Tag Archives: series

Series premiere: Kidding

The PolyBlog
October 4 2018

My fall review season has begun, and first on the block is Jim Carrey’s terribly named “Kidding”. He basically plays a Mr. Rogers-like host of a kids show as Mr. Pickles, complete with testimony before Senate Committees, etc. When I read the basic description, about Jim Carrey doing a show about him and his family life, I assumed it was going to be a comedy. Jim would play the dad, never quite get the hang of life, but he’d be a lovable goof with a good heart, blah blah blah.

Based on that info, my prediction for the season was that it would be CANCELLED. It just didn’t seem to have anything particularly to hook me. Now that I’ve watched the premiere, it is BEYOND bad.

First, it isn’t really a comedy. There are some bits, comedic in a stand-back and see how spoofy that scene is kind of way, a kid show host who is really just like his character. He plays it straight, as he should.

Second, it is super dark. The premise, spoiler alert, is that his son died one year before in a car crash and ever since, his home life has been slowly falling apart. His wife is divorcing him and has a new BF, his daughter is acting out, there’s a bunch of sad dysfunctional crap with co-workers, and just for fun, he wants to do a “healing” show about death.

Ever see some scene in any show where they ratchet up the awkward? Where the character is so pathetic that the audience is cringing the longer the scene goes on? That they feel the angst and the crushing blow that is to come — the pretty girl who crushes the misguided nerd who thought he had a chance, not realizing she has no clue at all that he has feelings for her, since she has a boyfriend and at most, she considers the nerd in the friend zone. But the scene is drawn out, and you literally start to feel uncomfortable watching it?

Well, Kidding has taken this premise, and turned it into a season-long train wreck. There are about 3 scenes in the whole premiere that are designed to be lighter, but they fall completely flat. It’s just depressing to watch. I don’t know, maybe a laugh track would help in a few places to let the audience know it’s okay to breathe for a moment.

I can’t see a single reason to watch this, and the EP ended with some forward scenes that make me think Jim Carrey is like a slow-burning fuse that’s going to explode in violence at some point, taking it from an awkward train wreck to something dark and disturbing.

The only thing in the entire episode that I thought was interesting to see was his boss, Seb, played by Frank Longella. Frank is amazing, I almost always love him. He’s relatively muted as a character, the sober companion trying to tell Mr. Pickles that the show is a business, and the personal life is something totally separate that Jeff should go and deal with. Where have you seen Longella? In tons of stuff, with some 100 credits going back to ’65. Not always big roles, but great small ones, like Perry White in Superman Returns. Sure, he got an Oscar nomination for Frost/Nixon (he played Nixon), but I love the smaller stuff. 

But it isn’t enough to save the show. Still predicting CANCELLED.

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich (2011) – BR00116 (2018) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
July 22 2018

Plot or Premise

While on a flight back from a trip to Hawaii with both Ranger and Morelli (it’s complicated), Stephanie’s seatmate gets whacked during a layover and everyone thinks Stephanie knows something.

What I Liked

While the lighter side of the Plum series is the main draw, it is nice to see that once in awhile it goes a bit darker. Stephanie has real bruises and knife nickmarks, and Morelli and Ranger had a knock-down drag-out fight, with Stephanie doing the dragging (it is only told as a past event, but still good even if you don’t actually “see it”).

What I Didn’t Like

As always, there are a few too many incompetents running around, and too many coincidences.

The Bottom Line

A little darker than usual.

Series premiere: Absentia

The PolyBlog
February 14 2018

Back in the fall, I never saw much about a series called Absentia. I saw media reports earlier that Stana Katic, fresh off of Castle, was going to be in a new show sometime, but that was about it. But I recently saw a banner blurb about the show, and I thought it was just premiering this month, with no context for what it was. I assumed it was a generic mid-season replacement.

Imagine my surprise to find out that not only is it Stana Katic’s show, but it already premiered back in September and the first ten episodes have already aired. WTF?

Okay, so I’ve watched episode one, and it is a mind mess of epic proportions. Katic plays Emily Byrne, FBI agent with a husband and child. She disappears, presumed dead at the hands of a serial killer who removes the eyelids of his victims. The killer is convicted, life eventually goes on. Hubby remarries, gets a new mother for his son, son gets bigger.

Then, out of the blue, hubby gets a call…if he wants to save his first wife, he has 60 minutes to get to her location. He rushes out, she’s saved, and the mind freak begins. While she was being held and tortured for six years, life went on without her. Her son doesn’t know her, and has come to view the new wife as his mother. The former one is just a memory. Except now she’s walking around. Hubby is with the new wife, the ex-father-in-law hates the hubby for moving on or something, and a creepy brother is around to lend moral support and give her a place to live.

Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating the cases all over the place — her original murder now abduction, who held her for the six years since the killer that was convicted is still sitting in jail (and he wants out by the way), anything that might tie her old cases to her situation. They get a clue, they zero in on a suspect, all very straightforward until you get to the last 60 seconds when they drop a small bombshell on the case.

