Two Comedians (And Totally Unqualified Critics) Preview the New TV Season

Two totally unqualified critics preview the new fall season. Emily Shur

Each fall, a new crop of shows hits the air—and we're forced to gamble on which ones will be worth watching. After all, for every Arrow, there's a Dracula. Hoping to get a bead on this season's prospects, we asked Jonah Ray and Kumail Nanjiani, cohosts of the Comedy Central stand-up series The Meltdown With Jonah and Kumail, to review a few. They've only seen the shows' trailers, but when has that ever stopped a nerd from passing judgment?

Prequel alert! Fox gets in on the comic-book fun by imagining the future Commissioner Gordon as a rookie detective investigating the murders of young Bruce Wayne's parents.

Ray: There are younger versions of every future villain and superhero. It's basically Batman Babies.

Nanjiani: There's a skinny Penguin. Is there a lot of emotional eating coming up?

Ray: I can't wait for someone to punch Gordon in the face and go, “Welcome to Gotham City. That's the G.C., bitch!” That's a reference to the television show The O.C.

In this Facebook-era sitcom version of My Fair Lady, Doctor Who's Karen Gillan plays the Eliza Doolittle role (in this case Eliza Dooley).

Nanjiani: I thought the whole show was gonna be shot on front-facing iPhone cameras.

Ray: I'm hoping that all the social media references will be a gateway for shitty people to watch it and then learn how shitty they are.

Nanjiani: In the trailer she says, “We can do anything. But no backdoor stuff.” I would love if that's the hashtag they're trying to get out there for the pilot. #backdoorstuff

Based on DC Comics' Hellblazer, this supernatural-detective drama hews closer to the source material than the 2005 Keanu Reeves film version—which would normally give us hope, except for one of the things they apparently changed.

Nanjiani: In the comics, John Constantine is a chain smoker who gets lung cancer. They took that out. Now he's just a really bummed-out British guy who can commune with the dead.

Ray: They should have got Morissey to play him.

Nanjiani: But even the ghosts would be like, “You're really bumming me out, dude—and I'm dead.”

A team of ultragenius hackers (and Katharine McPhee as an everywoman waitress, because why not?) use their l33t skills to avert global crises.

Nanjiani: In the trailer, the software update messes up all the plane systems. Whenever a computer software update comes up on my computer, I'm like, “What's the worst that can happen if I don't do this?” Oh, 80 planes will crash.

Ray: I don't think anyone's gotten hacker culture right since the movie Hackers.

Nanjiani: Or the TV show Silicon Valley that's on HBO. That show really nails it.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.