They may be summer burnoffs but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good. There was some great TV to be watched this weekend if you didn’t mind the fact that none of the shows mentioned below will be on the fall schedule. I won’t give too much away because all three of them are available to watch online, and I highly recommend you do so.
Kings: The usual political complexities take a backseat to pure scandal this week as threats are made to reveal the secrets of the prince and princess. While Jack continues to struggle with his sexuality and what it means for his kingly future, Michelle and David try to find out what happened to a camera containing racy photos of the princess. All the while, King Silas is bearing his heart to David by taking him to the home of his mistress and illegitimate son. It all leads to acts of betrayal that will likely reverberate through the remainder of the show's run (four episodes are left). Sad to say that only 1.5 million viewers tuned in Saturday night for what may prove to be the series’ finest hour.
Eli Stone: Another Saturday castaway, Eli Stone is without a doubt one of the most heartbreaking cancellations in some time. The show is so genuine and emotional, exemplified by this episode in which Maggie’s hurt feelings boil over after sleeping with Eli, and Jordan tries to get back in his daughter’s good graces after years of lying. Plus, the week’s court case, about a news anchor downgraded to a less desirable time slot (shades of Eli’s own history), was particularly interesting, with guest stars Jamey Sheridan (Chicago Hope) and James Morrison (24) turning in excellent performances. The series has just two episodes remaining, so show a little faith in Eli and seek them out.
Virtuality: Fox aired this failed pilot on Friday night to scant viewers, and even though we’ll never know what happens, the two hours of your time are well spent on a story that is original and intriguing. Reality TV meets science fiction as people on a space mission—to be honest, I’m not exactly sure what their goal is—have their trials and tribulations beamed back to Earth for the world to see. Their only moments of privacy come courtesy of some intense virtual reality equipment, which is now being infiltrated by an unknown man invading their fantasies. Co-created by Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore and directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), the beautifully shot (and expensive) pilot understandably leaves many questions unanswered, but in a way that’s wholly appropriate. It gives you the chance to put on your own virtual reality headset and imagine where the show would have gone had it been picked up to series.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Summer Series Roundup
Getting caught up on some of the scripted series that have debuted over the past few weeks…
The Goode Family (ABC, Fridays, 8:30pm): Like he did with King of the Hill and Office Space, creator Mike Judge takes a slice of Americana—in this case, our current green craze—and exaggerates it for comic effect. Unfortunately, this time around he forgot the funny. Where the Hills’ narrow-minded world is rife with humor, the Goode’s ecologically focused sectarianism, disguised as open-mindedness, is more ironic than funny (Mom chooses to carry her groceries in her arms when she can’t afford a reusable shopping bag, Grandpa shows more love toward his newly adopted exotic pet than he does his daughter). Having already been shifted to lowly Friday, where it drew just 1.1 million viewers last week, The Goode Family isn’t long for this world, an irony in itself given its intended message.
The Listener (NBC, Thursdays, 10pm): Paramedic Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik) can hear people’s thoughts and uses his power to save lives and solve crimes. What’s an EMT doing playing detective? I honestly have no clue, especially since all he does is butt heads with a real detective to whom he’s supposed to be attracted. The concept, which is actually used rather infrequently, is more a convenient storytelling device than anything else. A kidnapping investigation in the first episode came about as more of a hunch on Toby’s part than from anything that a lying woman's thoughts revealed to him. And when the device is used you can almost hear the writers' own inner monologue: "How do we give the viewer this information without having to do too much work ourselves? Oh yeah, we can have Toby listen in on someone’s thoughts." And for some reason—again seemingly more for convenience than for the sake of logic—Toby also has flashes of accidents that are about to happen within his vicinity. None of this is remotely compelling, and it's sad to see Colm Feore (the First Gentleman on 24) involved in this nonsense. The Listener is a Canadian production, acquired by NBC during last year’s writers’ strike, that should have stayed north of the border.
Royal Pains (USA, Thursdays, 10pm): This show, airing opposite (and outrating) The Listener on one of NBC Universal’s cable properties, is ideally attuned to breezy summertime viewing. Mark Feuerstein (Good Morning, Miami) is charming as Hank Lawson, a concierge doctor treating patients in the Hamptons. After an overlong, slow-starting pilot, the series has settled nicely into its lightweight rhythm, thanks in part to Paolo Costanzo (Joey), who plays Hank’s brother as half nebbish, half wannabe ladies’ man. The medicine doesn’t prove all that interesting, nor does Hank come to his conclusions in an especially realistic way. In last night's episode, upon hearing the words “whisper in his ear,” Hank immediately remembers seeing a deer run across his path, puts that together with the fact that the patient hit his head on the grass and—voilà—the patient has a deer tick in his ear! Despite this, there’s enough here to recommend. Royal Pains is a perfect fluffy summer retreat, even if the setting mandates that its characters remain completely oblivious to the country’s economic status.
