Hope this isn't stealing DJariya's thunder, but the other day I was thinking about the new fall season and trying to spell out why I start watching a new show. Castle and The Good Wife were because of Fillion and Margulies. Dollhouse was because of Whedon. Smash was because it was about Broadway musicals. What tips us over the edge into deciding to devote our valuable time to a possible long-term commitment? And if that sounds like dating, it kind of is.

Hmm, I selected all of the above.

Pretty much all those options except for trailers. Also, the network - for example, with few exceptions, I'll give anything F/X throws out a try.

Genre or concept for me. Showrunner second. I would at least check out anything from Joss Whedon and will forever avoid anything by the creators of Chuck.

The star or other cast
The genre or concept
Trailer or other industry promotion

Usually just wait until I hear good things about something from friends and/or folks here. As a result, I catch many shows after they've been on for a while or have been released on DVD.

Word of Mouth + Boredom

If it looks cool to me in previews or I like any of the actors, I give it a try.

Usually the concept behind of the series. Sometimes, the actor in it. You think I'd be watching the show with the autisic kid if Jack Bauer wasn't in it?

It varies from show to show for me. I usually look at who's involved both on camera and behind the scenes, the concept of the show, or good word of mouth. Also if the show is on a cable or premium network (AMC, FX, HBO, Showtime, etc.) I'm more likely to check it out as I tend to think a lot of network stuff isn't as great.

Same for me. There have been quite a few shows that I haven't gotten into until they've been on for 3 or 4 seasons. I actually prefer doing it that way because I hate the waits between seasons.

Everyone I know has terrible taste in television.

Now it's the star or the cast, but most of my all-time favorite shows (X-Files, Buffy, Friends, Arrested Development) were due to word of mouth early on and I caught up on the missed shows over the summer/hiatus. I didn't see any of them when they first aired.

Sometimes, like with Lost, Firefly and Freaks and Geeks it was because of attention paid to the show before it even aired.

The perfect combination of both would be Once Upon A Time last season. Disney stuff, which I like. Ginnifer AND Jennifer, yes please. And from people involved in Lost and one of my favorite writers from Buffy was involved too. It could have sucked and I would have given it a long leash.

I have to say the concept of the show is what attracts me most of the time.

Look at a show like Person of Interest (which I'm puzzled how alot of people in this forum have never heard of) The 2 leads (Michael Emerson and Jim Caviezel) aren't exactly A-list stars. But, I think the concept of the show was cool and different from the usual TV action show. And I think they pulled it off. Plus it helped the creator was the co-writer of The Dark Knight trilogy.

I also have to go with concept/genre first. Anything with an interesting premise will get me to try it once or twice. And if the premise isn't original, then sometimes I will try it because of the cast. And I'll sample anything that's on USA.

Yeah, with Lost I saw all the "Guys, where are we?" commercials and thought of it as "the show with Merry," but then the buzz was so high after the first couple weeks that I started watching (and fortunately in those days they had so many reruns I was able to catch up pretty quickly).

Network/channel is a good one that I didn't think of. I mean not "Hey, it's a CBS sitcom," but as you said the cable/premium channels that have established a brand. I've never subscribed to HBO but really enjoy their shows as a rule. Has anyone been swayed to watch a show by the fact that they were paying for its premium channel (as a tiebreaker, perhaps)?

Usually it's the genre or the concept, but I have been known to turn in for the star or other cast as well.

Of course, there is also the "I was flipping channels and thought it looked interesting enough and now I cant stop watching it" option. That is how Storage Wars and I hooked up.

First five choices cover it all for me.

I only chose word of mouth, but most of them apply. But at the end it's most about word of mouth... and it being available to stream in Netflix, HBOGO, OnDemand or some of those places.

Genre/concept and networks are the top for me

Concept, word of mouth, and critical reception (which oddly wasn't a choice).

Can be a variety of reasons, my wife turned me on to Chuck, my daughter got me hooked on Castle. But for many it just happens to be on before or after a favorite show so I'll check that one out too.

I never watch shows for the stars. I can understand it for movies but not with tv shows. I guess I just feel like watching stars on the big networks, you're just going to see a neutered, watered down version of themselves.

I agree to a certain extent. I started watching the first season of Touch, because it had Keifer Sutherland in it. Coming off of 24 I was very curious to see what he would do in this new role. I watched the entire season, but it wasn't appointment television for me. I will have to see when it is on this year to see if I will continue with it.

I may have been lumping it in with word of mouth but I agree a separate poll choice would have been better.