Tag Archives: series

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.

Series premiere: Fam

The PolyBlog
May 7 2019

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”.

Series premiere: Sex Education

The PolyBlog
May 7 2019

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.