Ranking the ShowsThat I Watch – 2015 Edition: 46-43

4 Apr

A very real dramedy followed by three shows which depart from the realms of the real. Three of these four debuted last year.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here.

46. Togetherness – 2014: Not Eligible

Togetherness

One of the plague of sad-white people with pre-midlife crises shows running amok on TV, Togetherness actually pulled together to be a little bit better by the end than I thought it would be at the beginning. It’s hardly mandatory viewing, but the characters are drawn relatively well and feel somewhat realistic, and the feuds and conflicts feel plausible and unforced, which sounds like a low floor but really isn’t. Mark Duplass’s character is the worst part of the show, but he’s balanced by his best friend on the show, Alex, who is the best character. 

45. Mr. Robot – 2014: Not Eligible

Mr. RobotMr. Robot is a show I’ve expended many words about, written, and in person, and although I’m still not sure if I’ll watch it again this year, I’m glad I did. Few shows actually capture the internet television watching community every year, but Mr. Robot was one of them, and while I’m not a fan of many of the show’s creative choices, I do understand some of the appeal, and some of why the appeal now. If the two shows coming up next after Mr. Robot were classic high-floor low-ceiling affairs, Mr. Robot is the opposite. There was a lot going on, generally more of which I didn’t like than did, but it’s the type of show for which I at least have a level of appreciation for the craft of even if I disagree fundamentally which several of the decisions made. I probably liked the next two shows on this list better, but if someone I didn’t know asked me which season of television they should watch it should probably be this one.

44. Doctor Who – 2014: Not Eligible

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is by no means for everyone, and sometimes I’m not even sure it’s for me, but although I doubted myself while watching several seasons over the course of a year, in the end it was a worthwhile project. There’s a low ceiling; there are never any real stakes in Doctor Who, and whatever suspense there is is trying to figure out what the deus ex machina is going to be, not if there will be one. The character development is limited at best, but the show makes up for it by being relentless silly, casting strong choices as the Doctor, like current Doctor Peter Capaldi, and having at least once every few episodes smart, sci-fi homages and mashups that play well with common tropes even if the end results aren’t surprising. What I just wrote is really true about any season of Doctor Who more than merely the last, but that’s about what this show is.

43. Marvel’s Agent Carter – 2014: Not Eligible

Marvel's Agent Carter

Agent Carter isn’t great or relevatory (it sounds like I’m repeating similar words a lot, but that’s where we are on the list) and it fits in well most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero oeuvre – it’s light on its feet, with a low ceiling and a high floor, featuring heroic tales of patriotic derring-do conducted by heroes who care about the greater good more than themselves, all balanced by some sense of humor to attempt to prevent it from being too mired in its own self-seriousness. What puts Carter slightly above the mean is the chemistry between the two leads, heroic Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) who has been buried deep in mundane paperwork as a woman in an all-male workplace in the post-war 1940s, and Jarvis, Howard Stark’s butler, full of British charm and snobbery who, increasingly as the season goes on, wants to show he can do more than cook, clean, and aptly manage Stark’s many lady friends. The ‘40s make for a great setting, and the show doesn’t go light on the constant sexism towards Carter, which actually makes the setting feel more authentic and the eventual triumph greater.

Tags: , , , ,

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 50-47

28 Mar

Two comedies, one action, and one drama/thriller. Moving forward…

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here.

50. Workaholics – 2014: 36

Workaholics

I will always have much affection for Anders, Blake, and Adam, but it badly feels like the boys of Rancho Cucamonga are running out of ideas, no matter what occasional breaks between seasons they take. This is particularly obvious since the show Workaholics is paired up with in its time slot, Broad City, has risen as Workaholics has fallen, and on the whole I love Broad City more than I’ve ever liked Workaholics, which is more a compliment to Broad City than an insult to Workaholics. Workaholics still has the funny joke here and there, and again, I still love the three of them, but it’s not the buzzy, quotable show of the first couple of seasons, and I almost feel like I want to spend more time in this review going to pay tribute to some of the great episodes (“Real Time,” “To Friend a Predator” for example) than talking about this past season which was largely unmemorable. Alas. Nothing gold can stay.

