Get comfy in your couch, Fall has (nearly) arrived

Labor Day has passed, and it's time to start thinking about Fall.

Although, in SoCal, you tend not to notice the seasons passing as they do in the rest of the country. We tend to see things in more practical ways. You know, we're in Fire Season now, and soon it will be Flood Season. It's pretty much always Crime Season.

Anyway ...

But more than a change of seasons, Fall ushers in many important things in many of our lives. Mostly, more time in front of the television.

You see, pro football season and the Fall TV season are underway. The NFL kicked off Thursday, while new shows have started popping up across the dial. It's a couch potato's dream.

And the two do come at a time when the weather is starting to get a little cooler and the days are getting shorter. Who needs that pesky fresh air, anyway?

For me, football season really signifies one thing: Fantasy Football season. It's really the only reason I still pay close attention to the game ... I've got a stake in it.

Seriously. I could care less who wins the games each week, as long as my players do well enough for me to win each week, I'm happy. Even when we had our friendly competitions at the Bulletin, the wins in the league only mattered when they lined up with my choices.

I know that makes me a bad fan. You're not supposed to root for players - you're supposed to root for teams. But I just can't any more. I don't have a big screen TV with a dish to watch every game on every Sunday. Heck, I'm not even home on Sundays even if I did. Nor will I ever see myself shelling out the money to do so.

Sure, football is still entertaining, and you never know what will happen on any given Sunday (see Cincy-Denver this past week). But for the most part, football has become an overproduced, TV run event. The amount of actual sport that goes on in the 60 minute game (spread over three hours) is probably in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 minutes of game time. So, the other two-and-a-half hours is filled with talking, commercials, replays and standing around.

Meanwhile, with the Fall TV season, you expect overproduced fare to be hitting the airwaves. In fact, any new show that isn't overproduced probably wouldn't be making it onto a Fall schedule (especially at NBC).

I try each year to be at least informed enough about the new shows not to make snap judgments about each, and write them off before they've evened aired. But thanks to the Internet, I've actually gotten to see one new show before it debuts.

That show is "Modern Family," a new "documentary style" comedy that will be on ABC, and I'm happy to say that it was as funny as promised by many of the critics who saw it way back in May.

But, unfortunately, I don't expect to survive. Why?

Well, first it's going to be up against "Glee" on the schedule out of the gate. And most of the hipsters and buzz generators will be watching that. The teens and young girls will be over at the CW, watching back-to-back glamour with "America's Next Top Model" and "The Beautiful Life" and CBS will probably have some crime show that will trump them all (and no one cares about NBC, since Leno's going to be on in an hour anyway).

Second, sadly, was a critique by a commenter on the message board provided with the show. I can't quote it verbatim, but it was something to the effect of "When will you people learn we're still not comfortable seeing the gays."

The show is centered around three generations of one family. You've got the divorced father, who's remarried a hot and feisty Colombian half his age (and she has a 11-year-old who could be best described as Bobby Hill from "King of the Hill"). There's his daughter, who is married with three kids (15, 12ish and 10ish). And his son, who's been in a five-year relationship with his boyfriend, and just adopted a child.

The writing was first-rate and the acting was spot on. They've even got the a "big named" guest star lined up for later in the season. But we're still having that conversation.

It seems to me that unless they're queeny to the point of ridiculousness, or making your clothes on "Project Runway," middle America can't take a portrayal of a gay person. Why not? What's wrong with an honest portrayal of what life is for 95 percent of the committed couples who would love nothing more than to be treated just like the rest of us straight folk?

The show played everything as real as a television show might (though, the 10-year-old's punishment for shooting his 12-year-old sister with a BB gun was for his father to shoot him).

I hope you get the chance to check it out a couple of Wednesdays from now, and really hope ABC gives it a long leash with room to grow.