Ever watch a show and think, “Man, they are trying way too hard to say IT’S A SITCOM!”? If you haven’t, try watching Ep1 of Fam, and see what it is like when actors show they’re acting instead of inhabiting the characters. It’s a little better than an SNL skit, but not by a lot. I predicted CANCELLATION and I’m sticking with that.
The basic gist of the show is a yuppie-ish couple, mixed races (how diverse!), just got engaged and are ready to start planning their life together. Enter the bride’s younger sister who is 16, just dropped out of school, about to live with a drugdealing boyfriend. Dad is hopeless, so much so that the bride told her groom he was actually dead. Sis asks her younger sis to move in, let’s make this blended family work. There’s no actual plot anywhere in here, it is more like someone threw a bunch of buzzwords into a hat like “blended family”, ethnic diversity, clueless Dad, reformed sister, bad sibling, etc., and came up with a show that fit the demographic hopes of a marketing strategy gone wrong.
Nina Dobrev plays the older sister/bride, and while she spent 8 years on The Vampire Diaries, none of them seemed to prepare her to act in a sitcom. But bad acting from Degrassi might have doomed her. She’s cute, she has a fun haircut, and she delivers her saccharine sweet lines with gusto, but it’s 2019. A little grit wouldn’t hurt. Tone Bell plays her husband-to-be, and he is the nerdiest black character since Carlton on Fresh Prince. He constantly tries to be funny, but he only shines when he’s serious.
The supporting cast is just plain odd. Odessa Adlon plays the street-wise 16-year-old, beer-drinking, dry humping, half-sister, who seems more like an innocent 12 year old. The street would eat her up in a heartbeat. The parents of the groom are played by Sheryl Lee Ralph (easily recognizable, but hard to place — had to go all the way back to It’s A Living to figure it out) and Brian Stokes Mitchell (equally familiar, all the way back to Trapper John, M.D. to spot him though). But their scenes are all written as one straight line, one comedic commentary line, one straight line, one comedic commentary line, etc.
And finally Gary Cole plays the clueless father of the bride. First described as a narcissistic psycho, Cole plays him like a clueless lovable goof. WTF? Sure, he’s not a great dad, but a narcissistic psycho you cut out of your life? Hardly. And it pained me to hate the character. I like Cole in a lot of things — Suits, Chuck, and more importantly, as VP Bingo Bob on the West Wing. Yet he’ll always be Jack Killian of Midnight Caller to me. Sigh.
So it’s not great casting. It’s not great plotting. It’s not great writing. But even if some of that could be fixed, it is supposed to be a sitcom. You know, FUNNY. Not a single funny line that wasn’t tramped on, mashed or overridden through the whole episode. Not one laugh.
And that? You can’t forgive. Hard pass. “Fam” might be the new “family”, but only if “can” is the new “cancellation”.
The premise for Sex Education was so bizarre, I had to give it a CANCELLATION prediction. The basic premise is that a student who is the son of a sex therapist starts offering sex advice to students for money. He’s kind of repressed himself, never been able to masturbate even, so the idea of him being the “expert” seems ludicrous — until the local jock has performance anxiety and Otis talks him through it. A “bad girl” in the school sees what he can do, is impressed, and figures out it can be a money-maker. Hence, the premise — sex therapy for students. All based on his knowledge gleaned from his mom’s weirdness and openness with sex.
My initial expectation is that this would be some weird sitcom idea, and while dealing with sex, it would probably have euphemisms for a lot of stuff. Nope, it’s Netflix, there’s nudity (mostly female), sex scenes, and while there are some comedic moments of the light RomCom variety, the show is relatively a quirky meta-drama where the first hour seems almost like a 1980s John Hughes movie with sex. The first “client” is a jock with a big penis, son of the school’s headmaster, and he is unable to climax. Girlfriends talk, he tries Viagra, Otis talks him through it, he can perform, and WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU OTIS, a business idea is born. The initial scenes were incredibly awkward as you don’t know who ANYONE is, including the couple struggling at the beginning (the jock tries to fake his climax), or who the guy is that shows up for breakfast after shagging Otis’ mom the night before (she’s into variety, with no attachment afterwards).
