Tag Archives: CBS

Snap Judgments: CBS Upfronts

15 May

We’re ranking the shows at each of the upfronts here.  CBS is next, check here for NBC and a fuller intro.  Watching a new TV show is like meeting a new person.  You usually know within the first minute whether you’re going to like them or not.  Maybe 20% of the time, they deserve a second look, or you just get a misleadingly awful first impression, but that’s the exception.  These were actually all fairly close to one another, and I doubt I’ll be watching a second episode of any of them, but so it goes.

6.  The Crazy Ones

Star power is left and right in The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar starring as father/daughter advertising executives in this comedy from David E. Kelley.  Mad Man this is not.  It’s really hard for Robin Williams not to be a caricature of himself (at least without going dark, a la One Hour Photo), and he doesn’t really break out of it here.  If you like Robin Williams, you’ll probably love it.  If you don’t think Robin Williams has been particularly funny since at least the Mrs. Doubtfire/Aladdin early ’90s twosome (again giving leeway for his surprisingly awesome dramatic takes), well, you pretty much know what you’re in for here.  Also, Kelly Clarkson’s in the pilot, though that’s neither here nor there I suppose.  A lot of interviewing people in the trailer talking about how funny and what a legend Robin Williams is.  Williams is already on my nerves within 3 minutes.

5.  We Are Men

I’m not going to lie.  I already have a negative opinion of this before I even started based on the title.  It’s about four divorced dudes who live at a kind of singles apartment complex together, navigating the post-divorce waters.  I would have guessed it was airing on TBS as kind of a ten years later to Men at Work if it wasn’t already on CBS.  They all help each score with the ladies, while being men together and bromancing it up.  The recurring joke in the trailer is about how none of them know any of the other members of the cast and all think they’re the star.  Hilarious.  I forgot, you can’t necessarily tell that’s sarcasm in writing.  They are indeed men.

4.  Mom

Laugh track alert!  It’s a Chuck Lorre special starring Anna Faris and Alison Janney as daughter-mother recovering alcoholics. The two of them try to keep it together for the benefit of Faris’ teen daughter and younger son.  Badger from Breaking Bad shows up for a second, which is cool and Nate Corddry and French Stewart play Faris’ coworkers at a high end restaurant.  I suppose it looks better than some other Chuck Lorre comedies (e.g. Two and a Half Men), though that’s an extremely relative statement.  This is a CBS overview, so it’s not like I’m likely to actually enjoy any of these shows.  Some of these cast members have merit and that’s more or less as far as I’m willing to go.

3.  Intelligence


Josh Holloway (aka Sawyer from Lost) is a superhero CIA agent who enhances his awesome fighting and stealth skills with a microchip implanted in him, which allows to control all sorts of electronic shit.  He can scan things and do research and open doors and so forth.  Marg Helgenberger (CSI) who appears in the show as some sort of higher ranking agent describes it as James Bond meets Frankenstein meets Mission Impossible. Certainly no examples of hyperbole here. It’s like Person of Interest, except endorsed by the government and with superpowers.  Dramas have an inherent ranking advantage here, as even mediocre dramas are unlikely, on average, to be as bad as awful comedies.

2.  The Millers

Kids cursing is always a high brow way to start off a trailer. Will Arnett gets yet another comedy pilot (Running Wilde, Up All Night) with an absolutely loaded cast (Note:  Arnett has gotten pilots from Fox, NBC, and now CBS – he’s an ABC pilot away from all four networks).  Margo Martindale and Beau Bridges are Ma and Pa, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Waitress Mary Elizabeth Ellis is his sis (though some research tells me she’s no longer in the cast), and  JB Smoove is his coworker (cameraman, Arnett is a reporter).  The laugh track is again out in full force.  I think the laughs were louder than the words in the most dramatic scene from the trailer when, inspired by Arnett’s recent divorce, Bridges leaves Martindale, and talks about masterbating and their lack of sex, disgusting their son.  Dysfunctional families who really love each other and all that.  The cast is good but the show probably won’t be.  Still, good enough for second here.

1.  Hostages

There is absolutely no fucking around with the CBS drama pilots this year. Both mention the president within 30 seconds. In Hostages, top surgeon Toni Collette is supposed to operate on the president, until she’s and her family are taken hostage by Dylan McDermott.  McDermott demands that she kill the president during the surgery or her family (including husband Tate Donovan) will all be killed.  I have no idea what the time span is for the show; whether one season leads up to the surgery, or far afterwards, and where the show goes for multiple seasons if it gets there, but I at least respect the super high concept premise.  I find it doubtful it will actually be good, but at least it’s trying though, and that’s something.  The top position is a very relative term in a CBS upfronts ranking, but someone has to take it.

 

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Spring 2013 Review: Golden Boy

22 Mar

He is the Golden Boy

Golden Boy is the story of a young Oscar de la Hoya.  No, of course it’s not.  This is CBS.  It’s a police procedural.  But here’s Golden Boy’s special little hook.  The main character, Walter Clark (Theo James), who starts his first day as a homicide detection in the first episode, will, in seven years, go on to become the youngest police commissioner in NYPD history.   In fact, the whole story is actually told from the future, as a journalist played by Richard Kind interviews now police commissioner Walter Clark about his path from young rookie to commish.

