Fall TV Preview

The Law & Order Franchise

Here's a brief summary of every other episode of Law & Order: SVU:

Act I: Girl gets violently raped.

Act II: Rape leads SVU to investigate a conspiracy to put anthrax in New Orleans drinking water. Neo Nazi leader is arrested following discovery of YouTube video boasting of the plan.

Act III: YouTube video is enhanced to show background detail that proves the victim was lying and in on the plot. Surprise revelation in the courtroom ends with potato cannon attack on judge.

The entire Law & Order franchise continues its Simpsons-like descent into incomprehensibility with more ripped from the headlines plot twists, turns, double twists, reverse over-unders, flips, flops, flip-flop-flips, dips, and double-crosses. Producers promise to up the ante with the best rapes you've ever seen, most violent molestations ever implied, the most awesome murders ever committed, and literally no original ideas or logic whatsoever. Expect all three shows to do an episode based on Chris Benoit killing his family for May sweeps.

The Wire

Approximately 12 people will watch the final season of HBO's The Wire, the most amazing thing on television in ages. So haunted and moved by the show's brilliance, these precious few will proceed to nag everybody else to watch it to such an annoying degree that the entire world will write the show off out of pure spite.

House

Look for big shakeups this season of House when the show throws its tried-and-true formula out the window and adopts an identical one using new supporting characters to fill the roles left by the old supporting characters, who are all still there giving support. If you thought the statistically unlikely number of rare and strange diseases last season was high, get ready to have your Lupus-infected socks blown clear off.

Heroes

Expect one of our titular heroes to read Watchmen and figure out the villain's diabolical schemes five episodes in. The remaining 17 episodes will be dedicated to the family conflicts viewers know and love and people whining about the burden of having godlike powers.

Jericho

The show that actually managed to take the fun out of a nuclear apocalypse by burying it under a pile of horribly dull and mundane drama gets a second chance at life after nerdy fans in love with the concept of human annihilation decided a terrible show was still better than no show at all. This season promises to blow the first away with characters racing against the clock to handle problems of classroom book shortages, groundwater contamination, and corn rationing.

Lost

Here is a brief summary of all Lost related discussion on the Internet (not counting slash fiction written by disgusting housewives):

"My word, such audacity!"

"I stagger to believe the brashness & cunning of this show!"

"Verily, I must confess a profound disappointment. That I should be engaged by ___'s past exploits is an insult most foul. It is the grand mystery of the Island itself that so completely enraptures my spirit."

"The tidings of this televised endeavor no longer bequeath me joy. Furthermore, might I postulate that the writers are faggots?"

Lost returns for its fourth season to deliver 16 uninterrupted episodes efficiently explaining the show's mysteries with calculated precision. Fans can expect an orderly, rational revealing of the complex storylines and secrets, such as Jacob the Country Ghost, the Monster, what happened to WALLLLLTTT, who's piloting that evil boat, why the hobbit arbitrarily killed himself instead of calmly exiting the underwater base, and why anyone still cares. Viewers can also expect the addition of several important new characters, all certain to die before the season ends.

Battlestar Galactica

The most innovative science fiction show in some time returns to explain what the hell they were thinking. Namely, why the show now features more musical robots than a Chuckie E. Cheese restaurant. Since this is the final season, viewers can expect fewer tedious standalone episodes covering such exciting topics as space luddites, space unions, space boxing, space bars, and space affairs. With any luck, they won't blow their special effects budget in the first four episodes, either.

Go ahead, tell me I forgot any number of other shows on television. You'd be right, and I wouldn't care. I offer no apologies!

– Josh "Livestock" Boruff (@Livestock)