The two main characters are awesome. Otis is played by Asa Butterfield, and I couldn’t place him at all. He’s from Enders Game, but that wasn’t it. I was picturing him younger, maybe? However, I was NOT picturing him 10 years younger playing Mordred on Merlin though. Wow. Regardless, he is great. Plays the “young nerd who likes the girl” and you know eventually she’ll be the secret of his own sexual success. Which is great because Emma Mackey plays the girl, Maeve, awesomely. In only her second acting credit, she knocks it out of the park. She also seems way older than Otis, i.e. more mature, but physically only 1 year older. She is eminently watchable as the bad girl, used to being a social pariah around campus.
Now for the weird part. I watched the mom in about 3 scenes, and I couldn’t place her at all. Nada. Zilch. I had nothing. Sure, she’s got white hair, an accent, and a weird look and aura to her, but it was GILLIAN ANDERSON? Scully from the X-Files. I couldn’t believe it when I was checking out IMDB. She’s good in the show, sufficiently weird.
And it works. A little awkward for the first 10-15 minutes or so, but once the scenes get to school, it gets into a better groove. Enough so that I will revise my estimate to RENEWED. It has some potential. I don’t know if it is likely to hit hard like “Sex with Sue”, but let’s see where it goes.
So before I review Roswell, New Mexico, I have to confess that I wasn’t a regular watcher of the previous series. Too much teen age romance angst for me, never really got into it. That may not be a fair representation of the show, but the few episodes I caught, it didn’t work for me. So I am watching RNM not so much as a reboot continuation as a whole new show.
Here’s the quick run-down … aliens are real, they crashed in Roswell in 1947, three kids were in stasis pods for 50 years, and in 1997, they emerged together and are growing up in Roswell while hiding their identities. Ten years ago, something happened in Roswell, a girl named Rosa and two friends died in a car accident of some sort like a DUI, and Rosa’s sister Liz left town to go to university. Ten years later, she’s back, and runs into her old secret crush, Max. Psst…Max is one of the secret aliens, along with Isobel and Michael.
Something goes down, Liz gets shot, and Max uses his alien superpowers to save her while she’s unconscious. But it is enough to trigger her curiousity, and he eventually tells her the truth, much to the non-delight of Michael and Isobel. Meanwhile, a doctor friend and ex of Liz notices she has a weird alien mark on her chest, and reports it to a military contact who monitors what is going on in Roswell. Enter the MIB. Dun dun dun.
Jeanine Mason plays curious Liz, and while I haven’t seen her before, she reminds me of someone…Chloe Bennet aka Skye aka Daisy aka Quake on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. There are a whack of scenes in the episode where she has almost the same quirky style of Skye from the first couple of episodes, except her Spanish accent is much better. I don’t know Nathan Parsons as Max either, but he does a great job of looking emotionally torn, between telling her nothing and telling her everything. I’m a little surprised they jump all the way to telling her everything in the first episode. Hi Lois Lane, nice to meet you, btw, I’m Superman too. Not much mystery there.
Anyway, Michael Vlamis plays Michael, and I don’t remember him being gay in the previous one, but maybe he was. Don’t know him either, but I liked him. He does snarky well. Lily Cowles is the least-experienced of all of them, and plays Isobel, but I quite liked her. She looks genuinely shocked in a few places to realize that Max is actually in love with Liz. Now, don’t get me wrong, she has this ridiculous speech about how they can never be together, which is weird considering SHE’S MARRIED TO A HUMAN. But maybe that’s Max’s whole psychic bond thing (although she tells him to fall in love with someone else).
And just for fun, the mystery with the dead sister from 10 years before apparently has something to do with the three aliens. A secret that Liz can never know. Dun dun dun.
Here’s the thing. I predicted CANCELLATION, but I kind of liked it. Not enough for me to watch, but I think it might have legs. I’m predicting RENEWAL.
Proven Innocent was described as a woman wrongly convicted, serves time, released, goes to law school, and now runs an Innocence Project-style office to help others like her that were wrongly convicted. Based on that description, and the other shows who have tread the same water before, I predicted CANCELLATION.
