It may seem unlikely that an original HBO gangster drama with a stellar cast and Oscar winner Martin Scorsese behind the camera would have much, if anything, in common with the gang of overly-tanned fist pumpers wreaking havoc on both clubs and our nation's intelligence. But I was surprised to find plenty of similarities between Boardwalk Empire and Jersey Shore beyond both of them being set on the sandy shores of the Garden State. Some things just never change, especially in South Jersey.

Last season, I was charmed by the sweet tale of a 16-year-old who sought out her birth parents so she could get emancipated and ended up finding a family. Well, charmed for one episode, before Life Unexpected turned into a ridiculous love triangle between Cate and Baze and Ryan that just went around and around until I felt like I was going to puke from the whole tilt-a-whirl of it all. And Lux (the initially adorable teen) ended up being a totally selfish and unrealistic ass who dated a guy named Bug and was mainly good at turning people against each other. By the time Cate and Ryan's wedding rolled around at the end of the season, which Baze tried to crash and Lux tried to manipulate, I was completely over this show. But, being the masochist that I am, I decided to give the Season 2 premiere a look. The result: I only wanted to punch the screen some of the time, which is a marked improvement. Here are what I hope are the signs of good things to come this year:

Have you seen Bring It On or any of the subsequent straight-to-DVD sequels? If so, then you've got the gist of this new CW show. Ashley Tisdale plays Savannah, the popular cheer captain trying to spirit-finger her way to a quarterfinal win at college when her flyer is downed by a sudden injury. After auditioning a slew of girls (most of whom seem to have a passable amount of talent), her nemesis Marti (Alyson Michalka) walks in and wows their coach (Sharon Leal) with her athletic ability and her stripper-style pelvic thrusts. Even though Marti despises all that cheerleading stands for, she needs the scholarship that this opportunity provides, so she sucks it up and joins the team to the dismay of the injured flyer Alice (Heather Hemmons) in particular. Marti moves in to the cheer sorority house, despite her mother (Gail O'Grady) protesting that everything would be fine without the needed surplus income, so she can continue her dream of being a pre-law student. Meanwhile, the team faces imminent budget cuts unless they somehow pull out a win at nationals. It's like Glee, but without Sue Sylvester and singing.

At this stage in the game, after Tamra Barney's been thoroughly vilified, Kim Zolciak's been mocked to within an inch of her life, Danielle Staub and Kelly Bensimon have been nationally named both crazy and stupid, and Teresa Giudice has been crowned the queen of vapid new money trash, I cannot understand why anyone would agree to participate in a Real Housewives show. It irreversibly turns you into a joke and it reportedly doesn't even pay that great -- there has to be something very wrong with you to want to do this. But here we go again, with five new women desperate enough to be famous that they'd agree to act like this on television.

Brothers & Sisters will be sputtering out one more, abbreviated season this year (and yes, possibly more than that, but -- c'mon), and while that certainly sounds ill-advised and unnecessary, at least some of the show's most annoying and/or misused characters won't be returning. If you're still watching it out of loyalty or just sheer masochism, here are some reasons this season might not be quite as terrible as you're accustomed to.

We're sure to get flack for this, but Supernatural... well, it just hasn't been all that great in the last couple seasons. Yes, there have been some stellar standout episodes, but much of the mythology and the ongoing story arcs... really didn't make much sense and lacked payoff. Personally, we liked the show a lot better when it had more monsters-of-the-week and less concentration on demons and seals and whatnot. There are loyal fans who will tune in no matter what, but some of us who have been watching since Day 1 were thrilled by the news from Comic-Con that new showrunner Sera Gamble plans to give us more creatures getting killed. We think this bloodthirsty redirection might be a refreshing change of pace, for a number of reasons.

Like all Bachelor/Bachelorette couples save Trista and Ryan and Jason and Molly (who don't count), Jake and Vienna very publicly broke up well before their ABC-televised free wedding. It would be sad if we cared, but what has been sad is their back and forth sniping in the tabloids, and the fact that ABC decided to make them participate in a Chris Harrison-mediated fight over why they broke up, which they crammed into the end of last night's Bachelorette episode. It was ugly and pathetic and generally the highlight of our summer so far. Here are our favorite parts.

On this week's episode of Modern Family, the entire extended family starts out on their multi-episode trek to Hawaii. Upon hearing about this, our minds immediately jumped to cursed Tiki necklaces, surfing accidents and Don Ho, à la The Brady Bunch's infamous trip. Can't you just see Luke accidentally finding a Tiki and then nearly getting bitten by a poisonous spider? While it seems that Modern Family is offering up a, well, more modern take on the group vacation to the islands, it got us thinking about other classic Brady Bunch sitcom plots that would benefit from this ABC show's unique spin.

This year's Real Housewives of Orange County reunion took up two nights of programming, but it was probably the most uneventful reunion of any of the show's franchises in years. This made me a little sad, but then I remembered that we're not far off from New York's reunion, and those ladies are reality professionals. So I'm sure this won't happen again. But for now, let's discuss what was lacking and the moments that stood out, for better or worse.

Jason and Molly got married last week, but like most things, it's not real until it's on television. So now they're married for real! Let's go over the best and worst moments of the two hour wedding special that I missed perfectly good new episodes of House and 24 to watch.