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Tag Archives: 2019

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Series premiere: Perfect Harmony

The PolyBlog
December 8 2019

On the show, Perfect Harmony, one of the characters exclaims holy crap at one point, and that is what I was thinking too, but for different reasons. Okay, quick premise. Music teacher takes over small-town church choir and gets them to pull together. That’s what I knew before the show started, and while I don’t want to discount the Glee factor, it’s a half-hour comedy show. Nope, I went with cancellation as my prediction.

Then I watched the show. The premise is a bit more involved than that, but not much. First, the music teacher lost his wife, he brought her back home to be buried in her small town, and now he’s ready to kill himself rather than go on. However, just as he reaches for a bottle of pills, he hears a REALLY bad choir singing and playing the piano, and he refuses to die with that as his final listening experience. He goes in, tries to tell them what to do, and then passes out. When he awakens, he finds them all hoping he’ll use his music expertise to help.

Second, it turns out that in addition to all of the choir being a bunch of misfits, another choir always wins a local competition every year.  And it just so happens that the pastor of that church refused to let the wife be buried in his cemetery, so the music director decides to stick around and help the choir try and beat the other choir out of spite.

If this was a movie, you’d see it be a struggle for them to all come together and then finally in the end, they would win it all by learning some lesson about love, and friendship, and believing in themselves, or some equivalent ridiculous crap. Probably with some quiet church mouse rising to the occasion and singing her heart out like never before. But this is TV, so more like Glee, or a dozen other shows, it would normally take a whole season of practicing, with some setbacks, etc., until the end, when in the last couple of episodes it would almost come together, maybe some dark betrayals, maybe some tears, and then a final win near the end. This show? They get ready for a show in 20 minutes of air time, including some rehearsals, go on stage, do their thing, and sing a song the music director never ever heard them sing before. He’s totally bewildered.

Bradley Whitford plays the music director. I loved him in West Wing. I liked him in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He blew me away in The Mentalist. Fantastic, creepy. But some of his comedic attempts leave me wanting less. He needs a really good comic partner, and the shows don’t tend to give him one. And he is TERRIBLE here. He’s funnier when he plays it straight, and terrible when he goes for humour.

Anna Camp plays the simple leader of the misfits, and piano player. A single mother, she’s all rainbow and sunshine. And while I haven’t seen her work much on True Blood, she’s okay here. Except when she sings. She’s not BAD, it’s just the whole choir is a totally different group when singing — like they all have two roles, one while talking and one while singing, and they’re not the same characters. And not in the sense of “let it go”. 

Other members of the choir are played by Tymberlee Hill, Will Greenberg (Abby’s), Shanice Williams, Rizwan Manji, Dominic Burgess, Desi Dennis-Dylan, and Geno Segers. They’re all good, but hard to tell if they will hold up over time.

But I’m lost. 21 minutes after the opening, they’ve had their first competition and it’s over, and they’ve invited the music guy to stay. But what’s the premise? Where does it go after the competition?

I have no idea. And I don’t really care either. There were a couple of mildly amusing lines, but that was it.

Posted in Television | Tagged 2019, fall, premiere, series, television | Leave a reply

Series premiere: The Unicorn

The PolyBlog
October 17 2019

The premise for The Unicorn was listed as recent widower re-enters the dating world. Umm…wait a minute, didn’t I see that last year? It was called Single Parents or something? Okay, let’s go with cancellation. Except I didn’t realize it was Walton Goggins as the widower. I absolutely loved him as Boyd Crowder on Justified. Sure, he’s been in lots of other shows, but none that I watched regularly. One of the elements in Justified that I loved was his comedic moments — playing straight while the world crashed around him. So I was definitely willing to give him a … Continue reading →

Posted in Television | Tagged 2019, fall, premiere, series, television | Leave a reply

Series premiere: Sunnyside

The PolyBlog
October 16 2019

So the basic premise that I had for Sunnyside was a city councilman finds a new calling or something with a group of immigrants applying for citizenship. It didn’t seem like it would have anywhere to really go, so I predicted cancellation. Now that I have watched the opening episode, cancellation was a generous prediction. I’m surprised the makers of the show are not in receivership with the studio asking for their money back. Kal Penn is the lead as the councilman and I generally love him. And no, not from Harold and Kumar. I liked him on How I … Continue reading →

Posted in Television | Tagged 2019, fall, premiere, series, television | Leave a reply

Series premiere: Nancy Drew

The PolyBlog
October 16 2019

Sigh. I love mystery stories, and series in particular. So when I saw that a new version of Nancy Drew was coming, I thought, “Cool beans.” I’d give it a go. I totally missed that it was on the CW, which would have given me a clue as to the type of show it would be. It is definitely not your parents’ Nancy Drew. This is more ND, by way of Stranger Things or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Yep, there’s a supernatural element. Here’s the skinny. Nancy Drew is in Horseshoe Bay, Maine, and has grown up solving mysteries. … Continue reading →

Posted in Television | Tagged 2019, fall, premiere, series, television | Leave a reply

Series premiere: Emergence

The PolyBlog
October 8 2019

Ever since Lost went big, various networks try to come up with the “viral” show that will hold viewers. Alcatraz. Time travellers. Time loops. Plane disappearances and reappearances. So not surprisingly, the networks are trying again this year. I already wrote about one (Series premiere – The I-Land) and why I passed. Emergence had a slightly different take on it, which was a plane crash of some sort with only one survivor. A girl. With supposed amnesia and not a scratch on her. But that wouldn’t be enough for the weird. Just before the plane crash, all the electronics in … Continue reading →

Posted in Television | Tagged 2019, fall, premiere, series, television | Leave a reply

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