At the beginning of the pilot, Clark, a patrol officer, becomes a hero, when he kills a man holding a woman hostage, kills another man, who shot his partner, and helps resuscitate his partner with CPR.  As a benefit of his new-found hero status, the commissioner offers him his pick of where he wants to work.  He hears recommendations for narcotics; a nice modest leap up the latter that will shave a couple years off his career path, but an area he’d be qualified to work in with his level of experience.  Instead, he chooses homicide, to the astonishment of everyone, as he’s far too inexperienced and would be at least a decade away from working there under normal circumstances.

Once he enters the homicide department, we’re back on track for standard cop show routines.  He’s partnered with the older, wiser Don Owen (played by Chi McBride), who early in the show tells Clark he’s no Morgan Freeman, seeming to disparage his role as an older, African-American mentor, but as the episode goes on, he fills that role to a T (he recalls Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon when he lectures Clark late in the episode about how he’s got just two years before he’s done).  Clark gets hazed several times in the episode by Owen and the other veteran members of the department, and gets put in his place occasionally when he gets a little rambunctious for a youngster.  Clark looks up to hotshot detective Christian Arroyo (played by True Blood’s Kevin Alejandro), who alternately gives him a hard time and looks to help him out.  Arroyo at one time berates Clark for making a promise to a victim’s family, something that Clark should know not to do if he’s ever watched a cop show in his life.  Arroyo’s partner is female cop Deb McKenzie, who finds Clark to be cocky but sometimes sympathetic.  Clark’s attempts at being Sherlock Holmes-ian, noticing every little detail to make him seem like a savant are made fun of by Arroyo initially, but then end up being extremely helpful as a tattoo that only Clark notices on a suspect helps find out a piece of crucial information.

While not groundbreaking or pushing boundaries on even the slightest level, there are two minorly noteworthy aspects of the show which are atypical for classic police procedurals.  First, the main character is not particularly likable.  In the first episode, we can already see he’s arrogant, thinks he’s better than others, and is more interested in playing politics or being a media hound if that’s what it takes to not only solve the case but do the best for himself.  It’s definitely intimated with the future commissioner mechanism that he will mature over the seven years following his start as a homicide detective, and he’s still essentially a good person who wants to put away bad guys, but it’s worth noting that he’s fairly easy to dislike to start out.  He also obtains evidence illegally to help put the bad guy away pretty early on in the show, without any real moral qualms, which is kind of dark for CBS.  He shares some characteristics with The Wire’s (the only time in this review you will hear me compare Golden Boy and The Wire) Jimmy McNulty, except that Jimmy is a lot more charming straight off the bat and has earned his stripes.  The second interesting aspect is that two of the four major police characters, Owen and Arroyo, pretty much hate each other.  Cops often get into spats on other shows, but rarely do two straight out not get along at all.

At the end of the episode, we find out that Arroyo, who had been nicer to Clark as the episode went on, backstabbed him, getting his name in a newspaper as responsible for leaking a story to the press.  In addition, mentor and partner Owen tells Clark a story of two dogs fighting, which Clark told us in the seven years later segment at the beginning of the episode, as they bond together at the shooting range.

The flashforward gimmick (which I would like to use another chance to point out is the most overused gimmick in TV and one which I would like to see cut down at least in half) is used to ratchet up suspense, by letting us know in this first episode that a bunch of crazy shit is going to go down, but the tension will lie in waiting to see how it happens.  These include the alleged death of Clark’s  partner, a murder suicide, and a precinct shoot out.  So, future Golden Boy viewers, now you know what you have to look forward to; if you didn’t know that, it would merely be surprising at the time it happened, but now you can watch every episode asking yourself, “is this where the murder suicide happens?”

Will I watch it again?  No.  I did point out, and I think it’s worth noting, that it strays from typical crime procedurals in a couple of important ways, and credit is due to the Golden Boy creators for that.  Additionally it seems like there’s likely to be a stronger serial plot than in many classic CBS procedurals, like CSI, NCIS, and Criminal Minds.  Still, at its heart, it’s a police procedural, and it’s very hard to get me to actually care enough about these to watch regularly.  Quick shout out for being actually filmed in New York, there’s a great shot of the High Line early in the episode.

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2012 Review: Made in Jersey

15 Oct

You’ve been waiting for it, I’ve been waiting for it, we’ve all been waiting for it.  Sure, it’s been cancelled already by the time you read this, but you weren’t going to watch it anyway, and don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious.

Here’s the thing; Made in Jersey is bad, just like everybody could have easily anticipated, and that’s clear and pretty obvious from the get go.  Unlike 2 Broke Girls, though, it doesn’t make me angry or sad, it’s just hilariously bad and destined to fail, everyone kind of knows it, and this makes watching and reviewing it surprisingly enjoyable.  It’s lame duck television.

