LITTLE ROCK — Brace yourselves, fellow Arkansans. There will be no more coasting at 8 p.m. Fridays.
Starting this week there will be yet another worthy scripted drama from which to choose at that hour. The new Stargate Universe debuts at 8 p.m. Friday on Syfy. It'll be a two-episode premiere. Thereafter, it'll be an hour every Friday at 8 p.m.
More on Stargate Universe below, but first let us consider what has happened to the former "death slot" - Fridays at 8 p.m.
For as long as we can recall, Fridays and Saturdays have been the elephant burial ground where old shows go to quietly pass their declining season and then fade from the airwaves.
Saturdays are still being written off by the networks as far as scripted series are concerned. There's nothing on but repeats.
But Fridays have suddenly blossomed as an evening with something finally worth watching.
I hear you out there, fans of Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs. Yes, yes. Your favorite shows have done quite nicely for themselves on Fridays, but they haven't had any competition. Both series skew heavily to the AARP crowd and CBS would not complain if some viewers younger than 58 tuned in now and then.
CBS believes it has the perfect partner for Ghost Whisperer in Medium at 8 p.m. Medium was rescued from the NBC trash heap and now must battle its old network's Southland when that show returns Oct. 23.
Southland was only given a six-episode tryout last season, but showed enough promise to book a return, albeit on Friday night.
Taking on the 8 p.m. competition for Fox is Dollhouse, a new series from Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) that sputtered from too much tinkering, then rallied toward the end of last season.
Dollhouse arrived trailing the hopes and dreams of Whedon fans everywhere - and they include the nation'sTV critics.
That's the feeling I got while touring the cavernous set in the summer of 2008 and chatting with Whedon and series star Eliza Dushku. Both were almost giddy with anticipation.
The series stumbled out of the blocks. Maybe fans expected too much. Ratings slipped, only to rally once Whedon jerked the show back into focus. End result: There will be more action this season.
Fox has relaxed its itchy trigger finger and allowed the show to return for a second chance. Maybe the network felt Dollhouse would do better against fading competition.
Well, surprise! All of a sudden Dollhouse is taking on Southland, Medium and Ugly Betty, which has been shuffled to 8 p.m. Fridays by ABC.
Ugly Betty, once the darling of critics and magazine covers, is in its fourth year and usually ranks around No. 52 in the ratings. ABC promises a jazzy new look this season. Betty will even lose her braces this season!
That brings us to Syfy's Stargate Universe.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was not a fan ofthe first two incarnations of the Stargate franchise. That's blasphemy in some circles, but Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007) and Stargate Atlantis (2004-2009) never appealed to me.
Stargate Universe might be different if the thrill packed two-part premiere is any indication.
In the new series, a secret military research base is attacked and a small band of civilians, scientists and military types escape through a Stargate to find themselves aboard a mysterious, uninhabited ancient spaceship locked on an unknown course through deep space.
The life support systems are failing fast. What will they do?
The series, which is being billed as "younger and edgier in tone," stars (among many others) Scottish actor Robert Carlyle, with Ming-Na and Lou Diamond Phillips.
Of special note is DavidBlue as nerdy math wizard Eli Wallace. He might just save the day.
If the series can maintain the level of the premiere, I'll be back to follow along. If not, well, then we just have another series where Mac-Gyver, I mean Richard Dean Anderson, pops up from time-to-time in a cameo.
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Weekend, Pages 34 on 10/01/2009