Sundance Now has an Aussie show about a female detective trying to solve a string of murders that includes the death of her trainee. The first episode deals with a new case involving the killer — yes, they know who he is, just can’t catch him — and her investigating the incident. She is brash, she is prickly, she is overbearing. While you frequently see the same character in its male form (the brilliant asshole detective), the brilliant bitchy detective isn’t any more fun to watch.
And yet, there is something else in the episode that might be worth watching. Not the relationship between her and her ex-husband or his new girlfriend. Not the anger management stuff or her relationship with her new trainee. Not even the killer who has almost no mystique or sense of mystery/awe about him to make him seem menacing or worth investigating. He basically seems like a low level street thug, nothing more.
But the robbery that takes place is with an immigrant on a work visa…for some reason, the killer doesn’t kill the guy, he lets him live. And there is a whole sub-story about the store, the racist owners paying the immigrants as little as possible, the relationship between the clerk and his immigrant visa girlfriend and the three friends they live with to save rent money. In most shows, the victim would have some minor screentime, and almost always with the detectives asking them questions — in this show, you see the two lovers going on a date, interviewing for jobs, hanging out discussing the future, trying to tell their parents about their lover by Skype, etc. Whole sub-storylines, none of which would seem at first glace to have ANYTHING to do with catching the guy who has killed multiple times.
And yet I don’t care. I didn’t like anyone in the entire episode, nor do I care what happens to them. Sight unseen, I originally predicted RENEWAL. Instead, I’m changing that prediction to CANCELLATION, although with it being an import, the same renewal forces may not apply.
I am not sure what I was expecting with Single Parents, a new ABC comedy about training a single dad, but it sure wasn’t what I got. I guess I was expecting a mild comedy, maybe someone like Paul Reiser or Tim Allen, with the comedy going either way. It is more like a cross between Office and Meet the Fockers, with a parenting vibe.
The initial premise is that four single parents of first graders go to the school on the first day to find a horror story as the “class parent” who wants them all to sign up for various committees, etc. They let him know pretty quick that they can’t do any of that, and really, their intent is just to survive the day most of the time. But he too is a single parent and they realize that if they let him continue to embrace his inner geek parent, and never do any adult things, they’ll never have any peace and quiet from him badgering them to do stuff. So they set him up on Tinder and get him a date. But then, because they’re invested in the outcome, they help him prepare for the date. And when it goes south, they show up to help him out with the cops (don’t ask).
I didn’t recognize the lead actor, Taran Killam as single Dad, Wil, but it’s interesting that I felt he was almost doing a SNL skit, and it turns out he was on SNL for six years. Just that kind of over-acting skit vibe. He’s okay, a little too Will Ferrell for my taste, but he’s okay. Leighton Meester plays the alpha single mom, Angie, out to ensure that Wil doesn’t badger them too much and she is quirky and cute enough that I have to assume the long-term plan is some sort of flirty romance between Wil and Angie. The other three parents are a bit quirkier … Jake Choi plays a 20-year-old Dad, Kimrie Lewis is mom to a dance and fashion diva son, and Brad Garrett (Everyone Loves Raymond) is the rich, emotionally-closed businessman dad to two daughters.
As I said, I wasn’t expecting Meet the Fockers as the brand of humour, and I didn’t laugh once in the whole episode. I smiled a couple of times, but that was it. And when I did, it was almost entirely at the adult lines coming out of the kids, all of them written as wise old souls. I wish the show had the same wise old soul, or that they had taken a more serious tone, as Leighton Meester could be quite good in a better “teacher mom” role. Maybe a little too saccharine sweet as written, but could have been fun.
Instead, I’m over-riding my sight unseen prediction of RENEWAL and going to predict CANCELLED.
Each year when I do my initial predictions, I try to do them as “sight unseen”. I look at the description, the so-called log line, and decide, “If I was an executive, would I have greenlit this premise?”. But it is hard to stay completely in the dark about all the shows. Some are talked about on radio, where one DJ will ask another, “Did you see blah blah blah last night? It was awesome!” or a friend wanting to talk to me about shows because they know I’m big on TV and serialized storytelling.
And then there are the ads. I can’t avoid all of them, and the one that has been the bane of my existence this year has been for New Amsterdam. Over and over and over, I have heard the same tired dialogue…”I want to get rid of the waiting room. Done”; “Let’s be doctors again.”; “You know they’re not going to just let you help people? Well, let’s see how many we can help before they figure out what we’re doing.”. Sanctimonious claptrap, big medicine is all bad, but the “human” will set them back to their true roots. Melodramatic, over the top, blather. And so, while I try to keep an open mind, I was fully prepared to hate this show.
Now, I had two strikes against me going in. First, while I am not attracted to Grey’s Anatomy, House, Scrubs, ER, etc., I did watch St. Elsewhere back in the day. So if they stay out of the sheets and don’t give me a nutbar as the lead character, it might work. Second, the lead actor is Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max, the new Medical Director for New Amsterdam who is willing to make lots of changes (including firing the entire heart surgery team the first day).
Eggold was Tom, Elizabeth Keen’s husband, on The Blacklist and even starred in The Blacklist: Redemption. I thought the spinoff was an ill-conceived ripoff of a bunch of shows, including Mission: Impossible and Covert Affairs, but I like watching Eggold do his thing on-screen whether he is bashful Tom or cold, calculating Tom. Here he is closer to nice, bashful Tom, and he is fun to watch.
