Toldja So Dept.: The Evolution of Cavemen

I've watched Cavemen from the beginning and confess to liking it. I've seen far worse sitcoms make it on network TV and the episode that was highlighted in this column back in October was clearly the standout of the season. While Cavemen is certainly no break-out hit for the '07 season, it doesn't deserve to be a critical punching-bag. Some sit-coms take a while to develop. I thought the 30 Rock pilot was dreadful and it has evolved into the funniest 30 minutes on TV. That's not to say Cavemen will even come close to 30 Rock status, but I will continue to enjoy it.

I don't know if this is so much a second-chance thing, but Chuck is a phenomenal show, though it doesn't get much press. Most of my friends who watch TV regularly never really gave it a shot.

Chuch has been consistently good, not great, since the pilot. The NBC show that's really improved for me is Journeyman. The pilot was awful and I only kept watching because it was on after Heroes, and I needed something to watch while I was complaining about Heroes. It was kind of a cop-out when the FBI agent (played by Father Phil from the Sopranos/the hobo from Mad Men) was shot, because it sounded like he had investigated other time-travelers. I like that Dan brought his brother into the fold, and his "missions" seem to have been more personal lately.

I'd recommend for people to start watching, but it was just effectively canceled by NBC. Hopefully the three episodes left will bring some kind of closure.

@beerbaron: Why do you say that Journeyman was "effectively canceled by NBC"? Has something other than the WGA strike affected this show? It's evolved into one of my favorites too.

Another vote for Journeyman. Eventually I stopped caring about the fact that the writers didn't really care about the science fiction theory that small changes in the past affect the present in large ways, and started to notice how good the cast is and how genuine their interactions seem.

Give Carpoolers a second shot. The last new episode "The Code" was hilarious. O'Connell plays a good sleazeball, and Marmaduke, the main character's son, while being a blatant rip-off of Napoleon Dynamite, is very funny.

Not to be too much of a self promoter (well, maybe just a little), I wrote a defense of the show back in September:

http://www.allyourtv.com/0708season/indefenseofcavemen.html