Archive | September, 2011

Show of the Day: Greed

16 Sep

In 1999 the phenomenal, hard-to-believe-just-how-good success of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire spawned a generation of game shows.  Never ones to be denied an easy chance to ride a trend, TV execs everywhere thought the game show was back in a big way and were determined to make sure they all had entrants in the field.  Each game show created during this period had its own feel.  The Weakest Link was all about the host, nefarious Englishwoman Anne Robinson while  21 evoked a retro feeling for when game show scandal was in.  Greed was the Machiavellian entrant into the game show conversation.  Like all of the major game shows of this wave, trivia was the show’s stock and trade, but it was the gimmick that made the show.  In Greed that gimmick was that it was a team game that slowly turned team members against one another as they chose between team success and the risk/reward of greater personal gain.  Trust and team versus individual became of issue in the reality game shows developing around the same time, particularly Survivor, where alliances and assurances became key, but I can’t think of another game show which so gleefully turned constestant on contestant.  The Weakest Link employed voting contestants out, but there wasn’t the one-on-one animus as in Greed, or the sense that it was a choice; you were required to vote for someone.

Hosted by game show veteran Chuck Woolery (original Wheel of Fortune, Love Connection, Scrabble), a game of Greed began with six contestants asked to answer a question where the answer was a number between 10 and 999 (this was Greed’s rough knockoff of Millionaire’s fastest finger, in which contestants quickly ordered four choices – I’m not sure how many people would recognize that term now, but it was one of several Millionaire terms to enter the lexicon back then).  Based on how close they got to the answer, the contestants would be ordered from one to five, with the sixth being magnanimously thrown back into the contestant pool for another shot in a later game.  The first person became the captain, who has all the power in the world of Greed, and two through five line up after him or her.

The game begins.  The first four questions are asked to each of the contests, starting with the fifth, and moving up, towards the captain, with each increasing in dollar value.  The questions are multiple choice.  It’s important to remember in Greed that the captain has all the power.  The captain can choose to accept any contestant’s answer or can reject the answer and replace it with his or her own.  In addition, the captain can choose to walk away with the money the team has won after any question, with that money being redistributed evenly amongst the team.

Here’s where the real Machiavellian aspects begin.  After the fourth question, if the captain chooses to continue forward, a device known as the “Terminator” chooses one contestant at random and offers them $10,000 win or lose to challenge a contestant of their choice.  The stakes?  Whoever wins gets the losing contestant’s share of the prize money, and if the losing contestant is the captain, the winner gets the captain’s seat as well; the loser is eliminated from the game.  Many shows would simply rely on the contestant’s own ambition and confidence as fuel for challenging another contestant.  That’s not enough for Greed, though.  Greed gives you 10K for this privilege.  You could lose all your money as a team, but if you take up the challenge, you’ll take home with 10 grand, no matter what.  That’s an incentive that’s hard to resist.

Later questions had multiple correct answers, necessitating each member of the team to give correct answers one by one, with the captain having the choice of accepting or rejecting any part of the answer.  If the team continued to move on, another “Terminator” or two would come along potentially reducing the team to just a couple of players.

Sometimes you’d see a lamb of a contestant actually refuse to take the money for the Terminator, only to be challenged in the next Termination round, making his or her weak decision look foolish.

On later, high value questions, with four or five answers required, when Woolery showed them that they had all but one answer correct, the producers would offer the players a bribe – a small percentage of the total money to each contestant.  Each contestant would make their own decision to keep going and bet on their answer being right or to walk away with the bribe. If there are fewer contestants than answers in a round, the captain can answer them all him or herself or can pass off that duty to any fellow contestant.

Greed began airing in November 1999, right on the heels of Millionaire’s success and sadly stopped in July, 2000, never to return.  It was by no means must-watch TV, but I always thought it was a cut above a lot of other game show clones.  Greed was also the first game show to give away $2 million in one shot, which you can watch below, on a rather easy question mind you.

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Fall 2011 Review: Up All Night

15 Sep


Up All Night is a sitcom about a couple, Will Arnett and Christina Applegate in their late ‘30s/early 40s, whose life is changed when they have a baby.  Arnett’s character leaves his law job to care for the baby while Applegate’s character goes back to work for her wacky and overbearing boss, Ellen/Oprah-like daytime talk show host Ava, portrayed by Maya Rudolph.

