Sherlock
We have been Sherlocked ever since this TV series aired in 2010. The makers return with the third season in January 2014 and we cannot wait to drown in Benedict Holmes Cumberbatch’s inimitable charm. Also keeping us hooked will be his chemistry with Martin Watson Freeman. This one is a sure winner!
MasterChef Junior
The official website says the second season of awesomeness returns in 2014 – reason enough for us to celebrate. There’s Gordon Ramsay, there are those child prodigies and there’s food — plenty of glorious, virtual food. There’s a reason behind calling it food porn!
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Jay Leno took over after former host Johnny Carson’s retirement in 1992. Since then the late night talk show has had its highs and lows, becoming the first American nightly talk show to be shot in high definition in 1999. After a brief sabbatical from the show in 2009 which was profitable for neither the show nor its host, Leno returned with the latest and the present incarnation of The Tonight Show in 2010. Watch the show this year if only to catch Leno in his last episode as he retires yet again on February 6th, 2014. Catch the new host, Jimmy Fallon, take over the next week.
Roadies
You can raise your eyebrows at this one but I’d watch the show anyway for the absolutely drool-worthy Rannvijay Singh, the first winner of this Indian TV reality show, and presently one of the show’s hosts along with the bitter Raghu Ram. And this time they promise to cut out the melodrama of vote-out politics and judge the contestants solely on the basis of their strength. Bring it on, yes!
How I Met Your Mother
Remember when Friends reached the ninth or tenth season? There was this nagging sense of nostalgia. We wanted more of it. As their original jingle had said, “seasons come and go, leave behind fall and grow; but some things never end and you call them friends”, we never wanted Friends to end. We had laughed with them, cried with them, fooled around with them and grown up with them. Not so with HIMYM. After a dazzling start, the series seemed to drag on. However, what kept us glued were Barney Stinson’s legen-wait-for-it-dary jokes. When Neil Patrick Harris confirmed that he was gay, one half of the world sighed in despair, the other in delight! The stunner Barney Stinson couldn’t up the suspense, after nine tedious series forwarding the tale of how Ted Mosby had met his children’s mother. 208 episodes later, the finale will come on March 31st. If you’ve stayed with them for these many years, why not stick it through for a bit longer?
Friends with Better Lives
HIMYM’s hour long finale will be succeeded by the premiere of a new series called Friends with Better Lives, on March 31st. It is a romantic comedy about six friends in different stages of their lives — married, divorced, newly engaged, and single. Sounds familiar? Brings home memories of a journey that commenced two decades ago? A journey of six friends, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Ross, Chandler and Joey? A decade after the Friends went off air; we might want to give this new series a try.
Game of Thrones
You are usually considered an outcaste if you haven’t seen the Game of Thrones; not too many care about your acquaintance with the original books though. The epic fantasy series returns with the fourth season of grandeur on April 6th. Enough said!
Believe
Believe is about a young orphaned girl with superpowers which she does not have complete control over, created by Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Friedman. The combination of Cuaron (of Harry Potter fame) and the premise, promise a heady dose of sci-fi and we must wait for its mid-March premiere for more.
Also returning this year are two of my favourite power-house reality shows, American Idol and The Voice. What makes The Voice even bigger than the American Idol for me is that Shakira (yes, YES, the goddess Shakira!) returns as coach on this show, replacing Christina Aguilera.
And then, do not forget to catch the live telecast of the 86th Academy Awards, the Winter Olympics from Russia, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup. If it’s not live, it’s stale!