Tag Archives: fall

Series premiere: Happy Together

The PolyBlog
November 12 2018

When I read the logline descriptions of CBS’ “Happy Together”, I knew it starred Damon Wayans and it was something about a troubled star going to live with a family. The details were a bit murky, and I thought it was a star bound for rehab who ended up living with his agent. It wasn’t much of a stretch to see Damon Wayans playing the star. And sight unseen, I predicted cancellation.

But, like with the other new shows, I wanted to watch the first episode to see what it was like. Imagine my surprise to see Damon wasn’t the wild out of control star. And he’s not the manager either. But here’s the thing…he wasn’t even there anywhere. I was looking for Damon, but it is Damon Wayans, Jr., not his dad. Oops. It was more like watching Carleton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air with half the nerd factor, and he plays the down-home husband who can be a stabilizing influence. He was quite good to watch. Awkwardly geeky, but not in The Big Bang Theory awkward way when they go hard-core geek.

Amber Stevens West plays the wife, Claire, and she is sparkling sweet. I liked her on Ghosted even though I wasn’t a regular watcher. And I liked her in the episode. My only real concern is around the plot…if both Claire and her husband Jake are so put together and have all the answers, how will their two characters grow in future episodes? They’re bright, functional, and relatively healthy in their approach to life. They might be a bit boring, but I would have loved to see more of them perhaps “dating” (like Penny and Leonard on Big Bang Theory) so they would have somewhere to go with their storylines too.

But the real surprise was Felix Mallard as superstar Cooper James. He is doing his best Leonardo DiCaprio impression but he is basically a nice guy experiencing a messed up life with starlets, papparazzi and parties. He crashes at his accountant’s house to escape the papparazii, and spoiler alert, ends up staying with them for a week before they kick him out and he goes back to his drama queen ex. The old boring married couple go and get him to come back when they see how unhappy he is, and he’s going to stay with them.

I was expecting a show with wild premises, and I got something almost sweet. Somewhere between the Prince of Bel Air and Two and a Half Men in premise, but it is very much an old style family sitcom. I don’t know if it has enough legs to make it, but I hope so. It would be nice to see something innocently wholesome make it. Unfortunately, the cynic in me is the one doing the predictions and I’m going to still go with CANCELLATION.

Series premiere: The Rookie

The PolyBlog
November 7 2018

ABC has their new show called “The Rookie” and I was prepared to love this show based on the little I knew about it. A 40 year old hero from a bank robbery decides to become a cop and join the LAPD. Hence he is their oldest rookie. It doesn’t scream hit to me, but with Nathan Filion aka Rick Castle playing the lead, I was in like Flynn to give it a shot.

The show unrolls, at first, exactly like I thought it would. There’s an opening “event”, in this case a bank robbery at the bank where the main character, John Nolan, is putting his divorce decree in a safety deposit box. He’s a good guy, and the divorce was amicable — they even stayed together 2 extra years so their son could go off to college first. He’s just a little lost now, wondering who he is and what he wants to do with his life. As he’s exiting the bank, two bank robbers come in and start robbing the place. One assaults the bank manager, John’s friend, and John reacts, drawing the attention of one of the robbers. Just as the robber is about to see the bank manager hit a silent alarm, John distracts him to get his attention back on him, and in the process, gets pistol-whipped. Then John sees cops pull up across the road, and to distract the robber, he draws his attention again. Just as the robber is about to shoot him, the cops save the day. Fast forward nine months and Nolan is joining the LAPD as the oldest rookie.

At this point, the story could go a lot of different ways. First, it could be a comedy of errors and blunders as he stumbles through being a rookie. It could even be an actual comedy. But it’s not, it’s a drama.

Second, it could go with the very traditional “story of the week”, the tried and true formula of Castle, Blue Bloods, pretty much every other procedural out there. But he’s a rookie, not a detective. So, no.

Third, it could focus on him as he learns the job, totally about him being a surprise superstar. Nope, not the way they went.

Fourth, it could focus on him as he struggles to learn the job, a “lesson of the week” type approach. This is kind of the premise, but they threw in two twists I wasn’t expecting.

John isn’t the only rookie — there are three in total, John, Jackson, and Lucy. And they are all assigned training officers. Plus the TOs have a boss who hates John, and that boss has a boss who likes the idea of John’s potential positive press. And so it is a LOT like Rookie Blue from a few years ago. No Missy, but that’s a good thing in my books.

But what I wasn’t expecting was the extra support. That’s John plus seven other key regulars, and while I assume Nathan Filion pulled in some big money, it was the other cast members that I was surprised by in terms of their pedigree.

