Summer Series Roundup, Part 2

In a summer filled with more original programming than perhaps any other, here’s a look at a few more of the scripted entries being offered.

Hung (HBO, Sundays, 10pm): “Do your best with whatever God gave you.” That platitude begins this series about Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a Detroit high school basketball coach in financial straits who attends a seminar designed to help him find his million-dollar idea. Creative laziness leads Ray to the realization that the best tool he has to market is in fact his "tool." You see, Ray is blessed in the penile department, so he teams up with fellow seminar attendee Tanya (Jane Adams) and the desperate pair form a pimp-ho partnership. The series' tone is somewhat reminiscent of the early days of Weeds, when Nancy Botwin still had a modicum of innocence about her, when she, like Ray, was just trying to help her family get by. Where the two differ, however, is that Hung offers none of the laugh-out-loud moments Weeds used to. With the exception of one or two chuckles, I didn’t find myself laughing at all, which, since the show is otherwise good, would be fine if HBO weren’t selling it as a comedy. Jane Adams, previously from Frasier, is terrific as a woman trying to feel her way through a situation that has her in over her head. Anne Heche shows up as Ray’s controlling ex-wife, a role that suits her more comfortably than the two years she spent on Men in Trees ever did. And if you, like me, know Thomas Jane mainly from the execrable Punisher movie, prepare to see a completely different side of this actor as he plays a man trying to hide his vulnerability behind the size of his (unseen) member.

HawthoRNe (TNT, Tuesdays, 9pm): What came first: the titular character’s name or the thought of giving that character a name with the letters “RN” in it? Because Christina Hawthorne is a registered nurse. Get it? That’s the most groundbreaking thing about this drama, which hits all the clichéd notes you’d expect from a medical show built around a lead who cares more about her patients than she does about herself. Jada Pinkett Smith plays said lead with a predictable amount of sass and self-righteousness, neither of which does much to keep Hawthorne (and HawthoRNe) from being kinda dull. Created by John Masius, who also gave us the syrupy Providence, the show is the type that mistakes quirks for actual character development. Hawthorne talks to her dead husband’s ashes; Michael Vartan’s (Alias) chief of surgery has a thing for green lollipops; a new nurse is overrun by bad luck. None of it ultimately amounts to anything, and the patients end up being more interesting than the hospital staff; particularly effective is an ongoing story about a homeless woman (Aisha Hinds, most recently seen as True Blood's faux exorcist) trying to improve her situation so she can be a mom to her newborn child. But it’s the nurses that we’re supposed to feel for, and the show fails miserably in that aspect. All you really need to know about HawthoRNe is wrapped up in the fact that there’s actually a nurse named Candy, and not one person in the hospital notes the irony in that.

Merlin (NBC, Sundays, 8pm): A British import, this swords-and-sorcery fantasy is a surprisingly satisfying summer diversion. Colin Morgan is all wide-eyed innocence as a teenage Merlin, sent by his mother to Camelot, where court physician Gaius (Richard Wilson) looks after him. With magic being outlawed by King Uther (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head, pulling off regality quite nicely), Merlin must hide his gift, even as he uses it to save Prince Arthur’s (Bradley James) life. A show like this lives or dies on the quality of its effects, and while they aren’t big-screen caliber, they’re serviceable enough by TV standards. The actors all look to be having a good time as they toe the line of camp without (for the most part) crossing over. With lowered expectations, fans of the Narnia and Lord of the Rings films will find themselves caught up in this entertaining reimagining of a timeless tale.

Emmy Noms: A Major Case of Deja Vu

It’s Emmy nomination day, when Hollywood wakes up at the crack of dawn and proceeds to pat itself on the back for another year of good work (although the fact that According to Jim has as many noms as my beloved Friday Night Lights—one—makes this whole process suspect). Maybe I’d be more excited about the nominations if they weren’t so close to being a carbon copy of last year’s. That is often the case with TV, where once voters have a performer or show on their radar, it’s hard to get them to acknowledge something fresh. There are a few surprises and new additions this year, and some truly deserving work being honored, but mostly it’s too much of the same old, same old. Here’s a look at the major categories:

Outstanding Comedy Series
30 Rock
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight Of The Conchords
How I Met Your Mother
The Office
Weeds

With 22 total nominations, 30 Rock should have no problem taking home its third straight trophy, even though the category has been expanded to include seven nominees. It’s nice to see How I Met Your Mother finally get some recognition, but how is it that Family Guy makes it onto this list when The Simpsons never has? The Office and Entourage are here more out of habit than as a reflection of their quality, and Weeds’ slot should have been given to Californication, which had a much funnier season.