Let’s start out with what you have to know.  Martina Geretti is a lawyer who used to work for the Trenton DA’s office but now recently started working for a large prestigious white shoe Manhattan firm.  She gets into a mini-scuffle with a rude biker in the first two minutes of the show, letting you know that she’s got an accent, she’s got attitude to spare, and she’s a lawyer so she can threaten you when you piss her off.

Here’s what you also need to know.  She showcases her Jersey Smarts ™ several times in the episodes, which I will catalog, but basically, she gets promoted quickly into a high profile position.  Her head boss in Kyle McLaughlin, who doesn’t really do a lot.  Her next boss is some other guy who is literally constructed out of cardboard (yes, obviously not literally).  Her immediate co-worker who is slightly senior to her however, is played by Law & Order: SVU’s Stephanie March and has apparently made it her mission to be a total bitch to Martina because she’s a stupid Jersey know-nothing.  When I saw what the show was about, I thought everybody would be out to get Martina, and mock her for her Jersey ways, but it’s really just Stephanie March, although she does it often enough to count for everyone.  Basically, the rest of this review will be me listing examples of Martina using her Jersey Smarts ™ and me listing how Stephanie March is crazy mean to her.

Jersey Smarts ™ #1:  In one of the first scenes, before Martina heads to an important meeting she accidentally stains her blouse.  She quickly refashions her outfit to make herself presentable.

Jersey Smarts ™ #2:  Kyle McLaughlin brings up an important murder case in a huge meeting, noting that the police think that pliers were the murder weapon.  Martina explains that the pliers weren’t a weapon, but rather a fashion accessory for helping the girl put on tight jeans.  She’s immediately promoted for her pluck and gumption.

Her next client then, hearing her accent, thinks she must work for the lawyer, and March castigates her that Trenton isn’t New York.  Take that!

Jersey Smarts ™ #3:  When her client comes in for court with ratty hair that will make her look guilty, Martina uses her salon skills to fix it up on the fly.

March comments that Martina would be excellent at talking to some small time witnesses, because she “speaks townie.”  Burn!

Jersey Smarts ™ #4:  Martina, as a Jersey lawyer out of water at a big New York firm, understands not to judge people at first sight; the same mistake many are making about her client.

March makes a Real Housewives of New Jersey reference, in regards to Martina.  Come on, you knew it was coming at some point.

Jersey Smarts ™ #5:  Martina recognizes that possible blood on a doorknob may instead be bleach from when the defendant was changing the color of her hair, something that dawned upon her on a trip to the salon.

March shows off how out of touch she is; When talking about beauty supplies and highlights, Martina mentions how expensive and difficult to afford they can be, and March mentions that hers cost $300.

Jersey Smarts ™ #6:  Martina figures out that the defendant, a poor college scholarship girl, used the bleach to imitate “resort hair,” to pretend she had been on vacation, like a rich kid.

Oh, Martina eventually is picked by the boring lawyer to do the important cross examination and wins the admiration of the judge for her spunk and passion.  She also talks a tattoo parlor into giving a refund to her niece because, lawyer, but then gets a tattoo herself!  She’s a woman of contradictions.  Yay, New Jersey.

Will I watch it again?  No, because even if I wanted to, it’s not on anymore.  And no, it’s a bad show.  Still, I had a surprising amount of fun with this, I’m tempted to watch the second to do another write up.

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Fall 2012 Review: Elementary

11 Oct

When something is on CBS, I expect it to be somewhere on a range from bad to mediocre.  Is that harsh and unfair?  Well, yes; I should come into every show fresh, and I do my absolute best to evaluate every show fairly and put aside my preconceived notions, though, as I said, I consciously attempt to put them aside, rather than pretend they don’t exist.

CBS’s wheelhouse exists mostly on a spectrum from what I think are largely terrible comedies to bad-side-of-mediocre to good-side-of-mediocre police procedurals.  My initial thought was to say this is most of CBS, but not all, but looking at the fall schedule, it covers everything but The Good Wife, which is a slightly serialized law procedural, despite what others may try to tell you (unless it’s changed very drastically in the last couple of seasons, which is possible though unlikely – from the commercials you’d have no idea it was a procedural at all). It’s then unfair for me to expect a groundbreaking serial drama from CBS, but maybe what I can reasonably expect is for them to do what they do well.

The brand of comedies they make are very, very difficult to make actually good (I have a complicated relationship with How I Met Your Mother, but let’s save that for another day).  However, procedurals, while not generally my cup of tea (my strange near-obsession with the original Law & Order aside), are not inherently bad.  And if there was to be a particularly good one, then why not, as my friend pointed out, an adaptation of the original procedural, Sherlock Holmes, for which each original story was a short few pages about him taking on one mystery.

Here’s a preconception I’ve had about this show since the day it was announced.  There’s already a Sherlock on BBC, it’s great, and thus, any version on CBS will jwithust be hopelessly inferior.  After all the saber rattling between Sherlock creator Steven Moffat and CBS over who might or might not be ripping off who, I immediately sided with Moffat and basically figured the new version would just be a watered down, worse cast Sherlock.

