So I’m catching up on premieres from this weird COVID TV season that has no start or end, but I actually had heard of the show B Positive before I watched it. The premise is basically that a guy has renal failure, has no close family or friends, and needs a kidney donor. He is at a wedding to an old friend, when he runs into a girl he knew in high school. She’s wasted, finds out he needs a kidney, and volunteers to put her organ in a guy for a change, and they can be kidney buddies for life.
Doesn’t that premise just SCREAM amazing comedy?
No? Well neither does the show.
So let’s talk about the two stars
The main character, Drew, is played by Thomas Middleditch. If you recognize him, it’s probably from Silicon Valley, but most people are likely to just think he is generic thin, bearded geek from Central Casting. You find out he’s divorced with a 12yo kid, supposedly he’s a therapist, and he is about as clueless as anyone can be, so not sure what kind of therapist he is. Anyway, he cracks one-liners every two minutes, and if you felt you were watching maybe Howard from Big Bang Theory, you wouldn’t necessarily be too far off in Ep1.
The donor buddy, Gina, is played by Annaleigh Ashford (Masters of Sex), and she’s basically a train wreck. Lives in a basement pad, drives a bus for a retirement home to take patients to appointments, drinks anything, screws anything, does any drug available. She’s a space cadet generally, and when Drew realizes that she’s serious about the offer, he goes to take her up on it only to find out she doesn’t really remember offering. But hey, why not? Of course, she has to be off drugs, meds, and eat healthy for 3m, what could go wrong with that option? She is really good at playing the brainless bimbo, and she’s helping Drew because he’s the one guy she didn’t hook up with in high school. She isn’t smart enough to use the word redemption, but she likes the idea of helping.
So what’s the rest of the plot?
Well, it’s kind of hard to tell. Presumably we’ll meet his patients, and she has a lot of options with her bus pals. Maybe there’s a love interest eventually, if the show lasted that long. Or maybe they become roommates to help her eat healthy.
His ex-wife is played by Sara Rue, who I liked in The Rookie and Less Than Perfect, although I confess I liked her better as a love interest for Leonard on Big Bang Theory. She basically dumped Drew for being unengaged in their marriage, and has some biting lines to go with it, but hey, they have a daughter, so they have to make it work. And yet, nothing in the first episode about him considering asking her or the daughter for help. Doesn’t even tell them it’s happening. Okay, umm, that’s going to be hilarious I’m sure. The daughter is played by Izzy G and has no role in Ep1 other than occupy space. He obviously cares about her, but is completely disconnected. Oooh, more sources of amusement, right? Did I mention this is supposedly a comedy?
I am almost happy to say that the patients on the bus include Linda Lavin (Alice, Flo) and Bernie Kopell (Get Smart, Bewitched, Love Boat) but they were good for a line and gone.
The bottom line
I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t laugh either. But I have NO idea where the plot is going to go. It’s 3m to kidney donation and then what? There’s nothing to hang your hat on pass that point. Unless they’re living together or they work together, or they hook up. The kidney thing ain’t going to hold the show together. Plus he’s still in love with his ex-wife.
So my prediction is cancellation. Yet TV Grim Reaper is predicting renewal. Maybe it’s the COVID bounce, I don’t know, but I didn’t see much there to hold it together. Maybe people are desperate for something that isn’t binge-watching Netflix. But I won’t be watching. I’m out.
Back in the exciting times of the original show, “Walker: Texas Ranger”, you could tune in and see Chuck Norris as Cordell Walker, Texas Ranger, living the legend of Texas rangers everywhere. The story goes that a town asked for help from the Rangers for some upheaval in their town, and when the train arrived, there was only one Ranger. One riot, one Ranger. And each week, whatever happened and despite whatever help he had throughout the episode, Cordell usually ended up in a fight with multiple bad guys and used his martial arts to defeat, arrest, and book ’em. Occasionally, he lost his hat in the attack, but would always retrieve it. Lots of fight scenes, sometimes with shots of people flying here, there and everywhere either being thrown or diving great distances to tackle someone.
Plus, there was always the case of the week. Usually it took the form of someone seemingly innocent being either forced to be shady or just being shady, they’d get found out mostly by the smell test from Walker’s nose, and within 44 minutes, it was over. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Meet a new Walker
While the original Walker had everything together, the new Walker’s life is a complete mess. In addition to having a dead wife, he’s also been MIA in his kid’s life for the last year. Now he’s back, but his two kids struggled without him, and he really doesn’t know how to be a father. Which isn’t a surprise, he didn’t know how to be a father before he left either. He was terrified of being alone with his family even, a backstory that made no sense with the wife he was with, but hey, whatever. She gets dead, he hides in undercover work, now the show starts.
