Matt's Self-help guide to Weekend TV: Premieres of Not such a long time ago, Boss plus much more!

Lana Parrilla, Jennifer Morrison Once is not enough. Another look, or possibly another episode, is important to convince a skeptic the show might be worth going for a chance on. Therefore it is with ABC's dazzling but dauntingly precious Not such a long time ago (Sunday, 8/7c), that when I used to be considering it for Fall Preview left me wondering: "Is ambitiously whimsical fantasia the next Pushing Daisies cult fave or perhaps the next Eastwick insta-flop? (Either in situation, it will be a continuing climb to happily ever after.) It may be better to like whether or not this weren't so convoluted and cheesy."However ABC made another episode (the next, airing November. 6) designed for review, which i started to find myself enchanted and beguiled, ready to relax with elevated parts of the fractured mythic. First, though, you have to digest the premise, as well as the overstuffed and sometimes over ripe pilot is a lot to swallow. We start in the lavishly made fairy-tale land where Snow White-colored (Large Love's Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming wrangle by getting an Evil Full (Lana Parrilla), who interrupts their wedding while using commitment of the curse. Mentioned curse arrives much like Snow handles to deliver her newborn daughter Emma using a magical portal in to the world. Years pass, as well as the grown Emma (House's arch Jennifer Morrison), now a loner from the fugitive hunter, is enlisted having a boy to hasten for the isolated burg of Storybrooke, Maine, where time is frozen and many types of typically the most popular figures of legend live in insufficient understanding from the fabled roots. The boy thinks Emma can change back curse, however she must face the town mayor (Parrilla again), who's presented to saying things like, "I'll destroy you whether it's the ultimate factor I really do.Inch (Has she checked out Revenge? Can they have Televisions in Storybrooke?)"Seriously?" Emma remarks having a couple of frequency, that's understandable. I used to be initially deflated by all the heavy-handed whimsy, however began to think about Once a bit more seriously upon sampling the arrival third episode. It cleverly weaves Lost-like flashbacks - the show's designers are Lost vets, plus it shows - taking us to Snow's colorful past just like a frisky bandit, carried out off against her modern-day search for the Someone Particularly she doesn't know is her Prince Charming (in addition to their meet-cute within the enchanted forest truly is charming). There's gorgeous fun available here, and i'm cautiously positive that ABC's persistence in stalling the premiere until monthly into the season, coupled with heavy and smart promotion, takes care of, no less than initially. It may be unfortunate with this particular book being closed too soon.Want more fall TV news? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!The weekend's other large premiere, Starz's dark and dreary Boss (Friday, 10/9c), is among people shows I saved wanting would improve or maybe more interesting the higher I seen. No such luck. These acer notebook computers noticably for giving Kelsey Grammer (Frasier who?) a fantastically meaty dramatic workout. A worldwide removed the sitcom debacle of Hank, his new TV venture is not any laughing matter - which becomes shateringly apparent within the opening moments after we watch Chicago mayor Tom Kane brought to earth, though hardly humbled, with the not so great that he's battling by having an irreversible degenerative brain disease. Ain't we have got fun.Grammer clearly relishes the tragic size this juicy role. He's part cagey and callous Godfather while he wields energy from his literal bully pulpit, sooner or later taking an alderman with the ear and humiliating him as being a naughty child. He's also part Shakespearean Lear, raging against fate, his personal and professional misfortunes as well as the cynical tides of political chicanery. "Throughout my kingdom, many of us are whores," he declares to two actual ladies in the evening that are doing items you only see on pay cable. (The sexual content frequently feels gratuitously applied, possibly from some acknowledgment that otherwise Boss is a pretty drab affair.)Grammer brings a amazing vitality and morally queasy gravity for the role, while he grooms a handsome but randy idealist (Rob Hephner) for your governor's race while hiding the extent of his physical worries from his cronies, his co-employees (Kathleen Robertson and Martin Donovan, both excellent) and also the steely Lady MacBoss from the estranged wife (the terrific Connie Nielsen).Just like a character study, Boss is intriguing, well-socialized and fantastically crafted (Gus Van Sant directed the pilot), using the tips of high-finish premium cable. But ultimately, it becomes an simpler show to admire rather than recommend. Preachy and self-important (plus a by-the-amounts newspaper subplot), it's also glum, plodding and chilly for the bone. Inside the first four several hours of the initial eight-hour run, I am unable to say I used to be ever truly amazed at the familiar political and sordid personal intrigues, or terribly compelled to determine which continues next. But Starz has restored the show for just about any second season - discuss hubris - so there's the required time with this to earn our election.More highlights within the TV weekend:FridayPick in the evening: Jewel Jam Twenty (PBS, 9/8c, check local agendas), a celebration in the influential rock-band on its 20th anniversary by filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), a u . s . states Masters presentation airing incorporated within the PBS Arts Fall Festival.Guest-star alert: It's a Buffy reunion round the CW's Supernatural (9/8c) as Charisma Contractor, the first sort Cordelia, plays a witch who removes her anger on her behalf account