Tag Archives: premiere

Series premiere: Gone

The PolyBlog
June 14 2019

For the show Gone, all I heard about it initially was that it was about an ex-victim who survived an abduction and was now helping find new abductees. Based on that description, it was a coin toss for my prediction, but I had to err on the downside and predict cancellation. Now that I’ve seen the first episode, the coin toss was probably the right metaphor.

The show is a bit different than I imagined. The main character is a girl named Kick…she was abducted and held by a predator for five years, and given a new name. When she’s rescued in flashback at the start of the episode, the FBI swoops in to save her, arrest the guy pretending to be her dad, and her mom runs upstairs and commits suicide. Kick isn’t the girl who was abducted anymore, or the girl from before the abduction, so she creates a new name aka Kick. Fast-forward 15 years and she’s a hard-core fighting machine. She teaches self-defense, is an expert marksman with a handgun, and practices picking locks for fun just to ensure she’s never locked in anywhere again. The old FBI agent who rescued her comes knocking, asking her to join a task force that hunts abductees, and the first case is a missing little girl. The agent thinks that Kick can help because she knows how predators think. She helps them figure out a bunch of stuff that the task team doesn’t know how to instinctively figure out on their own, and they’re off and running. Along for the ride is a young FBI agent who isn’t sure about Kick, another female FBI agent who was part of the original team that rescued Kick, and a friend of Kick’s, another abduction survivor who is also a hacker. There are lots of other people running around but mainly it’s the five of them.

Let’s see…a fast turn-around team that specializes in missing people aka people who are “gone”. Wait…wasn’t there another show about missing persons? No, not the one based on 1-800-Missing with the girl with the visions but the FBI task team that specialized in missing persons. You know, “Without a Trace”?

When the EP started, I had some high hopes. The main character, Kick, is played by Leven Rambin, and she is great. She looked familiar, but was having trouble placing her…maybe The Tomorrow People, I thought, while perusing IMDB until I saw her listed as the girlfriend Riley back in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I like her, I’d watch. Plus I like her character, some interesting threads there.

The old FBI agent is played by a very muted Chris Noth…I hated him as Mr. Big on Sex and the City, loved him back in the day on Law & Order. Doesn’t have a lot to do in the EP, but he’s a comfortable presence. Meanwhile, the young FBI agent, Bishop, is played by Danny Pino aka Scotty Valens from Cold Case that I’ve been binging. He’s usually decent, occasionally not, but again, another comfortable presence. And no hint of the sliminess / fast-shaking from the Cold Case character, so a more honorable character to like. He’s got the tortured past that every character must have, even if we don’t find out what it is in this episode. And sure, he’s likely to be a love interest for Kick over the longer term.

What I found a bit odd was that another Cold Case alumni, Tracie Thoms, aka Kat Miller plays the extra FBI agent that helped rescue Kick back in the day. She doesn’t have much to do in EP1, just like Noth, but another comfortable presence. Equally, Andy Mientus doesn’t have much to do as Kick’s fellow survivor, aka hacker James, and I didn’t recognize him from his role of villain-of-the-week on Flash (as the Pied Piper). Okay, nothing to write home about.

And the lack of anything to write home about is part of the problem. The EP was okay, but I didn’t feel there was a lot of oomph going on outside of a sparring session early on. So I was on the fence about “renewal” or not. Except there’s a small glitch in the matrix. The show came up on my radar as a supposedly new show, but it turns out it’s an OLD show. It was on in 2017-18, lasted a single season, and was *cough, cough* gone.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, easy to know how that one comes out. But the quirk in the matrix made me try to recreate the feed that gave me the show in the first place. Why would it tell me about a 2-year old show that is already gone?

I found another show, a TV series, for 2019 listed as in development. Not likely it. Another one was about a man teleporting around the earth, but it’s a movie, not a TV show. And then I found a 2018-19 show that was originally called Gone and was renamed Save Me, about a man looking for his missing daughter. None of them interest me.

So I’ll take my quirk and predict it will be cancelled (since it already was). Now I just have to decide if I’ll watch the other 11 EPs for a dead series.