I came in expecting the show to be disappointing, and I found the show in practice to be underwhelming, and I’m still not sure if these are the same thing.  While the blogosphere lit up in excitement for a show that combined the considerable talents of Will Arnett, Christina Applegate and Maya Rudolph, I was less impressed, having never seen Arnett as successful outside of playing the oversized G.O.B. in Arrested Development, a character who can’t work as a lead in a non-absurdist show.

Yet this wasn’t the problem with the show at all.  Arnett was absolutely fine, as were Applegate and Rudolph.  I don’t mean fine as a bad thing.  It’s not that they didn’t sell the lines or the jokes well, it’s just that there wasn’t that much to sell.  It was by no means bad with a capital b; unlike watching the previews of Whitney or 2 Broke Girls or the poster of How to Be A Gentleman I never cringed or felt bad for the actors and the producers and everyone who made the decision to put that particularly show on the air.  I just didn’t really feel anything.  There were a couple of smiles, I’d admit, maybe a chuckle or two but not much more.  I was waiting for it to gel and get to the point where the light turns on and I know why I’m watching but it just didn’t hit that point in the first episode.

I will note that Maya Rudolph’s character has the potential to become very cartoonish very quickly.  As the outsized television host personality, Rudolph is needy, loud, and a little bit off her rocker and is clearly looking to be the break out character.  I normally dislike that type of exaggerated sitcom character but while I by no means found it hilarious, it didn’t bother me too much either in this episode.  That said, it’s something to watch for and see how the writers handle in future episodes.

Will I watch again?  Not right away, I don’t think..  I’ll take the Parks and Recreation route.  When I watched the pilot, I wasn’t impressed and I didn’t watch the rest of the season.  When everyone I have ever met told me it was different and better and that I NEEDED to watch it, I gave in, and everyone was absolutely right and it’s one of the best comedies on TV today.  That is to say I’m going to assume it’s just kind of okay unless I hear an outpouring of raves later in the season; it could need time to grow into its own.


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Fall 2011 Preview and Predictions: CBS

15 Sep

(In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13)

We’ll tackle CBS next, the ratings leaders behind their procedural powerhouses CSI and NCIS and unfortunate comedy stars Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory.  All their new shows start next week except for How to Be A Gentleman, which starts the week after.

2 Broke Girls – 9/19

No single preview has offended me more personally than that for 2 Broke Girls, in which Kat Dennings’s character makes a reference to Coldplay as a hipster band, amongst other things.  What Big Bang Theory does for nerds, it looks like 2 Broke Girls will do for hipsters.  Basically, it’s a show written to make fun of hipsters by people who don’t know what hipsters are, or it so it appears from the preview.  On top of that, I’ve disliked Kat Dennings since I saw Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last five years.

Verdict.  13+ – For some reason people claim to be liking this, and because it’s on CBS, every show might be renewed because people over the age of 50 just leave the TV on CBS and throw away their remotes, but boy I just can’t pick a show that looks this terrible to succeed in good conscience

How to Be a Gentlemen – 9/29

Ah!  Finally, a show that just looks really and truly terrible and has absolutely no reason to support it.  Wait – it actually has cast members who I kind of like?  David Hornsby, better known to me as Rickety Cricket from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia as the uptight Felix Unger roommate, and Kevin Dillon, or Johnny Drama from Entourage, as the crazy, slobbish, Oscar Madison roommate, along with Dave Foley, Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from 24) and Rhys Darby (Murray from Flight of the Conchords).  Cricket and Johnny Drama are roommates who are perfectly mismatched, have love-hate relationship, teach a little bit to each other, blah blah blah.

Verdict:  12- Boy, I like that cast, but boy that show sounds and looks terrible.

Person of Interest – 9/22

One of the more interesting sounding series of the new season, Person of Interest is something like Batman meets Minority Report.  Michael Emerson, otherwise known as the uber-creepy Ben Linus from Lost, is a reclusive billionaire who has developed a program which can predict information about violent crimes in the future, but with limited detail.  Linus hires an ex-CIA agent thought to be dead to do the legwork on stopping these crimes that his program picks up on.  Add all this to the fact it’s created by Jonathan Nolan, Chris’s younger brother, who co-wrote the screenplays to The Prestige and The Dark Knight and it sounds pretty promising.

