Back Under the Lights

Exclusive as it is to DirecTV—at least until NBC airs it months from now—I had to miss the official season premiere of my beloved Friday Night Lights this past Wednesday because my satellite service has been down most of the week (somehow the dish got out of alignment). Luckily, I got it back yesterday and was able to catch The 101 Network’s encore of the premiere, a sort of rebirth for the show as it continues to defy television trends and does what so few are capable of doing: let its characters dictate the story.

Probably stemming from the fact that it has always been an underdog forced to fight for its spot on the schedule, Friday Night Lights embraces change brilliantly, from letting its characters move on gracefully when needed (last year it was Smash and Jason who got heartfelt sendoffs, this year Saracen, Tyra, and Lyla will get the same treatment) to giving those who are staying put tough decisions to make. Mistakes are plentiful in Dillon, Texas, as are triumphs, a mixture that makes this show so beautiful to behold.

The main focus of the premiere was Coach Taylor’s (Kyle Chandler, again showing why he is so deserving of an Emmy) new job at East Dillon High, an other-side-of-the-tracks type place that is the subject of much debate around town. Redistricting is causing some students to be transferred to the neglected East Dillon, and some don’t want to go peacefully. Coach’s Lions turn out to be a ragtag group with little talent and even less heart. Of course, there are a few bright spots; he has Landry (Jesse Plemons) on his squad again, and a juvie named Vince (new addition Michael B. Jordan), brought in as part of a second chance program for problem teens. Coach is usually a pretty evenhanded guy, but his frustrations—over being forced out of his job with the Panthers and over the lack of dedication his new team is showing—gets the better of him in a scene in which he screams at his players to “get the hell out of my house” if they don’t want to be there. It is a powerhouse moment for both Coach and Chandler, one that undoubtedly sets the stage for more tension to come.

“Never Out of the Fight” is the motto painted on the locker room wall, a remnant of the previous Lions regime. But it’s Coach’s own motto, carried over from the Panthers, that brings goosebumps. While “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” doesn’t have quite the impact when it’s chanted by a group of guys who don’t yet believe in themselves, it does provide a layer of hope that maybe this team has a glimmer of potential. Once out on the gridiron, though, the Lions don’t just get beat, they get beat up, stammering off the field at halftime bloodied and bruised. This leads an angry Coach to do something he never even would have considered doing with the Panthers—forfeiting the game. It’s the kind of decision that you just know is going to wrangle and eat at Coach, this man who, especially when it comes to football, is so prideful and determined.

In his pregame speech, Coach says to his team, “There’s a joy to this game, is there not?” And while it may not have been evident once the team took the field, I couldn’t help but think that there’s a joy to this show. Outcomes aren’t always easy in Dillon, predictable is not in the picture. What you get instead is humanity, emotion, and a sense that everything is going to be all right, even when you know deep down it may not be. What you get instead is real.

Survivor: Still the Ultimate Endurance Test

An impressive nineteen seasons in, Survivor is still able to deliver a few firsts, and this season, set in Somoa, has already come up with more than its share. It started out with more contestants than any other season (20), and had a contestant kicked out of a challenge for the first time when Ben was ousted for purposely tripping another contestant. And last night saw a flurry of firsts: First time a challenge has been stopped, and ultimately cancelled (Russell S. from the Galu tribe went into the challenge feeling drained and later passed out on the game board, a harrowing situation, though it took a beat for host Jeff Probst to realize what had happened since Russell was blindfolded). First time so many contestants were at tribal council (both tribes went, which meant there were 13 contestants present). And the first time tribal council ended with no one being sent home (both tribes were to have voted someone off, but the events of the day led to some generosity on the producers’ part).

All this drama plus some colorful characters in the form of Russell H., not nearly as nasty as he was at the start of the game but still able to manipulate his tribemates quite handily; and Shambo, a retired Marine who clashes with her Galu tribemates yet has had no trouble making friends while visiting the Foa Foa tribe. With so much going on on both sides, it doesn’t even matter that Natalie, Laura, Brett, and Mick have yet to establish personalities that go beyond the point of being nondescript.

