Tag Archives: 2015-16

Series premiere: The Player

The PolyBlog
September 27 2015

Okay, I admit, I’m a sucker for the “one man against the world” storylines. Bourne. Bond. All the action hero movies ever made. The new show, The Player, is right up my alley. Let’s get to the elaborate premise.

Meet Alex Kane, ex-special ops soldier who was good at hunting terrorists and then killing them. He liked it too much and he was good at it. Until along came a pretty doctor lady who taught him to “do good” and thus he would “be good”. Fast forward a few years, him and the doctor lady are separated, but fraternizing with the enemy regularly and still in love. Alex is working as a high-priced security consultant, she’s a doctor in a local hospital again, all is sunny and warm.

Until a hitman tries to kill Alex and gets Jennie instead. Then things get weird. Remember in the Matrix when Neo meets Morpheus? Well, Alex gets to meet Mr. Johnson aka The Pit Boss. He runs “the game” where wealthy clients bet on crime outcomes, with heavy stakes. Minimum bid $1.5 million; maximum bid $100 million. He is aided by Cassandra, the Dealer, who handles data analysis. Think like Person of Interest, except the machine is controlled by the House. And they want Alex to be their new player. A single man, working alone and anonymously, to combat the forces of evil, or at least, the bad guy of the week. As an added bonus, he gets to target the man who killed Alex’ wife.

Alex eventually agrees, but only to avenge his wife and save a kidnapped girl. And that is the first episode. Alex Kane in Die Hard in Vegas. And (SPOILER ALERT), he does save the girl. Then gets sprung from police holding (a funny story actually, they think he murdered his wife), and the House offers Alex a full time gig. He says no. Then he discovers the body of his wife is not actually his wife (missing a secret tattoo). So he accepts the job, planning to bring down whoever “took” his wife, assuming she’s still alive.

Is the show fantastic? No, it’s not, and that’s the problem. Lots of other shows have tried to go down this road. Intelligence two years ago, the guy with a computer chip in his brain making him a super investigator/soldier working for Cyber Command. A few years ago, they tried it with Nathan Filion — it was called Drive. The premise was ex-wheelman comes home to find wife or daughter or some loved one kidnapped, and if he wants to see her alive, he has to play “the Game” err, no, that’s not right, he has to “win the race” where people bet on who will win Cannonball Run except the stakes are life or death. Intelligence ran the whole season, Drive only lasted an episode or two. A few years ago too, there was a Taye Diggs one where he kept having to relive the same day over and over again, one man against the odds, trying to save his wife.

It’s a good theory that the stakes will be compelling for viewers, but few have ever got the mix right. I like the show, but I’m not convinced this one has it right either. Maybe if they gave him super powers…that’s pretty hot right now.

There are three things going for it though. Alex Kane is played by Philip Winchester, and he has definite action hero presence without being giant ego man. Wesley Snipes is pretty good as the pit boss, although I’d be curious to see if all of his pay cheque goes to the IRS. But the real star of Episode One was Charity Wakefield as Cassandra aka The Dealer. She is in charge of data analysis, and is Alex’ one and only resource. She’s also likely the one who did something with Kane’s wife, since back in the day, they were friends at some point.

I’ll watch, but I suspect it will be cancelled before mid-season since it will be difficult to keep high enough viewership to justify the production costs.

Season premiere: NCIS

The PolyBlog
September 26 2015

It’s hard to believe NCIS is into its 13th season. When we left off last season, we were dealing with a terror cell called the Calling that recruited young children into their web. Gibbs tries to help one of them and in the cliffhanger, he gets shot for his effort. Fast forward to the new season, Gibbs undergoes serious surgery, and the rest of the team keeps hunting the Calling’s leader.

The episode was decent but wrapped up the Calling a little too neatly for my tastes. I don’t know if it is truly “dead”, but considering the investment in it last season, it all ended in one episode. Gibbs is restricted to desk duty, so it’s more of a DiNozzo and team show, but that was okay for the episode. Apparently, the trauma of the shooting is going to “change Gibbs” and he is going to have to deal with those changes this season, whatever that means. It’s not like in 13 years you have seen any character growth in Gibbs, other than he gets quieter and quieter each year.

