Erich: Tuesday TV is a pretty easy choice in my house. We’re not into Biggest Loser or Dancing With the Stars, and since I’ve never seen Bones or House, it looks like Tuesdays this year, like last year, will be spent in front of upstart Frankenchannel the CW.

8:00 – Yeah, we like Beauty and the Geek. It’s goofy fun (and I relate to those guys more than I want to admit). Mostly, though, it’s a reality show where contestants have each other’s backs instead of stabbing them. Call it exploitative if you want (they somehow manage to get the girls in bikinis every week) but there’s real personal growth and transformation. After last year’s finale, when Nate sabotaged his chances to win the quarter-mil by asking the others not to vote for his team because he felt his nasty partner Cece hadn’t even tried to better herself—well, besides being my favorite competitive reality show ending of all-time, it showed there’s room on reality TV for real people. Guilty pleasure? Only if you can find a jury willing to convict.

The 9:00 hour brought the second brand-new show we’ve watched this week: Reaper, about a listless college drop-out who finds out on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his unborn soul to the devil. Now that he’s of age, the Lord of Flies has a job for young Sam—who’s already employed by hardware megastore The Work Bench, where he works with best friend “Sock” and lovely girl-who’s-a-friend Andi. Beelzebub wants him to track down hell’s escapees, capture them, and bring them to one of Hades’ many “drop-off” points (turns out any place that seems like “Hell on earth” actually is—the DMV, for example).

Directed by Kevin Smith, last night’s premiere was probably the most fun I’ve had watching TV so far this year. Hilarious and a little edgy, they managed to cram in an origin story, introduce the main characters, and get Sam through his first diabolical gig (catching a “retired” firebug posing as a fireman). The story moved too quickly past a few sticking points (Sam’s quick acceptance of his father explaining his soul sale, for example; or the speed with which his investigation unraveled the arsonist hell spawn’s modus operandi), and the second half of the episode—once Sam began his first day at “work”—didn’t quite live up to the first half. But since they had to get a lot into a short hour, I’m more than willing to let it slide. Compared to Monday’s other “normal guy working in a big box store finds out he has super powers” show Chuck, Reaper’s premiere comes out on top, at least this week. While the cast are winners across the board (especially Tyler Labine as the crudely exuberant “Sock”), it’s Ray Wise’s devil who steals the show. He’s charmingly sympathetic—convincing Sam that working for him won’t be so bad he says “I know how it ends. God wins…so you put some bad guys back in hell in the meantime…it’s a win-win!” At the same time, though, he never lets Sam (or the guy he kills by zamboni) forget who’s in charge.

If you missed last night’s premiere, it’s being rebroadcast Thursday at 9:00 EST. I know you’ll be watching The Office—but set your favorite recording device. It’d be a sin to miss it.

Dave: Totally agree with Erich on this one. It’s difficult to judge a new series by just one episode, but man was Reaper great. Funny, action-filled and even a little moving, this show is impressive. I hope the same level of wit can be maintained, and that there is some kind of season arc versus a monster-of-the-week set-up, but I’ll be there at 9pm on Tuesday every week. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, my wife watched the new season of Dancing with the Stars at 8pm, which would be a whole lot cooler if they swapped “dancing” with “fencing” and then we both tuned into House, which I still think is the finest hour-long on television. Season 2 deals with the fallout of Dr. House losing his team. The premiere was very funny and the medical mystery in was diabolical.

Erich: Alright, make that days one and two, since the new TV season started Sunday night for me, with the premiere of The Simpsons. As much as everyone loves to point out all the ways the show went downhill sometime after the Carter administration, I thought it was a solid effort with plenty of laughs—more, unfortunately, than I found in The Simpsons Movie (though at least it helped me understand the show’s altered opening title sequence, set in a Springfield that’s rebuilding after the events of the movie—ending with the Simpson family settling down on the sofa with Spiderpig, or as Homer calls him, “my summer love”). After last season’s painful opening volley, a strong start out of the gate gives me hope for season…um, I dunno…forty-four?