After all that exposition, you may not be surprised to read that CBS’s Elementary was actually pretty good.  Yeah, I still think it’s not as good as the BBC’s version, but it’s still far better than I anticipated it to be after reading it was getting made. Johnny Lee Miller, who has fiddled around with TV before, as the villain in the fifth season of Dexter, and the eponymous Eli Stone, does a solid job of evoking the classic Holmes characteristics – sharp, astute, biting, and unable to precisely fit in with the emotional demands of ordinary humans, while occasionally making a very small effort.  The police captain who gives Holmes access to the scenes largely stays out of things (and is played by Aidan Quinn), making the show about Holmes, and secondarily about Watson, who seems to be more an easily irritated but also fascinated sidekick/babysitter compared to Watson in Sherlock, who is more of a friend and a bit closer to a partner, though perhaps the relationship changes over time.  Also, Watson is a woman, played by Queens native Lucy Liu, so take that, tradition.

Otherwise, you probably know how a Holmes mystery is supposed to work; Holmes constantly detects little observational clues at the crime scene which others miss and slowly point him to the killer, and eventually enable to him to prove his theories.  He’s the original Psych or The Mentalist.  The case in the pilot was well-crafted and featured Holmes both figuring out a lot of information towards finding the killer, and then knowing who he was and figuring out more information to prove it, with a key assist from Watson, and her ability to actually interact with people thrown in.  It’s a well crafted procedural, and credit to Miller for making it go.

Note:  Okay, I’ve given a largely positive review and this is a relatively silly point that isn’t important at all.  However, in the last scene of the pilot, Watson and Holmes are watching the Met game, and Holmes says the game is very scientific and predicts exactly what the next three batters would do.  Sure, there are probabilities, but that’s pretty much what baseball is – I’d have to run some math above my level, but I’m fairly sure the likelihood of him predicting the outcomes of the next three hitters in a row (it’s center field fly out, though if I recall correctly, and I’m not willing to watch again for this, he says pop out, and it’s hardly a pop out, intentional walk – and of the three this is clearly the most predictable, and then grounded into double play) is pretty unlikely.

Second note:  This is just a pointless thought; but this is the place for it.  So, in a world like this, or the BBC’s Sherlock, the Sherlock Holmes stories have to never have been written.  Otherwise, they current day Holmes would think it was just too bizarre a coincidence, and every person who met them would say, “you’re just like Sherlock Holmes from those stories”.  So the world they live in is nearly identical to ours, except that Sherlock Holmes stories never existed.  Did Arthur Conan Doyle exist, but never write those stories, or is he gone too?

Will I watch it again?  Again, it’s a procedural, so probably not.  At this point, I just don’t value hour long shows without major serial components very highly – those I do watch I either primarily watch with others, or are British shows, meaning there are so few episodes, that it’s more inconvenient not to watch.  If this had only six episodes in a season, I would probably bang them out.

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Fall 2012 Review: Vegas

8 Oct

 

Here’s how I would describe what I think Vegas is, after one episode.  It’s a police procedural, but with a twist.  The twist is that it’s western-tinged, and set in the 1960s in a Las Vegas on the grow.

Note on “with a twist”:  My friend decided he likes straightforward classics, but “with a twist.”  While the value of that position is certainly debatable, my other friends and I eventually divined what he meant.  An example of this would be Snow White and the Huntsman, which takes on a traditional fairy tale, but with a twist.  CBS has been doing this a lot lately with the procedurals which are its bread and butter – while CSI and NCIS are about as traditional as it gets, Person of Interest’s got a twist, Elementary is modern day Sherlock Holmes procedural, and Unforgettable (hardly! ha!) was a cop procedural with an eidetic memory detective (Mentalist is kind of similar).

Back to Vegas – Dennis Quaid plays Ralph Lamb, a no-nonsense rancher with a nose for asking the right questions, a skill which he used during the war (World War II, probably, but conceivably Korea) as an MP.  He’s called in by the mayor, an old army buddy, to solve a particularly connected case (a relative of the governor!) because the regular sheriff is missing, and when that sheriff, who was corrupt, is eventually found dead, Lamb is recruited full time.

He uses the help of his ranch partners, each with his own set of complimentary skills, and fights to discover the truth while going up against the corrupt district attorney and the mob, which is looking to grow its influence around Vegas as well.  Basically, I’m guessing, there will be a new murder each week (maybe just a rape sometimes? do they have those in the ’60s?), and a new cast of possible suspects, with less complex formal serial plot than simply dealing with some of the same antagonistic characters over and over.

The only wild card that makes me a little bit confused as to what exactly the show will be is that one of these would-normally-be occasional antagonists is billed as the second main character in the show.   Vegas has been promoted as co-starring Dennis Quaid, who plays the obvious lead, Lamb, and Michael Chiklis, who plays the new head of the local mob, Vincent Savino.  Traditional procedurals don’t really have primary antagonists, at least in the appears-in-every-episode sense.  Primary villains, if they exist, appear once or twice a season as the crazy psychopath killer with potential personal ties that the protagonist can never catch.  Chiklis though, is second billed, and got a couple of scenes by himself in the first episode, showing him straightening out shoddy mob practices that were going on before he arrived.