49. The Affair – 2014: 33

The Affair

Oh, to be a Showtime show. A mildly ambitious premise, generally a little less glassy or bold than an HBO show (generally; HBO made Ballers). They’re often just good enough to be intriguing and keep me watching for a few episodes or a couple seasons, only to eventually let me down, quickly, or slowly. The Affair drew me in with a fascinating premise; a modern day Rashomon – a story slowly drawn out, told in two perspectives, both of which contained shades of the truth. The first season left more or less how it started; still maintaining that same level of intrigue and possibility for more without having actually accomplished that much. The second delivered a little bit less than the first, even while including some worthwhile moments and adding two more perspectives to the melange. Dominic West’s Noah became increasingly despicable over the course of the season which made it difficult to watch and times, and the show continued to feel like it didn’t exactly know where it was going or what it was doing. I’m about at a coin flip over whether I’ll give the third season a shot.

48. Archer – 2014: 39

Archer

Archer is long-veteran show at this point, and like Workaholics, just above, it often feels at this point like it’s running out of ideas. However, unlike with Workaholics, this past season was a step up over the previous season, the ambitious but ultimately lacking Archer Vice. It certainly wasn’t golden era Archer (seasons 2 and 3) but it was clearly, if not way past the solid enough to keep watching point. At this point it often feels like the veteran that it is; it’s not exciting or flashy but it comes to work and does the job at least well enough to earn its paycheck. Archer marks the first clear tier break on this list so far. Everything Archer and above I plan on coming back to for sure in their next seasons; everything below is a big question mark.

47. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – 2014: 32

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I doubt Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is ever going to rise too high in these rankings. It’s probably never going to be a great show; it’s been on long enough that I feel pretty comfortable I know what it is and it’s unlikely to take a leap. That said, it’s settled into a comfortable place in my viewing lineup, never much higher than the cut off, but safely above. After a really rough first 15 episodes that had me ready to give up the show, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has improved to a level of competence putting together enough smart dialogue and occasionally unpredictable plotting to take advantage of my natural inclination to like things comic book and superhero. Like Flash and Arrow, this show isn’t for everyone, and those who have zero interest in superheroes have absolutely no reason to give it a look. But it is a step up above those DC shows, slightly better written, one level deeper, which is not saying a lot, that stay just a little bit farther away from obvious and cringeworthy tropes enough of the time to make it worth watching.

Tags: , , , ,

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 54-51

21 Mar

Our first comedy of the rankings shows up along with three cable dramas that only have the potential of conspiracy in common.

Intro here and 58-55 here.

54. True Detective – 2014: 21

True Detective

Thousands of words have been spilled over the disappointing second season of True Detective, some by me, and I’m not sure I have more to add; one-dimensional characters, frustrating plot choices, and misguided casting, let to a somewhat sad season of television. It’s not lower than this because it was strangely ambitious in a way other bad shows aren’t; Flash and Arrow failed on a lower percentage of what they tried, but True Detective tried way more. There was something interesting enough in the failure of True Detective to probably ensure I’d watch another season, but that doesn’t make it a success. Recently, this past season of True Detective made me think of the Star Wars prequels; unquestionably failures, but, especially compared to The Force Awakens, surprisingly ambitious failures which actually really went for it.

53. Community – 2014: 10

Community

The Yahoo! Screen (and points if you remember that Yahoo!’s short-lived video service was called Yahoo! Screen) season of Community really made me sad. It’s fair to say I had no right to be disappointed by the season, consider how up-and-down Community has been over the years, and considering the turmoil behind-the-scenes including the cast changes and the new network. Still, it was one of the more disappointing seasons of TV I can remember considering what a special place Community has held in my heart at times, and considering this was going to be its likely last impression (unless they actually get around to that movie). There were fleeting glimpses of what made Community great; but they were gobbled up by so much mediocrity, poor choices, reused plots, unbalanced character usage, overdone jokes and just a seeming running out of ideas. The fifth season, upon reflection, I found to be better than I had believed initially; with the sixth, it’s sadly the opposite. There’s way too much Dean, a side character elevated to a larger role than his character could handle, and again just rehashing and overusing what worked well when done subtly and in moderation. Quite simply, the magic was gone.