philandering husband (James Marsters, forever Spike) by leading to harm to residents from the small town. ... CBS' A Gifted Guy (8/7c) can get an ER vibe when Eriq La Salle site visitors as Evan Morris, an awareness neuro-shrink Michael woos to participate his practice. Evan's nickname is "E-Mo," just like "emo," making them the switch side in the gruff Dr. Peter Benton. (This can be a reunion of sorts, as Gifted Man's executive producer Neal Baer handled similar duties for quite some time on ER.) Sadly, the stunt casting is regarded as the interesting factor relevant for this routine episode, which signifies the show continues to have not determined an equilibrium involving the medical as well as the mystical (embodied having a too-coy Jennifer Ehle as Michael's nagging ghost ex-wife).Just what else is on? ... Oprah's Lifeclass (OWN, 8/7c) develops to two several hours on Fridays effective now, while using second hour an energetic online/on-air discussion while using Filled with Talk herself. Almost comprises to ensure that there being ignore cases of The famous host the famous host oprah Behind the curtain. ... On ABC's 20/20 (10/9c), Chris Cuomo interviews Stephanie Madoff Mack, widow in the well-known Bernie Madoff's boy Mark, who committed suicide inside the wake in the financial scandal. ... Did this week's tragic story of wildlife roaming an Ohio town offer you bad dreams or nightmares? You may be everyone else for Animal Planet's My Extreme Animal Fear (10/9c), a completely new series through which mental health specialist Dr. Robin Zasio subjects people to five times of intensive "exposure therapy" to tackle their fears - of bots and bugs, pit bulls and snakes, which is week's episode.SATURDAYPick in the evening: The baseball action in the world Series moves to Texas since the Rangers host the Cardinals, each with one win for their title. Saturday's game begins on Fox at 7:30/ET, and Sunday's (following football) at 8/ET.Seeing ghosts is becoming awfully trendy - on American Horror Story, The Vampire Journals and almost non-stop on BBC America's haunted-asylum series Bedlam (9/8c). This week's episode involves a very bad and extremely creepy toy that can getting an innocent youthful girl. Jed can provide relief! ... For just about any more family-friendly haunting, Hallmark Funnel presents a completely new movie, Oliver's Ghost (9/8c), through which an 11-year-old boy discovers they can contact the cranky ghost (Martin Mull) who once possessed his family's home inside the and surrounding and surrounding suburbs.Where's The Worst Place to become Gay? Logo design design launches its beCAUSE Documents quantity of documentaries getting a movie (8/7c) asking that question within the title, and reacting into it by utilizing freely gay artist Scott Mills to Uganda, where homosexuality is criminalized and where he encounters virulent bigotry in every single a part of society.SUNDAYPick in the evening: Episode a few AMC's blockbuster zombie thriller The Walking Dead (9/8c). Despite this show's unsparing standards, last week's episode ended around the shocking note, while using accidental shooting inside the forest of little Carl Grimes. The frantic aftermath introduces new figures into the fold since the action moves for the extended-anticipated farmhouse of Hershel (the fantastic character actor Scott Wilson). Occasions build to another harrowing cliffhanger. This series just doesn't let up.Lots of class functions to choose from on Sunday: Showtime's breakout newcomer hit Homeland (10/9c), through which Brody's erratic behavior begins to tarnish his returning-hero image HBO's Boardwalk Empire (9/8c), where there's no brotherly love from the combative Nucky and Eli, and Richard Harrow's solitary trip into the forest takes an unforeseen turn CBS' The Truly Amazing Wife (9/8c), with Dylan Baker reprising his tasty guest turn since the smarmy killer Colin Sweeney, whom Alicia unwillingly enlists to testify after her key witness commits suicide. ... The second of three wonderful Situation Histories movies on Masterpiece Mystery! (PBS, 9/8c, check local agendas), good novel One Good Turn, finds Jason Isaacs' private agent Jackson Brodie engaging in over his mind when he tries to retrieve a drowning victim within the sea after which it starts monitoring her identity. Webs don't get much more twisted in comparison to those tales.The theme of belief, perverted otherwise, in this season of Dexter (Showtime, 9/8c) continues to be hammered home non-stop, to the level of monotony. But Dexter has justification to require now, when adorable little Harrison becomes ill. Meanwhile, the Miami cops utilize it of Considered to decipher the newest terrible four-horsemen tableau, the task from the fiend they dub the "Doomsday Killer."Possibly just a little star energy can provide ABC's diminishing newcomer series Pan Am (10:01/9:01c) some lift inside the ratings. ER's Goran Visnjic begins a guest arc just like a dashing passenger in order to Monte Carlo who catches the interest of both Kate and Maggie. But his participation in Kate's latest CIA mission muddies the Riviera waters.Just what else is on? ... ABC launches a completely new game show, Big Mind Game, in daytime (4/3c). The premise: a team of six - inside the premiere, middle-school teachers - includes a minute to resolve questions requiring logic expecting a $millions of payday. After each right answer, they have to decide all if you should fold or continue. ... Who a lot better than Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe to host an instalment of Discovery's Curiosity (9/8c) titled "World's Filthiest Guy," revealing the apparently numerous microscopic microbes living in your body. ... Nick News With Linda Ellerbee explores the disturbing trend of babies getting cosmetic surgery in the special titled Minor Changes (Nickelodeon, 9/8c). Kids, don't attempt this in your house.Indication as much as TV Guide Magazine now!