Now that over 1 trillion pilots have been picked up for the fall season, it's time for us to jump back from the onslaught, find our bearings, and realize we have a choice in this monstrous free-for-all too. While some pilots star bankable talents like Jimmy Smits and Matthew Perry and others are created by the Svengalis behind Grey's Anatomy and Two and a Half Men, the rest seem more doomed than a six-hour episode of Romantically Challenged. Here they are, the five pilots already flying on fumes.
Outsourced
Network: NBC
Outsourced follows a corporate employee (off-Broadway star Ben Rappaport) forced to move to India to run a customer service department. No recognizable lead? A concept built on vague, one-joke racism? Who is this show for, anyway? And to follow 30 Rock and The Office? This is the kind of humor that's far beneath TGS with Tracy Jordan and even the nether cubicles of Dunder Mifflin.
Ride-Along
Network: Fox
A vagabond cowboy cop named Jerek (Jason Clarke) and Chicago's first female police (Jennifer Beals) chief join forces to help serve justice and maintain the peace in the Windy City. Can't wait to see the cowboy tangle with rowdy patrons at Comiskey Park, or with the varmints up in Wrigleyville. Nice try, Shawn Ryan and Fox, but it's clear that Steven Seagal: Lawman showed us the only passable way to do "vagabonds serving justice" during its short time on air. Moral: If you're going to shoot for a lame concept, at least hire a sublimely lame lead.
The Event
Network: NBC
We summed it up this morning, but man: Is there a grimmer way to start a series than with a President Of The United States who gets in your face and "needs to know" about some prisoners? Good lord. He's pretty concerned here, as you can tell. There he goes leafing through some papers. I'm rooting for The Event on behalf of Laura Innes, but even Dr. Kerry Weaver's magic couldn't save this.
Traffic Light
Network: Fox
Fox's attempt to establish a live-action comedy (after years of very slim success) seems reed-thin and generic. Aside from bearing a nondescript title, the series focuses on the friendship of three men, but without that Men of a Certain Age tragicomic cachet. When you're inheriting comic conceits from Israel, as producer/showrunner David Hemingsen has here, you might be shot for good ideas. Veteran Hemingsen's last project was the also-failed ABC dramedy The Deep End.
Better Together
Network: ABC
In another case of indistinguishable actors and a gimmicky concept, Better Together follows two couples -- one with a slow-moving relationship and the other a speedy one. This gag sounds like a one-off even in broad strokes, and not dynamic enough to build a following. They may as well call it Sh*t Some Couples Say and pray CBS turns a blind eye.