52. Orphan Black – 2014: 25

Orphan Black

Orphan Black post-Season 1 is a bit of a mess rendered worth viewing simply due to the powers of Tatiana Maslany. The plot was clearly put together with only one season in mind and since then there have had to be incomprehensible secret organization on top of incomprehensible secret organization on top of incomprehensible secret organization to prevent the Clone Club from finding all the answers, past the point where it makes all that much sense. Fortunately through for Orphan Black, the show has a sense of humor, which many shows in this tier (see: House of Cards, AMC’s The Walking Dead) lack, especially in regards to the generally enjoyable Alison plotlines. Orphan Black is hardly appointment television; but I don’t think I’ll be giving it up just yet because I like the clones enough to eventually catch up, even if that means on a lazy Saturday weeks after the episodes have aired.

51. AMC’s The Walking Dead – 2014: 34

The Walking Dead

I’m in a strange place with AMC’s The Walking Dead. Objectively, this has been one of, if not the single strongest year in the show’s existence. It’s hardly spectacular; but the year is notable more for the absence of the bigger problems that plagued swaths of AMC’s The Walking Dead past; glacial pacing, bringing the Governor back well past his due date, focus on the wrong characters, young Carl. AMC’s The Walking Dead has never been a great show but it’s had spurts of promise that have always, until now, kept me watching, and on paper, this past year would certainly appear to be composed largely of such spurts. Subjectively though, while I recognize the show is actually in a fairly solid place, for whatever it’s worth, I simply seem to have a case of AMC’s The Walking Dead fatigue. I’m just tired of the show. The novelty and the fun have worn on me, and while the plot changes, I’ve felt some sense of sameness that has been grating on me over the seasons. Several times in the past couple of months I planned to put on an episode, just to realize I really didn’t want to watch one. Will I ever get back to it, or will I simply fade away from the show? Tune into next year’s rankings to find out.

Tags: , , , ,

Ranking the Show That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 58-55

14 Mar

Four hour longs start us off, two CW, one Netflix, and one Amazon.

Intro here.

58. House of Cards – 2014: 42

House of Cards

I probably wouldn’t have watched this past season of House of Cards if I didn’t traditionally marathon it with friends. No show benefits from that binge watching more than House of Cards. It’s a fun activity as a group, but the more you think about the show, the more it all falls apart, and the dumber it is. The show makes so little sense that the best way to watch it is to finish it because you can think. The ridiculousness can be fun, and it legitimately was in the first season; the binge-watching advice was as much backhanded compliment as insult. Now it’s just, well, very bad. On top of the mess that the show is, there’s a sense that the show believe it’s more meaningful than it is which eats away at whatever fun the show has left. Whether I watch again this season will depend on whether my friends and I put aside a rainy day and beers for it; otherwise it’s probably not going to happen.

57. Arrow – 2014: Not Eligible

Arrow

Arrow is the darker and more dour companion to the happier-go-luckier The Flash, which we’ll see in a minute, and I have fairly similar thoughts on both shows.  The Flash’s first season was better than Arrow’s downer of a third season, but Arrow’s fourth season so far has been better than Flash’s second, half of the episodes of which seem like back door pilots for new series (mostly CW’s upcoming Legends of Tomorrow.) These shows aren’t necessarily and are only enjoyable on and off. They lean in super hard to obvious tropes and are incredibly predictable, and because there are 22 of them a year, have some of the worst pacing and are incredibly repetitive. More than almost any other show, I’ve watched I feel like I can read or fade in and out and not really miss much from these shows, and while that’s been useful when binging to catch up with these shows, that’s not a compliment. There are charms; the actors are generally competent, and there are good fight sequences and moments of clever snappy dialogue. Still, it’s not quite enough; I’d watch a couple of hour season recap of each if someone made it, but I’m not sure I can justify devoting the amount of time required to watch this show and the following one moving forward.