While he is still supposed to be some cop superstar, you wouldn’t know it from the episode. The cop work is almost non-existent in Ep1, perhaps because they spend so much time introducing everyone around town including multiple family members, coworkers, some kid who was apparently undercover or knew something or whatever. It wasn’t even clear, but it was the big breakthrough in the 2 minute long case of the week.
I get that it is Ep 1, and there’s a lot to “introduce”. But you kind of need a cop show to include some actual casework. Meh.
Walker himself is played by Jared Petecki of Supernatural fame, and lots of people will line up to watch just cuz it’s him. Me? I’ve only made it through S1 of Supernatural and I don’t find him much of an actor. Strong and silent doesn’t go very far if you don’t have presence, and I didn’t see much in any of the scenes in Ep 1. What I kept thinking for most of the episode was how great it would be if it was Timothy Olyphant, if it was the U.S. Marshals, and if I had more episodes of Justified to watch. Olyphant was just as screwed up, but at least he had presence. Meh.
The supporting cast
Somebody is going to trim some budget really soon. The cast is HUGE.
Walker, sure. Obvious.
He has a partner? Check. Lindsey Morgan from The 100, looking WAY too small and too earnest to be a Texas Ranger badass. A Mexican American woman Ranger, sorry. And HE’s the one having problems at work. Uh huh.
He has a boss? Check. Coby Bell, formerly of The Gifted, and I didn’t mind him in it. His character bounced around a lot with the writer’s lack of direction, but he was fine then, and he seems comfortable here.
Let’s expand to his family. Father, mother, brother, son, daughter. I probably missed someone in there. And in Ep 1 alone, the writers made sure to give him a scene with ALL of them one on one. Why? I have no idea. But do we really need to meet all FIVE family members? Mitch Pileggi plays the dad, and I like him in just about anything, even if the character sucks. I liked him in X-Files obviously, but also Day Break (1 season), an episode of Cold Case, Stargate: Atlantis, an episode of Castle, and even Blue Bloods. Maybe Supergirl blew chunks, but hey, I like the guy in almost everything. So am I happy to see him here? Nope, he has nothing to do.
Molly Hagan plays the mom, and I confess, I love her. I do. I have ever since she was the voice of compassion on Herman’s Head way back in ’91. Over the years, I have liked her when she popped up on Star Trek shows, Early Edition, JAG, Monk, NCIS, Eli Stone, Cold Case, and Castle. I always do this mental dance, “What’s her name, and where did I see her last” before remembering Herman’s Head. So, sure, I’m glad she’s here, just like Mitch, but as far as I can tell, her role is to shout at the family or have deep meaningful discussions while she rewires a lamp or something. Yawn. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to watch her rewire a lamp any day and twice on Sunday. But it isn’t exactly great television.
Moving on, we come to the angry daughter. Violet Brinson plays Stella, but why they gave her a name, I don’t know, she could literally just be angry daughter for the whole episode. Her brother, Arlo, is played by Kale Culley and either of one may be master thespians, but we’ll never know based on the 45 seconds of screen time they have to be “angry daughter” and “anxious to please son”. And neither have anything to do with the cases. Why do I care?
Last but not least is the loving brother. The one who stepped in as substitute Dad while Walker was off undercover. He wants Walker to focus on being a dad and forget everything else. Why? Because he obviously had something to do with the wife’s death a year before, or at least knew something, and hasn’t said. It’s like he walked straight out of central casting as the brother who will turn out to have been between a rock and a hard place and knew whatever got the wife killed, but is REALLY sorry about it all. He’s played by Keegan Allen, and I hope he has something else for his character to do other than be a future “fifth business” reveal. His job, dun dun dun, is as an ADA, so we should theoretically be seeing a lot of him.
And I’m not done. Wait, there’s more. If you act now, we’ll throw in MORE supporting cast members who have nothing to do with Ep 1! We have the partner’s boyfriend (just to make it clear there’s no romance going on with his partner, that would be crazy, right?). Jeff Pierre is the actor and remember that name as you are going to see it in the credits. Maybe not on screen for longer than 30s, but you’ll see it. And there’s some chick at a bar that he knows played by Odette Annable, his dead wife (played by his real-world wife Genevieve Padalecki), and his daughter’s friend (Gabriela Flores). But wait, there’s more. I’m sure we’ll get to meet the kid who was afraid at a pottery store, the daughter’s teachers, maybe her dentist, who will no doubt turn out to be an old lover of Walker’s who’s in a bit of trouble that erupts just as his daughter is in for a cleaning. Holy crap, there are PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. Oh, wait, no they have farm animals, there should be room for a hot female vet to stare lovingly at the father while the kids get jealous.
And nobody in any of the cast is really DOING anything for the entire episode.
