Tag Archives: MTV

Summer 2014 Review: Finding Carter

20 Aug

Finding Carter

(I’ve fallen way behind on both my TV viewing and writing, but not to worry – dear reader – I don’t give up that easy – I’ve rapidly been viewing the first episode of every new television show of 2014, with the intent of seeing them all by the end of August. To facilitate a respective blog catchup, I’ll be posting lots of much shorter entries on each show)

Holy smokes! Finding Carter, an MTV show, is pretty freaking good! I used my brief entry on Faking It, the other new MTV entry (which really wasn’t bad itself) to talk about the MTV model, and Finding Carter certainly fits it to  a t. It’s about a fast talking teen who discovers after getting arrested for some minor mischief that her mother is not actually her mother, and is instead her kidnapper, snatching her from her real family when she was a mere three year old and raising her as her own. This is a life-changing revelation, as she adores who she thinks of as her mother, and wants nothing less than to have to move in with a totally unfamiliar family while her mother is subject to arrest. Her original family had been shattered by her kidnapping; the mother was never the same as her pre-kidnapping self, traumatized, and the father made his career on a book written about the family’s experiences.

Here’s the really stand out aspect of Finding Carter, though. One of the hardest things to create in TV is situations in which among a whole bunch of characters, everybody is really both a good guy and a bad guy, someone you root for at times, and someone you root against at other times. Every character has motivations that individually make sense, but cause conflict when played up against the other characters. You can see where each character is coming from, even when you don’t necessarily agree with his or her actions. This may seem like the most basic building block for good characters, but it’s strikingly hard to achieve; often either conflict feels forced, or one of the characters is simply more of an asshole than the others.

Take the family at the center of Finding Carter. Carter acts out because she still considers her real mom to be the one who raised her and told her that she loved her every day, rather than these strange people, one of whom wants nothing more than to put in jail the person she considers her mother. Mother Elizabeth is frustrated with Carter, because she wants nothing more than to arrest and punish the person who took her baby away, and broke her emotionally. Sister Taylor is jealous of Carter, who gets to drink, and smoke, while everyone goes out of their way to be there for her; she’s been the good girl her whole life, and all she gets its to be ignored. Brother Grant simply feels ignored; he feels like the make up child who was merely a placeholder for the lost Carter.

As you watch, you alternately feel for each of the characters, and then want to yell at them, and think the other characters need to put themselves in their shoes. Friday Night Lights is the gold standard for character-driven warm, family drama, and Finding Carter feels like it hits all the right notes in the first episode to be on that path.

Will I watch it again? Yes, I think I’m going to. I’m as surprised as you are. Shows like Finding Carter, even if it’s terrible from here on out, but just the excitement at finding a promising television show where you never expected, are the times I’m glad I underwent this exercise to watch every show.

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Spring 2012 Review: I Just Want My Pants Back

2 May

Still has his pants at this point

MTV comedy for the MTV generation – well I guess the MTV generation is about 40 by now, but you get the idea.  Young people.  Partying, sex, booze, etc, etc.  Our main character is a young New Yorker, a couple of years out of college, working at a lousy job for little pay, who hasn’t gotten laid in a while.  He complains to his friend Tina at a bar, as they drink and then get high, that he’s had a rough patch (six weeks!) and that it needs to end.  Tina leaves to see some guy she’s with (at least partly for his air conditioning in this hot summer, apparently).  Main character Jason (I didn’t know his name during the episode; had to look it up) sees a girl he’s been checking out at the bar, and goes up to converse with her, exchanging witty and trying banter long enough to go back to his place and break his dry spell in an unusual way, having sex while she’s in his refrigerator (the door stays open, obviously).  In the morning, Jason realizes that he really likes this girl, and gets her number, while she asks to borrow his pants; she doesn’t want her judgmental doorman to see her wearing the same clothes two days in a row.

Jason’s also struggling in his career and trying to figure out what he wants to do; he’s currently working under a jerk boss, played by Chris Parnell, who seems to be appearing in bit roles everywhere on TV now (30 Rock, Suburgatory).  He meets up with a tool Tina knows for some mentoring advice, and may get a connection into a field he might be into, music journalism.  He’s also invited to the tool’s hippie pro-environment + hot girls magazine launch party, where Tina and he attempt to hook up with a couple of lawyers, with both of their encounters going slightly awry; Jason feels awkward when asked to put his finger up the female lawyer’s ass (but he does it anyway) while Tina decides against sleeping with the male lawyer when she realizes the combination of the guy being a weirdo and that she has feelings for her air conditioning guy.

Jason, during the party, is supposed to pick up Wavves tickets from a craigslist seller for the birthday of one of the other two characters; Eric and Stacey, a couple Tina and Jason are friends with, who are both in grad school.  Jason doesn’t get the tickets, prompting Stacey’s ire, but makes up for it by throwing her a kick ass birthday party.