56. Flash – 2014: Not Eligible

Flash

I’d rather not write separate pieces for this and Arrow, but here we go. The Flash can be fun, and relative to Arrow, it’s lighter, and it’s best when it stays that way. There’s a lot of emo, a lot of angst, a season long big bad, but and it stays fun when it’s just on the right side of mediocre. The Flash and Arrow don’t crossover a lot but they almost crossover just enough and there’s not enough difference in quality that I want to watch one without the other, and that means that it’s 44 or so episodes a year, or zero, which is a big commitment for a pair of shows that would be somewhat more compelling with a small one. Great shows are for everyone; Flash (and Arrow) are only for relative comic fans.

55. The Man in the High Castle – 2014: Not Eligible

The Man in the High Castle

I really wanted to like The Man in the High Castle. It’s an alternate history, which is a genre unseen on TV; as a history buff, I was definitely interested and it’s based on a Philip K. Dick book which I have shamefully not read but is well-regarded by my friends who have. It’s one of the classic alternate history premises; what if the Nazis had won World War II? In this world, the Germans control the eastern half of the US and the Japanese the West, but there are resistance groups working deep underground, which our unknowing protagonists are introduced to within the run of the show. There’s so much I want to explore within this premise, and so many interesting questions which could be asked and presented. The problem, however, is that the characters aren’t great or really even good. It’s hard to feel anything for the protagonists and the world building and plot doesn’t come fast enough to make up for the lousy characters. I’d be interested in coming back to it if the next season got glowing notices, but I’m saddened by how hesitant I am to return.

Tags: , , , ,

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: The Outcasts

7 Mar

The Americans

It’s time for an annual beginning-of-the-year tradition (beginning-ish this year, granted, my bad on the lateness) over here at Drug of the Nation, the ranking of the shows I’ve watched during the previous year. This is my fifth annual ranking, and I’ll repeat the caveat I placed atop last year’s ranking introduction:

Because the TV season is no longer the fall-to-spring trajectory that it used to be, I arbitrarily rank things on a calendar basis, and that leads to strange situations where I’m occasionally ranking the end of one season and the beginning of the next season in the same ranking. It’s strange, and not ideal, but I have to pick some point in the year to do the rankings, so I’ll roll with the punches and mention within the article if there was a significant change in quality one way or the other between the end and beginning of seasons covered in the same year.

I’m only ranking shows I watched all of or just about all of the episodes that aired last year; if I’m just two or three behind I’ll rank it, but if I’ve only seen two or three, I won’t. I’m ranking a few miniseries and but not shows with one-off specials. These rules are arbitrary, admittedly, but any rules would be. No daily variety programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are eligible either.

This year, as I said last year, ranking these show was incredibly difficult and often arbitrary, generally running in tiers; I probably liked the tenth ranked show clearly more than the 20th ranked show, but not necessarily clearly more than the 11th show. It’s a snapshot of how I felt the second I finalized the rankings, and they could have changed if I had finalized them the next day or hour or minute. The top tier was probably the hardest it’s ever been, particularly in regard to the strongest overall group of great half hour shows I’ve seen in my five years ranking shows.

Many of the shows no longer on the list are simply because they ended in 2014 or took a break in 2015, but I’ll put in a couple of notes for shows that I didn’t watch even though they did air in 2015.

The Outcasts:

The Honourable Woman – 2014: 7

Olive Kitteridge – 2014: 9

Doctor Who – 2014: 22

Sherlock – 2014: 24

Sons of Anarchy – 2014: 26

The Bridge – 2014: 28

Boardwalk Empire – 2014: 37

24: Live Another Day – 2014: 38

Wilfred – 2014: 40

Okay. Three of these were miniseries. Sherlook, as it is wont to do, took a year off, and the rest are done for good. Now, a few words about the couple that aired last year that I declined to watch anyway.

