This season, there sure do seem to be a lot of new shows. Of course, the last couple of years have made me a little gun shy about getting too attached to any shows. You never know when the network will show you the preview for the next week, and then just cancel the show without warning. So, here are the new shows I’ve been watching, which ones make my personal cut and which of them will probably get cancelled from my recording schedule.

On ABC, I’ve watched Pushing Daisies and Private Practice (the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off). ABC also has dramas Dirty, Sexy Money, Women’s Murder Club, Cashmere Mafia and Big Shots, comedy Samantha Who? and sitcoms Cavemen and Carpoolers new to the fall schedule, but they didn’t make my initial recording cut. (Maybe that’s because ABC already takes a huge amount of my dvr with Desperate Housewives, Dancing with the Stars, Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy.)

If I had to choose between Pushing Daisies and Private Practice, Pushing Daisies would make the cut. That’s kind of funny because I didn’t even record it the first week because the premise sounded so ridiculous to me that I didn’t think I’d be interested. Something about the previews for the second week caught my eye, so I decided to watch. Imagine my surprise when I actually liked it! It reminds me a bit of a Cohen brothers movie (Raising Arizon, Fargo) in that it’s a really visually interesting, quirky show. The writing is also a bit stylized.

The premise of the show is that Ned discovers as a boy that he can touch the dead and bring them back to life. There are, however, a couple of caveats. One, the revived can only live 60 seconds or someone in near proximity will die in their place. Two, one touch means life; the second touch means dead forever. Ned learns these rules in a very unfortunate way as a child when he brings his mother back from the dead (I think she died because he revived a fly near her, but I’m not sure). Her resurrection kills the father of the next door neighbor girl, Ned’s childhood crush named Chuck. Unfortunately for Ned, his mother’s good night kiss qualifies as touch number two, making her dead forever. I know you’re thinking, “Wow, that sounds like an incredibly depressing show”, but for some reason it’s presented in such a way that it seems more charming than morbid.

So, fast forward to Ned as an adult. Ned is now a pie maker, using his resurrection skills to bring nasty, moldy fruit back to life before using it to make delicious fruit pies. When a private investigator (Emerson) witnesses Ned’s skills in actions when someone he is chasing falls off a building onto Ned, is revived and then put down again by Ned, the private investigator proposes a partnership. They can solve murders with rewards attached by reviving the victims, asking them who killed them, then putting them back “to sleep”.

All goes well for the first case, and an unfairly accused family dog is spared, and the reward is collected. The second case is an unnamed woman killed on a cruise. The woman’s body has been taken to Ned’s hometown, where he hasn’t been since his father shipped him off to boarding school after his mother died. Ned arrives to discover the dead woman is Chuck (you’re not really surprised, are you?). He revives her, only to learn that she doesn’t know who killed her, but he just can’t bring himself to kill her (partially out of guilt for having killed her father, as a child– something she, of course, doesn’t know). The rest of that episode revolves around solving her murder, the beginnings of a bizarre romance between Ned and Chuck (of course, they can never touch), and bringing Chuck on as a third partner in the reward business.

So, basically, the idea of Chuck is a quirky romance and mystery rolled into one, with a splash of sci-fi (if that’s what you consider a story about a man with the power to revive the dead). It sounds bizarre when I describe it, but trust me it plays better than it reads. I don’t recall a lot of offensive language in this one, no nudity or sexual content. There is a little bit of violence and a bit of gory special effects (we are talking about people that have been murdered) but, overall, it was a pretty clean show and really enjoyable. I don’t know that I’d let my young children watch the show (largely because I just don’t think they’d get it or enjoy it), but so far I’d consider it fairly appropriate for my teen.

My summary of Private Practice is much shorter, so bear with me for just one more minute. Private Practice is the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off that sent Addison off to Los Angeles to join a small, dysfunctional private practice. It’s pretty similar to Grey’s Anatomy in tone, writing, etc. The language and sexual content are comparable. So, if you like Grey’s Anatomy and just can’t get enough of it, you should probably check out Private Practice. It has a good cast, including Amy Brenneman, Taye Diggs and Tim Daly.

Longterm, if I have to give up a show on Wednesdays, this will probably be the one that goes. I like Grey’s Anatomy, but if I want to watch Grey’s Anatomy, I’ll just watch it. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Grey’s is about to take some story turns that will annoy me so much that I might just switch to Private Practice instead. It remains to be seen.

I was going to summarize all the new shows in this post, but I’ve obviously gotten a bit long-winded So, instead, I’ll be summarizing the new shows I’m watching on the other networks later this week.

By the way, if you’re looking for an “old” show that’s child-friendly, there’s always this season’s “Dancing With the Stars”. Record it and just watch the dancing to make it even more child-friendly.