I wanted to like The Grinder. First of all, it stars Rob Lowe. Some of the best moments in West Wing’s run were with Lowe in the episode, tilting at windmills. Second, he’s playing a lawyer. I like law shows, I like when Lowe plays a lawyer. Perfect. Third, he’s not really a lawyer, he’s pretending to be a lawyer without going to law school. Hey, I like Suits, could be good. Fourth, it’s a comedy. Umm, wait…what?
Well, not exactly a comedy, more like a dramatic comedy or a comedic drama, or something it just can’t figure out what it is. It’s not satire, it’s not really a comedy, but it is self-aware comedy. With Ben Savage as the brother. He had the Wonder Years, they’re over. The first episode had so many bad cliches, it felt like a spoof. The whole episode felt like I was watching an Airplane-inspired remake of A Few Good Men, without the military. Okay, bad image. But better than anything in the show.
William Devane plays the father, and I thought, hmm, he is okay in cameos and on Stargate. Kind of enjoyed him back on Early Edition. And they gave him such inspiring lines as “I like where this is going.” Really? That’s it? There is no reason for him to be excited about any of what’s going on, but he is. Totally undeveloped.
Now, it IS a comedy. It’s only 22 minutes. How much character development can there be, and still have a plot to deliver? That’s basically why I don’t watch many comedies. And this will be another one that I am not watching. Pass.
But that experience lowered my expectations too. It was pretty far from the mystery of Season 1 of the original Heroes, where the “Save the cheerleader, save the world” mantra kept me tuning in each week. No, the webisodes were slightly better than season 2 or 3 of the old show as it tanked, but not a slam dunk.
The actual series premiere, however? Over the top, slam dunk, no word of a lie, absolutely awesome. I am hooked big time. I rarely gush about a show, perhaps jaded by the number of times I’ve seen a strong premise totally tank a few episodes later, but I have to gush about this one. Like the original, there are multiple storylines running concurrently, weaving, bobbing, and intersecting.
Noah Bennett is back, having learned that something big and bad is coming and he wants to find out what he has forgotten. And his daughter Clare-bear? She might not have died in Odessa during the terrorist attack. She might still be alive. Noah has teamed up with the nutjob truther from the webisodes,
There’s a Mexican wrestler superhero with super strength who is helping Evos (evolved humans) with an underground railway, and his brother might have to take his place.
There’s a kid, young, compelling, with a naive innocent girlfriend, who is a teleporter. With an evo named Casper Abraham following him around (remember Laroche from The Mentalist? Pruitt Taylor Vince is his real name, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but yeah, that guy).
There’s a girl in Japan, who can enter into video games, and is searching for her father (also trapped in a game), with a young gamer helping her.
And finally, there’s a husband and wife out for revenge against all Evos because their son was killed.
At least four of those stories are completely compelling.
I don’t know who was watching How To Get Away With Murder last year, but they took pretty solid notes. Freshman class. Check. Female authority figure in charge of class telling them it is not like anywhere else. Check. Some big criminal event in the future, class members involved, flashing back to tell the story of how they got there. Check.
Except instead of it being law school leading to murder, it’s enrolment in the fresh class at the FBI’s Quantico Academy leading to a terrorist attack in NYC. Yet, where I found HTGAWM boring, I find Quantico strangely compelling. Let’s look at the class and see if I can figure out why. All of them have secrets, some we’ll find out sooner rather than later. Warning, definite spoilers ahead.
The main agent-in-training Alex Parrish is played by Priyanka Chopra, an Indian bombshell. Exotic, sexy, presence. Her big secret is that her mother shot her father; her bigger secret is that SHE shot her father, and then found his Special Agent credentials. Fast forward to the terrorist attack, and she is the only one on scene, unhurt, and the prime suspect with lots of evidence to tie her to the plot.
Next up we have Ryan Booth. He seems to be just another agent, but he’s actually undercover to get close to Alex. Decent character, decent actor.
Next is Nimah, the Muslim who should be the prime suspect, right? Except she has an interesting secret. She’s one half of a twin, and they’re both hiding in the same room doing the work.
Shelby Wyatt is the blonde bimbo who came from money. Her first secret is that her parents were killed in a plane on 9/11. I’m sure there are more secrets to come, but that is where she starts. She’s played pretty well by Johanna Brady — I don’t know any of her work, but with 48 credits in 10 years, she’s been working. A lot.
Simon Asher is the resident gay character. Except he’s a virgin, all his ex-bfs say so. And his “current” boyfriend is imaginary — he got a stranger to take a picture with him, smooch included. So is he really gay? And if not, why is he pretending to be? His other secret is some sort of ties to Palestine, but the FBI already knows about that.
Moving on, we have Graham Rogers as Caleb Haas. Caleb is the worst recruit ever — fails just about everything. But his parents are agents, so he has squeaked his way in. Not sure what his secret is yet, but it’s building.