Masters of Sex – 2014: 35

Masters of Sex

The two shows that follow this I definitively decided to stop watching. Masters of Sex I just kind of fell behind on and never caught up to. I did, and kind of do, intend to catch up eventually, but the fact that I haven’t after half a year certainly says a fair amount about the show. The second season was fine, but it seemed so much less focused than the first, contained a puzzling midseason time jump, and generally just didn’t seem to have any idea what it was doing or where it was going. The actors are great, and there are moments of promise, but it was so scattershot that I definitely loss some interest. I watched the first couple of episodes from the third season, and they were also fine but not particularly compelling and I just haven’t gotten back to it since. During the first season, I was heartily recommending my friends watch it. Since then, not so much.

Downton Abbey – 2014: 41

Downton Abbey

I was stunned to read I had actually watched Downton Abbey in 2014. I thought I stopped long before that, but I guess not. It’s harder and harder to remember that Downton Abbey was actually, well, pretty damn good, in its first season, a fun, soapy, look at a time long gone, with a decidedly positive sheen, for sure, but with some pretty good characters also. And then, well, the soapiness remained, but the show got less interesting as did the characters, as often happens. I stayed on a couple seasons after I cared all that much, but eventually decided to pull the plug.

Helix – 2014: 43

Helix

Ick. Every year, I try to find at least one show to watch with my dad; not necessarily with him at the same exact time and place (though sometimes) but at least one show that I watch that he’s also watching that I can talk about when I see him or talk to him over the phone. The show at various points has ranged from 24 to AMC’s ill-fated Rubicon. Last year, the show ended up being Helix. I was intrigued by the pedigree; it was from BSG’s Ron Moore, and the first episode held promise. The show spun farther and farther out of control, revealing bigger and bigger mysteries that entirely blew up the scope of the show. Also it just wasn’t very good. It seems like half a decade ago that I watched this show, but apparently it was only two years ago, so here it is.

Tags: , , ,

End of Season Report: Narcos, Season 1

3 Mar

Narcos1

Narcos, Netflix’s show about the rise (and theoretically eventual fall) of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, and the attempts of his rivals and multiple governments to stop him, is nothing revelatory. It’s not a prestige drama steeped in metaphor and deep symbolism, it’s not going to make any end of year best-on-tv lists, and shouldn’t. It’s not going to have friends calling on each other enthusiastically screaming out that they must watch this show. But, and this is entirely not meant as the backhanded compliment it sounds like, it’s a fun, entertaining little show if you’ve got between 9 and 10 hours to kill.

So many shows try desperately to be prestige dramas – important shows that want to put their stamp on the medium in an indelible way. When they succeed, that’s great; Mad Men is rightfully revered for a reason. But, as I was talking with a friend about recently, when they don’t succeed, even when they’re halfway decent rather than bad, they often feel not worth watching. There are simply enough superior versions of that type of show around on TV to bother with shows in the second and third tier. Narcos, thankfully, doesn’t try to do that.

Narcos is low-rent Scorsese, heavy on plot and the back-and-forth deadly chess match between Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel and the Colombian and American governments. Steve Murphy, a DEA agent new to the fight in Colombia at the beginning of the show, narrates in a Henry Hill-in-Goodfellas style, with lots of exposition, explaining what Pablo’s up to. As I said when I wrote a review of the first episode, it’s a story that’s been told before, but there’s a reason for it; it’s simply a fascinating tale, how one man could acquire so much, so relatively fast, and more than that how one man could be as powerful as an entire country.

Narcos is almost enjoyable largely because it doesn’t try to be great; it’s finds goodness where greatness would likely elude it. It’s a fun ride on a fun, genuinely interesting subject that had me doing my best to wait until the end of the season to jump on wikipedia and find out what was true and wasn’t, and what happened to all of the real characters in the show. Calling a series merely diversionary can sometimes sound like an insult; but there’s something pleasurable about watching a show that you can just marathon through, a show that brings recent history to life and makes you wonder how crazy and terrifying our world is from afar.

End of Season Report: Making a Murderer, Season 1

25 Jan

Making a Murderer

Making a Murderer is probably the most frustrating and depressing program you’ll watch this (or late last) year, primarily because while, at the end of the day, whatever happens on most shows happens to fictional characters, fictional characters you’re deeply invested in, but fictional characters none the less, Making a Murderer leaves two possibly innocent people who were at the least surely not given a fair shake at justice in prison.