Series premiere: Flack

The PolyBlog
June 14 2019

When I heard about the new show, Flack, all I knew was it was something to do with publicity and had Anna Paquin in it. Based on that, I thought, “Didn’t we see this a few months ago with Piper Perabo?” And some other versions too? I predicted cancellation. Now that I’ve seen the first episode, I’m going to go with the same prediction, but for different reasons.

The show kicks off with Anna’s character, Robyn, totally dropped in the crapper. Her client is in a hotel room with a gay sex partner, they’ve been doing heavy drugs, and the partner is unconscious on the floor. She’s there trying to revive him while the client is freaking out. Drugs everywhere, alcohol everywhere, the two guys are naked, and Robyn is keeping it all under control and handling the situation. In other words, demonstrating she has her sh** together.

Then you see the rest of her life — she’s dealing with the anniversary of her mother’s suicide that her and her sister feel guilty about, her sister has the husband and 2.2 kids and serves as contrast to her crazy life, and you see her flitting through the day while her sister goes back to dealing with kids. Another client is about to be outed for having an affair, even though his reputation is squeaky-clean family guy, and Robyn works through whatever helps the client, even proposing a distraction by having the wife go for a mammogram and give the press a different story to write about.

Meanwhile, Robyn has sex with a client, is doing drugs all day, and at the end of the long hectic day, you find out she has a husband or boyfriend at home who works in an ER and is apologetic about having smoked some weed at the house. So obviously they don’t know much about each other’s life, meanwhile he’s trying to get her pregnant and is following her ovulation cycle on his phone.

The show is an absolute sh** show. Robyn’s life is a depressing mess; her sister’s is a cliché; her boss is a nutbar; and she has a close friend at work who is superficial and flighty/flaky. The only two people in the entire show the least bit interesting are (a) the sister, not for the character but rather the actress (Genevieve Angelson), and (b) an innocent intern who can act as the fish out of water foil to see how she reacts to the chaos at the firm.

But I don’t care about any of them, or what happens to them, or what doesn’t. It’s just depressing.

The only reason to watch is if you like train wrecks.

Series premiere: The InBetween

The PolyBlog
May 31 2019

When I saw the description for The InBetween last fall, basically that it is a detective show with a person who can talk to the dead, it sounded like Medium and The Ghost Whisperer, or a few other shows in the genre. Most of those shows went for several seasons, and it was a guess but I went with RENEWAL. Now that I’ve seen the first episode, I’m going to predict CANCELLATION, which is disappointing as I enjoyed the show.

In most of these shows, there is one of two things that is part and parcel of episode one. First, there’s the genre where the person is normal and something BIG AND TRAUMATIC happens in episode one, and BAM! They see dead people. Second, or more alternatively, there is a flashback to either a traumatic experience or a lot of backstory to explain how they have dealt with their abilities in their life, usually with the plot device that they’ve always tried to avoid or deny their power, and now something is forcing them to confront it and deal with it. So BAM! They see dead people.

Then, it moves to GHOST OF THE WEEK.

The InBetween doesn’t do that. The premise is that Cassie, a mid-20s-ish woman, has visions. She sees things and she tells her gay adoptive father who’s a police detective. And the visions help him with his cases. In the opener, she sees a woman in a walk-in freezer, lying on a table dead, with her eyes removed. She thinks it is the case he’s working, but when she sees a photo of a missing girl, it’s not the same person. Hop, skip and a jump later, and they find out it is all somehow related. Eventually her visions lead to the bad guy, case semi-closed. However, in the episode, Cassie is also dealing with a young girl who spends time with her and hangs out, even though she’s actually the ghost of a murder victim. The girl’s grandfather went to prison for her murder, and Cassie is helping the little girl come to terms with her death. After she gets a bit of revenge on her pedophile Grandpa.

But the difference in the show is not only what will likely kill it but also what I like about it. The tone and pacing is totally different. Almost a British show, slower, less action. And while I spent the show waiting for the exposition dump of her backstory, it never came. Instead, you get a feel for her almost phoning it in, she’s not actively part of the case or anything. She just tells the detectives what she sees in her occasional visions and they take it from there. It seems almost like she’s passive about it all.