Verdict:  Renewal – CBS is moving ratings giant CSI to get Person of Interest some viewers – if that’s not a sign of big-time network backing, then I don’t know what is.  On top of that, it apparently got legendary approval ratings for its pilot.

A Gifted Man – 9/23

Patrick Wilson is quite literally a man constantly bringing gifts to small children.  No, if only.  This is actually far more insane. Wilsonis a materialistic, selfish, scrooge-ish but extraordinarily talented surgeon working and dabbling amongst the upper crust exclusively.  That is, until his dead wife comes back in ghost form and starts trying to make him a better person, having him run the free clinic that she apparently ran before they died (how did they get along when they were both alive with such disparate interests?).  Oh, and Julie Benz (Rita from Dexter) plays his sister.

Verdict:  13+ – Jonathan Demme directed the pilot, which is probably good news, but this seems like it could get awful predictable awful fast.

Unforgettable – 9/20

Gimmicky procedurals are right in CBS’s wheelhouse, and Unforgettable fits right in with The Mentalist.  Unforgettable stars Poppy Montgomery as a woman with a rare medical condition, which means that she quite literally can not forget anything.  A former detective before the show begins, her former boyfriend and ex-partner (the same person) ask her to come back to help solve cases using her rare ability.  On top of that, we’ve got a long-term plot based on the only thing Miss Unforgettable can not remember:  The mysterious circumstances behind the murder of her sister!  Bum bum bum!

Verdict:  13+ – I’m sure it won’t be bad, but I have a hard time believing it will be that good either.  It just sounds so unbelievably generic.  On CBS, it’ll get viewers, but CBS expects more too, and one of these dramas has to not deliver

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Ranking the Shows I Watch – 22: Workaholics

15 Sep

Comedy Central runs through shows faster than well, choose your own analogy. Fast is the point.  If you’re not the Daily Show, Colbert Report or South Park, and you’re on Comedy Central, you probably won’t be next year.  I’ve tuned in here and there, but I try not to get too attached, because I know whatever show I’m watching won’t be around.  It’s usually not difficult because most of them are terrible or at least forgettably mediocre.  Dog Bites Man?  Remember that one?  Halfway Home, the prison-meets-real-world premise with Oscar from The Office.  Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire?  The only point of that show was that I had a new nickname for Frankie Rodriguez.  For this reason, it was hard to get too excited about Workaholics as the season progressed, marching towards its probable inevitable Comedy Central doom.  It was a sign though, that it wasn’t just me, when some executives there deemed Workaholics worthy of receiving the coveted second season.

I feel like this is true for about third of this list, but I started watching the show at least partially ironically.  Not ironically in the sense that I thought it would be horrible, more in a way that was several layers of anti-humor away ironically in that, upon the appearance of Workaholics commercials it was pretty much decided I was watching whether it ended up being good or not.  One such commercial featured a character asks one of the main characters, named Anders, if his name is Finnish, to which he replies, “No, sir – I’m just getting started.”  Not brilliant stuff, I know.  But it’s kind of funny.

Luckily, it actually ended up being pretty good, or at least there were funny parts in the first few episodes, enough so to keep me watching.  It’s not a sketch show, but it has some of a sketch show feel (think Michael and Michael Have Issues if you actually remember that Comedy Central show). There are three main characters and they work in a call center and do a bunch of stupid and/or ridiculous things in every episode.  Even better, as the season went forward, the episodes actually got significantly stronger – the consistency rate of laughs was higher.  The characters got themselves into sticky situations, such as ending up at a meeting of the Juggalos, and, to their advantage, unlike what happens in some sketch shows where the emphasis is on wacky plots and not characterization (as it should be, for the most part), the characters feel at least a little bit different.   You couldn’t simply switch their plots around in every episode.

Why it’s this high:  When it hits, it captures dumb funny as good as any show on TV – best moment perhaps – one character threatening a larger guy invading a party –  he says, “If we do this there’ll be two hits… me punching you in the face. and Kid Rock’s Bawitdaba playing in the background”

Why it’s not higher:  It’s tough on sketch-type shows – you get your hit and your occasional miss.

Best episode of most recent season:  “To Friend a Predator”  – just the premise alone is darkly funny and the episode delivers on it – the guys take it upon themselves to bait and take down a local child molester, only to find out he’s a really cool guy to hang out with.