If this was not on CBS, and was not a procedural, Quaid and Chiklis would be alternating protagonists, both rising up in the world of the new Las Vegas, one through the law, and one through crime, and it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine this show fitted for that.

It’s unclear exactly where Chiklis fits.  How much of his own story line does he get, versus how much is he just being slowly built to be relevant as an archrival to Quaid?  The fact that I don’t know exactly how this goes, and that the fit is unclear is probably more positive than negative overall; it’s actually something slightly different, or at least potentially different, which isn’t necessarily good but at least is indicative of a show that is trying.  It bears keeping an eye on (CBS pun!), because some decisions do need to be made about how the show works.

Also, I  really feel for some reason that the s in Vegas should be a dollar sign.

Will I watch it again?  Honestly, probably not.  I’ve got four new shows by last count I’m committing to for at least the next month and schedule space is tight.  That said, if I was looking for a procedural to watch, I might choose this one based on the one episode, which I mean as some reasonably but not incredibly favorite praise.

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Fall 2012 Review: Partners

4 Oct

Note:  In a testament to the terribleness of the user experience of watching programs on CBS’s website, I accidentally watched the second episode of Partners instead of the pilot (another issue with the CBS.com experience mentioned later).  I had already written a substantial part of the review before I realized I watched the second episode and had an internal debate over whether I had to go back and watch the pilot, especially because, as you’ll read, this is a show I never wanted to watch again in my life.  I settled on the compromise of playing the episode, but not being committed to the level of concentration I normally afford a pilot.  Be forewarned though, that I may reference second episode events, in case you plan on being an avid Partners watcher.

It was a race to get in this review of Partners in before the show’s near inevitable cancellation.  A few days ago, I declared Guys with Kids the worst new show I had seen so far this season.  Well, ladies and gentleman, we have a new champion.

First, if I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a thousand times, and it’s going to reach that number eventually, but laugh tracks are terrible, for so many reasons.  They’re loud, they waste time, they’re insulting to the audience, they screw up timing, etc, etc, etc.  Enough, let’s move on.  Oh, and there’s also an obnoxious clapping sounds between scenes which is just supposed to indicate transition but is a really poor sound choice.

There’s no one passage I can dissect and tear to bits like in now Monday night stalwart 2 Broke Girls’ debut, and it’s less particularly offensive to one certain type (New York, hipsters) than it just offensive to people with senses of humor.

Partners is the story of four people (one of the few shows in fact, where I recognize all the main cast members, albeit there are only four).  Two are best friends and architectural partners at work, Joe (Numb3rs and Harold and Kumar vet David Krumholtz) and Louis (Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie).  They clearly go back a ways and care very much for each other.  They’re both involved in serious relationships with Ali (One Tree Hill’s Sophia Bush) and Wyatt (Superman himself, Brandon Routh), respectively.  The trouble of course comes in when they both meddle substantially in each other’s relationships.

Basically, it’s just painfully unfunny.  Some sitcoms I deride as old-fashioned.  This is that, but it’s a a pretty lousy old fashioned sitcom; it would have been bad at any point in time..  There’s so much classic miscommunication in just two episodes it blows my mind.  Both episodes I watched were actually incredibly similar featuring Louis both causing and solving problems of Joe’s by talking to Ali, hammering home the central joke that Joe and Louis are in a relationship with each other, just like they are with their fiance and boyfriend, respectively.  There’s even a extremely sassy non-whit female assistant.

Even the small percentage of jokes that have seeds of potentially working are murdered by a combination of the laugh track, poor timing, and simply not enough care.  Most “jokes” though don’t even make it to that level, being fundamentally faulty.

A couple of more notes on how terrible the CBS.com viewing experience is. It’s hard to click and get the episode you want.  The repetitive commercials on Hulu have always been a source of complaint, but CBS showed me this absolutely terrible Macy’s ad FOUR times in a row.  There is absolutely no excuse for that.

One last note:  Also appearing as Ali’s dopey, borderline mentally challenged assistant is Jillian Bell, who is best known for playing the dopey, borderline mentally challenged bosses assistant on Workaholics.

Will I watch it again?  Absolutely not.  Do I even need to explain further?  It’s wretched.  Do not watch.  Luckily, by the time you read this, it may not even be an option.

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Fall 2012 Previews and Predictions: CBS

21 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)

So CBS has two shows that look out and out terrible and two shows that will probably be bad, but have at least the possibility of not being terrible.  Let’s check ‘em out.