The Goode Family (ABC, Fridays, 8:30pm): Like he did with King of the Hill and Office Space, creator Mike Judge takes a slice of Americana—in this case, our current green craze—and exaggerates it for comic effect. Unfortunately, this time around he forgot the funny. Where the Hills’ narrow-minded world is rife with humor, the Goode’s ecologically focused sectarianism, disguised as open-mindedness, is more ironic than funny (Mom chooses to carry her groceries in her arms when she can’t afford a reusable shopping bag, Grandpa shows more love toward his newly adopted exotic pet than he does his daughter). Having already been shifted to lowly Friday, where it drew just 1.1 million viewers last week, The Goode Family isn’t long for this world, an irony in itself given its intended message.
The Listener (NBC, Thursdays, 10pm): Paramedic Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik) can hear people’s thoughts and uses his power to save lives and solve crimes. What’s an EMT doing playing detective? I honestly have no clue, especially since all he does is butt heads with a real detective to whom he’s supposed to be attracted. The concept, which is actually used rather infrequently, is more a convenient storytelling device than anything else. A kidnapping investigation in the first episode came about as more of a hunch on Toby’s part than from anything that a lying woman's thoughts revealed to him. And when the device is used you can almost hear the writers' own inner monologue: "How do we give the viewer this information without having to do too much work ourselves? Oh yeah, we can have Toby listen in on someone’s thoughts." And for some reason—again seemingly more for convenience than for the sake of logic—Toby also has flashes of accidents that are about to happen within his vicinity. None of this is remotely compelling, and it's sad to see Colm Feore (the First Gentleman on 24) involved in this nonsense. The Listener is a Canadian production, acquired by NBC during last year’s writers’ strike, that should have stayed north of the border.
Royal Pains (USA, Thursdays, 10pm): This show, airing opposite (and outrating) The Listener on one of NBC Universal’s cable properties, is ideally attuned to breezy summertime viewing. Mark Feuerstein (Good Morning, Miami) is charming as Hank Lawson, a concierge doctor treating patients in the Hamptons. After an overlong, slow-starting pilot, the series has settled nicely into its lightweight rhythm, thanks in part to Paolo Costanzo (Joey), who plays Hank’s brother as half nebbish, half wannabe ladies’ man. The medicine doesn’t prove all that interesting, nor does Hank come to his conclusions in an especially realistic way. In last night's episode, upon hearing the words “whisper in his ear,” Hank immediately remembers seeing a deer run across his path, puts that together with the fact that the patient hit his head on the grass and—voilà—the patient has a deer tick in his ear! Despite this, there’s enough here to recommend. Royal Pains is a perfect fluffy summer retreat, even if the setting mandates that its characters remain completely oblivious to the country’s economic status.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Mental: Not Quite Crazy Enough
Fox’s new drama Mental will likely be remembered more for being the show that aired an episode featuring David Carradine in a catatonic state mere days after the actor’s passing than for any brave new territory on which it attempts to tread (Carradine's episode is scheduled to air tonight at 9pm, by the way). The show, set in a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital but actually shot in Colombia (L.A. has never looked greener), thinks it’s more ballsy than it actually is. Look at the new director (Vince Chase) as he strips naked to get in touch with a man who’s having a breakdown. Watch the doctors engage in wacky three-legged races with their patients. Go behind the eyeballs of the crazies to get a better glimpse at how they view the world. But what it all amounts to is a whole lot of emptiness. Let’s face it: as fertile a subject matter as mental illness is, it doesn’t always carry the urgency of a hostage situation or a life-and-death surgery. And it’s borderline irresponsible to make it seem as though psychoses can be as easily stanched as a bloody nose.
The show, created by Deborah Joy Levine and Dan Levine (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), hews too closely to Fox’s own House, with Chase’s Jack Gallagher capable of acting as erratically as House does while arguing with superior Annabella Sciorra, doing her best Lisa Cuddy impression. Along the way, other (nondescript) doctors are even forced to act as detectives, just as House’s team does on a weekly basis. And personal information about the doctors is revealed in throwaway lines of dialogue instead of being explored more in depth when time allows. So far we’ve learned that Sciorra’s character has (or had) cancer, that Jack has a mentally ill sister, and that another of the doctors is a lesbian. What we have yet to learn, though, is why we should care about any of it. If you’re absolutely starving for scripted entertainment during the summer months—and don't have cable—Mental will do in a pinch. But you’d probably have more fun trying to figure out what's going on inside the heads of Wipeout contestants instead.
The show, created by Deborah Joy Levine and Dan Levine (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), hews too closely to Fox’s own House, with Chase’s Jack Gallagher capable of acting as erratically as House does while arguing with superior Annabella Sciorra, doing her best Lisa Cuddy impression. Along the way, other (nondescript) doctors are even forced to act as detectives, just as House’s team does on a weekly basis. And personal information about the doctors is revealed in throwaway lines of dialogue instead of being explored more in depth when time allows. So far we’ve learned that Sciorra’s character has (or had) cancer, that Jack has a mentally ill sister, and that another of the doctors is a lesbian. What we have yet to learn, though, is why we should care about any of it. If you’re absolutely starving for scripted entertainment during the summer months—and don't have cable—Mental will do in a pinch. But you’d probably have more fun trying to figure out what's going on inside the heads of Wipeout contestants instead.
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