Outstanding Drama Series
Big Love
Breaking Bad
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

I love, love, love that Breaking Bad made the cut; there’s no show on TV right now that is more capable of surprising me each and every week. Here’s hoping this (very) dark horse can find its way through all the Mad Men fanfare and score a win. Big Love apparently saved its sole nomination for where it counts most, and all the other nominees return from last year. While House ended its season with a string of incredible episodes, I think Friday Night Lights should have taken its’ slot. Perhaps the biggest surprise here is the lack of attention for True Blood, which has blown up in popularity over the last few months, but has no major nominations.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series
Alec Baldwin - 30 Rock
Jemaine Clement - Flight Of The Conchords
Tony Shalhoub - Monk
Jim Parsons - The Big Bang Theory
Steve Carell - The Office
Charlie Sheen - Two And A Half Men

Alec Baldwin and Steve Carell are the only real standouts in what I consider to be a rather weak category. I don’t get the whole Conchords thing, Tony Shalhoub has been nominated way too many times for this role, Jim Parsons’ nerdy performance is too one-note for me, and Charlie Sheen doesn’t even seem to be acting. Since voters chose to ignore David Duchovny’s terrifically nasty/sweet turn in Californication, Baldwin it is.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series
Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall - Dexter
Hugh Laurie - House
Gabriel Byrne - In Treatment
Jon Hamm - Mad Men
Simon Baker - The Mentalist

Substitute Simon Baker for Boston Legal’s James Spader and you’ve got a category that’s identical to last year. Cranston snuck in for a win last time around and has to be considered the front-runner this year. Missing again are Friday Night Lights’ Kyle Chandler and Big Love’s Bill Paxton. And it’s interesting that Keifer Sutherland made it into the miniseries/movie category for 24: Redemption, but couldn’t garner a nod here for his series work.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series
Tina Fey - 30 Rock
Christina Applegate - Samantha Who?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus - The New Adventures Of Old Christine
Sarah Silverman - The Sarah Silverman Program
Toni Collette - United States Of Tara
Mary-Louise Parker - Weeds

It's encouraging to see Silverman’s brand of comedy—which I would have thought to be too bawdy for stuffy Emmy voters—earn her a nom. Collette, the only other newcomer in this category, takes a role that could lead to showiness and instead gives each of Tara’s multiple personalities a subtle flair. She could take the win over the other business-as-usual nominees.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
Sally Field - Brothers & Sisters
Glenn Close - Damages
Mariska Hargitay - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Elisabeth Moss - Mad Men
Holly Hunter - Saving Grace
Kyra Sedgwick - The Closer

Another category that’s exactly the same as last year, save for the addition of Moss. (Not to beat a criminally overlooked horse, but Connie Britton should have been nominated for her role in Friday Night Lights.) Unless Moss scores an under-the-radar win, Close will likely score again.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series
Tracy Morgan - 30 Rock
Jack McBrayer – 30 Rock
Kevin Dillon – Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris - How I Met Your Mother
Rainn Wilson - The Office
Jon Cryer - Two And A Half Men

With perennial fave Jeremy Piven (Entourage) failing to show, room has been made for 30 Rock’s Morgan and McBrayer, the former of which has the best shot at upstaging Harris.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series
William Shatner - Boston Legal
Christian Clemenson - Boston Legal
Aaron Paul - Breaking Bad
William Hurt - Damages
Michael Emerson - Lost
John Slattery - Mad Men

Final-season sentiment could lead to another Shatner win, though Emerson is overdue for continuing to straddle the line between creepy and sympathetic. Hurt’s character was involved in some of Damages’ least logical plot twists and he’s likely here more for being a big name than for his actual performance. My pick would be Aaron Paul, whose layered ineptitude as Bryan Cranston’s partner on Breaking Bad is often sad and hysterical at the same time.

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series
Jane Krakowski - 30 Rock
Kristin Chenoweth - Pushing Daisies
Amy Poehler - Saturday Night Live
Kristin Wiig - Saturday Night Live
Vanessa Williams - Ugly Betty
Elizabeth Perkins - Weeds

Sadly, another weak category, but one that should put another win in 30 Rock's column. Poehler and Wiig are too cartoonish, Williams and Chenoweth are on shows with zero momentum, and Perkins’ character seemed plopped into a story she had no business being in. Though not a comment on Krakowski’s ability, this will be more of a default win. Why no love for Jenna Fischer (The Office) or Wanda Sykes (The New Adventures of Old Christine)?

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series
Cherry Jones - 24
Rose Byrne - Damages
Sandra Oh - Grey's Anatomy
Chandra Wilson - Grey's Anatomy
Dianne Wiest - In Treatment
Hope Davis - In Treatment

This one’s tough to predict. Oh and Wilson could suffer because of the critical drubbing Grey’s took this season. In Treatment still doesn’t have enough fervent fans for Wiest and Davis to break through. The race for me is between Byrne and Jones, with Jones likely taking it for her commanding portrayal of President Taylor.