Is the show awesome? Not really, some of it has been done before. In fact, there was even a Castle season where he disappeared and came back with no memory. But what is relatively awesome is the muted tragedy of it all. Son trying to figure out what his relationship with his old mom is going to be. New wife feeling threatened initially and trying to hold on to her husband, fighting a ghost who is no longer a ghost. Hubby who gave up, moved on, and now realizes she was alive the whole time. And the victim herself, although there is some evidence in the episode that all is not as it appears to be. Where was she for the whole six years? Was she as out of it as she claims? Or does she not remember? If she was on a hellish island for five years and has come back to take up archery, everyone would call it derivative, but watching them all deal with a very dark situation is, indeed, pretty awesome. Drama without the over-acting.

I even love the husband as the male lead. But I’m suspicious of Daddy, the new wife, the brother, and several police officers. I feel like there’s a Red John twist coming sometime. And I’ll find out when it does, as I’m in for the duration.

The hard part is I have NO idea if the show will be “renewed”. It is very dark for network television, and I’m curious to see if it “lightens” up as she investigates her own abduction, and as evidence mounts against her for some crimes that were committed while she was being held.

Series premiere: Black Lightning

The PolyBlog
February 11 2018

CW loves Greg Berlanti’s shows about superheroes, so I’m not surprised that they picked up Black Lightning. In terms of the future, my early prediction was:

CW: Black Lightning – It’s all Berlanti, all the time, it would be crazy to bet against it, even without the Arrowverse tie-ins, RENEWED;

Now that I’ve seen the episode, I’m not as convinced. Arrow, Flash, Supergirl and DC Legends of Tomorrow all have a “bigger than me” feel to them, even in their first few episodes. The Green Arrow was taking down his father’s cronies; the Flash was working for the police; Supergirl was following in her cousin’s footprints; and the Legends are SAVING TIME itself. But Black Lightning is the opposite. He just wants to be a school principal, forget his old Black Lightning ways, be a good father, and get jiggy with his ex-wife.

And that only changes through the episode when he has to save his daughters. Will it change for the future? Of course, but he is a very reluctant superhero, and like the Luke Cage theme, it gets old pretty fast. If he doesn’t want to be a superhero, why do I want to watch him try not to be one?

His daughters bop between being street-wise and being dumb as posts, and as damsels in distress, I never felt their dread. It was too “pat”, and they were in “danger” but never much at actual risk. I don’t even think they’re bruised in the end.

Cress Williams plays the principal / Black Lightning and while he has lots of different big shows under his belt, none of them were ones I watched regularly. And the principal isn’t very compelling to me. Normally superheroes have an inept alter-ego, this one is Super Principal. His daughters were okay, nothing exciting, nor was his ex-wife. Damon Gupton plays about the 10th police detective of his career, shouldn’t be a stretch.

The one bright spark I saw, no pun intended, was his white “Alfred”…James Remar was great as Gordon’s uncle on Gotham, Cephelo on the Shannara Chronicles, Harry Morgan on Dexter, Jonah on Jericho, Rayden in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and Ganz in 48 Hours. Heck, I even loved him as the Rear-Window-esque husband/suspected killer in What Lies Beneath. I pretty much love him in anything. And with 167 acting credits going back to 1978, that’s a lot to love.

But what kind of statement does it make that the only character in Black Lightning with an interesting casting was the token white guy/mentor?

Series premiere: The Resident

The PolyBlog
February 8 2018

Back in the fall, when I saw the upcoming shows for the 2017-18 season, I read the blurbs for “The Resident” and thought, “Umm, don’t we already have that show?”. More precisely, I thought:

FOX: The Resident – A medical show with hot actors? Yeah, they’ll try real hard to keep it, RENEWED;

Grey’s Anatomy, ER, heck even St. Elsewhere back in the day have all been hits with a similar formula. Residents, turnover, sex in patient rooms and closets, drama in and out of the hospital, oh, and let’s not forget the stakes here — we’re talking about potential DEATH. Or really bad ratings.

I can confess, right up front, I have very little interest in these shows. I watched St. Elsewhere, and I love the premises of the “disease of the week”, just as I do with Law and Order, etc. What I don’t like is the “extra” drama that feels more like soap opera scripting than nighttime drama. But as I’m male and pushing 50, I’m not the demographic they’re going for anyway.

So, let’s take a quick run-down on the regular requirements for a show like this:

  1. New person to the group, to provide that outsider perspective, and to take the viewer along for the ride…check, we have Dr. Devon Pravash, new Harvard grad, played by Manish Dayal…and look, he used to be on the new 90210;
  2. Hot male lead…Dr. Conrad Hawkins, brilliant / rude / egotistical, but you know his heart is in the right place because he carries around a picture of the first patient he ever killed and he hates the big baddie (see below)…Matt Czuchry checks the box, and his background is Gilmore Girls and The Good Wife;
  3. Hot female lead…Nicolette Nevin, not listed as a doctor but acts like one, I’m sure they’ll figure that out over time…played by Emily VanCamp, it’s one of the few things I liked about the show, mostly as I miss the promise of the first season of Revenge; and,
  4. A baddie…Dr. Randolph Bell, who we know is bad because he kills a patient on the operating table while his surgical team is taking selfies, and then covers it up…played by Bruce Greenwood, I first “met” him when he was playing on St. Elsewhere. He can play innocent and noble, or he can play slimy, this is his slimy version.

In the end, do I care?

Not really, but as I said, it’s not my kind of show. I didn’t feel there was a lot in the pilot that screams renewal, but it’s getting marketed out the wazoo, and Fox really wants this one to work. I’m betting they’ll get enough of a bounce to keep it past this year. But they’re going to need some more young hotties to keep it going.