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Fall 2011 TV Review: Ringer

14 Sep

The first episode of Ringer was  a set up episode .  First we learn that Bridget Kelly is a small time criminal and drug addict who has agreed to testify against a big mob honcho in exchange for having the charges against her dropped.  She’s got a sponsor, and a cop, Nestor Carbonell who’s in charge of making sure she gets to court and protecting her from the mob.  Afraid of repercussions from the gangsters, she bails for New York where her identical twin sister Siobhan resides.  The twins haven’t seen each other in six years.

Siobhan appears glad to see her sister and the two bond and try to make up for lost time.  On a boat trip with just the two of them though (note: who else was enjoying watching how they kept fooling around with the camera angles to best shoot Gellar as both characters on the boat) Siobhan mysteriously disappears, and Bridget makes the split second decision to take Siobhan’s life for her own.  What’s the point of being twins if you can’t pass for the other for identity theft purposes anyway?

We the viewer and Bridget then go on to quickly learn that Siobhan’s life is not as perfect and simple as it seems.  Siobahn’s (but now Bridget) is married to Andrew, a businessmen, but sleeping with Henry, her best friend Gemma’s husband.  Gemma suspects someone is cheating, but hasn’t figured out that it’s Siobhan yet.  We also find out that Siobhan is pregnant, with either Andrew or Henry’s baby, but of course Bridget is not, a ticking time bomb of a secret bound to come out into the open eventually.

Oh, and at the end Bridget is attacked, pretending to be Siobhan, tries to convince the attacker that he has the wrong twin, shoots and kills the attacker after a brawl, and then finds out the attacker was going for Siobhan after all.  At the very end of the episode right after the fight we find out that Siobhan is alive and well in Paris and this is all part of some grand plan that we’re not privy to yet, but that something’s gone wrong on Siobhan’s end (maybe the attacker was supposed to kill Bridget as Siobhan?).

All and all, it was a decent start.  It’s hard to ask for too much out of these long convoluted mystery shows in just one episode, aside from a mood and some parameters, and I’m not sure we really have parameters at this point, but we definitely get some serious basic plot.  All we really know in the big picture is that both Bridget and Siobhan seem to have their share of problems.  It’s undoubtedly convoluted, but with no supernatural elements which I’m certainly thankful for.  Gellar is great, and I still think the premise is as intriguing as it was before I watched, which is a good thing.  I’m not yet sure what the percentage will be of soapy drama versus action/intrigue and I’m also not sure what percentage I’d prefer yet but I suppose it’ll take a couple episodes to figure out which direction it goes in and if that direction works.

Will I watch it again?  Yes – it’s sort of cheating to earn another episode on the strength of still not really knowing what’s going on, but it’s also unfair to ask everything to be explained in one episode.  It didn’t blow me away by any means, but I’m interested enough to at least continue a little further down the road.

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Fall 2011 Preview and Prediction: NBC

14 Sep

(In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13)

NBC is the only other network (aside from the CW) debuting shows this week so we’ll take them on second.  Up All Night and Free Agents start tonight, everything else in coming weeks.

Up All Night – 9/14

Failed sitcom all-stars Will Arnett (Running Wilde) and Christina Applegate (Samantha Who, though I’m being harsh since it somehow ran two seasons, as did the late ‘90s Jesse) unite as a couple having possibly hilarious difficulties managing their work and professional lives.  Maya Rudolph and Nick Cannon co-star.  Going for it is a modicum of positive buzz and the claim that Will Arnett has managed to tone down his Will Arnett character which he perfected in Arrested Development and honed as a recurring guest star in 30 Rock.  Going against is it is the fact that I still don’t have a ton of confidence in Arnett as a leading man and the previews didn’t look particularly funny.

Verdict:  13+ – they’re backing it too hard for anything less – it honestly has a good shot at renewal, and if it’s actually hilarious I’ll instantly want to change my opinion, but I’m maybe unfairly having trouble seeing it succeed

Free Agents – 9/14

Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn star as public relations employees who end up in bed together and struggle to maintain professionalism at the work place.  It’s based on a British show of the same name, and carries over Anthony Head as the cocky boss character, who has apparently taken the “Stewart” out of his name since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It also features Apatow-movie that guy and former The State member Joe Lo Truglio as a security guard.  Some people like it so far, but it’s going to need more than that to survive on what might be the wrong network for it.