Okay. Calm myself. It’s not like the original Walker was some master class in acting. They showed up, caught the bad guys, kicked some butt, spouted a few words like “drugs are bad” and cashed their cheques. I’m confident this group can do it too. Just as long as the writers remember that it’s a cop show at some point.
But that last part is the weak link. The show’s creator, Anna Fricke, notched her belt with shows like Everwood, Men in Trees, Being Human. I would love to be confident that the show will find its footing in action, not relationship angst. I just don’t see it being her go-to scene. Now, if she wants to write about him moving to Alaska to find himself after his wife dies, taking his two kids to live with him in a small town, I might be able to follow that one.
What the heck. It’s a coin toss for me for renewal. The brand is solid, and if they can do case-of-the-week FAST, the brand for Walker + the love for Patecki should be renewal gold. If they turn it into Everwood, Texas Style, me thinks no one will find it. Because the people showing up for Patecki and Walker are not looking for Everwood. I’ll go with Renewal, reluctantly. And I’ll watch for another episode or two to see if it goes ANYWHERE.
There’s a new comedy that started this month called Mr. Mayor. It’s about Michael J. Fox working for the city…errr, no wait, that was Spin City from 1996. Right, no this one stars Brandon Michael Hall as a hip-hop artist who runs for mayor as a publicity stunt…err, nope, that was The Mayor from 2017. Wait, which one is this again?
Mr. Mayor
Oh, right, THIS comedy about a mayor is about a rich business-type with a teenage daughter who doesn’t think he knows how to work, so he runs for Mayor to impress her. Uh-huh. The show opens with his first day on the job, having no clue what he’s doing. Gee, that sounds like the other ten shows about idiots becoming mayor, or finding new meaning as a councilperson, or blah blah blah.
So, let’s get to the good stuff. This one stars Ted Danson. Cheers. Becker. Curb Your Enthusiasm. The Good Place. Okay, maybe not all a laugh riot. So let’s go back. Remember Cheers? Okay, it’s kind of like Sam Malone was a rich business type but became mayor. Not as stupid but still a lovable goof. Yeah, okay, it’s not selling me either.
And I have to confess. Most of the time, I find Danson watchable but far from funny. He does a great reaction to impossible situations, the deer-in-the-headlights type double take, and you want to root for him, but the older he gets, the smarmier he starts to look like the playboy Sam Malone rather than the one who tries. Is he awesome? Nope. Watchable. So not an obvious “goodbye” but not an obvious “gotta watch” either.
The supporting cast
The supporting cast so far is made up of a rival, three worker bees and a daughter. Let’s start with the worker bees.
Vella Lovell plays his social media-savvy person who helped get him elected and is now repulsed by what she has done, but likes the health care coverage. The only thing I’ve seen her in before is Crazy Ex-GF, where I lasted most of an episode before bailing. She’s okay, but nothing to write home about. Her partner in crime is played by Michael Cabellon, the political assistant who will run the mayor’s day and advise him what’s next. I’ve seen him in a couple small parts in other shows, and he has a bit of presence, but his character hasn’t gelled yet to know what his role will turn out to be. Straight man? Funny one-line commentator? In-the-know disgusted looker? Who knows. Meh.
Bobby Mynihan plays the acting deputy comms director and the character is pretty much clueless about everything. He doesn’t care about the politics, just keeping the train running. For the acting though, I love the portrayal. Quirky without being over the top, more understated, and if the show were to last, could be a huge breakout position. I didn’t recognize him from Saturday Night Live as I haven’t watched in years, nor oddly enough, as the voice of Chet from Monsters Inc. Nor from the role of Me, Myself and I as the middle version, but I didn’t watch the show long enough to register anyone other than John Larroquette being terrible in it.
So two balls and then a base hit.
Enter the daughter played by Kyla Kennedy. I was surprised you actually got to see the daughter at school, running for Class President, even if only briefly. Maybe she’ll actually have a role other than original catalyst, and she does have a couple of good straight scenes. I saw her briefly in Speechless, but it’s on my binge list and haven’t got back to it. I’d give her a nod for his one, didn’t suck.
And then we come to the other heavy hitter…Drum roll please….Holly Hunter. When I saw that Holly Hunter was in the show as a political rival who tried to run and didn’t make it on to the ballot, and now is running around as a councilwoman with a chip on her shoulder, I thought, “Well, that’s a bonus.”
Raising Arizona? Meh. Broadcast News? Wow. The Firm? Okay. The Incredibles? I like her voice for the mom, Elastigirl. And then there’s Saving Grace. Unusual. Riveting. Amazing performance throughout.
And then there’s Mr. Mayor. Crickets. I don’t want to sling mud, she’s not horrendous or anything, she’s still Holly Hunter and she knows how to act, but beyond that? There’s nothing about her to love.