Made in Jersey – 9/28

If I had a contest where I picked the worst sounding show of the new season, it would have to be Made in Jersey.  I hate to be judgmental (I don’t actually hate it, but I admit I shouldn’t do it), but sometimes all you really need to hear is a premise, and you know all you need to know.  Made in Jersey is about a New Jersey lawyer from a stereotypical Italian family making her way at a presumably WASP-y white shoe New York law firm.  If I had to guess what would happen, it would be that her clients and coworkers are initially skeptically of her Jersey accent and unorthodox tactics, but she wins them over by showing them tricks they didn’t learn growing up in Connecticut and going to Yale.  Worse, the actress playing the main character is English, which at least led me to hope that the premise would be based on a lawyer from actually Jersey, the English island near France.  Alas, it was not to be.

Verdict:  13-  I know, I know, it’s CBS.   It’s on Friday, which is a blessing in that ratings are expected to be lower, but a curse in that people don’t really watch TV on Friday.  So people will watch it, and CBS didn’t cancel much very fast last year.  But their standards are also higher, and it really does look terrible.

Partners – 9/24

Two close friends and coworkers must deal with the strains of each other’s relationships; that’s about all we’ve got for a premise.  Well, also that they work as architects and one of them is gay.  Numb3rs star David Krumholtz plays the straight friend, who is engaged to One Tree Hill’s Sophia Bush.  Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie plays the gay friend, and Superman himself, Brandan Routh is Urie’s significant other.  It really shouldn’t be obvious from this limited amount of information that the show is going to be terrible, but in this case it is.

Verdict:  14+ Honestly, I shouldn’t let my verdict on one show necessarily impact my verdict on another, but I figured at least one of Partners or Made in Jersey, the two terrible looking shows would get cancelled quicker than the other.  I’m torn.  Made in Jersey is on Friday nights, which means most people won’t watch, but a mediocre A Gifted Man hung around almost a full year there.  Partners will have the security blankets of How I Met Your Mother and 2 Broke Girls (shivers) around it on Mondays.

Vegas – 9/25

The first of the CBS shows that may not actually be terrible necessarily.  It’s the 1960s, and Vegas is in its wild west days, before Steve Wynn and the like.  The show is portrayed as a battle of wills between the sheriff of Clark county, where Vegas is located, Ralph Lamb, played by Dennis Quaid, and a Chicago mobster who follows Horace Greeley’s advice and goes west to set up his own base of operations, Vincent Savino, played by The Shield star Michael Chiklis, looking to rebound from the extraordinary failure of No Ordinary Family.

Verdict:  Renewal – This is the show I feel like I have the worst grasp of on this channel.  How procedural vs. how serial it is, I don’t know, and even if I did know, I don’t know how much that would matter anyway.  I don’t think it will be very good and I don’t think it will be terrible, but I have no idea where in the range of kind of bad to kind of good it will be.  This is a wild shot in the dark.

Elementary – 9/27

Like modern-day adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, but unsatisfied by the mere 3 episodes a year produced of the British Sherlock and prefer it set in New York City?  You’re in luck.  Trainspotting’s Johnny Lee Miller is Holmes in this adaptation, and Lucy Liu is his (shock!) female Watson.  As a fan of Sherlock, I was naturally inclined to believe that a CBS take would be inferior, but initial reports are that the show is actually not so bad.  One difference may be in the involvement of Watson, who seems, in Elementary to be less involved in the cases and more irritated at Holmes.  I’m still skeptical but I’ll try to give it an honest chance.

Verdict:  Renewal – I think it’s a good fit for CBS.  It’s a procedural which means it’s right up CBS’s general alley, but if early reports are accurate it’s maybe a little bit better than most.  It should appeal to core CBS audience; Holmes is a hundred-year old character, but the show attempts to make Holmes new again with a twist.  I’m not crazy confident in this prediction but I do definitely think it’s the most likely renewal on the network.

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The Good Wife: Additional Notes on the First Season

15 Aug

I wrote about The Good Wife earlier this week, but noted that I had seen just the first third of the season.  I finished the rest in about a week and a half.  Why?  I’m not really sure.  I don’t really understand why people love it so much, but I had it on my computer, so damn well, I apparently decided I’d get through it.  Will I ever watch the remaining seasons?  Only time will tell.  Now, a couple of quick thoughts I had during the rest of the season.

The firm is going through hard times, as is the rest of the legal world, the show tells us a million times.  Senior partners Gardner (Josh Charles) and Lockhart (Christine Baranski) are looking for a third partner, after they break off with their original third partner early in the season.  Amongst the choices are Clinton adviser and famous 90s-political figure Vernon Jordan, who actually makes a 20 second speaking appearance on the show.

Did you know the firm in The Good Wife is undergoing layoffs?  If you watched any three minute segment of the show, you know, because they announce it about a thousand times.  Times are tough, and everybody needs to watch out because layoffs are coming!

