The 5 Worst Fall Television Premiers in 2009

While this fall brings back wonderful and fresh shows like Glee, Dexter, and Californication, there are a number of series that leave the viewer asking for their thirty to sixty minutes of life back. Here are the five worst television premiers so far this fall.

Cougar Town

ABC's Cougar Town stars Jules (Courtney Cox), a divorced mom who, you guessed it, is attracted to men half her age. Jules spends most of her time fantasizing about her son's friends while also criticizing her neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins) and her colleague Laurie (Busy Phillips) for dating younger people. The laughs are few and far between; sex jokes just don't work on network TV like they do on shows were the content is less censured, like Showtime's Californication or Sex in the City. Predictable to say the least, Cougar Town lacks interesting characters and any semblance of a plot.

The Vampire Diaries

Not the first television show to tap into the recent vampire craze, The Vampire Diaries regurgitates the typical blood sucking love story. Writer Kevin Williams, perhaps best known for Dawson's Creek, fails to interject new themes into a genre that is quickly becoming tired. This is Twilight for TV. If vampires and blood interest you, HBO's True Blood offers more than the typical boy-vampire meets human girl "love" story.

House

The season six premier of House begins with a simple role reversal. Vicodin addicted Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), once known for his Sherlock-esque diagnoses, now finds himself as the patient. The very fact House no longer features the title character actually doing what doctors do is an obvious sign that this series has jumped the shark. For a series that built itself on complicated medical mysteries, it is an unwelcomed sight to see House deviate so far from its main focus.

Modern Family

Another clunker brought to you by ABC; Modern Family could give you headaches even with the volume muted. The show, shot with a single camera in a mockumentary style, is simply an unfunny, mundane sitcom, retooled to give the viewer the idea that there is something fresh here. Instead, all the typical hallmarks of basic (and boring) American situational comedies remain.

Numb3rs

Numb3rs is nothing more than a CSI spinoff, but here, the characters are limited to mathematics, statistics and game theory to solve crimes. When Numb3rs first began in 2005, the mathematical solutions and crime solving were somewhat interesting, but the show, now in its sixth season, struggles to develop a plot that has lost its niche. There are only so many models, equations, and proofs that can help solve murders, and now many mathematical theories are being re-used ad nauseam.