What I'm Looking Forward to in 2009

First and foremost, I’m looking forward to the ending of layoffs and the beginning of mass hiring. I’m also looking forward to corporations waking up and realizing that while news is an essential part of our society, it can’t be done as part of a corporate growth program meant to drive the stock price. And I’m looking forward to the resurgence of newspapers as a legitimate and compelling means of receiving news.

I suspect I may be looking forward to those things for quite a while.

Ok, more realistically, I’m really looking forward to the return of ABC’s Lost, AMC’s Mad Men (sign Matthew sign!), HBO’s True Blood, HBO’s Flight of the Conchords (the first episode of which is watchable now on FunnyorDie.com) and Showtime’s The Tudors. In fact, I’m so looking forward to the return of Lost that I’m going to go watch the two-hour premiere on the super special press area of ABC.com as soon as I finish this blog. For those of you less credentialed than I, Lost returns on Wednesday, Jan. 21.

I’m also looking forward to checking out some new shows. Among them:

Showtime’s Nurse Jackie starring Edie Falco (we have missed her!)

Showtime’s United States of Tara starring Toni Collette on Sunday, Jan. 18

HBO’s Eastbound and Down

 Fox’s Dollhouse on Friday, Feb. 13 (although it needs to really improve from the re-done pilot)

 Fox’s Lie to Me, starring Tim Roth

ABC’s Castle (can anyone say Nathan Fillion?)

 NBC’s Kings (or Ian McShane?). I’m really hoping Kings shows me that NBC can in fact create a show under this new regime. So far not so good.

And although 2008 pretty much sucked – hooray, no more election coverage! — there are some things I’m sorry to see pass away:

Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sarah Palin, although it’s highly likely we haven’t seen the end of Palin or of Fey’s pitch-perfect imitation of her.

And this won’t happen until 2010, but I’m sad to see NBC give up on programming 10 p.m. and putting Leno in the slot. I realize that the move makes all the financial sense in the world, but 10 p.m. has been the home of some great dramas. Now it’s left to ABC and CBS to fill the void.

What are you looking forward to, TV-wise, in 2009?