This is shaping up to be one of the most eventful and physically demanding seasons of Survivor ever. Over the course of the last two episodes, contestants have had to seek out any sort of shelter they can find to guard themselves from the torrential downpours that last for days on end. Right about now, their emotions are as raw as their skin, a fact that was only exacerbated by Russell S.’s forced departure after being assessed by the show’s medical staff. His exit was truly heartrending, with him feeling that he had not only let himself down, but his family as well. Russell played the game with as much determination and fortitude as can be expected, and if the remaining contestants can muster half the grit that he displayed, it should make for an entertaining back half of what has already been an incredibly enjoyable season.

What Did You See?

Unlike film, TV is a landscape for characters over concept. It’s more about what happens to the people who inhabit a mundane, everyday setting—hospital, police station, bar—than it is about cataclysms and life-changing events. Just imagine what your favorite show would be like if, week in and week out, something huge had to happen, whether if felt organic or not. It’s the rare show that can successfully meld character and concept in a way that is both entertaining and thought provoking (Lost and 24 immediately spring to mind, though both have had moments where events have felt forced, particularly in the latter). This season, that show is ABC’s FlashForward (Thursdays, 8pm), a headtrippy drama that, like Lost, dares to draw viewers in with more questions than it is currently prepared to answer.

The show’s premise is simple: On a seemingly normal morning, people across the globe black out for two minutes, seventeen seconds, during which time they have visions of what is going to happen to them on a specific date, April 29, 2010. FBI agent Mark Benford (Shakespeare in Love’s Joseph Fiennes) sees himself relapsing into alcoholism while working on the blackout case, dubbed Mosaic. His wife Olivia (Lost’s Sonya Walger) has a vision of herself with another man, a man she’s never met but who ends up being the father of one of her patients. Mark’s partner Demetri (John Cho from the Harold & Kumar movies) sees nothing at all and later receives a mysterious tip telling him that he will be murdered in March.

This worldwide event brings up a number of existential questions. Can what you saw be changed or are you destined to live it out no matter how you try to intervene? How do you go about your normal life now that you have information that could make you rethink everything? And how much stock should you put in something that may be nothing more than a glorified dream? Of course, FlashForward isn’t coming right out with answers to these questions; they’ve got an entire season to fill, after all.

We're slowly starting to delve into what caused the blackout and why it happened in the first place. Among the tidbits that have been revealed so far are that a man in a Detroit baseball stadium was immune to the blackout; a Nazi named D. Gibbons is a “bad man” (Benford’s daughter’s words; Gibbons was in her vision) and will soon be released from a German prison; a similar blackout occurred in Somalia in 1991; and Olivia’s future lover is apparently involved in the whole thing, along with a mystery man introduced last week played by Dominic Monaghan, also from Lost.

What we’ve seen so far is that the visions are making people act in ways they wouldn’t ordinarily act, such as Olivia and Mark keeping secrets from each other about what exactly they saw. And if this gripping show has a flaw, this is it. We don’t get to see who these people really are because they no longer seem to know themselves, so enmeshed are they in what will happen rather than what is happening. Still, this is a wait-and-see type of show, where patience with storytelling and character development will hopefully be rewarded with a whiz-bang payoff. From its cast to its time structure, FlashForward obviously owes a huge debt to Lost. I can only hope that it proves to be a worthy successor to that classic, soon-to-retire island drama.

Playing the Economy for Laughs

ABC Comedy Wednesday is 3 for 4 in the success department. Kelsey Grammer’s inane Hank doesn’t make the grade, but you can add The Middle (Wednesdays, 8:30pm) to Modern Family and Cougar Town as solid examples of what has become a stronger year for comedy than we’ve seen in some time.

The "middle" in the title refers to the middle of the country—Orson, Indiana—which, for this cast of characters is also the middle of nowhere. Everybody Loves Raymond’s Patricia Heaton plays Frankie Heck, a frazzled mother trying to hold things together as the economy wreaks havoc on her family. Frankie is a salesperson barely hanging on to her job at a used car lot, where she uses test drives to take care of personal business and has a negative sales record (in the pilot, one of those test drives resulted in a theft). Husband Mike (Scrubs’s nameless janitor Neil Flynn) is a quarry manager who believes that the best thing he can do for his kids is to be completely honest with them, even if that means their self-esteem takes a blow as a result. And what of the kids? There’s sarcastic son Axl (Charlie McDermott), awkward daughter Sue (Eden Sher), and just plain weird youngest son Brick (Atticus Shaffer). Shaffer is a real find, capable of stealing a scene from Heaton and Flynn with nothing more than a whisper (he repeats words softly to himself as a soothing mechanism). He’s far from the only thing that works in The Middle, unfortunately titled since comparisons to Malcolm in the Middle are inevitable. But this is no mere copycat sitcom. Where Malcolm got by on having the entire family yell at each other for seven seasons, The Middle is much more subtle, letting its familial hardships be known without having to resort to ugliness at every turn.