Okay, I’ll start with Nathan on Team 1. I like him a lot. He was great on Castle, loved the show. However, while I watched Firefly, I’m more enamoured with his short-lived show after Firefly — Drive. So I was going to give this one a good try, even if the pilot was slow. Nope, I liked it, we’re all good. His training officer, Talia Bishop, is played by Afton Williamson, and I have only seen her in guest star roles, none of her larger series roles. She’s good, appropriately tough, and sits well in the role as a strong training officer.

Team 2 is a combination of rookie Lucy Chen, played by Melissa O’Neil who I loved on Dark Matter, and training officer Tim Bradford, played by Eric Winter who is a bit hit and miss for me (okay on Mentalist, meh on Rosewood).

Team 3 is rookie Jackson West, a gung-ho, squared away, energetic rookie played by Titus Makin Jr. (a few guest star roles that I’ve seen, but nothing memorable) and training officer Angela Lopez, played by Alyssa Diaz (some guest star roles that I’ve seen, a bunch of others that I haven’t).

At this point, I was just happy to see Filion supported by O’Neil. Then we meet the boss of the TOs that hates John…Sgt Wade Grey, played by Richard T. Jones. Jones was one of the few highlights on Wisdom of the Crowd, and I liked him all the way back to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or even farther back to Judging Amy. He makes a great cop, so happy to have him. And since he’s set up as a source of conflict for John, he’ll be around regularly. Watching, waiting to pounce.

But he has a boss too. A Captain Zoe Andersen, played by Mercedes Mason. I’ve seen her around in shows — NCIS: LA, 666 Park Avenue, even Castle. And I always like seeing her. She doesn’t have a big part in the pilot, so hard to tell for the future, but I’ll count her as a plus.

Actually, I’m counting all of them as a plus. I thought it was going to be mostly just Nathan Filion, newbie. But the story was a bit deeper than I expected in the opening, albeit not very strongly written, but it’s got some potential meat lined up for future EPs. I’m in. My original prediction was RENEWAL, and I’m sticking with that prediction. And I’ll be watching.

Series premiere: The Kids Are Alright

The PolyBlog
November 7 2018

I like to go in blind to my reviews, and all I knew about the show “The Kids Are Alright” was that it was on ABC, it took place in the 70s, and it was about a Catholic family. As the episode opens, you realize it is a combination of Eight is Enough (they have eight boys), Roseanne (blue collar family), The Wonder Years (voice narration), Young Sheldon (origin story), That 70s Show (yes, it is the 70s), etc. Kind of a weird hybrid.

The pilot has three plot lines running through it. First, you have to meet all the whole damn family because they are 10 living in a house for 4, and it’s cramped, chaotic, and noisy. Second, oldest son Lawrence is home from the seminary (you know, oldest son in Catholic family is reserved for the priesthood) but with long hair and sexual desires, he’s thinking about quitting. And third, narrator Timmy (not actually providing the voice of the narrator but the main viewpoint) wants to try out for Children’s Theatre against Mom’s wishes and instructions.

Sam Straley plays Lawrence and does a decent enough job with limited materials. Jack Gore plays the middle child Timmy and also does an okay job with limited material and screentime. Like I said, the scenes are VERY chaotic, quick cuts and takes. The parents keep it together for the plot, and Michael Cudlitz does a pretty good job as the dad. He has credits out the wazoo over the years, and although I recognized him from lots of shows (often playing a cop or a security guard), I had to check IMDB to figure out he was in Band of Brothers. A bit of a cliché for most of the episode until he has a serious scene with his oldest son while sitting in a car watching a rocket launch.

But the big surprise for me was Mary McCormack as the mom. For most of the episode, she’s doing wisecracks and one-liners, keeping it moving, no time to stop. And then she does stop. Twice in fact. Once to have a serious conversation with her husband about what she wants with her kids and their future, and once when she’s watching her son audition for a theatre production. I miss her on In Plain Sight back in the day (six years ago isn’t exactly back in the day, but you get my drift), and I REALLY liked her here. The comedy framework and family dynamic works for her, and when she stops to actually have a serious moment (or two), she totally shines.

Is it enough for me to watch? Not on your life. I originally predicted renewal, but there just isn’t enough in the episode for me to keep that prediction. I’m going to predict CANCELLED.

Series premiere: Legacies

The PolyBlog
November 6 2018

I got turned around somehow on the show Legacies. Not completely, just a little. I assumed it was more Buffy-ish i.e. lots of mortals trying to figure supernatural stuff out that was happening around them. I didn’t realize it was going to be following a triple threat — part witch, part vampire, part werewolf. Or, as one character calls her, a unicorn.

Here’s the premise. There’s a Hogwart’s-like school, or Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Children-like, if you prefer, where witches, vampires and werewolves learn to control their darker sides so they can blend in with the human population without killing them all. A budding werewolf is welcomed to the school, and when the school tries to mesmer his friend to forget everything, it doesn’t work. And the story begins.

