Grades for the freshman class

Tim Goodman, the top notch TV critic of the SF Chronicle, gave grades to each of the past season's new shows. Good stuff:


The freshman crop of broadcast television series typically clocks in at an 80 percent failure rate, so it's not like you have to be hard on the new kids come grading time.

They make it easy for you.

But still, it must be done. And not all of the grades will reflect rating highs or lows. It's a combination of critical merit and whether they are adding value of some kind to their respective networks -- be it holding the audience of a lead-in series, lowering the demographic or establishing a beachhead on a heretofore dead night.

More weight will be given, however, to whether they are lousy or not. The red pencil is sharpened. The smiley (or frowney) stickers have been bought in bulk. Now, as the freshman season nears its end, let's bust out the letters.

-- "The War at Home," Fox, Sundays. Grade: D. The network will no doubt disagree, saying the ratings have been modest or hopeful, but this series is flat-out awful. And it degrades Fox by even being on the schedule.

-- "How I Met Your Mother," CBS, Mondays. Grade: B+. Easily one of the most underrated of the mainstream TV comedies. Who knew Neil Patrick Harris was this funny?

-- "Kitchen Confidential," Fox, canceled. Grade: B-. Don't blame the show -- based on the book and life of its writer, chef Anthony Bourdain. Blame Fox. This was a decently funny series with a lot of upside that went untapped, of course.

-- "Out of Practice," CBS, Mondays. Grade: C-. This is the network being its old self: star-studded pilot, traditional (and boring and trite) execution, with dull swipes at broad, predictable humor.

-- "Prison Break," Fox, Mondays. Grade: C+. It found a decent audience, but not much else. The premise was ludicrous -- successful white-collar professional robs a bank so he can get sent to prison and bust out his brother on death row -- the writing weak, the acting bad and the execution seriously flawed.

-- "Courting Alex," CBS, Mondays. Grade: C-. How any show can ruin the efforts of Jenna Elfman is mystifying, but this one does.

-- "The New Adventures of Old Christine," CBS, Mondays. Grade: B+. Finally a workable vehicle for "Seinfeld" alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The series is growing and getting better.

-- "Just Legal," WB, canceled. Grade: B-. Right show, wrong network. If Don Johnson as an aging, drunken lawyer paired with young, idealistic Jay Baruchel had been on CBS, it may have played for eight seasons. These kinds of programming miscues are why the WB is folding.

-- "Commander in Chief," ABC, on hiatus. Grade: C. Don't read much hope into "on hiatus." This series, an out-of-the-box hit that ruined itself with behind-the-scenes wrangling, then awful writing, is dead.

-- "Sex, Lies & Secrets," UPN, canceled. Grade: F. Deserved its fate. Then again, it never deserved to air.

-- "Free Ride," Fox, Wednesdays. Grade: D. This could have been a great series, but it tried too hard and the network allowed an obviously ill-conceived character to drag the whole thing down. A case of not enough notes, no guiding hand.

-- "Freddie," ABC, Wednesdays. Grade: D. Moronic and excessively awful, but enough people actually watched it so it has been renewed. As a reminder -- that doesn't make it good.

-- "Invasion," ABC, Wednesdays. Grade: B. Solidly entertaining, well-written and acted, the series never really caught on behind "Lost" when almost everyone believed that was a successful pairing. Still, you can't fault ABC on this one.

-- "The Loop," Fox, hopefully canceled. Grade: F. One word: Asinine. But the theme song, "Hockey Monkey," was great.

-- "Pepper Dennis," WB, hopefully canceled. Grade: D. Rebecca Romijn couldn't save this because she couldn't hire better writers on her own. She played a TV reporter. Here's the news of the day: The WB may have had one of the worst development seasons in recent memory.

-- "The Unit," CBS, Tuesdays. Grade: B+. David Mamet and Shawn Ryan ("The Shield") have taken their R-rated sensibilities and made a compelling series about Delta Force soldiers, led by Dennis Haysbert. Very entertaining.

-- "Teachers," NBC, hopefully canceled. Grade: D+. Why the plus part? Sarah Shahi from "The L Word" was in this. Still, not enough to merely dislike it.

-- "E-Ring," NBC, canceled. Grade: D. Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Hopper, the military ... no. Leave that to CBS. It just never seemed realistic. Or compelling.

-- "Criminal Minds," CBS, Wednesdays. Grade: B. Who knew CBS could tap into the FBI profiler bucket one more time and pull up a hit? Excessively violent and at times pretentious, it still had enough good performances from a disparate cast to win viewers.

-- "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," NBC, canceled. Grade: C-. A good idea (Stewart) gone bad (taking the zing out of her). In retrospect, she was held down by the concept and let down by NBC.

-- "The Bedford Diaries," WB, canceled. Grade: F. One of the worst dramas of the year, which caught some headlines about censorship because WB cut content against the producers' wishes. They should have cut it all.

-- "Related," WB, Wednesdays. Grade: C+. It's not going to make the jump to the CW, but it was better than its ratings. A good cast needed better writing and more time.

-- "Bones," Fox, Wednesdays. Grade: B. More forensics, but also more funny. There's witticisms, chemistry and solvable crimes, but there's a fluff factor that prevents it from moving up a notch.

-- "The Night Stalker," ABC, canceled. Grade: D. What a woeful "reimagining" of the cult TV series. It was boring and lifeless and, ultimately, pointless.

-- "What About Brian," ABC, hopefully canceled. Grade: C-. What about him? He's gone missing. Maybe he's looking for love (the premise) because he sure didn't find it here.