There’s nothing but ugliness, however, in Hank (Wednesdays, 8pm), another new comedy that uses the economic crisis at its jumping-off point. Kelsey Grammer is Hank Pryor, a victim of corporate downsizing who is forced to pull his family away from their cushy New York lifestyle to return to his more affordable Virginia roots. Naturally, nobody wants to be there, with the exception of son Henry, who “cannot wait to go to the bathroom here.” If that inexplicable joke makes you laugh, please enjoy Hank. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for even a whiff of the sophistication that defined Frasier, you’re in for a very long half-hour. Not even Grammer’s expertise with a punchline is enough to make these particular punchlines funny, and support from Melinda McGraw as wife Tilly and Anchorman’s David Koechner as brother-in-law Grady can’t do anything to improve matters. ABC has better comedy prospects waiting in the wings (the Scrubs reboot, Better Off Ted), so it probably won’t be too long before Hank itself is downsized.

Rivers Doesn't Flow

The medical genre has seen more than its share of turkeys this year in HawthoRNe, Mercy, and Trauma, and CBS doesn’t do it any favors with its new entry Three Rivers (Sundays, 9pm). The network hasn’t had a successful medical drama since Chicago Hope closed its doors nine years ago (remember Presidio Med? L.A. Doctors? 3 lbs.? Exactly.), and Three Rivers won’t be the show to break that dry spell.

Focusing on the transplant wing of a Pittsburgh hospital, Rivers marks the return of Alex O’Loughlin, star of Moonlight, a cult vampire show that had the misfortune of premiering a year before bloodsuckers were de rigueur again. Here he plays Andy Yablonski, the rare hot shot surgeon without a God complex. Much of the time, though, O’Loughlin is pushed to the fringes in favor of the transplant team’s other members, including The L Word’s stern, strong Katherine Moennig (she should be the real star of the show) and newbie Christopher J. Hanke as the assistant to the transplant coordinator, a role that doesn’t merit nearly the amount of screen time that this green actor is given.

Three Rivers touches on all the scenes you’d expect to see: the ambivalence of the donor’s family, the doctors getting upset about said family’s ambivalence, team members having to make difficult life/death decisions. And then it shoves in a few scenes you don’t expect to see and that you wouldn’t miss if they weren’t there: an organ harvest is halted when the cops show up and announce that the donor is a murder suspect (this little nugget, seemingly inserted just to give the writer a wowzer of an act break, went absolutely nowhere); the team, rushing to get back to the hospital with a pair of lungs and a kidney, runs into traffic caused by a bomb threat (the timing of these things!).

After retooling the pilot, CBS then made the late decision to air it as the second episode, making for some strange introductions to characters we’d already met last week. But airing episodes out of order is the least of this show’s troubles. How about the producers bringing the wonderful Alfre Woodard on board and then giving her nothing of import to do? How about the nauseating NYPD Blue-style shaky cam that is awkwardly mixed with traditional camera setups for an uneasy aesthetic? How about the fact that CBS is now giving creator Carol Barbee her third chance following the failures of Jericho and Swingtown? How about I just tell you that hanging out in your local emergency room would probably be more exciting than watching this pedestrian, unspectacular show?

