Morning News: September 23, 2011

As this week finally draws to a close (and it has been tough keeping up with all of the new and returning shows this week), here is your news for today and what to look for over the weekend.

1. Season/Series Premieres. CBS kicks off it's programming with the new Gifted Man at 8:00pm. This show has something to do with a guy seeing his dead wife, another show about talking to dead people? Been there, done that. The NY-based cop shows follow with the season openers of CSI:NY and Blue Bloods. Over on Fox, a new Kitchen Nightmares and Fringe (TV Watcher is jumping for joy) premiere at 8:00 and 9:00 respectively. That's it for your Friday night, but Sunday brings a whole new bounty:
CBS: Emmy Winner Amazing Race begins a new leg at 8, followed by The Good Wife (with Emmy Winner Julianna Marguilies) (noticing a trend?) in its new time slot and then the dreadful CSI:Miami.
NBC has football.
ABC: Extreme Makeover rebuilds someone's house and then Desperate Housewives begins its swansong. Let's hope this show really goes out with a bang. Good for Marc Cherry for knowing when to stop. At 10pm, Pan Am takes to the skies, for its inaugaral flight (sorry, cheesy and overdone!).
CW: Supernatural and Nikita (I don't have anything to say about these shows)

2. Ratings! CBS was the clear winner last night with Big Bang pulling in the best numbers of the night (9.6). X Factor was down slightly from its Wednesday night outing (8.3). The NBC comedies performed as usual, with The Office getting a slightly larger bump from those curious about a Michael Scott-less show and strangely, Whitney did well. Huh? I doubt that will continue next week. Charlie's Angels did better than I had expected, but was definitely not a break-out hit (not that we expected it to be one). TV Watcher really enjoyed Person of Interest and wished it had gotten better ratings, but 8.6 is not too shabby.


3. Sesame Street still influences my life.

4. HIMYM fans: The Slutty Pumpkin is Katie Holmes. This stunt casting could be polarizing, people either love her or hate her or hate her husband. Britney Spears seemed to work, so let's see how things go.

5. Kiefer Sutherland has new show on Fox premiering mid-Season. Jack Bauer returns to save the world, but this time with his 10 year old autistic son who can connect seemingly random events and actions throughout the world. Sounds a little odd and throw Tim Kring into the mix and I bet there will a map with lots of pins and strings...Heroes, anyone?