-- "My Name Is Earl," NBC, Thursdays. Grade: A+. Finally, a hit sitcom that's actually funny and, not to be too wonkish about it, saved NBC's backside on Thursday night. The series also helped along "The Office" until people could find it, love it and jump on board. So "Earl" is a triple threat. For critics, there's much to love, but on the simplistic end, "Earl" gets belly laughs every week and that's a rarity. And even better, it's a single-camera comedy with no laugh track. Because of the success of "Earl," a record number of similar-styled comedies were made as pilots. Let's hope they get picked up.

-- "Reunion," Fox, canceled. Grade: D. Laughably bad, convoluted and stylistically limiting, this series set out to follow high school seniors as they grew up -- one eventually killing another. It was DOA.

-- "Everybody Hates Chris," UPN, Thursdays. Grade: A. One of the buzz shows of the fall morphed into a funny and touching coming-of-age series based on the childhood of comedian Chris Rock. Easily one of the best network shows that nobody watched, it will get a second chance on the CW.

-- "Sons & Daughters," ABC, canceled. Grade: A. Brilliant, ridiculously funny, improvised and inspired, this was a series that was too smart for the room and you just can't do that on network television.

-- "Supernatural," WB, Thursdays. Grade: B. Entertaining and scary, this urban legend thrill ride was a big surprise (and bright spot) for the WB. Look for it to make the cut at the CW.

-- "The Evidence," ABC, hopefully canceled. Grade: D. The best thing about this cookie-cutter cop show was that it was set in San Francisco. After those two minutes of enjoyment, things became very mediocre.

-- "Heist," NBC, canceled. Grade: D-. A bad series about thieves made worse by trying to make them coy and cool instead of believable or interesting.

-- "Four Kings," NBC, canceled. Grade: D. Faux chemistry, bad boy jokes and unbelievable actors. Seth Green was better than the material, but not enough to overcome it.

-- "Love, Inc.," UPN. Grade: D. There's no love here. It tried too hard and failed easy.

-- "The Book of Daniel," NBC, canceled. Grade: C. Pill-popping priest talks with Jesus. Aidan Quinn was great, but the series tried to hit seven or eight controversial topics at once but never got good at any of them.

-- "Hot Properties," ABC, canceled. Grade: D-. Yet another series that tried to take the magic of "Sex and the City" and transfer it to broadcast television. What they forgot was the writing, acting, premise and overall quality.

-- "Emily's Reasons Why Not," ABC, canceled. Grade: C-. Heather Graham was a welcome addition to the small screen, but not believable as a woman desperate for attention. That's actually funnier than the show.

-- "South Beach," UPN, canceled. Grade: F. Executive produced by J.Lo. Still awful.

-- "Crumbs," NBC, canceled. Grade: D. Fred "Wonder Years" Savage as a gay writer. Cliche filled and humorless, it's a show you probably barely remember. (Well, that could be said about most of these.)

-- "Modern Men," WB, canceled. Grade: F. Yet another example of why the WB is no longer in business at the end of this month. Three guys, modern, who need love help. Vapid and unoriginal and cruel to endure.

-- "Ghost Whisperer," CBS, Fridays. Grade: C. Uncommonly lame, this series should be a C- at best, but a whole lot of people found and liked it on a Friday night. Jennifer Love Hewitt's breasts were prominent stars in most episodes, so maybe there's your real clue. It couldn't have been the writing or the believability -- she talks to dead people. Ah, but the show lived. CBS won.

-- "Love Monkey," CBS, canceled. Grade: A-. Tom Cavanagh played a record company executive who loved music, had cool friends, lived in Manhattan, spoke believable and funny dialogue but just happened to live on a network that doesn't make shows like that. Had he carried an M-16 or worked for the FBI, he'd still be on. One of the bigger shames of the fall.

-- "Close to Home," CBS, Fridays. Grade: B. You have to hand it to CBS. The network knows how to make crime and punishment series that people will watch, even on Fridays. Do they make too many? See: "Love Monkey." But "Close to Home" is a solid show, worth seeking out.

-- "Three Wishes," NBC, Fridays. Grade: B. This should have been a smash hit. People love feel-good, helpful reality shows. Who knows what went wrong.

-- "Threshold," CBS, canceled. Grade: B. Initially a buzz show in a pack of paranormal offerings for the fall, the series lacked the spark that made people want to watch more, and it just faded away.

-- "Inconceivable," NBC, canceled. Grade: F. The title says a lot about why it was even on the air. This fertility series wanted to be a broadcast version of FX's "Nip/Tuck," but was poorly, conceived.

-- "In Justice," ABC, probably canceled. Grade: C-. This show was set in Oakland. But even that's a blur, now. Kyle MacLachlan as a crusader for justice, if memory serves. It didn't really know what it wanted to be and probably won't get a chance to figure that out next season.

-- "Killer Instinct," Fox, canceled. Grade: F. Woeful. Set in San Francisco, so the Bay Area just went 0-3 in the fall.

-- "Twins," WB, canceled. Grade: F. Astonishingly bad. The WB was sold inferior product by producers David Kohan and Max Mutchnick ("Will & Grace"), who were allowed to do pretty much anything, including write bad jokes.

Well, something was probably forgotten in that jumble of mostly forgettable shows. Some of those D grades were generous -- even dubious. Take your pick. Here's hoping that you picked well this season and avoided either the pain of time-sucking lameness (most of what the WB offered) or the pain of finding something great in the dreck (poor "Love Monkey" and "Sons & Daughters") only to watch helplessly as it failed.

Starting next week, most of this class will be dismissed. From then until fall, every network will be looking forward to the new freshman.