Return of the TV

It's premiere week, and I'm doing my part to find new series worthy of my time. Combine that with my internet troubles, and I didn't feel like writing an update last night. During the premiere season, I'm going to write some descriptions and predictions of the shows, but first, I'm going to techno-babble about my internet situation, which now seems to work the way I want it to.

Thursday afternoon, Knology (the local cable company) sent a guy out to install my TV and internet service. After the TV was working, he set up the cable modem, checked it with my computer, and left. He told me I'd need to setup the wireless router, which is fair - that's not their problem, after all. I checked for myself that the internet worked and tried wireless once. Normally, I don't need to do anything other than plug all the cords in the right place and turn things on. That didn't work, and I was headed to Memphis for the weekend, so I packed up and hoped for the best.

I got back to really working on my internet connection today. (Yesterday, I was distracted by NBC.) I tried a few more times to get the router / modem to play nice, with no more luck than last week. I decided to find the local Nerd Herd / Geek Squad. I also wanted to explore the area a little more. After striking out with the staff at Office Depot (I find them at least as knowledgeable as most Best Buy employees, and usually much more willing to help), I walked next door to Best Buy. If that hadn't worked, I could have walked two more doors down to the Circuit City. Skipping any further geography lessons, the Best Buy staff was actually helpful. It seems I needed to give the MAC address of the router to the Knology people. So I called them, and the first lady I talked to said everything was taken care of. The system needed 15-20 minutes to reset, so I waited. An hour later, it still didn't work. I called again. This time, the guy said that he couldn't access the information he needed from the router, and that there must be something wrong with the port on the router. So I had him set things up to work with my computer again (apparently, only one MAC address can be allowed at a time).

After some research, I discovered that the router's MAC address could be changed. At first, I tried to change it to match the wireless card, but that didn't work. It makes sense now, but at the time, I was baffled. The guy at Knology had reset the modem to recognize the wired adapter, not the wireless card. So I used that MAC address. And, it works. I'm a genius, I know.

On to the TV reviews:

The Simpsons
Network: Fox
Status: Returning
Review: After, what, 312 seasons, it's not new anymore. It's still funny, though. I caught the season premiere on its "secondary" schedule (read: found elsewhere after airing), and was entertained, but not impressed.
Grade: B
Odds I'll Keep Watching: 80%

King of the Hill
Network: Fox
Status: Returning
Review: I've never found this show to have as many jokes as its animated cousins at Fox, but it has insights the others skip for the sake of a punchline. This episode involved Bobby finally becoming interested in football. I missed a lot of the references, because football isn't just a Texas sport, no matter what they may think about the sport.
Grade: B+
Odds I'll Keep Watching: 75%

Family Guy
Network: Fox
Status: Returning
Review: It's a Fox series reminiscent of the old Fox network, back when they were pure evil and leading the way in the amoralization of TV. OK, maybe that's still an accurate description. If you don't know about Family Guy by now, any description I give will be inadequate. The season premiere was a Star Wars Episode IV spoof, hence last night's references.
Grade: A+ (for the episode), A- (for the series, which has really started recycling jokes)
Odds I'll Keep Watching: 99.999%

Shark
Network: CBS
Status: Returning
Review: World's best defense attorney grows a conscience and takes a job putting the famous criminals of L.A. in prison. Helping him are Jeri Ryan and Sarah Carter, a nice age range on hot blondes. Again, I mentioned this in the last update. Not the most original show ever (think Jack McCoy with a little more ego, and that's saying something), but I like legal dramas.
Grade: A-
Odds I'll Keep Watching: 95%

Chuck
Network: NBC
Status: New
Review: The manager of the Nerd Herd at a Buy More gets NSA and CIA secrets downloaded into his head by his old college roommate who is now a spy. Spy-friend has a partner, who is hot and likes wearing lingerie and who is now going to be "handling" our friend Chuck. Jayne, from Firefly, killed spy-friend and is now also hanging around all the time. And, Jayne killed spy-friend, who was sleeping with hot handler chick. Follow all that? Just watch the show, I want it to survive.
Grade: A
Odds I'll Keep Watching: 98%

It's now much later than I intended. I'll try to finish Monday and Tuesday nights tomorrow with an addendum. Oh, the Law and Order: SVU that was on USA tonight from 11 to midnight had Claire Bennett / Butler from Heroes playing a 15-year-old slut. I have trouble seeing innocent Claire as this promiscuous strumpet. They need to recast this episode, even though she filmed it before Heroes was even a glint in Tim Kring's eye. More tomorrow.