Verdict:  12- – outside of The Office, I feel anecdotally at least that these British adaptations tend to struggle (Worst Week, Coupling, Life on Mars) and aside from me wanting to see Giles from Buffy back on TV, something’s got to go, and I don’t feel like the network has too much riding on this one

The Playboy Club – 9/19

One of two series set in the early ‘60s, inspired by the successful use of that time period in Mad Men, The Playboy Club seems the less interesting of the two (Pan Am on ABC being the other).  Starring Amber Heard as a new playboy bunny who enters the family, it promises as much sexploitation as you can get on network television.  That seems like about it, though.

Verdict: 12- – I’m probably being harsh, there’s enough network support to get it through midseason probably, but I just don’t have a lot of hope for it – if a series has to move on from the early ‘60s, I’m putting my money on Pan-Am

Whitney – 9/22

No series has gotten as much advertising push behind it for NBC, and no series has made a worse impression in my mind due to the constant terrible advertising.  From Whitney’s rant about how stupid we men are to wear jerseys even though we’re not on the field, we can relate to just how much Whitney doesn’t understand men, but in a comical and observational way.  Maybe I’m being harsh, but it looks bad and the buzz doesn’t sound a whole lot better.

Verdict:  13+ – Far too much press for it to fade away after only a couple of episodes, it looks to me like this year’s Outsourced – NBC will really, really try to make it work, but it just won’t – it’s a bad fit for the Thursday night block

Prime Suspect – 9/22

Mario Bello stars in this police procedural also at least loosely based on a British show of the same name which starred Helen Mirren.  I don’t really see the hook other than it’s a female cop in a bureau dominated by men and she’s full of attitude and vigor and whatnot.  Honestly, it looks pretty generic to me, but I’ve read a surprising amount of positive press and I really like Maria Bello, so I’m going to grant it some leeway, not every show need be innovative to be good.

Verdict:  Renewal – something on NBC has to get renewed before Smash comes around in February, and hey, police procedurals seem to be working out pretty well for CBS

Grimm – 10/21

As The Playboy Club is one of two new series set in the early ‘60s, Grimm is one of two new dramas dealing with fairly tales (Once Upon A Time on ABC the other).  The main character is an Oregon homicide detective who learns that he is descended from a long line of “Grimms” or hunters whose mission is to keep humanity safe from supernatural fairy tale baddies which came through stories to inhabit our world.  Wikipedia describes it as a “fantasy/mystery/crime drama.”

Verdict:  13+ – I really wanted to use the line that it’s chances for survival are Grimm, but this is probably the NBC show I have the least basis for taking a stab at, I have absolutely no idea what to expect, which leads me take the easy way out and guess in the middle

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Mark Sheppard

14 Sep

(The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame is where we turn the spotlight on a television actor or actress, and it is named after their patron saint, Zeljko Ivanek)

Mark Sheppard has quickly and sometimes quietly carved out a career as a regular television antagonist, slowly appearing in more recurring roles as the years go on.  Sheppard’s first roles came in a couple of episodes of Silk Stalkings, an early ‘90s crime drama, in 1992 and 1993.  He then appeared in first season episode “Fire” of the X-Files as Cecil L’ively, a man with pyrokinetic abilities.  The episode is regarded as so-so, but his performance is generally praised.  He then showed up in an episode of M.A.N.T.I.S. in 1995.  His next television appearances didn’t come until he appeared in TV movie Soldier of Fortune, Inc., and then in the ensuing television series of the same name in which he reprised the same role, both in 1997.  He played Staff Segeant Christopher “C.J.” Yates, whose expertise were in demolitions and electronic surveillance.

In the last couple of years of the decade, he made single appearances in Sliders, Martial Law, and The Practice, and then in 2000, he showed up in a Star Trek: Voyager and a JAG.  He showed up in Charmed in 2002 and then in two episodes of Firefly as Badger, an unscrupulous black market businessman who commissions the crew for a mission.  He is not well liked, but is just trustworthy enough to do business with.  In 2004 and 2005, he appeared in episodes of Las Vegas, CSI: NY and Monk and then as a recurring villain in the fifth season of 24.  He played Ivan Erwich, a member of the Russian separatist movement at the heart of that season’s plot, attempting to use deadly Sentox gas first against Russians, but then against Americans.  He was eventually killed by the leader of the movement for wasting a canister of the gas and trusting some untrustworthy Americans intelligence men.  At about the same time he played Patricia Arquette’s nemesis, Dr. Charles Walker, a psychotic killer from the 19th century on Medium.