Wacky side character alert:  The closest we have here is local bodega owner Bobby, who exchanges words with Jason and Jason’s “whore friend” Tina when they shop in the morning hungover to buy some liquids.

The show isn’t really funny per se; it’s more of a Entourage style comedy, which is as much about plot and characters and easy viewing than it is about actually laughing out loud.

And yes, Jason does, at one point say, “I Just Want My Pants Back.”  Thank goodness for small favors.

Will I watch it again?  Probably not. Another not bad show that also doesn’t exactly make me want to see the next episode.  It’s not bad though; that’s definitely worth something.

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Spring 2012 Preview and Predictions: Cable (besides HBO)

6 Jan

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

Spring note:  It’s a lot harder to analyze midseason shows as there’s no collective marketing campaigns going on at one time, as many of the shows start dates are spread (or are even unannounced for some)  Still, we’ll take partially educated guesses.  Also, they’re a lot less likely to get partial pick ups, so maybe that trade off will make it easier)

All other cable networks here.  USA and TNT are holding their new shows until the summer, so we’ve got entrants from BBC America, FX, Showtime, Starz and MTV.

BBC America

The Fades

The Fades has already aired in Britain but will be making its American debut this spring.  From a writer of Skins, The Fades is a supernatural show which revolves around the central concept that spirits of dead people who couldn’t get into heaven are all around us, known here as the titular Fades.  The main character Paul is a teenager who has apocalyptic dreams and the ability to see these Fades, an ability shared only by a select few, known as Angelics.  The Fades are bitter, and have slowly made progress in their attempt to have an impact in the real world, leading to a possible battle with the Angelics which Paul will be in the middle of.

Verdict:  Renewal – I shouldn’t really even have this category for imported shows – British shows generally air short runs anyway per season, six in this case, and it’s already aired months ago.  That said, there’s no official word, but as it’s been popular and well-reviewed across the pond this is just the smart money.

FX

Unsupervised – 1/19

Unsupervised is an animated series co-created by David Hornsby, best known as recurring character Rickety Cricket on FX hit It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  He also created and starred in the quickly cancelled How To Be A Gentlemen last fall on CBS.  Hornsby and Justin Long voice the main two characters, 15-year old best friends.  Kristen Bell, Romany Malco, Fred Armison, and Kaitlin Olson also have roles.

Verdict:  12- David Hornsby did not impress me with How To Be A Gentlemen, though FX has had a lot more success with quality comedies than CBS.  FX has a pretty good record overall, and there’s a clearly illustrious voice cast.  I’m really not sure why I’m skeptical, and hopefully it will be good, but it looks bad to me from the poster and I’m semi-arbitrarily voting against.

Showtime

House of Lies – 1/8

House of Lies is a comedy about the hilarious world of management consulting, starring Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, and Ben Schwartz, best known as Parks and Recreation’s Jean-Ralphio.  Honestly, the first time I heard about this show, about management consultants working for clients around the world and doing whatever needs to be done to get the project finished and make money, I thought for sure it was a high intensity drama, especially since it was starring Don Cheadle, who is not exactly known for his comedic roles.  The fact that it’s a comedy floored me initially.

Verdict:  Renewal – don’t really know what to think, but Showtime, like HBO, which it desperately wants to be, likes to give shows second seasons if they do anything at all.

Starz

Spartacus: Vengeance – 1/27

This is kind of misleading.  I have no idea how to consider Starz’ continuing line up of Spartacus shows.  My normal inclination would just be to consider them different seasons of the same show, but Starz doesn’t exactly consider them that, and tragically the actor who played Spartacus died, so maybe that’s a factor.  Because Starz seems to, I’m going to treat it as a new show, though it’s clearly not.  A new actor takes on the Spartacus role and it’s filled with all the sex and violence that the Spartacus name has come to represent.

Verdict:  12- More cheating – so far each Spartacus has been treated as its own series, so it seems likely that if there’s another Spartacus, which there well may be, it will probably have a new name and thus be considered a new series.  I don’t really understand it, either.

MTV

I Just Want My Pants Back – 2/2

It’s about a twenty-something trying to figure out life, love, sex and work.  Could it possibly sound more generic?  The minor gimmick which gives the show its title is that the main character’s pants are stolen after a one-night stand and the character looks all over the city to find the pants and the girl who took them.  I’m guessing it won’t be good based on the fact that I don’t give a ton of credence to MTV original programming (I’m already too old to be the target audience, really) and most shows that sound like this are probably bad (even though the set up is so generic it could be any level of quality).

Verdict:  12- I have no idea what it takes for MTV to continue original series.  I must admit I’m mostly unfamiliar with MTV original series and don’t really have a beat on who watches them or what it would take to continue them.  This is nothing more than a guess in the dark.

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