And while of course I want to talk about the quality of the show and not get up on my soapbox, it’s just about impossible to do one without the other, and that’s kind of the point. In a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction series of events, two people are sent to prison for decades for committing a gruesome murder, and the documentarians catch nearly every flaw in our American adversarial criminal justice system along the way: overzealous cops and prosecutors more motivated to get a conviction than get the truth, a law & order jury cowed and skewed in favor of conviction, regardless of the actual evidence, local elected judges willing to generally defer to prosecutors, incompetent defense counselors who don’t have their clients’ interests at heart, and a prioritization of incredibly unreliable witness statements and confessions over scientific evidence.

Oof, that’s a laundry list, and even for a cynic like me, Making a Murderer was able to generate, episode-by-episode a renewed lack-of-faith in the system. On top of everything mentioned above, the series also shines a light on our utter and unflinching trust of police and prosecutors and how “innocent until proven guilty” is basically thrown out the window when defendants are convicted in the court of public opinion by savage media reports that build off of speculation rather than facts. Confirmation bias leads well-meaning cops and lawyers to commit themselves so deeply to the fact that Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are guilty that they can’t see the obvious problems with the cases that the audience can.

And of all the utter mockeries of justice shown over 10 or so hours, the most tragic and troubling is the story of Brendan Dassey. Stephen Avery’s case is problematic on many levels, but Dassey’s is a complete joke. The only, and I repeat only, evidence the state has on Dassey is a confession, given to two cops when he had no lawyer, where he obviously was cowed into saying things he didn’t believe, very clearly making up fanciful stories to desperately please the investigators. There can be no doubt about this. It’s appallingly obvious to anyone who watches the confession on tape. Forget the blatant malpractice of Dassey’s first lawyer. The mere fact that police officers, prosecutors, judges, and 12 members of what had to be a unanimous jury could watch the tape of his interview and believe he did what he said he did is mind bogglingly troublesome.

So yeah, to sum up, I liked the show. If there’s such a thing as an “important show” without being intolerably pretentious, this might be one. It’s very difficult to sit through at times,and I yelled at my screen like a mad person, but it really provides a no-holds-barred reality based look at our criminal justice system, so when you hear and see claims about how every man and woman is treated equally under the law, and the truth will win out in the end, and the adversarial system serves justice better than the alternative, well, it’s good to be reminded sometimes that that’s just a load of bullshit. And while that’s depressing, it’s better to know than live under an illusion.

Tags: , ,

Fall 2015 Review: The Player

25 Sep

The Player

The Player is one of two ludicrous high-concept action shows NBC is airing this year, and possibly the more ludicrous, though I’ve veered back and forth between the two. It’s also unrelated to the early ‘90s Robert Altman movie of the same name.

Here’s the story. Alex Kane is the best security consultant in the industry in Las Vegas. He’s just that good. He’s hired to protect high value targets and to show the audience his sheer competence he saves a rich foreign royal family in the first couple of minutes. He follows his success with a meaningful moment with his ex-wife where they decide to get back together until she’s subsequently murdered leaving him as the prime suspect. He knows, however, that he’s not only innocent but that the killer was coming for him; the killer wants another shot at the same royal family he protected before and saw him as the biggest obstacle in the way.

He escapes from the hospital where he’s being held while the police look into him. Now the real fun starts. He’s helped in his escape by a woman Cassandra, who takes him to a man, Mr. Johnson, played by Wesley Snipes. They work for a cadre of very, very rich men, who are above the FBI, above the CIA, above basically everyone. They have capabilities far beyond what Alex can imagine. In fact, they’ve figured out a way to predict crime. Alex has 10 minutes, Cassandra and Johnson tell him, to save the family he was assigned to protect at the beginning of the show. Without really understanding, he races to save them, but is unable to get there in time. The daughter is kidnapped and several people are killed, and he’s blamed.