An Office Wedding, and NBC Cancels Southland

TV’s most romantic couple, Jim and Pam, tied the knot last night in an episode of NBC’s The Office that looked to be as much fun for cast and crew to make as it was for me to watch. When the show has expanded to an hour in the past, it’s felt forced, as if deleted scenes had been tacked back on to pad the hour because the story being told couldn’t actually support the extra length. The wedding episode, though, was perfect in every way, from the opening scene in which the entire office broke into chain reaction vomiting (not the most traditional way to start a wedding episode) to Jim’s tear-jerking toast gone wrong (he unintentionally revealed Pam is pregnant in front of some very conservative family members) to the delightful, You Tube-inspired dance down the aisle that capped the hour. Other highlights: Andy spending the night on Pam's hotel room floor after tearing his scrotum while doing the splits; Dwight being less grating than usual, even as he acted the womanizer; Oscar’s outrage at being mistaken for the slovenly Kevin’s boyfriend; and Michael’s well-intentioned but misbegotten attempts to speak at the rehearsal dinner. Congratulations to the happy couple, and to The Office, for producing an hour that was pure bliss from beginning to end.

In other NBC news, the network has decided to cancel police drama Southland two weeks before its sophomore season was set to premiere. Variety reports that the show’s expensive license fee was the culprit, a figure the net couldn’t justify when episodes of Dateline NBC, a much cheaper show, would likely perform as well as, if not better than, Southland in the ratings. And so Dateline will remain in that Friday 9pm time slot, one less hour of scripted programming on a schedule already dominated by the under-performing Jay Leno Show.

NBC is truly a network in trouble. Heroes is down for the third straight year, now hovering just above five million viewers (it had about 14 million at its season-one peak); new dramas Trauma and Mercy aren’t exactly providing good medicine; the once dependable Law & Order: SVU has seen its audience drop significantly since moving to the earlier 9pm time period; and the net’s Thursday comedy block is a shadow of its former Must See TV self. The only thing currently working in NBC’s favor is Sunday Night Football, but that’ll be gone come January, and the net has never been able to translate strong NFL numbers into any real success on Sunday night in winter and spring (two hours of The Celebrity Apprentice—needless overkill to be sure—is the closest thing they’ve had to a hit on the night in years).

What’s the solution to all this negativity? Consider NBC to be the pit that organizers are trying to turn into a park on the network’s own failing comedy Parks and Recreation. By taking away its 10pm options and killing off shows like Southland before they’ve even gotten a chance to prove themselves, the network is only widening the pit. To fill it back up, Leno’s gotta go, quality has to start trumping ego, and NBC programmers have to treat their airwaves as more than a commodity. Viewers are often accused of being sheep-like in their habits, but they know when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. Time to take out the shears, NBC, before you end up losing all sense of dignity.

New Fall Series Roundup

Accidentally on Purpose (CBS, Mondays, 8:30pm): A one-night stand with a much younger man turns into an unexpected pregnancy for San Francisco film critic Billie (Jenna Elfman) in this sorry excuse for a sitcom. Because this is the land of TV comedy, Zack (Jon Foster) the “baby baby daddy,” moves into Billie’s apartment, where they sleep in separate rooms and try to maintain boundaries. This is the kind of show that thinks hilarity comes from Billie flicking her breasts to make her nipples perk up, or from her dancing around the office chanting, “My booty is delicious” (how professional!). Three episodes in, the show is already recycling some its own “jokes,” and last night used the same tanning-lotion-as-masturbatory-aid plot that Rescue Me used months ago. The worst part is that even the actors can’t convince us that they at least find this material amusing. It’s safe to say that you can purposely steer clear of Accidentally on Purpose.

Trauma (NBC, Mondays, 9pm): If you like your shows to have a modicum of character development look elsewhere. If, however, you like your shows to maneuver from one meaningless though well-constructed set piece to another, this might be the show for you. Trauma follows a group of San Francisco paramedics who apparently have very little going on in their lives outside of their jobs. With Friday Night Lights’ executive producer Peter Berg and director Jeffrey Reiner attached, not to mention a cast that includes Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher), Anastasia Griffith (Damages), and Jamey Sheridan (Chicago Hope), this is the new season’s biggest waste of talent.

Instead of introducing us to the characters, the pilot spent most of its time at the scene of a horrific freeway pileup; last night was much of the same, though this time it was a driver plowing through a street fair. These scenes are all impressive in their scope—and the location shooting is certainly a highlight—but they seem intentionally drawn out to avoid having to spend any quiet time with the characters, clearly not among creator Dario Scardapane’s strong suits. (Here’s a dose of the wisdom this shows doles out: “People get hurt. Some get saved, a lot die. Then it happens all over again.”) In last night’s episode, a child actor yawned during a scene in which his mother was lying unconscious on the floor. That’s about the same reaction I had while watching this train wreck of a show.