His full ongoing supporting cast is hard to tell from just the pilot, but some faces popped out. Janet Montgomery was good back when she was on Human Target, and a strong interesting force in the hospital as Dr. Lauren, willing to take chances; Jocko Sims as Dr. Floyd, a heart surgeon who is fired and unfired on the first day because he was part of a group but not like the group that was fired; Anupam Kher as Dr. Vijay, the old but wise doctor; Freema Agyeman as Dr. Helen, a rockstar for the media circuit, willing to return to actual medicine to be a doctor again, and she looks very different from her Torchwood / Martha Jones days; Tyler Labine as psychologist Dr. Iggy, and I confess I had no idea where I recognized him from, and would NEVER have come up with Reaper / Sock from 11 years ago; and Lisa O’Hare as Max’s pregnant but estranged wife, Georgia.
Sure, it’s an ensemble cast, but I was surprised that they all got some decent airtime in the opening episode. Dr. Floyd and Dr. Lauren are sort of an item but he’s not sure he wants to date her anymore because, while fun, she’s not black and he wants a black partner for life; Dr. Vijay seems old and slow but he goes slow with a patient and finds out what is really wrong with her, not making a snap diagnosis; Dr. Helen is spending all of her time running around doing media stuff because she was becoming immune to patients; and Dr. Iggy is trying to help a psych patient who keeps coming back, and he doesn’t know how to help her with her life outside of the hospital.
In short, there’s a lot going on, and while it is the first episode so they spent a lot of extra time getting it right, it was indeed right. It rang all the right bells, it hit all the right notes, and I fully enjoyed 90% of the show. There are two parts I didn’t enjoy, and I’ll give you a spoiler alert right now for the next two paragraphs.
The first element is that Max’s wife is pregnant and they’re estranged because of his work, etc. He’s promising to be different, to be more present, to help more, etc. And then she calls because she’s bleeding out of the uterus, and she thinks something is wrong with the baby. Fast forward to the scene in the hospital where they’re examining, trying to assess what is happening, Mom and Dad to be are losing their shit slowly, and then the writers ramp it up. The nurse can’t find the heartbeat of the baby and the tension goes to 11. I couldn’t watch. Not because it wasn’t good, but because my wife and I experienced EXACTLY that scene. My wife’s water broke at 26 weeks, a partial premature rupture of the membrane (PPROM), and we were in the hospital room while they searched for a very elusive heartbeat. I had to skip ahead, I couldn’t watch the scene, way too intense for me. Flashback city, and it is NOT a good memory, even if my son is now a healthy 9 year old.
Neither are enough to stop me from watching though. When I did my original prediction, sight unseen but perhaps slightly biased by the ads, I said “Hospital story about idealism = CANCELLED”. Afterwards, I have to say that while they did an awesome job, I don’t think it will be enough to grab an audience and get renewed, not enough grit. I’m disappointingly sticking with my CANCELLED prediction, but I’ll watch it to the bitter end.
Mr. In-between is a rare half-hour drama, given that most dramas are hour-long episodes with the 30-minute notch normally reserved for animated or comedies. It’s an FX show, billed as a drama involving criminal elements, and it doesn’t take much to see that the main character is a mid-level street thug acting as enforcer and collections for a bookie. It has a strong Sopranos taste to it in the sense of a dissatisfied crook, and he is at least good at his job.
He is appropriately menacing as he wanders around collecting owed monies, and acting as a bouncer at a strip club. But you also get to see him with his daughter and father, and another scene where he meets a girl with a dog in the park. But he fails to do anything about the girl, despite his obvious attraction to her and her interest in him. Later, he’s back at his simple apartment, playing video games by himself and lamenting the fact he didn’t do anything.
Scott Ryan is the writer-producer for the show, and also plays the main character, Ray. And he has some potential for the future, as trailers show him in a group therapy session for something talking about his work and what he does. But despite some interesting elements for the first episode, it’s missing anything resembling a plot.
I saw him meet some people, do a bit of collections, flirt with a girl, hang out with his daughter, and do a weird favour for a friend. I couldn’t actually care any less about him than I do now. There’s no REASON to care what happens to him.
I was leery of the 30 minute format, and I went with CANCELLED, sight unseen. Now that I have seen it, I want my 30 minutes back. Still predicting CANCELLED.
CBS has rebooted Murphy Brown with the old cast coming back — Candice Bergen as Murphy, Faith Ford as Corky, Joe Regalbuto as Frank, Grant Shaud as Miles, and just for fun, Jake McDorman as son Avery. Phil is gone, Eldon is gone, sure, but the rest are there.
What isn’t there is any feeling of edgy chemistry. Back in the day, there was a sense that the team of Murphy/Frank/Corky/Miles were doing something resembling news, the fourth estate that was holding politicians accountable. It had some edgy bits, and while I wasn’t a regular watcher, I did watch occasionally and I liked it. There were always some good one liners too.
Sure, she’s back. Sure, she’s interviewing Hillary Clinton to be her secretary with lots of little “in” jokes about managing emails. She’s having a tweet war with the President. There’s no sense of real honour, she just seems like a mean old woman who wants to brag about the good old days and how now that she’s back, there will be “real news” again based on truth and facts.
There is one small bright spot in the show, and that’s her son, Avery. Played, as I said, by Jake McDorman, I absolutely loved him in Limitless a few years ago. He really grew on me in the show, and seeing him here was very welcome. And I like his character. He’s going head-to-head with his Mom for ratings, although his news show is talking to real Americans, and *spoiler alert*, both him and his mom are surprised when his real journalism showloses to her glib show in the ratings war. There’s lots of real gold to mine in their relationship, as long as the writers don’t insist upon giving her the last word of wisdom. It just falls flat.
When I did my predictions, sight unseen, I thought it would get RENEWAL. I don’t think it actually deserves RENEWAL, but I’ll keep the pick there. Hopefully they find their ground, but I won’t be watching. I’m signing off after just one episode.