Outstanding Reality - Competition Program
American Idol
Dancing With The Stars
Project Runway
The Amazing Race
Top Chef

Another category that’s identical to last year. It shouldn’t be too hard for The Amazing Race to continue its streak, though Top Chef could provide the upset.

If the writing nominees are any indication of how the series awards will go—and doesn’t it make sense that they would be?—the winners will once again be 30 Rock and Mad Men, which each took four of the five writing slots. But enough with the prognostication. All will be revealed when the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, air September 20 on CBS.

An Odd Combo: Gymnastics and Pot

On the original series front, ABC Family has seen its share of creative misfires. While Greek is frothy fun, recent failed sitcoms Roommates and Sophie were tough to sit through, and the inexplicably popular The Secret Life of the American Teenager is so obsessed with sex that I expect that when the series finale comes around, it will all end in a giant citywide orgy. Add to this list Make It or Break It, a cheesy gymnastics drama that attempts to combine teenage turmoil with lofty Olympic dreams.

The Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center—a.k.a. The Rock—is a breeding ground for promising tumblers. In typical sports drama fashion, new girl Emily enters the picture and, faster than her rivals can say “I hate her,” immediately takes a position among the top three gymnasts and lands a spot at nationals. The show is loaded with clichés, corny dialogue, and acting that would seem right at home on Secret Life—which is to say not good—despite the presence of Peri Gilpin (Frasier), Candace Cameron Bure (Full House), and Brett Cullen (Lost). How can a viewer not do anything but roll his eyes when two girls stave off harassment by using cartwheels as a way to intimidate a group of bad boys? That’s exactly the type of implausible scenario you can expect from this show, which is made all the worse by the fact that the actresses playing the gymnasts aren’t really the ones doing the tricks. If hiring good actors wasn’t a possibility, the least the producers could have done was hire a group of girls who wouldn't require them to cut to wide shots of faceless stunt performers during the routines. I'm not quite sure what the "break it" in the title actually means, but I'm certain this show doesn't "make it."

Speaking of breaking it, that’s exactly what they’re doing over at Weeds, turning a once hysterical comedy into a ridiculous shell of its former self. So much of the show’s humor came from its original setting, the suburbs of Agrestic, where the “little boxes” everyone lived in served to hide the dark underbelly. Having moved to the border town of Renmar last season, the show is nothing but dark underbelly, with minimal humor to go along with it. Now six months pregnant, Nancy (Mary Louise Parker) is engaged to Mexican mob leader Esteban Reyes (Demian Bechir), a man who constantly makes her fear for her life. Andy (Justin Kirk, still the show’s best source of laughs) has squandered a small fortune on video games and other recreational equipment as he pines for Nancy, with whom he only recently realized he is in love. And young Shane (Alexander Gould) is being exposed to the kinds of depraved acts that no adult, let alone a budding teenager, should ever witness.

The show’s writers seem to have backed themselves into a corner they simply don’t know how to get out of. I had hoped that Andy's proposal last week that he and Nancy run off and start over somewhere else would be the kick start the show needed to get back into gear, but Nancy rejected his offer and moved in with Esteban instead, keeping herself (and us) held hostage in a particularly vexing situation. I do hope that things can turn around for this batch of likable miscreants and that the show can return to its former glory. But in this case, I fear that pot really is a gateway drug, this time to disappointing TV.

No Good Deed Goes Uncriticized

Exotic locales, adventure sequences, and an overwhelmingly good intent aren’t enough to make NBC’s summer entry The Philanthropist a real keeper. Rome’s James Purefoy plays billionaire businessman Teddy Rist, a man who, motivated by the death of his son, decides that he needs to do more to help the world’s underprivileged. So far, Teddy has fostered the admission of a cholera vaccine to a Nigerian village and orchestrated a kidney transplant for a young girl in Myanmar. Tonight’s episode, airing at 10pm ET, has Teddy attempting to free victims of a Parisian sex trafficking ring.

The show plays like a globetrotting (non-medical) version of House, with Teddy overcoming a series of obstacles and misdirection before finally succeeding in his task. Purefoy, though, is no Hugh Laurie (or Daniel Craig for that matter, given the Bond-like nature of his heroics). In straddling the line between caddish and caring, he more often comes across as merely bland where true dynamism is needed. Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) as Teddy’s business partner and Neve Campbell (Party of Five) as said partner’s husband don’t do much to liven things up, either, as both seem rather bored by the fact that they’re left behind in New York while Teddy gallivants around the world, though they do all get to be a part of the Paris exploits tonight.

Executive producer Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street), who had a rocky on-again, off-again relationship with the show during its development, does his best to bring a unique (and deliberate) structure to TV by having different characters talk about Teddy’s travails in a storytelling format. This device is ultimately unnecessary, though, and a bit intrusive; a completely linear narrative would serve the series better. With South Africa doubling for many of the foreign locations, the show certainly looks great. But that aesthetic simply isn’t enough to make this valiant, awareness-raising effort work on a dramatic level.