The girl with visions, Cassie, is played by Harriet Dyer. I haven’t seen her before, but she does a decent job. A couple of times, I thought it was Amy Adams but a bit younger. Her adoptive father, Tom, is played by Paul Blackthorne, who I know from watching Arrow. Yet, I never much cared for him on Arrow. I liked him better back on The Gates. It’s hard to get used to the change of accent here, but I like his acting much better.

One small sour note is Justin Cromwell as a new partner for Tom, just moved to town from LA to get a fresh start. You know there’s some sort of big backstory for him, and sure enough, he goes to visit some girl in a coma at the end of the episode. But he’s also a bit inconsistent throughout the episode — skeptical, believer, passionate friend, solid or flaky partner. There’s even a scene where he goes to see Connie, gets in trouble, and goes back AGAIN to see her on his own. Inconsistent character all around.

But the EP ended with a twist. One of the sick bad ghosts pays her a visit at the end of the EP and says they need to talk. I’ll tune in to see, but I don’t think the pace or plotting will garner renewal. Too bad, it has a nicely different feel to the show.

Series premiere: The Village

The PolyBlog
May 11 2019

All I noted for The Village was “community building in Brooklyn” (the building is called The Village) and I predicted CANCELLATION. I watched the first episode, and the prediction stands. Which is a bit unfortunate as I think there might be some interesting stories in there. Just none with enough “hook” to be gritty. A collection of soft short stories, and not enough meat. This is the Village, these are their stories.

Story 1 involves a mother and daughter, Sarah and Katie. Sarah is a single mother, working hard as a nurse, and summarizes her life basically as “hard” and “happy” being not mutually exclusive. She is played by Michaela McManus, and I like her in just about everything I’ve seen her in…SEAL Team (I only saw her in Ep1), Aquarius (also Ep1 only), Awake (a short 13 episodes), and L&O: SVU (22 Eps although I didn’t watch the whole run). I love her here. She’s the hot girl next door with a few miles on her that everyone is destined to fall for in almost every show. Her daughter is played by Grace Van Dien, and while a stretch (23 year old playing mid-teen), she does a decent job in the pilot. Of course, no relationship would be complete without her being pregnant plus a teenage activist.

Story 2 involves an immigrant from Iran with a 7-year-old son. She’s illegal, and arrested by ICE for deportation in the pilot, putting in jeopardy what to do about her son. Moran Atias plays Ava, and only has one or two scenes, but does alright. Her son is more a plot device than anything, but Ethan Maher does okay. They’re helped by Jerod Haynes as Ben, a police officer who lives in the building. There’s a hint of greater ties to the woman and her kid, but it isn’t entirely clear.

Story 3 is the old guy story. His name is Enzo, and he’s living in a nursing home where Sarah works. His lifelong friend just passed away, and he wants to leave. He convinces his only relative to let him live with him in the building, even though the kid is in law school, has a girlfriend, and only a 1BR apartment. Dominic Chianese plays Enzo, and he’s a long way from playing Junior on The Sopranos. I like him here better. 🙂 Daren Kagasoff plays Gabe, and he also gets roped into helping Ava with her deportation hearing. See how this works? Everyone in the building gets the “Village experience”. Everyone helping everyone, cuz, well, it takes a village. He is solid in every scene, it just isn’t clear what his role or character are going to be.

Story 4 is about the owners of the building, Frankie Faison as Ron and Lorraine Toussaint as Patricia/Trish. Ron’s character is a little too positive to be realistic…he’s like a kindly old Santa Claus, but he also seems a bit over familiar with everyone. Creepy, to be honest. Toussaint isn’t my favorite actress…she was okay on Into the Badlands; I almost hated her as Mama Rosewood on Rosewood; she was tolerable on Forever; and I would have been fine without her on Friday Night Lights or Saving Grace. Similarly for Crossing Jordan. Not surprisingly, I don’t like her here. Nor do I like her storyline, and for the same reason. She has cancer, hasn’t told anyone, and when she’s trying to act by herself, she has a very limited range. When she does the girl-buddy thing, I can tolerate her; beyond that, I want to skip every scene she’s in.