In 2007, he appeared in three episodes of the short-lived Bionic Woman remake, as well as episodes of Shark, In Plain Sight, and NCIS.  During the same period, he was on the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica as canny and self-righteous lawyer Romo Lampkin.  Lampkin critically defends Gaius Baltar and helps Starbuck out during the great mutiny of the fourth season.  He was in a Burn Notice and three episodes of Dollhouse as well as the first episode of White Collar, where he played the antagonist, a forger.  He was in four episodes of Warehouse 13 and two of Chuck as the head, or Director, of The Ring, an evil spy organization which is the key antagonist of season 3.

He currently appears in a recurring role on Leverage as Timothy Hutton’s character, Nathan Ford’s main rival, Jim Sterling, who replaced Ford at the insurance firm where Ford used to work, and used his work with Ford’s team to win a job with INTERPOL.  He also currently appears as recurring character Crowley in Supernatural, a, um, Crossroads demon (I don’t know it is either) who becomes at one point King of Hell.  In addition to these, he had the rare treat of playing the same character as his father in Dr. Who; he played the younger Captain Everett Delawre III, while his father, William Morgan Sheppard, played the older version.

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Fall 2011 Preview and Predictions: The CW

13 Sep

For most people, it’s spring that breaks the long winter, but even though television has become much more of an every season affair than ever before, it’s still fall that is the most exciting time for hardcore TV fans.  As the temperatures drop to cool and comfortable levels, all throughout New York City (and across America, I assume) posters advertising new series adorn every bus, bus stop, and subway interior.  We are excited as anyone else and will start our Fall 2011 festivities with an overview of all the new network shows debuting this fall.

In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall television season, I’ve set up a very simple system of predictions for how long new shows will last.  Each day, I’ll (I’m aware I switched between we and I) lay out a network’s new shows scheduled to debut in the fall (reality shows not included – I’m already going to fail miserably on scripted shows, I don’t need to tackle a whole other animal) with my prediction of which of three categories it will fall into.

These categories are:

1.  Renewal – show gets renewed

2.  13+ – the show gets thirteen or more episodes, but not renewed

3.  12- – the show is cancelled before 13

CW is one of two networks debuting shows this week, and has the first debut with Ringer tonight (The Secret Circle debuts on Thursday as well) so we’ll start with them.  It’s just those two shows and Hart of Dixie which debuts on Monday in a couple of weeks.

Ringer – 9/13

 

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays twin sisters, one of whom is on the run from the mob in this mysterious drama, which I think may actually my most anticipated new show of the season.  The sisters have been out of each other’s lives for years, but as the one is on the run their lives become entwined again.  It sounds convoluted, but hopefully convoluted in a good way – TV has dropped the bomb on most of the big attempts at convoluted mystery series in recent years, spawned by Lost, including The Event and Flashforward amongst others.  I’ve missed Gellar since the days of Buffy, and I’ve read  a fair amount of good buzz, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Verdict:  Renewal – I may be being hopeful, but I feel like CW doesn’t expect the type of ratings other networks do and might give the show some leeway, that is if the plot and ratings don’t both spiral out of control.

The Secret Circle – 9/15

 

Based on a series of books by the same author as the Vampire Diaries, the series sounds pretty much Vampire Diaries for witches (Witch Diaries?).  A teenager learns that she is from a family of witches, unraveling lots of family secrets along the way, some good, and some bad, and some helping her solve the mystery of her mother’s recent death.  She joins the title circle at some point, a group of six family witches.

Verdict:  Renewal – the perfect show on the right network for the right time slot, unless it’s out and out terrible, it’s been set up to succeed.

Hart of Dixie – 9/26

From the Saving Grace school of title creation, Hart is Dr. Zoe Hart, portrayed by Rachel Bilson, a big New York doctor who moves down to small-town Alabama for a job.  Co-created by Josh Schwartz, of The O.C. and Gossip Girl fame (who made Bilson a star to begin with in The O.C.), the show has some pedigree and will be getting the solid Gossip Girl lead in, creating a Josh Schwartz block.  The show also co-stars Scott Porter, best known as Jason Street in Friday Night Lighs which gives it some points.  That said, it really doesn’t sound incredibly appealing.