Mercy (NBC, Wednesdays, 8pm): NBC’s second stab at the medical genre this season, Mercy is slightly more successful than Trauma, certainly an instance of damning with faint praise. Veronica Callahan (newcomer Taylor Schilling) has just returned to her nursing job after a tour of duty in Iraq, a fact that is clearly meant to endear her to the audience. And it might work if she hadn’t cheated on her husband while she was over there, didn’t use her war experience as an excuse not to deal with her life in the present, and didn’t have a habit of comparing all her cases to the ones she saw in combat. Veronica is yet another modern medical professional who has spent way too much time in the Meredith Grey School of Narcissism. It’s hard to build sympathy for a woman who feels she’s so deserving of it.

Mercy actually feels like a retread of Showtime’s summer dramedy Nurse Jackie: the tough-talking lead with an exterior that’s hard to crack, the peppy, naïve new nurse who wears colorful scrubs, the hospital administrator who likes to lecture nurses for caring too much. One more similarity presents itself when the man Veronica cheated with—he’s played by Men in Trees’ James Tupper—gets a job as a doctor in her hospital (Nurse Jackie had an affair with the hospital pharmacist). Is it a coincidence that so much of Mercy is reminiscent of another, far superior show? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, why watch a knockoff when you can go straight to the original?

The Forgotten (ABC, Tuesdays, 10pm): I’ve already established that I’m not a fan of the crime drama genre; the case-of-the-week formula just doesn’t do anything for me. But that doesn’t mean that I go into new shows thinking that I’m going to hate them. I’d love for one of them to shake up my opinion and give me a reason to care. Unfortunately, The Forgotten is not that show.

Christian Slater heads a group of civilian volunteers who work with the police to put a name to John/Jane Does. We are told early on that this is the victim’s story and that it’s not about solving the murder. Funny, then, how the victim is identified halfway through the hour and the rest of the time is spent trying to find the killer. Aside from Slater (he’s a former cop motivated by his own daughter’s kidnapping, which explains why he never bothers to smile), the team of volunteers is as nameless and nondescript as the victims they’re trying to identify. A fat guy who crunches on cheese puffs and fancies himself a version of NYPD Blue’s Andy Sipowicz is supposed to provide the comic relief, and is about the extent of what counts for personality here. Clunky backstory revelations are divulged in conjunction with the investigation (when a Jane Doe turns up with a diamond ring, it prompts one team member to recall jilting her fiancé at the altar). It’s all standard-issue stuff under the guise of being something unique in crime drama storytelling.

Eastwick (ABC, Wednesdays, 10pm): Saving the best for last, Eastwick is a lark of a show that makes for a nice midweek diversion. Based on The Witches of Eastwick (both the book and the movie), it tells the story of three women who make a wish at a fountain only to see those wishes come true in the form of strange powers courtesy of Darryl Van Horne (Due South’s Paul Gross, obviously having a blast), a mysterious man who blows into town, laying his charm on thick. Roxie (Rebecca Romijn, Ugly Betty) starts having psychic dreams, including one in which she’s murdered; Joanna (Lipstick Jungle’s Lindsay Price) has the power to make men do whatever she wants; and Kat (Jaime Ray Newman from Eureka) can harness the power of Mother Nature, causing earthquakes and lightning strikes. All of this is cute enough, but so far the show is lacking in substance and, other than the mystery surrounding Darryl, it’s hard to tell where it’s going. If it’s trying to be Desperate Housewitches, it’s going to need a lot more scandal—and plot—to get there. While it figures itself out, though, the lovely ladies of Eastwick are enough to make the show harmless fun.

Dollhouse: Nothing Behind the Eyes

I had hoped that Dollhouse, having been granted a somewhat inexplicable second season by Fox, would turn its creative act around and give viewers a reason to seek the show out. Alas, what we’ve been given in the first two episodes this year is much of what made the show so easy to avoid in the first place.