Story 5 would be make or break for me. Warren Christie plays injured soldier Nick “just Nick” Porter. An IED took out part of his leg, snipers killed his team members, a dog saved his life. He’s home, so to speak, and everyone he meets thanks him for his service, which is freaking him out. I don’t recognize him although he’s been in a few shows that I’ve watched, always as a guest star though and I guess not a big one. He’s pretty damn solid — happy scenes, tortured soul, freaking out because a light popped behind him, etc. Super-excited to get his companion dog back. I’m not sure how I feel about the very last scene — and it’s a spoiler. He’s Katie’s dad, and she doesn’t know. I like the premise of the connection to be forged. But it’s a bit trite, not to mention the whole drama of “they didn’t tell her” for the future.

Unfortunately, I just don’t care about stories 2, 3 and 4. Not really. 1 and 5 have some potential. The weird part is that I don’t think I would stick around for Ep 2 to see what happened, but the decision is already made for me…the series didn’t make it to Season 2 as of this week, so not much point in watching now.

Series premiere: In the Dark

The PolyBlog
May 11 2019

When I saw the description for In The Dark, about a blind witness helping solve a murder, I was expecting one of two things. First, something saccharine sweet like Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye where a person with a disability solves crimes. Or second, something like an accomplished but sheltered blind person who hears something or smells something, like the movie Copycat with Sigourney Weaver as an agoraphobe. And based on the description, it didn’t sound like much of a premise.

I was not expecting a blind woman who is a complete mess. Borderline alcoholic. Working for her parents company, barely doing anything to earn her keep, living with a motherly roommate. And bopping between meaningless sex with random guys and sitting on a cement block in an alley talking to a drug dealer who saved her life when she was mugged one time.

And while part of it is challenging to watch — there are a lot of cringeworthy scenes — it is obviously way more realistic than, say, Daredevil. Matt Murdoch she is not. She does manage to find her friend’s body in the alley, but by the time she gets the cops to come, the body is gone. And since she is the only one who “saw” it, so to speak, nobody is too interested. Plus there are texts saying he’s just off with some girl. Except she knows she found his body, and she knows that the texts aren’t from him. She tries to get the police involved, but with little evidence, they’re not interested. She talks to his drug-dealing brother, also not interested. Until she proves he doesn’t have his phone with him, so whoever is texting, it ain’t him. Over the course of the first episode, she starts to sober up and look into the death.

Perry Mattfeld plays Murphy, the messed-up blind person, and while I haven’t seen her in anything before, she is pretty great to watch. She has some touching scenes offering advice to a father of a young girl who is blind, and it shows a sweet side to her with the young girl herself. None of it is done saccharine sweet, just “normal” conversation, and it sings onscreen.

The supporting cast doesn’t have much to recommend them. Brooke Markham plays Jess, the roommate, and does okay. Never seen her before, and may never see her again, but she’s okay. Kathleen York plays her mother, Joy, and she has some of the worst scenes in the episode — partly her character, partly her bad acting. I’ve seen her in lots of character-of-the-week roles, and I almost never like her. Which is weird, because when I first saw her, she was playing Congresswoman Wyatt on the West Wing, and she was kind of decent. I think I just hate her when she tries to play emotional drama scenes. Anyway, I digress. Derek Webster plays her father (hey, Murphy was adopted, don’t worry about ethnicities here), and he was decent although without much to do. I liked him in a small part way back on Revolution, so was nice to see him again. Keston John plays the drug-dealing cousin, and does alright being somewhat mysterious and menacing, which is amusing since he doesn’t know quite how to deal with the blind girl who can’t be physically intimidated with a look. Morgan Krantz plays a douchey worker at the company, and I’m hoping he turns out to be the bad guy somehow.

One small other bright spot is Rich Sommer as the cop. I loved him as Harlan on Elementary, and his long list of short duration credits on shows is almost always a decent appearance. However, one downside is that they gave him a blind daughter, so he ends up chewing up some “hey now is the time to learn about blind people’s lives” dialogue. A bit more edge would be great, but I’m not hopeful.

And as much as I enjoyed it, mostly because they didn’t go with the normal super sweet or champion blind person clichés, it is also not great enough to change my prediction. Unless it gets really gritty, I’m going to stick with CANCELLATION.