Battlestar Galactica
As we move into the second half of the final season, will all really be revealed? Season Four has been good, definitely better than Season 3 (which IMO got bogged down by the Starbuck/Apollo “plot”), though the logic of the Final Five Minus One doesn’t make much sense.
— Returns Friday, Jan. 16 @ Sci Fi 10pm

Bones
I’m not the one watching this, but Katie’s still hooked, so I guess it’s still good.
— Returns Thursday, Jan. 29 @ Fox 8 pm

Fringe
We both gave up after something like 4 episodes. It seemed like they were trying too hard to be The X-Files, too focused on the conspiracy and everything fitting “the pattern” and being tied to work in this one lab…and then there’s the problem with not bothering to research the regular science or think through the consequences of the totally-made-up “fringe” stuff that gave the show its title. The only thing worth watching for was John Noble’s mad scientist, Walter Bishop.

Lost
After a couple of seasons of floundering, Lost came back very strongly last year. Having an end point to work toward certainly helped, as did opening up the format from present with flashbacks to present with both flashbacks and flashforwards. At first the flashbacks were great for showing what motivated the various characters, what brought them to the island, what issues they were still working through, etc. But after a while they started answering questions no one asked (“The secret of Jack’s tattoo!”) or re-treading old ground. Adding flashforwards to post-Island events really added to story possibilities, and they made thorough use of it.
— Returns Wednesday, Jan. 21 @ ABC 9pm

Heroes
Alternately fantastic and infuriating. I’ve gone into this recently, so I won’t repeat it here. That’s what links are for. With luck, Volume 4 will fall more on the fantastic side.
— Returns Monday, Feb. 2 @ NBC 9pm

Pushing Daisies
As good as ever. They managed to somehow maintain the tone while moving forward with character development and further exploring the consequences of Chuck’s resurrection.
— Sadly, canceled. Word is that ABC may show the last three episodes next summer. SUMMER. *grrr* Just show ’em in a 5am marathon so they can be released to iTunes, Amazon Video and DVD, willya?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
This still hasn’t totally grabbed me the way Heroes or Pushing Daisies has, but it’s been an interesting, intricate take on the Terminator mythos. And oddly enough, I’m far more interested in the second half of this season than I am in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation movie. Sadly, Fox has moved it to the Timeslot of Death.
— Returns Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 8pm

Dollhouse
Not much to say about this one, since it hasn’t aired yet, but I’ll at least take a look at just about anything developed by Joss Whedon. Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker won’t hurt, either. Unfortunately, Fox has placed it in the Second Timeslot of Death, right after SCC
— Starts Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 9pm

(TV Guide via Blog@Newsarama)

TV Guide has a list of when TV shows are coming back now that the writers’ strike is over. (via ***Dave)

So, what’s happening to the shows we watch?

Battlestar Galactica

Returns April 4 with first half of 20-episode final season. Production on second half could start as early as March. Airdate for those TBD.

Seeing as how we don’t currently get the Sci-Fi Channel (we discovered BSG through DVDs), this means it’s time to figure out whether to mess with cable/satellite, watch it at someone else’s place, or hope that they’ll continue offering episodes online through iTunes or something.

Heroes

No new episodes expected until fall.

Pretty much expected that, given the way they were talking at the end of the “fall season.”

Journeyman

No new episodes expected. Ever.

And I continue my history of discovering interesting TV shows after they’ve already been canceled. (Actually, I have an even longer history of this with comic books. The first comic I ever bought, back in 1984, was issue #19 of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, which lasted 20 issues.)

Lost

Six pre-strike episodes remain. Expected to shoot five additional episodes to air in April/May.

TV Guide interviewed Carlton Cuse on this recently (via aeryncrichton). They’d already shot 8 episodes of the 16-episode season, and plan to condense the second half of the season into 5—presumably because that’s how many they can actually finish during this production season.

This could actually work out well for them. One of the reasons season 4 of Babylon 5 was so good (aside from paying off on 4 years of setup) was that JMS shifted up his timetable so that he could wrap up the foreground plotlines by the end of the season he knew he had, instead of ending with a cliffhanger and hoping he could wrap them up in the first third of a season 5 that looked increasingly unlikely. The result was an extremely intense season that is widely regarded as the best year of the show.

And let’s be honest, Lost hasn’t exactly been known for compressed storytelling.

On the other hand, there’s the last few episodes of Angel to consider as a counter-example.

Pushing Daisies

No new episodes until fall.

On the plus side, this means it’s actually been renewed! This had “Too good to last” written all over it!

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Four pre-strike episodes remain. Future beyond that TBD.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this one. I enjoy it while I’m watching it, and it’s much, much better than Terminator 3, but I don’t find myself looking forward to it between episodes. Even if it does have Summer Glau beating people up.

I finally saw Terminator 3 this weekend, and something has been bothering me about the ending (aside from watching the end of the world).

Skynet’s a distributed system. Presumably its intelligence scales along with the number of nodes it has. Those nodes are computers all over the world. Those computers are most concentrated in major cities. Skynet launches a global nuclear attack on those major cities. That wipes out a huge percentage of its own computing nodes. It’s also going to take out huge chunks of the Internet’s infrastructure, leaving many of the remaining nodes disconnected from each other.

In its attempt to wipe out humans, Skynet gave itself a world-class lobotomy.

I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t sound like a winning strategy to me.