I’m as big a fan of series creator Joss Whedon’s work as the next TV geek (I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning, stuck it out as Angel felt its way through a very bumpy first couple of seasons, and saw Firefly through its unfortunately short life), but there’s something about Dollhouse that keeps me at arms’ length, no matter how much I want to like the show. Much of the problem lies directly in the main concept: a collection of Actives, led by Eliza Dushku, are imprinted with memories and personalities, then sent on “engagements” (the show’s term for missions), after which they have their minds wiped clean so they can start out fresh the next time around. Sounds like a neat idea, right? Except that it doesn’t allow for any real investment in the characters. When Dushku’s Echo is imprinted with the characteristics of a singer or a college student or, as in last night’s episode, a wife and mother, you know that at the end of the hour she won’t be living in that skin anymore.

Whedon and company are trying to make their efforts worthwhile by introducing a sliver of an ongoing plotline in which Echo—who has trace amounts of memories that have stuck with her, something that isn’t supposed to happen—and her handler Paul Ballard (Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett) have designs to take down the Dollhouse. Since the episodes still spend most of their time focused on the engagements, this particular story line seems destined to be dragged out to the point where its resolution is met with a shrug and a resounding "Who cares?"

Then again nobody seems to care much as it is. The show dropped to its lowest ratings ever last night, with just over two million viewers tuning in (its ill-fitting sitcom companions, the abysmal Brothers and Til Death even managed to draw slightly more viewers). While the show’s Friday night death slot doesn’t do it any favors, I think the real problem is the show itself. There’s no warmth, no real humanity on display, and with a premise that keeps connection with the characters at bay, it’s no surprise that Dollhouse is struggling the way it is. Whedon half-joked in a conference call prior to the season premiere, “I don’t make hit shows. I make shows that stick around.” Not this time, I'm afraid, Joss. Not this time.

Old Dogs, New(ish) Tricks

The last time Steven Levitan (Just Shoot Me) and Christopher Lloyd (Frasier) teamed up to create a new comedy they came up with the should-have-been-funnier Back to You, starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. With ABC’s Modern Family, the end result is much better; in fact, it’s absolutely hilarious, perhaps the best new comedy of this young season.

What makes Modern Family so great is its slice-of-life simplicity. In a faux-documentary format that owes much to The Office, we meet three seemingly disparate families: May-December newlyweds Jay and Gloria (Ed O’Neill and Sofia Vergara), plus Manny, Gloria’s 11-year-old son who spends most of his time getting on Jay’s nerves; Phil and Claire (Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell), overwhelmed parents of three; and Mitchell and Cameron (Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet), a gay couple who have just returned from Vietman with their newly-adopted baby girl. We learn late in the pilot that all three are related, with Claire and Mitchell being Jay’s offspring. It makes perfect sense that these three are actually one big family since they all share the same hapless sensibilities.

In a flawless ensemble, the standouts here are Bowen and Burrell, she being a controlling though loving mother who takes responsibility for running the household, he being the kind of dad whose idea of discipline is to say "Buddy, uncool" when son Luke takes aim at his sister with a BB gun. There’s nothing particularly earth shattering about Modern Family, and that's actually something that works to the show's advantage. It's just a healthy dose of relatable humor that will have you clamoring for more.

Immediately following Modern Family on ABC Wednesdays is Cougar Town, the new comedy from Scrubs vets Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel. Courteney Cox stars as Jules Cobb, recently divorced and wanting to rediscover the years she lost while raising her now teenaged son Travis (Dan Byrd from Aliens in America). Jules’s idea of fun goes from wine and Scrabble with her neighbor/best friend Ellie (Christa Miller, not too far removed from the emasculating, shrewish character she played on Scrubs) to a drunken night of foolishness wherein her coworker Laurie (ER’s Busy Phillips) drops a boy toy off at her door. Jules proceeds to have sex with him three times in one night and fixes him a plate of crackers and peanut butter before bothering to learn his name. Growth has to start somewhere, after all, and shallowness is as good a place as any to begin.

Cox was never my favorite Friend (I always found Monica more grating than funny most of the time), but she does a fine job here as a woman who considers it a daring act to tempt the hair gods by running across a fountain in between spout cycles. The supporting cast, which also includes Cold Case’s Josh Hopkins as a neighbor with whom Jules shares a hateful/flirty banter, is filled with pros. While the party lifestyle may not be for Jules (“Younger people just don’t get tired like we do,” she tells Ellie), her long-delayed journey of self-discovery provides a decent number of laughs and, as the saying goes, could get even better with age.