at the time it felt like the end of a potentially charmed TV couple. (Instead, it allowed show creators to bring in the great Ed Helms, who once again proved he’s a cast heavyweight with this week’s dance-floor injury subplot.) Sepinwall’s in the right key but he neglects one important factor: Aside from Ed, almost all of the shows he mentions that were supposedly “ruined” by relationships gone right are a generation removed from today’s fans of The Office, and the twenty- and thirtysomething writers who work on it. Moonlighting must have been past my bedtime, but maybe I don’t have a healthy fear of a beaming Pam and Jim becoming a comedic black hole because there’s plenty of unresolved tension — sexual and otherwise — in the water cooler at Dunder Mifflin. And even on a night filled with “aww,” they managed to work in the Internet sensation, the Three Wolf Moon shirt. I’m as giddy as a preschooler watching PBS.

Scott:

Mad Men
It’s easy to forget that Don Draper’s a huge dick. He is, after all, the coolest character on the coolest show on TV. He looks fantastic in a suit, casual wear… anything, really. He’s a genius at his job (most of the time, anyway, I agreed with Connie on the lame Hilton campaign tonight). But this is a man who regularly cheats on the beautiful mother of his children, who was ready to leave those children behind at the drop of a hat for one of his mistresses, and who essentially lives a lie every second he’s breathing, having assumed a dead man’s identity. The wound he dealt to Sal tonight may have been the unkindest cut of all, though, firing him for not accepting the advances of the drunken heir to the Lucky Strike fortune, and rubbing salt in the wound with a dismissive “you people”. Betty gave him a run for his money by coming this close to an affair with a sleazy pencil-pusher and shrugging off the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Tawdry indeed, Betty.

Fringe and Dollhouse
Fox’s two big sci-fi shows are so much better than they were last year. Fringe has retained the monster-of-the-week format that hooks the unwashed masses week after week, but seems much more interested in the long-term serialized plot of creepy operatives from an alternate universe bent on destroying our fine standard universe. Dollhouse has stopped pretending that anyone other than Joss Whedon fanatics are watching and is now fully invested in highly satisfying cult territory (and casting every single castmember of Battlestar). So it’s a shame nobody’s watching; well, nobody ever watched Dollhouse to begin with, and the formerly successful Fringe is taking a beating with an ill-advised time change that pits it against Grey’s Anatomy, CSI and The Office. It’s yet another example of why network TV is quickly becoming a no man’s land: nobody watches anything interesting, and the stuff that everyone watches sucks. Joss, let me introduce you to a little network called FX…

Zoe:

Bored to Death
New Yorkers complain a lot about the shows set in their fair city, spending lots of time tearing apart the accuracy. This is the right of any city, of course, but I think New Yorkers take it too personally–after all, how often is my beloved Midwest depicted in any sort of realistic sense? It’s the inherent flaw of writing places you don’t know. But then along comes Bored to Death, a somewhat uneven, but delightful show set and Brooklyn. And boy, is it. Half the fun of watching for me is being able to nod my head in recognition of this New York, with the hipster and the layabouts and what have you. A friend lives in the exact section of Brooklyn the show is set and delights in its accuracy. I’m not saying that’s the shows selling point–it’s not–but like throwaways on 30 Rock to actual things, these little details are an extra touch that gives the show a boost in my mind.

Dexter
I don’t intend to complain about this show every week still, because I still watch it and enjoy it. But god, does Masuka creep me out. He’s a very creepy, sketchy, and extraordinarily well-written and acted as such. Unfortunately the show plays him like he’s a cut-up or the office clown, rather than the guy that ladies spend as much time avoiding as humanely possible. Like a little too much on Dexter, the writers seemingly have a great idea they fail to go to good places with. And as a feminist, it makes me depressed to see TV pretending as if Masuka’s behavior should be, in any way, given the green light.

Wizards of Waverly Place
Yes, Disney shows premiere. Not quite to the same, fan-fare level of other networks (and, given their desire to show everything out of order, it hardly matters), but premiere they do. Friday kicked off the third season of my favorite ridiculous show about wizards (sorry, Merlin) and while it was, well…exactly what it is and not that quality of an episode, it still managed to come out swinging for me. Why? Because they debuted a new set in Justin’s room and included posters that accurately reflected continuity. It’s a small thing, but it’s a small thing that plays into my TV desires and, given how many big shows don’t do this stuff, confirms my belief this is a pretty solid show.