FallPicks

Thank God summer is almost over! Not because it was so hot, or that vacation driving pushed the price of a gallon of gas above three dollars, or that I used my air conditioner so much that the graph of electric usage took up two pages of my monthly bill. No, I'm glad summer is almost over because I'm tired of watching America's Got Talented Dancing With the Stars Who Want to be Supernovas while the Last Comic Stands With The One. In other words, bring on the new television season, dammit! So, without further ado, here are my five fall picks for the 2005-2006 season.

1. More season finales, less series finales: Over the last three seasons a number of good television shows left the airwaves for a life in syndication and DVD box sets. I'm talking about shows like Friends, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, West Wing, Alias, Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Will & Grace and of course Joey. This left plenty of open slots in network schedules that had to be filled. Sometimes a network like ABC got lucky and hit with the right shows at the right time. Other times you had networks like NBC struggling to find its place after losing many of its most popular shows (and revenue generators). Hopefully with this season things will calm down a bit. We know that The Sopranos is definitely leaving this season, and shows like 7th Heaven, The Shield and Gilmore Girls may hang it up come April or May, but I hope that's all the attrition we'll see.