The only real bright spot in the episode was Jon Cryer, jokingly referred to by Abby as Gibbs’ own Ducky (since he was called Ducky back in his John Hughes pics), as the surgeon who saves Gibbs’ life. I love when there’s a cameo and you see a character played so well by the actor that the character walks in fully formed, almost like they have lives off screen that are rich, complicated, exciting, boring, and everything in between. Some refer to it as gravitas, others just as presence, but Cryer has it in spades as the doctor, and supposedly he will show up for a few episodes to keep an eye on Gibbs’ health. A welcome edition, even if the EP wasn’t a hit out of the park.

Season premiere: Blue Bloods

The PolyBlog
September 26 2015

Blue Bloods is one of my guilty vices. The show is far from awesome, the plots are the ripped-from-the-headlines style, and every case is super hyped up so that it can justify the involvement of the police commissioner, a detective, a beat cop, and an assistant DA. It’s not as cheesy as Hawaii Five-O, but it’s not Shakespeare either. So I watch, and hope for the best.

The season premiere has Jamie still a beat cop, and the only good part of his storyline is his partner, Eddie. She’s awesome, and I’d watch if the show was just the two of them being beat cops. Adam-12 on foot patrol in NYC. Danny’s sporting a new hairdo, looking very G.I. Jane-ish, and Dad is looking very stern for the episode.

It was an odd episode as outside of Frank, Jamie and Danny, everybody else was notably absent except for the obligatory family dinner scene. The plot was ho-hum — suspected terrorist activity, somebody was bragging about 72 virgins in a strip club, and it turns out, the guy’s landlord saw a bomb too and reported it. Jamie catches the call for the strip club, Danny the landlord. And everybody tells Frank everything so he can run the show. But it wasn’t that interesting, no drama, no motives, no real policework with startling deductions. Slow methodical policework. Booooorrrriinnnnng. I hope this wasn’t the best the writers had in the tank.

The only interesting part was the kids at the dinner table — they started off being very young six seasons ago, and now are solid little actors. They rocked their meaningless scenes, which leads me to suspect we’re going to see more of them this year.

Series premiere: Limitless

The PolyBlog
September 23 2015

I never saw the movie Limitless, but I thought the premise sounded interesting — a special drug that gives you access to more parts of your brain, making you extremely efficient and smart as a whip. The holy grail of pharmaceutical companies everywhere, and one of the hoped-for byproducts of work on Alzheimer’s treatments. So when they announced a TV version, I thought, “Why not?”

The premise is a young Brian Finch, drifting along as a wannabe music star when his old buddy hooks him up with a designer drug called NZT-48, the wonder drug to give his brain a “jumpstart”. It works awesome for him, so much so that he figures out what his father has for a disease. But his father needs a liver transplant, the drug wears off, and Brian needs another fix to keep his brain churning at light speed. Except his old buddy is dead, he’s the prime suspect for a while, and the FBI is on his trail.

Fast forward to some interactions with an attractive FBI agent (Dexter’s sister, remember her?), and she’s willing to play along for a bit to see if he can find the real killer. Which he does, along with someone important finding him and offering him a cure for NZT’s debilitating side effects. Cue the credits, along with an offer of a liver for Dad in exchange for, dun dun dun, Finch becoming an FBI consultant.

It wasn’t an awesome episode but some of the effects were cool, and if it treads along the same path as Forever, Elementary, Lie to Me, then I’m okay with that. Hard to say if the show has legs, but I’ll watch for awhile at least.

Season premiere: NCIS: LA

The PolyBlog
September 23 2015

When NCIS: LA left off last season, Arkady was near death in Russia and the NCIS team were bugging out. Fast forward, G is trying to find out if Arkady is still alive, and distancing himself from the team to do it. They get all Mama Bear on him, and the episode is basically all about them treating him like a suspect.

In the end, it was really much ado about nothing…no real plot development, small scene of drama, etc, but nothing that really moves the plot along. Not a great episode, but at least Deaks mentioned something about the LAPD investigation into his behaviour, and an original cause perhaps. Other than that? Yawn.