Lots of people in the TV industry keep trying to crack this nut — proving someone innocent. What most of them fail to realise is that normal lawyer shows only do one of two things: either they prove a person not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (with strong hinting they may be innocent) OR they prove someone else did it (the infamous SODDI defence — some other dude did it!). None of them try to prove innocence without those other two hooks, because it is almost impossible to prove a negative. Almost all innocence projects rely on one of two streams — the evidence against the person was too weak to sustain a conviction, particularly as key bits were problematic; or the person has an alibi in the form of a witness or DNA. Simply finding someone lied in the original case is not enough to prove innocence, it just gives grounds for a potential retrial. It may be enough for the prosecutor to NOT retry the case, and the person goes free, but they are rarely found “innocent”, not exactly. Usually because courts determine guilty or not guilty, not innocence.
Even DNA may not prove complete innocence. Take for instance cases involving a rape / murder. The cases are almost always linked as one case — a rape AND murder. And DNA might clear a person of the rape i.e. it wasn’t their DNA found inside the victim, so they are innocent of that. But it says NOTHING about a murder. Particularly if the person was shot, and there was no DNA transfer. So, the courts end up in a bind. A previous court (judge and/or jury) convicted somebody of two crimes, but the DNA only clears them of the one. Yet, it would strain the credulity of the cases for there to be two perpetrators — the person who committed the rape is also almost guaranteed to have committed the murder in that type of case. It is why Innocence Projects face such uphill challenges. Knock one domino down, the rest may stay standing even if they probably shouldn’t.
So after that digression, enter a show that says they are going to prove the innocence each week of someone, and get them out of jail. That is a pretty hefty toll for the writers — they first have to create a scenario where there was enough evidence to put someone in jail with means, motive and opportunity (just for a nice simple frame), and then slowly disprove COMPLETELY every element.
And in the very first episode, they cheat. They put their finger on the scale and make it that the reason the person was convicted while innocent is that there is a corrupt prosecutor, the same one that put the lead character in jail previously.
The show is, how should I put this? Ridiculous.
Let’s start with the lead character. Madeline Scott served ten years, from a fairly young age. Got a degree while in jail. Went to law school. She’s been through some stuff. And they show her at the beginning tough as nails, trying to get a DNA sample from someone who is evil and brutal, and with a few choice words, he commits suicide in front of her. She then collects the DNA sample she needs, and leaves the scene, “Not an emergency” she says to the 911 operator. Except after that, she’s basically a cream puff with one-liners. It is ALSO a minimum of 17 years later, and she is just starting to investigate the case she went to jail over, to find the real killer. Like it was a low-level to do list item and she suddenly has some free time to devote to it. Uh huh, cuz that seems convincing. And she’s starting to learn things right out of the gate from an old friend, and then her drug addict brother who was convicted with her. 17 years later and he tells her that he actually slept with the girl that got killed. Dun dun dun. A clue. Never came up previously though. And, he’s basically SUICIDAL on the phone, and she ignores his words and actions. WTF? Rachelle Lefevre plays the character, and while she has lots of history on her CV, I don’t know her. And I’m okay with that.
Her partner in the office, and the lawyer who helped her get out of jail, is a familiar face. Hank from Grimm, aka Russell Hornsby as Ezekial. I liked Hank on Grimm, but don’t have much use for him here. He comes off more sanctimonious, like he’s trying to be a preacher in places?
And the bad guy? The prosecutor, Gore Bellows, is played by Frasier (aka Kelsey Grammer). Kelsey’s fine, but he plays him as somewhat befuddled, the downhome easy-going guy just protecting the system from murderers who went free. Totally unbelievable on either level (folksy or evil), and not worth being an antagonist to give the show juice.
Now, let’s look at the first case. Well, two actually. The first goes free right away. The second is more challenging to find evidence, but it completely falls apart. Leaving people to wonder, WTF? It doesn’t take much to find the problems, eevn if it is (or seems to be) their only case. But on a related note, they are in a big giant office, lots of space, retro condo chic. Hardly the starving Innocent Project vibe. And there are 4 people — media/podcaster, the two lawyers, and an investigator who goes undercover on short notice. Whatever, anyway, they go to court, and the accused had been convicted (note CONVICTED, not on trial and easy to release) of murdering her kid in a fire. There’s a taped confession where she is clearly, and I mean CLEARLY, high on something, turns out it was carbon monoxide poisoning. Which messes with the means or opportunity. And someone falsified a statement against her that gave them motive. And they find out there was a bunch of fires at the same time years before from faulty Christmas lights. All of which gives an alternate explanation of the crime, and should justify a new trial. Instead, the judge declares her INNOCENT and releases her. Really? REALLY?
None of it is compelling, because I don’t get to see ANYONE who feels like they are in jeopardy who needs saving. I didn’t see enough of the clients to bond, I don’t get to SEE their case, only told about it (i.e., they show Madeline’s case through flashback, but they only tell us about the current cases). Which leaves only Madeline to care about, and she comes off more childish and petty than righteous crusader.
Hard pass. And I’ll stick with my prediction of CANCELLATION.
The basic description for the show was somewhat like Shawshank Redemption, except that the people involved were actually worthy of incarceration. Prison life, some redeeming qualities, etc. The reality of the show is quite different.
The show takes place in 2015, and looks to be a single season show, starting with January of 2015 and running through to June of the same year. Separate from the notations in the show, I hadn’t realized it is actually based on real events. Two inmates escaped in June and two workers at the prison were charged with assisting them. I won’t spoil the ending as the episode picks up in June with the inmates gone and one of the workers being interrogated by the Inspector General, but then flashes back to January to tell the story of how they got there.
Overall, the show relies on five main characters. First, you meet Tilly. She works at the prison in the sewing shop, supervising the men who work there. There’s a guard or two around, but she’s the worker bee managing the production. She’s played by Patricia Arquette, That is definitely not a draw for me, although it’s hard to believe it’s her, given her age and size in the show. She looks like a middle-aged bordering on retirement age overweight frump, nothing like her Medium days. But she rarely speaks other than to be a miserable negative biddy. Tilly is married, humping one of the inmates, and being interrogated for helping someone escape.
Second, the inmate she’s humping is David, played by Paul Dano. He is an aspiring artist, helps out running the sewing shop, and diddles Tilly in the storeroom whenever he can. I don’t know Dano from previous work, but he plays David pretty passively. This is a recurring theme. The only time you really see him animated is when he is on the phone with his mother, trying to get a transfer. And for the first time you find out that he’s a cop-killer. Not a poster child for a simple criminal.
Third, his near roommate and mentor is Richard, played by Benicio Del Toro. Del Toro is amazing in almost everything, and if he was awake in the show, I might like him here too. He sleepwalks through the episode, the consummate criminal in the prison who knows everyone and runs a bunch of favours, bribes guards, etc. But he’s sensitive, apparently, because they show he’s an artist. And maybe wants some of the action from Tilly too. Yet he is incredibly passive almost the whole episode. Right up until he sees that there are gaps in the walls next to the cells, and then his interest is piqued.
Fourth, David Morse plays a guard on the take, Gene. Now Morse has made a niche for himself playing the bad guy destined to lose, and just about every time I see him now playing a good guy, I think, “Okay, he’ll be a traitor or something.” Typecasting, I know, but I’m not wrong very often about him. Which is odd, because I loved him way back on St. Elsewhere. He was okay in Hack (ex cop turned cab driver), although the premise was hard to sustain. He did a run of episodes on Blindspot last year, and I didn’t mind him at first, but then he started to grate on my nerves. I just can’t watch him for long. I thought he was okay in the episode, but again, kind of passive. Almost lightweight.
So I said there are five main characters, and I’ve covered four of them, almost all of whom are passive players. So who’s the fifth? It’s not a who, but a what. Dannemora prison. Or, as it is properly called, Clinton Correctional Facility in the village of Dannemora, Clinton County, New York. It’s a maximum security prison known for being isolated, cold as sh**, and big. I have ZERO clue who wrote this script, but if it actually reflects how the prison is run, no wonder someone escaped. Tilly arrives at work, bypasses anything resembling security, goes into the sewing shop, plunks personal effects and her coat down, and starts working. If she was smuggling in drugs, she could be making a mint. The inmates travel from the prison area to the sewing shop or an outdoor working area each day, wearing regular clothes and hats, jackets, etc. Except for the barbed wire and fencing, you’d swear it was a bunch of laborers entering the factory. Supposedly maximum security, but you see very little evidence of it, and I felt like it was missing. It should be big and imposing, something to ramp up the stakes a bit, and even a shakedown of everyone’s cells seems tame and boring.
The episode is slow, plodding, and almost no one does anything. It’s BLAND. There’s nothing to really recommend in terms of CANCELLATION or RENEWAL as it turns out to be a mini-series, not a series, but I would have stuck with CANCELLATION if it was relevant. And I won’t be going past Episode 1.