The episode centered around Homer getting spoiled by a ride on Mr. Burns’s private jet, and his subsequent efforts to land a job whose perks include more luxury flights. My favorite sequence: Burns and Homer fly to Chicago for dinner, complete with a montage of Windy City landmarks including: Wrigley Field, “the stadium where the White Sox play,” and Second City, whose marquis reads: “See comics before they get fat.”

Monday night featured two returning favorites and a newcomer that lived up to its hype. My wife and I settled in at 8:00 for season three of How I Met Your Mother, a comedy that’s really come into its own thanks to great performances by Neil Patrick Harris (yes, that Neil Patrick Harris) and Judd Apatow stable boy Jason Segel. In a world where the traditional sitcom is lying in a ditch, foaming at its blue-lipped mouth, this show is the best half-hour of comedy that doesn’t air Thursdays on NBC.

Monday’s newcomer, also on at 8:00, is the hour-long geekfest Chuck, a show about a “Nerd Herd” employee (think blue and yellow) at a big box electronics store who reads a mysterious email containing all the combined secrets of the CIA and NSA, encoded in a series of images that get embedded in his brain. In the interest of national security, he’s ends up pursued, and protected, by agents who want to eliminate him, or use him, depending on their point of view. This first episode was a good set-up for the rest of the series, introducing Chuck (Zachari Levi, at left), his nerdy friend Morgan, his doctor sister Ellie, and rival agents Sarah Walker and John Casey (she wants to help him, he wants to stop him). It felt like the TV pilot it was: the story was a little thin and a tad exposition-heavy, but it was funny and had plenty of action. With a little time—and character development—this could turn out to be a great show. What can I say? The kid stays on the TiVo.

Rounding out my geek-night viewing was the grand return of last season’s breakout hit Heroes, also on NBC. Except for fast-forwarding through the final minutes of the season finale rerun last week (to remind myself what happened), I haven’t seen any of last year’s episodes since they first aired. Heroes was one of my favorites last season, and, since 24 did a sixth-season faceplant, was my go-to show to start the week. I was among the disappointed during the final few episodes leading up to, and including, the Peter-Sylar “showdown” that wasn’t. I came into the second season cautiously optimistic, but after last night, I think we’re going to be in for a good year. As any sophomore can tell you, you learn a lot during freshman year, and Heroes certainly went through some growing pains.

This season begins four months after the explosion that almost rocked the city: Suresh is traveling the world, recruiting help and money so he can develop a cure for the virus that threatens to wipe out the specials; the Bennett family has moved to California, changed their name, and are focused solely on making as few waves as possible in their new lives; Parkman is alive and living in New York, back on the force and caring for Molly, the little girl who can find people and who is plagued by nightmares of a villain so terrible she won’t talk about him; Nathan has let himself go; Peter is missing; and someone is trying to kill off the remaining members of the cabal that devised last year’s NYC bomb plan. Hiro, meanwhile, is (as Huey Lewis would say) back in time—waaaay back, in feudal Japan. He encounters his childhood hero Takezo Kensei, who ends up being less heroic—and less Japanese—than he thought.

This first episode (or, in Heroes parlance, the first “chapter”) felt like a prologue for a new storyline. They answered some questions, raised some new ones, introduced two characters, brought back the “bad man” from Molly’s dreams, and added a couple mysteries (one of which I’m calling “Who killed Sulu?”). All in all, it was the right episode to get me back into the series. I’m looking forward to more.

Dave: I was late to the Heroes party last year, but managed to catch up with it on HD-DVD, and dug it. I have big problems with the finale, but the Season Premiere on Monday floated my boat. The super-villain is interesting and I dig the Hiro storyline, even though I’m expecting Doc Brown to appear at any moment screaming about the space-time continuum. Thankfully, Heroes is clever enough to address the show’s inspiration.

In other new, we’re back on track with Prison Break, a show that gives new meaning to the “willing suspension of disbelief.” I took a break from watching Season 2 last year, but after finally getting around to the DVR and checking those episodes out, I got back into the story. Season 2, with Michael in the worst jail in the world, Lincoln free and trying to get him out with his limited intellect and Mahone breaking fools’ necks,has started off nicely.

Dave: I had heard many good things about this series and in fact it was one of the new shows last year I had been planning to pencil into the rotation. Unfortunately, it just missed the cut so I went through 2006 and 2007 without even taking in a second of the Skeet Ulrich post-apocalyptic drama.