Again, an obsessive TV fan like myself truly appreciates the who’s who of minor tv actors and actresses, in which this show seems to out law & order even Law & Order in this respect.  Among the actors and actresses appearing in more than one episode are True Blood’s waitress Arlene, as a lawyer, Royal Pains’ Jill Flint as a recurring FBI agent who apparently as a thing with Kalinda, Raising Hope’s Martha Plimpton as an attorney, Gary Cole as a conservative ballistic expert with a thing for Christine Baranski, Oz’s Terry Kinney as a contractor who might testify against Alicia’s husband, The Wire’s Chris Partlow, Gbenga Akinnagbe, as a pastor advising Alicia’s husband (The Wire’s Commissioner Burrell, Frankie Faison, plays his dad) and just so many more.

Dylan Baker (fantastic character actor, and Zeljko Ivanek contender who appeared as Lena Dunham’s father in Girls and Katherine McPhee’s father in Smash just this past year, and was also Curt Connors in Spider-man 2 and 3 as well as many other roles) plays a sexually adventurous hyper rich possible killer of his wife and a stalker in two separate episodes in the first season, which is far and away the  most out there plot of the season, and which feels like it is has no place in this show.  The Good Wife is hardly grounded in reality, but it’s mostly not this sensational either.  It really seems like something out of The Practice, where defending a possibly deranged serial killer was the subject of at least one out of every three episodes.

I had known the show was filmed in New York and not in Chicago, where it’s set, and often the streets look largely like New York, but in one scene I straight out saw a Brooklyn street sign, Flatbush and St. Marks.  Oops.  I’m sure I was just about the only one who noticed, and then went back to confirm, but still.

In every other episode, even though 90% of her clients are the “good guys,” Alicia Florrick gets this disgusted look on her face and wonders if they really should be standing up for this or that client every time there’s a whiff of defending a guilty criminal, or a despicable corporation.  Yes, for the 100th time – sometimes the guilty get off, Alicia – you have to zealously represent your client, you don’t get to impose your ethics, those are the rules.  Here’s an idea – you can work for plenty of legal organizations that don’t do that kind of work, and forfeit your expensive salary, and then you can get to live with yourself ethically if that’s your issue.

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Show of the Day: The Good Wife

13 Aug

Opening Note:  Okay, this show is 23 fucking episodes a season; I’m not used to watching network dramas and I forget just how long they are, which is nice when you’re in the middle of watching live a show you love, but not so nice when you’re in the midst of catching up on a show you’re not sure if you care about yet.  So I’m going to comment after watching the first third or so of the first season, and then we’ll see again when I finish.

Procedurals are the rom coms of television; you know exactly what’s going to happen, but the joy is in seeing exactly how each episode hits each prong of the formula.  It’s kind of like a gymnastics or ice skating routine; you know what you’ll be grading them on, it’s how high they get the jump, how the form is on their spins (axels, whatever else they’re call), and how they stick the landings.

It’s both hard and easy to watch a procedural like The Good Wife after watching many other, more serial, more unorthodox shows.  On one hand, it’s harder because there’s just less to it, it’s less complicated, and there’s nothing that makes it really stand out.  On the second hand, it’s easy, well partly for the same reasons; it fits a model your brain recognizes and you can sort of kick back without thinking too hard; I don’t mean this as an insult; as much as I’d love to, even I couldn’t take hours and hours and hours in a row of Mad Men and Breaking Bad in any mood.  Good Wifes are easier to just pound back, and for that reason I understand why people like procedurals in general.

The titular Good Wife is Alicia Florrick, played by TV vet Julianna Margulies.  She was an ambitious law school grad who took a back seat as a housewife to her husband’s career in politics, which took him (Peter Florrick, played by Law & Order and Sex & the City star Chris Noth) all the way to state’s attorney of Cook County, home county for Chicago.  This empire came crashing down when he was found to have slept with escorts, and accused of using public funds to pay for them, landing him in jail, and his wife as torn apart and having to work.  She gets a job at a high-powered maybe midsize firm Stern, Lockhart, & Gardner, thanks to a friendship with senior partner Will Gardner (Josh Charles).  She’s in competition for a full-time position with fellow junior associate Cary, a fratty, younger, but not entirely unlikable lawyer. Each episode features a case for the gang to win, along with slow progress on the plot of Alicia’s husband, trying to appeal his sentence, and Alicia and her kids’ home life.

I’m honestly not quite sold yet.  It’s eminently watchable but it’s not challenging at all.  Challenging is maybe a bad word; but as far as procedurals go, I’ll take my Law & Order any day of the week, or a Psych, which is admittedly silly, but yes, admittedly silly.  And you know, what, challenging is a bad word, because it sounds pretentious, and I don’t really mean that.  Revenge is not challenging, but I enjoyed the first season of that show a bit more than the first season of The Good Wife.

Okay, you know what, here’s my real problem with the show when it comes down to it.  Florrick’s persona life and figuring out how to deal with the strange situation she’s been dealt by her husband is great, and interesting, and not something we’ve seen a million times before.  The legal procedural part just isn’t that interesting on the whole, though.  I don’t mean to week to week.  On a one-by-one basis most of the cases are fine, and yeah, by the time we reach the last ten minutes I want to know who did it, or have Alicia string them up in court, and yes, that’s all good.  But every week, week to week, the structure is so repetitive.  Even though she’s allegedly working for a kind of big law firm that does work for big shady or corporate clients, she’s always somehow working for the poor child or the innocent housemaid of a big client.  Her clients are always innocent, no matter how unlikely that is.  She’s always right.  Her investigators are always right.  Even when there’s a twist in what she believes, it’s a relatively underwhelming twist.  Most procedurals are like this, and with entertaining stories, they can still be worth watching (I excuse it even more for shows like Monk and Psych that are essentially comedies), but with the type of reviews and praise The Good Wife gets I expected more.