Last we have the most disappointing development of all — Brian J. Smith as trainee Eric Packer. I loved Smith in Stargate: Universe. So why am I disappointed he’s in this? Because — SPOILER ALERT — he dies in the first episode. What a waste of an opportunity, he would have been awesome.
So there are two other characters running around, the academy staff — the woman in charge, Aunjanue Ellis playing Deputy administrator Miranda Shaw, and Josh Hopkins as head instructor Liam O’Connor. Both of them have their secrets and could be easily involved more so than a recruit. Ellis has been good on NCIS: LA, and I even liked her back in the day on The Mentalist. She even gave a good performance way back in a one-season show called E-ring. But she is good in support, not sure she’ll be able to handle running some of the plot. Hopkins is a good short-term character actor, and I’ve liked him in those roles ever since I first saw him way back on Cold Case when he was romancing Lilly. But like Ellis, he doesn’t have the gravitas to drive the plot forward. Almost every scene with him was lightweight.
But the show looks like it will rise or fall based on Chopra’s talents, and while she is awesome at the Academy, her time as FBI agent/lead suspect seemed false, too much like bad play-acting. I think the show has a lot of buzz and budget behind it, so it will play out for the season. Only the ratings will tell if it comes back for Round 2 next year, although rumour is that next year it would be a new batch of recruits and a new storyline, not the same ones continuing. I’ll stick around for a while.
One of the new shows premiering this year is a quirky Miami show called Rosewood. It’s the name of the lead character, Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr., who runs — wait for it — a private pathology consulting firm. Apparently, in some jurisdictions, it’s a real thing. And it makes for an interesting hook…rather than a consultant who works with the police or with a medical examiner, he IS the consultant/medical examiner/forensics guy. And he works on contract with the police. Cool.
The lead is played by Morris Chestnut, who looks like a slicker version of Taye Diggs, and I’d swear I’ve seen him in other shows, and his impressive resume goes back 20 years, but none of the shows were ones I regularly watched. No idea who he is, but he had a presence in the first episode. His gimmick is that he has a bunch of medical issues going on from birth, and he grabs life and seizes every breath he can take. So he’s a ray of sunshine all through the episode, but somehow avoids being smarmy. He is consummate charm, with just enough self-deprecation and gravitas to avoid being a used-car salesman. Most of his moves are on the new Latina detective, Villa, played by Jaina Lee Ortiz. Her resume has a lot fewer credits, but she does a decent job.
Working with Rosewood is his sister and her lesbian lover (ooh, we can get the Latina, black and LGBT demographics, cool!), both lightweights, but his mother? Lorraine Toussaint. I liked her in Forever last year, and even more back on Saving Grace. or even way back to Crossing Jordan. I even like her when she pops up as cameos in various other series over the years. I have no idea what they’re going to do with her in this show, but I suspect basically waste her. There’s very little role for the mother of the investigator, I don’t think, even if she brings the case in the first episode (an old student, dead in a driving accident, except she didn’t like to drive, never would speed, and didn’t drive while impaired, and not at night either).
Another odd one was another detective at the precinct — Anthony Michael Hall. Really? They have him as fourth banana? Talk about bench strength. Let’s hope they upgrade him at some point. His character is basically a doofus though, so they would have to give him something better to do too.
Soooo, where does that leave me? The show was okay, a quirky premise. There was no chemistry between the two leads though, so if they are hoping for a romantic spark, it wasn’t there. I’m willing to watch, but I doubt it will make it past 5 episodes. However, I have no clue how they count demographics, and they were throwing out a lot of feelers to various communities. Maybe it will take.
Of the three NCIS shows, this is the one that I like the least for plots and acting, but the most for a few of the actors. I like Scott Bakula, and I really like Zoe McLellan in the series. Most of the rest I could take or leave, but those two bring something to the screen. Yet oddly enough, zero chemistry between them. I like the fact that they have few scenes together where it’s just the two of them as they do better with other supporting cast members.
Last season got a little bogged down with a conspiracy over several episodes, and none of the episodes were particularly compelling. They did, more or less, wrap it up at the end of the season. So the season premiere kicked off with a regular bad-guy-of-the-week premise. They made it interesting — lots of different militia types from around the U.S. united against the government, all working together. Would never happen, their basic zeitgeist prevents cooperation with others, but it was interesting at least. I’m more interested in seeing where Brody’s personal case goes over the season — someone is sending her photos from high school except she’s been photoshopped into them, she wasn’t there for the events, her sister was. Along with a musician guy who died around that time. Could be interesting, at least as long as they follow one of Gibbs’ rules — your case, your lead.
I’ve changed my watching setup for this year, and NCIS:NO is a perfect candidate for binge watching — it is not must-see TV any week, and the season premiere didn’t change that.