I got turned around somewhere, as I said, as I thought it would be more Buffy-ish, but I also worried it was going to be like The Vampire Diaries (its original source material). I had watched a couple of episodes, but I had trouble dealing with the semi-permanent teen angst in the episodes I saw. So I was surprised to see that it was more immature angst, easily dismissed in the cast. I didn’t hate it to be honest. It’s hard to know which characters are going to be big, but there’s a bit of a hint, and so I’ll focus on them.

Danielle Rose Russell is the triple hybrid lead, Hope, and she’s pretty compelling. I didn’t see her in The Originals but she is both bright and cheery, despite her tortured soul role, and she’s fun to watch. Aria Shahghasemi plays the unmesmered “human”, Landon, and outside of his small part in the TV series Unforgettable, there’s nothing I’ve seen him in. Yet he seems eminently familiar as a young, almost tortured artist who knows too much. Again, compelling to watch, but I’d like to know his story pretty fast, otherwise it will get old. Kaylee Bryant sparkles as daughter #1 of the headmaster, and while I haven’t seen her in anything before, she does a decent job of playing the broken-hearted witch. Daughter #2, played by Jenny Boyd, is a bit all over the map, and it’s hard to tell if she’s intentionally that way or just bad acting. Peyton Smith plays the new werewolf, but it is TOTALLY confusing as he seems totally okay knowing that he’s a werewolf (of only a month?) and that there are witches and vampires too, oh my. They are friends with a vampire kid named M.G., played by Quincy Fouse of Logan-fame. All of them are watchable, but only the lead and Kaylee really shine.

The only really experienced player in the group is the headmaster, played by Matt Davis. He played the same character (Alaric) on The Originals as well as the Vampire Diaries. I don’t remember him that well from the few episodes that I have seen, but at least he’s not into the angst-love-fest. And with so many EPs under his belt, it was obvious he was comfortable with his character.

I originally predicted RENEWAL and I’ll stick with that prediction.

Series premiere: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

The PolyBlog
November 5 2018

As I’ve mentioned in other reviews of premieres, I try to go into the shows relatively blind. I don’t read other reviews, I don’t watch a bunch of trailers, I basically try to read the short descriptions ahead of time aka the logline for the shows and make my “sight unseen” prediction before settling in to be entertained. For The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix, I thought it was basically a reboot of the old light-hearted semi-comedy that Sabrina was before…no, not the movie with Harrison Ford in a bowtie, the TV series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, with Melissa Joan Hart, Caroline Rhea, Soleil Moon Frye, etc.

But for this one, I had three small “breaks” in my info blanket. First, I knew it was a spin-off of some sort from Riverdale. Second, I saw a video online that was being shared around of the cast of the previous series wishing the new Sabrina series regulars well, character to character. Which confirmed it as a semi-reboot. And third, I saw a friend discussing the show on FB with another friend. But they said it was scary / horror, somewhat like Buffy. I had thought “The chilling adventures of” was meant ironically, not literally.

So I had a better than normal idea of what to expect when I started watching. And yet I’m not sure all of the writers on the show got the memo. Sabrina’s mortal friends act as if they are on the old series, light-hearted, over-eager, innocent; Sabrina’s family in the non-muggle world seem more like bad Buffy, with over-acting and portends of doom. And Sabrina is somewhere in the middle. Way more “innocent” sounding than Buffy ever did.

I have to confess, when I heard it was like Buffy, I was excited. Now that I’ve seen the premiere, I feel more like I’m watching a hybrid of the old series and Sleepy Hollow. It certainly wasn’t scary in any way…sure, one woman died, but Sabrina never seemed like SHE was in any actual danger, unlike Buffy where she had to fight back.

Yet, I liked it enough that I’ll watch to the end. Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina may be drawing on her Mad Men experience, but since I never saw her before the premiere, she’s fun to see for the first time. Miranda Otta is a little too serious as Aunt Zelda — almost Narcissa Malfoy serious — and almost impossible to believe was once Eowyn from Lord of the Rings or even the neighbour’s wife in What Lies Beneath. People are frequently enamoured by Lucy Davis who plays the perhaps slightly ditzy Aunt Hilda, and while I liked her in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I’m not entirely sold on her here. Honestly, the sole bright spot for me after Shipka is Michelle Gomez as the teacher Mary Wardwell. I’ve seen her in occasional Dr. Who episodes but didn’t recognize her, and I was sure I’d seen her in other stuff. She’s delicious in this role, some real sense of happy malevolence about her. The rest of the cast? Meh.

Nevertheless, as long as the demon that is rising isn’t Moloch from Sleepy Hollow or DC Legends of Tomorrow, I’ll enjoy watching. It just won’t be very Buffy-like. Based almost solely on the fact that it’s a spin-off from Riverdale, I was willing to predict renewal. Now that I’ve seen Ep1, I’ll stick with renewal to season 2.