Now just a few stray notes:

The best part is the guest stars!  Combinations of that guys and people who later became regulars on other shows are everywhere.  Gillian Jacobs!  Titus Welliver!  Nestor Serrano!  David Paymer!  Peter Riegert!  Every episode is guaranteed at the least one or two random TV characters I recognize; it’s wonderful watching the credits and waiting for them to show up; even in incredibly minor roles.

There’s an episode about about conjugal visits; internet tells me those don’t exist in Illinois  I looked it up!  Now look, I know, you change up the rules for story sometimes, and unless you’re Matthew Weiner or David Simon, you don’t stay on track to all the actual truths and facts as close as you can.  Sometimes it just seems lazy though.  Like, sure, playing with some legal procedure is inevitable to make shows dramatic and watchable, but there’s absolutely no need to have a conjugal visit to make the story work.  I admit I’m probably being irrational here, but just putting that on the table.

One episode suggests that idea that a clip featuring an interview by the prostitute who slept with Peter Florrick on Chelsea Lately is seen by everyone in the show.  Sure, the family would find out because it’s relevant to them, but in what world is everybody watching Chelsea Lately?

Final word is basically that I don’t think it’s bad by any means, but as of yet I’m not seeing what makes this so good.

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Spring 2012 Review: NYC 22

20 Apr

The rookies in the 22

NYC 22 came in with one major factor going for it, and one major factor against it.  For it, is that it’s created by Richard Price, acclaimed crime novelist and writer on The Wire.  I read two of his novels, Clockers and Lush Life, and enjoyed both of them greatly, and working on The Wire, well that really goes without saying (He’s credited with the scripts for a couple of season 3 episodes, a couple of season 4s, and a season 5).  Against it, is the fact that, well, it’s on CBS.  CBS police procedurals are far from the worst shows on TV; there’s plenty of terrible CBS comedies to thank for that.  They’re generally watchable, but they’re hardly appointment viewing.  They’re more like second-tier hungover Sunday marathon viewing if Monk isn’t on any channel.  So the Richard Price who has written for  The Wire doesn’t seem exactly like an ideal fit for the short form of a CBS procedural.

And it’s not.  The show is a little bit clunky, and a little bit forced.  Still, the Price touch on the writing and storytelling does take it a step above a typical police procedural.  There’s plenty of cliche and standard police procedural rigmarole, but there’s less than in CSI or NCIS.  It’s not quite better enough to make it a really good show, sadly.  It feels boxed in; if the show could roam free to where it really wanted to go, there might really be something.

NYC 22 follows six NYPD rookies in the 22nd precinct up in Harlem.  The six rookies include – Jennifer Perry, a slim blonde who was an MP in Iraq, Kenny McLaren, a legacy cop who comes from generations of boys in blue, Ahmad Khan, a Afghani cop who migrated from the UK, Ray “Lazarus” Harper, a long-time beat reporter who decided to become a cop after being laid off, Tonya Sanchez, a Hispanic female cop whose family is composed of criminals, and Jayson “Jackpot” Terry an African-American who used to be a basketball hot shot before he blew out his knee.  The six, paired in twos, are mentored by Officer Daniel Deen, played by Oz’s Terry Kinner, who comes with the old wise man nickname of “Yoda.”  In just their first day on foot patrol, the officers have to deal with a variety of massive crises, learning on the job.

Lazarus and Sanchez are supposed to be watching a dead body to ensure no one interferes with it, but instead get held hostage by an irate ex-pharmaceutical employee who has been beating his wife since he got fired, and they have to talk him down.  The other four get caught up in a massive melee between teenage gangs, and have the temerity to not even radio in for help, slowing down the response of the rest of the police units.  At the end, classic, tough-guy-with-heart-of-gold Yoda gives all the officers a strict talking-to, explaining all the mistakes they made, and how they came extremely close to not even making it through day one, but when one the rookies asks how the new cops assigned to other officers did, Yoda responds, “worse.”  Awww.

It a review I posted about Scandal a couple of days ago, I talked about how people described The Wire, in the highest of compliments of being, “Not TV.”  After The Wire, the bar is set higher for police shows, and it’s hard to match that.  NYC 22 is certainly TV, but within the limits it’s trapped in, it does a halfway decent job.

Will I watch it again?  I might.  At first I was going to say to be honest, I probably wouldn’t, but writing that sentence I changed my mind.  I might.  It’s not great, and it probably will never be great, but it’s fairly decent, and I don’t think it will get worse.  Low expectations, I know, but I enjoyed it an all right amount.

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