After the hullabaloo of the “nuts” fan campaign led to the show’s cancellation being revoked, I decided to dive in. Luckily, CBS has the entire slate available for download on its website, so were able to rocket through the episodes, up until the network started to rerun them several months ago.

Last Saturday, the last two episodes of Season One aired, and I can now say that I am positively juiced for seven-episode reorder that will air later in the year. Jericho proved to be the antithesis of Heroes, where it started off slow (a little too Smoky Mountain Christmas for my taste) but ended on an awesome wave of awesomeness.

The show has a nifty premise, how a small Kansas copes with the end of the world, builds a compelling mythology connected to said end of the world, and stocks the drama with some great characters. At the top of that heap is Ulrich and Brit Lennie James, who play Jake Greene and Robert Hawkins respectively, and emerge as two of the baddest bad-asses on network TV. Kids, I’m talking Jack Bauer level here, especially Hawkins who just takes over toward the end of the season.

Like any multi-branching drama, some storylines sag (the teenage capitalists for example), but the momentum this show picks up as it rockets toward the home stretch is fantastic. I’m purposefully speaking in generalities because it’s worth the ride, unspoiled.

So, check out this show on either online or grab the DVD set when it releases on October 2. Big props.

If you frequent the many gaming blogs, you’ve no doubt heard the news about the leaked Ninja Gaiden 2 screen shots.  Man, I am ridiculously excited.  The Pathetic Nerd Barometer is maxing out at the thought of wrecking fools with my polygonal katana once more as an unstoppable pretend ninja.

I’ve played the Sake out of the first Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox–my gaming claim to fame is having completed Ninja Gaiden Black on “Very Hard”–and Tecmo’s masterpiece still stands as my second-favorite video game of all time (just under the mighty Streets of Rage 2).

Holy Cow this looks awesome.

So we picked up the Season 3 DVD boxset of NBC’s big hit The Office and I am greatly enjoying it. I think it took me a while to warm up to the American version of the Brit phenomenon, mainly because I harbored a snooty loyalty to the original. The humor in the first series worked a little better for me and I liked how the relationships were set up.

As we’re knee-deep in the third season, however, I have finally begun to appreciate that the American Office isn’t better or worse, it’s just different. The characters are different and the focus on the relationships are different. I’m still bugged by NBC’s oft-cheesy and hamfisted promos for the show, focusing on the “will they or won’t they” aspect of the Jim and Pam romance, but man the weird workplace attraction dynamic the writers have created thus far realistically awkward.

So as we soldier on through the final few discs of the season and prep for the Season Four premiere later in the month, I feel like I can finally move beyond the British Office–as dear as it to me–and settle into what is obviously the funniest half-hour sitcom on television right now.

And Michael marking the Chinese waitress’s arm in the Christmas special? Gold.

While we’re on the subject, be sure to check out Erich’s great review of Season 3 at DVD Verdict.

Erich: I’m thrilled to hear Dave loves The Office. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it. I, too, loved the British series, which is why I was so late to the party for the American version. I agree with Dave that, as of last season, there’s no more comparing Steve Carell’s “Michael Scott” to Ricky Gervais’s “David Brent”—they’re separate shows, and (prepare to hate me) I prefer the U.S. version. Unlike Dave, I really like the show’s relationships, especially the ever present Jim-Pam storyline. The third season, in fact, seemed all about relationships: the pairing up of characters in different ways—on sales calls, as rivals, for laughs, as friends. That they managed to use old characters in different ways and introduce new ones who don’t suck gives me great hope for the series as it moves forward. The Office is probably the best ensemble comedy since Arrested Development (may it rest in peace).

I don’t know where Dave is in the set, but I can’t wait for him to get to the Joss Whedon-directed episode, or to see what Michael wears when he asks for a raise. I recommend The Office: Season Three on DVD to anyone who loves comedy. Not only is it the best way to watch this amazing series, it has amazing extras, including over three hours of deleted scenes that are as good as what made it on the air. Catch up now, so you’ll be ready for the one-hour season premiere later this month!

…Too bad I wasn’t. You can keep your sports underdog movies. This is what it looks like in real life: