Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Fall TV, part 1

Once upon a time I used to review TV shows for The Express. Television has changed a lot in the nine years since I left the paper. Cable TV programming has exploded and most of the good TV shows are not on the networks. They're on HBO, Starz, or a bunch of other cable stations.

The problem is, they're a bitch to track down. I don't get a lot of those stations and anytime I feel like taking a chance on a TV show by buying the DVDs (because I'm a good boy who doesn't pirate) I end up frustrated. House of Cards started off great but I never managed to finish the first season. The Walking Dead....well, zombie were never my thing and that show is less my thing. Boring. Homeland is so overwrought I couldn't get past the first handful of episodes.

I do like Justified, though. I need to get back into that.

I never watched Breaking Bad. I understand that's sacrilege. I may, one day, once the hype has died away a bit. But I feel no urgent need to watch it.

I guess I'm old fashioned. I like a big slab of TV fighting out in a Darwinian battle to survive every fall. Throwing a couple of dozen shows into the grinder each fall to see which ones last is a deeply stupid way to do things, but I get amusement out of it. Yeah, occasionally I'll lose a show I like, but not often.

I'm not going to be crazy enough to review everything coming out right now, but I've caught a few already, and there are more coming I'll review as well. This also has the usual caveat that pilots are a different beast. A good pilot will not ensure a show's survival (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had a brilliant pilot. It was a disaster after that), but a bad one will handicap it for the rest of its probably very short life.

So let's see what I've seen so far.

1. The Red Band Society - Ten minutes in and I knew this wasn't my show. I mean, I'm not the demographic and that's fine. But the bitchy blonde cheerleader just forced me right out of the show. Teenagers at a hospital for sick kids is a hell of a concept and at least it's set over three weeks in its first season, so there's none of the weirdness that inflicted Glee. But I won't be tuning in. Not my cup of tea.

2. Madam Secretary - Again a good premise, but lacking some guts. It's basically what would happen if you took an apolitical and nicer Hilary Clinton and did a tv show about her. And Tea Leoni is good as the title character. She can carry the show as a Secretary of State dealing with world problems. Hell, it's an interesting job. One of my few gripes about the West Wing was that Secretary of State is one of the most important positions in the US government and we barely heard talk of the character in the show.

So yeah, good lead, ton of potential. But it's a soft and bit gutless pilot. American held hostage in Syria is a bit of a flat open. A conspiracy over the death of her predecesor. A Chief of Staff with a sinister agenda. It's a little too rote. I'd like to see it get gutsier in the coming weeks, but I'm not overly hopeful.

It's biggest sin, however, is having Bebe Neuwirth standing around and doing almost nothing except scowl in the pilot. That woman can act. For the love of God, let her have something to chew on in the weeks to come. I'll give it a few more weeks to see if it acquires a spine.

3. Gotham - You might have heard they were doing a show about Gotham City in the years before Batman. Maybe spotted an add or two.

Is it good? Yes. I'll keep watching it for awhile. There's a lot to like. Nearly all the acting is solid enough, although Jada Pinkett Smith as the badly named Fish Mooney just about steals the show. I think Sean Pertwee was badly miscast as Alfred, but we'll see. And the rest are good. Ben McKenzie makes a fine Jim Gordon.

But man, is that an over-stuffed pilot. Yeah, it's dark. Cathy found it way too dark and didn't care much for it. But a show based on Gotham City was never going to be sweet and lightness. But there were a lot of characters, plots, subplots and everything else crammed into that show. Really, it could have been two hours. Or they could have stretch some of it out for a week or so. We didn't need to meet everyone this episode.

But there are lots of little things to like. I like that Selina Kyle witnessed Bruce Wayne's parents murder.  I like that Renee Montoya is in the show and they've already made reference to her sexuality. I like the shades of grey already, like Gordon making what he thinks is a compassionate choice, but it's already resulted in one death, and many more to come.

It has a ton of potential. Whether it can do it, and if the audience will stick around for a show more about shades of grey, and no Batman, well, we'll see...

4. Scorpion - One wag called it The Big Bang Theory solves crimes. I like to think of it as Numb3rs meets Harry Potter. Basically, a bunch of geniuses with no social skills get recruited to work for the federal government to solve problems only people with their skills sets possess.

Look, this show is going to redefine technobabble. Anytime a character starts speaking it, just put in Hogwarts spells. It accomplishes the same thing. The show is going to sink or swim on the character interactions. So far, it's fun enough. The actors are likeable. It's very processed (CBS must have a machine that cranks these procedurals out), but not all processed food is bad. Not all processed shows are bad.

The key is going to be keeping it from getting too silly. The pilot featured corrupt software at LAX threatening to bring planes crashing from the sky. The plot was bouncing merrily along, escalating from silly, to very silly, but still entertaining. Until the last 10 minutes when it went balls-to-the-wall batshit stupid/insane.

Don't do that again.

5. Forever - Immortal characters are nothing new in fiction, although particularly challenging in television if the show lasts more than a few years. But one worry at a time. Ioan Gruffudd is a particularly likeable actor (I'll forgive him for The Fantastic Four. That wasn't his fault) and the show is obviously leaning heavily on his charisma. Essentially his character is 200 years old. He's a medical examiner working for the NYPD studying anatomy in the hopes of finding a way he can die. Seems immortality is a bit of a curse.

Now he has a curious detective working with him and they solve crimes. All the way there's the mystery of how he can't die (when he does, he comes back to life in the Hudson River. Awkward) and the other immortal stalking him. Oh, and plenty of opportunities for flashbacks.

Gruffudd mercifully has a good supporting cast. Judd Hirsch can do this in his sleep, but mercifully adds a ton of charm and their father/son relationship (not in the way you think) works. Alana De La Garza and Joel David Moore also are good. I was quite surprised by the show. It's not perfect. The voiceover can get a little purple at times, and they killed him three times in the pilot. That was a little bit of, well, overkill (sorry).

It's got a ton of potential and it's charming. It's my favourite if these five so far. We'll see how it ages over the coming weeks.

Last Five
1. American Skin (41 shots) - Bruce Springsteen
2. I understand - Sloan
3. Your heart - Repartee
4. White dove - Jenn Grant*
5. Songs for Dan Treacy - MGMT

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