The greater crime
So I have Ted being watchable, Holly being okay, the daughter decent, the two staffers meh and one possible breakout performance. Not screaming “watch me”, right?
And yet, I could forgive all of that for one small requirement, particularly in the aftermath of 2020. Make me laugh.
I don’t want much. I’ll settle for some softballs. A titter here, a titter there? Is that too much to ask for?
Apparently, it is. It says the show was created by Tina Fey with the idea of a spin-off from 30 Rock before being retooled as a whole new show, and maybe it would have worked the other way, but it doesn’t work here. TV Grim Reaper checks the stats and it would be foolish to bet against his predictions or Ted Danson. Reaper says “likely renewal” so far? I say, “No chance”. I’d cancel before EP10. I’m so far out, I can’t even see LA from where I am.
I’ve mentioned previously that I like to try out new shows every fall, almost like a fantasy sports league for TV shows. I have my favorites that return, but I try just about everything and review it. An episode of this, an episode of that, sometimes I find magic. Most of the time I don’t. But this past year has been a dumpster fire for TV shows, along with everything else. So I didn’t really track new shows. I gave Connecting a try for about 5 minutes, which is about how long it lasted before being cancelled too.
Call Her Kat
But in passing the other day, I saw a reference to the fact that Mayim Bialik had a new show, which I had not seen mentioned or advertised previously. So I gave it a go tonight. For those of you who saw her on Big Bang Theory, you likely saw an episode or two where she was fantasizing out loud, acting like a princess or queen, with a tiara as a running joke. Well, think of that with about 30 minutes per fantasy.
Let me back up a second. The show starts with her explaining what the show’s premise is. No, I’m serious. She looks at the camera, says she bought a café and gave it a cat theme, hence “Call Me Kat” as the name of the show, and she plays a 39-year-old single girl trying to make it through life. It is supposedly a comedy.
But is filmed with a narrator track that is literally Mayim turning to the camera to explain what she’s thinking. Like Herman’s Head without the head, it is relentless. She has a conversation with a would-be boyfriend, and it is 2 lines by her, 1 line by him, narration by her about what she’s thinking, 1 line of response by her, laugh, more narration. The show is shot like a play, with all the actors coming out at the end of the episode and waving.
In a year that included Connecting, I am hard-pressed to say which is a stupider premise. There is ZERO rhythm to the show because it STOPS EVERY 10 SECONDS to explain what is going on. Except I’M ALREADY WATCHING, I know what’s going on. I feel like I’m watching with closed captioning on. Or you know those people who have to explain jokes that everyone already gets? Yeah, 30 minutes of THAT. OMG.
If they got rid of the constant narration, or at least made it Doogie Howser-style diary or Sex In The City writing entries, you could live with it. Something to set the scene, something to end the Ep? I don’t know. I thought she was okay as Blossom and I loved her on BBT. But she’s almost unwatchable here. Like every five seconds, she’s nudging in the ribs to say, “Get it? Get it?”.
The supporting cast
The rest of the cast is a bit one-dimensional, but I’ve only seen 3 EPs (and will only ever see 3 EPs!), maybe they’ll grow in the future, but I doubt it. Her mother is played by Swoosie Kurtz (Pushing Daisies, Sisters), and while I have seen her in a few things where I didn’t mind her over-the-top acting (Pushing Daisies, Sisters), my favorite scene from her of all time is an outtake from Liar, Liar with Jim Carrey (as part of a yelling match in court, she calls him an over-actor!). Here? Meh.
Leslie Jordan is fun to watch in limited duration, and he is playing virtually the same character he did in The Cool Kids (the Vicki Lawrence show) — a bit of a smarter version of Woody or Coach from Cheers, but with similar lines. Leslie works in the café with Randi, played by Kyla Pratt. She’s young, innocent but brash, black with some attitude and can be the young female to guide Kat in the world of dating. In the right show (and she’s been in a LOT of shows over the years), she might actually even shine.
The other major cast member is Cheyenne Jackson as the would-be boyfriend who is an old friend that Kat used to have a crush on, they’re hanging out, but he’s hung up on a French girl who makes fantasy appearances to talk to Kat in her monologues. But I have no idea if he’s any good because literally he says one line and then immediately the narration jumps on his downbeat to intrude. He seems down-to-earth, a good guy, etc., and I suspect she’s destined to long for him for the life of the show.
The bottom line
And that show life would likely be 8-10 episodes in a normal year, and that would be generous. I have NO idea the longevity in a COVID season. It’s on Fox though, and TV Grim Reaper is predicting likely renewal. Sorry, Mayim, I’m out. I hope I’m wrong and the show goes on for years, but I won’t be watching. My prediction is officially cancellation.
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.