He meets with Cassandra and Johnson again and they fill him in further. The mega-wealthy bore easily. They like to gamble, but typical gambling is far too low stakes.  So, they gamble on crime. They require a player, which is a lifetime appointment. You play until you die, some people bet on you, some people bet against. He enlists, because, well, there’s a boring backstory about how his wife inspired him to be good, and he hasn’t looked back, so if he has a chance to do good, gosh darn it, even if the circumstances surrounding it are poor, he’s got to take it. Oh, and he can avenge his wife, and on top of that, he has a tip she might not actually be dead. Yes, that’s something that might happen.

The Player is pretty wooden. It’s very very silly, though not knowingly so. Network shows are so obviously predictable and the writing is hackneyed. I could call some of the many, many gambling puns campy, but that’s giving the writers too much credit. Something this silly and over the top needs to have really good action scenes and be a hell of a lot of fun to work and The Player is neither.

Will I watch it again? No. There were some mediocre action scenes. But that’s about it. It’s not the worst, but you can get what it gives you, elsewhere and better, if that’s what you want.

Tags: , ,

Fall 2015 Review: Life in Pieces

23 Sep

Life in Pieces

Modern Family may be slowly losing its luster, losing the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series for the first time since its debut six years ago, but it’s still one of the best and most important network success stories of the last decade, particularly in comedy where networks have had much more trouble than in dramas. Understandably, other network shows have tried to pick up on Modern Family’s magic, trying to cop whatever makes Modern Family so successful – the format, the family, the tone, the themes, or anything else they take a stab at. Few, however, work to replicate the formula as wholeheartedly as Life in Pieces.

Life in Pieces involves a wacky, modern family, spanning three generations, in single-camera laugh track-less style, much like Modern Family. Life in Pieces is premised on a story-telling gimmick not in place in Modern Family, but the gimmick doesn’t really prevent it from being much different. Rather than cross-cutting multiple plotlines like most shows do (except for, on an entirely unrelated note, HBO’s Oz), Life in Pieces tells its stories one after the other, story A in full, then B, and so forth. Ultimately though the result is pretty much the same as it would be otherwise, merely with parts of the show moved around slightly.

Here are the characters. In the pilot, the first story is about single Matt (Thomas Sadoski, or Don from The Newsroom) , who is on a date with his co-worker Colleen. The two are attempting to have sex, but reach awkwardness both at her place, where her ex-fiancé (Jordan Peele) still lives, and his, where his parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) whose house it presumably is, are home early from a bar mitzvah. Next, married couple Greg and Jen (Colin Hanks and Zoe Lister-Jones or Fawn Moscato from New Girl) welcome their first child into the world.  Jen freaks out over the damage to her vagina and Greg tries to help. Third, Tim and Heather (Veep senator Dan Bakkedahl and Breaking Bad’s Marie Betsy Brandt) arrive at a college visit with their oldest son Tyler, and their younger kids Samantha and Sophia, where all the kids grow up. Samantha gets her first period and Sophia learns there’s no Santa or Easter Bunny. The final story involves parents John and Joan, at John’s funeral-themed 70th birthday, where their children Matt, Greg, and Heather sit with their families watching as the party implodes and the family yells at each other before having a warm, coming together moment.

Life in Pieces provides the same update and twist to traditional family comedy that Modern Family offers. The families are bigger; there are more characters and more plots than old school family sitcoms, because shows move faster these days, and the lack of long laugh track pauses provides significantly more show time. The tone attempts to be very modern – frank talk about sex and the damage that pregnancy does to vaginas plays  prominent role for example. At the end, there’s some narration, and though the family doesn’t out and out learn something, there’s an attempt to tie up all the plots into some trite and meaningless heartwarming pro-family everyone loves each other message.

There’s of course a problem here. The show isn’t funny. It’s not cringeworthy, and like Modern Family, it’s a lot better than a lot of what came before, and quite a bit of what hs come since. It’s largely inoffensive and just as importantly, non-offensive, unlike so many other successful but terrible comedies. It could even be called cute on occasion. Unfortunately, it’s just not very funny and there’s not really a lot else besides heartwarming bromides to justify any continued viewing.