Verdict:  13+ – I think it’s more likely to get renewed than to get cancelled fast, but not everything can make it, and I’m not sure if it will be able to generate an audience.  It just seems so bland.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 23: The Killing

13 Sep

The Killing and Game of Thrones started around the same time, and Sundays became a day of excitement.  I started off liking them both the same, but that changed dramatically over time as Game of Thrones went up and up and The Killing went a little bit downward each episode.

The Killing is about a detective trying to solve the murder of a teenage girl in Washington.  For this short description, it drew instant comparisons to Twin Peaks, and though embarrassingly, I haven’t seen all that much of Twin Peaks, I think the differences don’t stop there, but they certainly slow.  There’s no absurdity or essential weirdness that is at the heart of most David Lynch works.  It’s played fairly real, and coupled with a plot about a mayoral candidate that may or may not be somehow involved in the murder, and a plot about the mourning parents and family that can be deeply difficult to watch at times, which is both a tribute to the writers and actors, and something that sometimes I don’t actually want to see.  The show’s city of Seattle provides a suitably dreary, ominous, and rainy mood, which fits the show like a glove (and not one of those ill-fitting one-size fits all gloves).

I must say I’m in a particularly sore mood, because, as I write this, I have most recently seen the third to last episode (though I’ll done with the first season by the time you read this) and it was truly one of the worst this-close-to-end-of-season episodes of a serial show I have ever seen.   Basically, the whole episode was devoted to the random disappearance of her son, who had never been an important part of the plot, and the other two, albeit less interesting over the course of the series, character sets – the grieving family of dead teen Rosie Larson and the mayoral campaign of high-minded candidate Darren Richmond weren’t even shown.  Instead of actually doing their jobs working on the murder case, the two main detectives search around town for her son. Um, there’s a teenage girl’s murder to be solved?  One in which the victim, maybe, didn’t do anything to cause it?  Oh, and POINTLESS SPOILER ALERT (I’m going to make an effort to use this again – spoilers that are so irrelevant that ruining them is not only pointless but makes your realize how stupid the spoilers were) – her son was with his dad the whole time (the first time I typed dad, I accidentally typed ‘dead” – coincidence?  Ominous)!  Oh, the same dad who has maybe been mentioned once offhand in passing in the entire fucking show.  Wow, that was ridiculous.

But yeah, that’s harsh.  The show has probably done more good things than bad, and I enjoy Billy Campbell as the candidate as well as the Swedish guy as the cop with an undecipherable American accent that comes from no real locale.

MEGASPOILER ALERT

I wrote most of this before the last episode of the show – but boy, after watching that finale, what the FUCK?  Holder’s evil?  So it’s the councilman, but it’s not, it’s a framejob by some mysterious person who we may or may not have ever met?  This show just changed entirely what type of show it is, and not for the better I think.  It was a slow, plodding, dark, dreary police investigation slowly leading to a hopefully tense and climactic solution.  What it is now is hard to say, but at the least, it’s no longer a police investigation – it’s a massive conspiracy that no longer allows us to even believe this could be something real.  It’s more into Rubicon territory. I’m not saying that this type of show has to be bad by any means, but I feel lied to and betrayed a bit.

MEGASPOILER OVER

Why it’s this high:  The show has a great feel, and when it’s at its best, the same deliberate pace, which I will decry in the next part, feels natural instead of slow

Why it’s not higher:  Sense of pacing is awful, the plot sort of got out of hand, and yeah, the last episode kind of changed entirely the type of show it is

Best episode of the most recent season:  “Pilot” – it might tell you something about a show when one picks the pilot as the best episode, and if it does say something, it says it here – everything was set up beautifully – a great beginning just to unravel slowly over the course of the season

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Power Rankings: Saturday Night Live, Season 6 – 1980-81

12 Sep

(Power Rankings sum up:  Each week, we’ll pick a television show and rank the actors/actresses/contestants/correspondents/etc. based on what they’ve done after the series ended (unless we’re ranking a current series, in which case we’ll have to bend the rules).  Preference will be given to more recent work, but if the work was a long time ago, but much more important/relevant, that will be factored in as well)

Not all power rankings can be power-packed, and some of them have to sink pretty low.  Not too many will get lower than this one, I predict and hope though.  We’re going to take a stab at a ranking for the legendarily terrible 1980-81 (season 6) season of Saturday Night Live.  A quick backstory:  Before this season, Lorne Michaels, SNL’s famous producer left, along with the entire cast.  After the season, the entire cast aside from two members were replaced.  Get ready, because this could get brutal.

7.  Ann Risley – it’s never a great sign when your wikipedia article mentions the number of movies you’ve been in the first lines, and it’s in single digits.  Even those movies were all before SNL.  After, Risley’s got a bunch of TV movies from the early ‘90s with names like Telling Secrets, Jericho Fever, and Four Eyes and Six Guns (I really want to know what these are about).

6.  Joe Piscopo – Piscopo was actually kept on SNL and stuck around ’til 1984, becoming one of the most important actors on the show.  Sadly, that was the highlight of his career.  He appeared in the 1986 “Let’s Go Mets Go” music video (one of the many elements which dates the video) and films Johnny Dangerously, Wise Guys and Dead Heat.  He had a voice role in 2000’s Nickelodeon series 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd.  He also appeared in three episodes of Law & Order.

5.  Gail Matthius – Matthius, who co-hosted Weekend Update, did about nothing live action, but had a bit of success with voice acting.  The most notable of these roles were as Bobby’s mom Martha Generic in cult favorite Bobby’s World and as Shirley the Loon in Tiny Toon Advenures.  She also appeared in several episodes of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.

4.   Denny Dillon – the shortest ever SNL cast member by stature at 4’11”, she had to be one of the shortest by tenure as well.  It took a while, but unlike many of the cast members, Dillon was actually able to find some regular work.  She showed up in a couple of episodes of the TV show Fame, and then in the main cast of one season sitcom Women in Prison, about, well, women in prison.  She got her big role on HBO’s Dream On, one of HBO’s first sitcoms, which employed a gimmick of using old black and white clips to show the main character’s feelings.  Dillon appeared on much of the series as Toby Pedalbee, the main character’s assistant.

3. Charles Rocket – the other half of the Weekend Update team, Rocket was fired immediately after cursing during a sketch on air.  Rocket actually had a far more productive career than I had realized.  He appeared in episodes of Remington Steele, Hardcastle and McCormick, and Miami Vice, and four of Max Headroom and six of Moonlighting.  He appeared in three separate failed series over a decade, Tequila and Bonetti in 1992, The Home Court in 1995, and Normal, Ohio in 2000.  He appeared in Earth Girls Are Easy, as Pat-stalker Kyle in It’s Pat (which is sadly how I best know him) and as villainous Nicholas Andre in Dumb and Dumber.  Later he appeared in 10 episodes of Touched by an Angel, and single episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The King of Queens, and 3rd Rock From the Sun.  Sadly, he killed himself in 2005.

2. Gilbert Gottfried – probably the second biggest name to come out of this season, Gottfried is best known for his irritating voice, but apparently didn’t use it much in SNL.  Because of this voice, he is probably best known for his vocal roles – chief among them Iago from Aladdin in the movie and many other tv and video game incarnations.  He also lent his voice to Fairly Oddparents and Cyberchoice and as Mr Mxyzptlk in Superman: The Animated Series.  Amongst his most famous non-vocal roles are his role as a sleazy orphanage employee in Problem Child and well, appearing at just about every Comedy Central roast.  He also told one of the most memorable renditions of the title joke in the movie The Aristocrats and was the voice of the Aflac duck until he was fired for insensitive comments about the Japanese tsunami.

1. Eddie Murphy – so this isn’t really fair.  I don’t think there’s been a power rankings yet where the #1 has been so far ahead of the #2.  Piscopo and Murphy were the only two cast members asked back from this miserable season, and of course Murphy became a massive star.  His film roles are too numerous to name, but include bona fide ‘80s classics like Trading Places, 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, and Coming to America.  Murphy fell into a bit of a slump in the early ‘90s, but came back with box office success, if not the critical success he enjoyed earlier with films like The Nutty Professor, Dr. Doolittle, Daddy Day Care (the movie made $164 million – I didn’t believe it either) and voice roles in Shrek and Mulan (we’ll forget about Holy Man and The Adventures of Pluto Nash)   His non-Shrek career hasn’t been so great at least, but he was nominated for an Oscar for his work in Dreamgirls.

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