The Fall Television Season: Comedy Preview

Posted by: Shane Hallam  •  September 16, 2009 @ 7:53pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

It's fall again, which means it's time for the annual return of the TV season. This year's batch of both new and returning comedies looks extremely promising. Representing the latter, we have, amongst others, the shows How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and the long-awaited return of the quirky HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm, three shows which I will be covering throughout the duration of their respective seasons. To be eagerly anticipated are the resolutions to the considerable cliffhangers left by all three during their season finales.

*Spoiler Alert*

Mother left us with the exciting knowledge that Ted's future wife, and the eponymous mother to which the show's title refers, is a student in a class in which he has fortuitiously found himself as the professor. Big Bang likewise left its audience speculating as to the romantic feelings that Penny finally allowed herself to acknowledge, and the toll that Leonard's expedition to the North Pole with Sheldon and co. would play on their relationship. Lastly, HBO's cult hit Curb returns for its seventh season after an almost-two-year hiatus to elaborate on Larry's divorce and new relationship with Vivica A. Fox's Loretta Black. Also to look forward to is the reunion of the entire core cast of Seinfeld for the first time on television since the original show ended, in a story arc which is reputed to last the majority of the season.

*Spoilers End Here*

On the frontier of new shows, two hopefuls stand out; namely, NBC's Community and ABC's Modern Family. Community comes to us from the people behind The Sarah Silverman Program and Arrested Development, and stars the legendary Chevy Chase, as well as the host of E!'s The Soup, Joel McHale. The plot of the show centres around a former lawyer's arrival at Community College after his dismissal from The Bar. Chase plays the role of a seven-times divorced fellow student whose sexual vulgarity presents a multitude of problems to McHale's Jeff Winger and his fellow students.

Modern Family has been well-received by both critics and viewers alike, and is generating quite a bit of buzz this season. In fact, the pilot was so successful with focus groups that ABC advanced production and ordered 13 episodes before the official announcement of their fall line-up. Family co-stars Ed O'Neill of Married With Children fame and could be considered ABC's response to the NBC single-camera mockumentary format. The show follows the lives of an exceptionally diverse family and the trials and complexities it faces in the age of non-nuclear familes, second families, and interraciality.

There you have it. It certainly looks to be a very entertaining and innovative season. Happy viewing!

How I Met Your Mother premieres Monday, September 21 at 8 PM on CBS.

The Big Bang Theory premieres Monday, September 21, at 9:30 PM on CBS.

Curb Your Enthusiasm premieres Sunday, September 20, at 9 PM on HBO.

Community premieres Thursday, September 17, at 9:30 PM on NBC.

Modern Family premieres Wednesday, September 23, at 9 PM on ABC.

Tags: Modern Family , How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory , Curb Your Enthusiasm, Community, preview, TV season

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Original Comments Posted (1)

BigGame says...

How I met your mother is such a funny show to watch. Barney always seems to be putting his foot in his mouth and ted always seems to go along for the ride! this is a great show and I hope it is on for many more seasons to come!

Oct 2, 2009 7:40pm

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