Will I watch it again? No. It’s a cute attempt in some aspects. It’s not awful and like Modern Family, there are some admirable aspects. But it’s not funny and it’s not one of those shows that offers enough that make you watch it even though it’s not funny. Sorry.

Tags: , ,

Fall 2015 Previews and Predictions: Fox

14 Sep

FOX

(In order to meld the spirit of futile sports predictions with the high stakes world of the who-will-be-cancelled-first fall (edit: spring, now) 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 (spring, again)(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

Additional note: Since more and more series on network TV are following cable models with set orders for shorter seasons, and mid-season replacements tend to have shorter seasons in particular, I’ll note any planned limited runs in my prediction section for each show)

Minority Report – 9/21

Minority Report

Minority Report is squarely a Future Cop show, which is a real genre (think: Time Cop, Seven Days). You’re watched or at least are familiar with the almost 15 year old film. Police departments arrest people based on pre-crime; they know what crimes are going to be committed and by whom before they happen. In the show, pre-crime has been outlawed, but a pair of twins who could see the future are still out there and want to help stop crime, along with their foster sister. An enterprising detective teams up with them to get back to stopping crimes before they happen.

Prediction: 13+ – Nothing about this show stands out. I can see it failing, or being renewed, and am going to take the middle to hedge my bets

Scream Queens – 9/22

Scream Queens

Think Scream meets Mean Girls. Something bad happened at a sorority party 20 years ago, and now in the present an angry dean is taking it to a bunch of preppy entitled sorority girls by making them take in every girl who wishes to pledge this year. This leads to a wacky contrast between the WASP-y it girls and the freaks and losers they’re forced to deal with. One of the characters is the daughter of a former member from 20 years ago and is investigating. Oh, and their sorority house is haunted, and a lot of people end up dying. Like many a Ryan Murphy project, focus is not its strong suit and it will have to be gleefully (pun kind of intended) fun for the over-the-top campiness to work. A who’s who of young actresses show up.

Prediction: Renewal – Ryan Murphy has a pretty good record. The New Normal didn’t succeed but this is way more up Murphy’s alley.

Rosewood – 9/23

Rosewood

Wow. Color-by-numbers would declare Rosewood too by the numbers. What is this doing not on USA? A cracker jack private medical examiner (the titular Rosewood) swaggers around Miami until he’s paired with a lady partner who doesn’t want a piece of his attitude. Rosewood is daring and dashing because he knows, due to his medical conditions, his life is doomed to be short. Of course, this unlikely team eventually gels and makes a formidable foe for Miami criminals. The only thing not mind blowingly generic about this show is the fact the stars are black and latino, which is great, but next time put them on shows that will survive.

Prediction: 12- This looks like a classic failure. The only defense would be that it seems kind of Bones-esque and that show lasted and lasted and still lasts. But, every other comp points the other way.

Grandfathered – 9/29

Grandfathered

John Stamos has it all. A thriving restaurant, money, friends, women. He’s a playboy, and the only traditional marker of success he doesn’t have is a family, which he’s not sure he wants anyway. His life is upended when he learns he has a son, from an old flame, and on top of that, his son has a son, and thus he has a granddaughter. These new family members force him to grow up and learn that maybe even though he didn’t realize it he does want a family after all. It’s a network comedy, people. Don’t expect anything revolutionary.

Prediction: 13+ It looks bad, network comedy is in a sorry state to begin with. I think I might be being charitable by not predicting a more immediate cancellation

The Grinder – 9/29

The Grinder

This one’s got a nifty little premise. Rob Lowe is just coming off an eight year run as the star of a fantastically successful legal procedural called The Grinder. He’s looking to make his next career move. His brother and father are lawyers, and spending some time at home, he realizes he wants to be a lawyer, and be more a part of their lives. Moreso, he believes that his eight years on the set of a legal procedural give him the knowledge necessary. His brother his the legal knowhow, he has the charisma.

Prediction: Renewal – I can’t really defend this prediction except under the “some shows have to be renewed” caveat, and it seems a more likely candidate than Grandfathered.

Tags: ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →