series – Page 47 – The PolyBlog

Series premiere: Burden of Truth

February 5 2018

The premise of the new series Burden of Proof , errr, of TRUTH, is one as old as time, at least in legal premises for TV and movies. In fact, in this case, it involves two tropes thrown together.

First, there is the big city lawyer who comes to the small town world, and stays. Sometimes it’s a comedy, sometimes it’s a drama, but when it is in a TV series, it generally lasts one or two seasons, and then disappears.

Second, there is the Erin Brockovich storyline. A big bad company is harming the simple local folk, and must be brought to heel, in the form of a well-intentioned and principled David against the corporate Goliath. Which is also only good for one season, and then you’re done.

So why would ABC greenlight an in-house studio show about a lawyer from the big city coming to the small town, immediately switch gears so they go from bad lawyer (not my client!) to good lawyer (let’s find another defendant!) in the first episode, and ask Kristin Kreuk to headline it? I have no idea. Sure she was in the TV series Beauty and the Beast, as well as Smallville, but did anyone watch either of those shows for the Beauty or Lana?

Back at the start of the season, this one wasn’t even announced, so it didn’t make my pre-season review. But I can tell you what I would have said:

Big city lawyer returns to small-town roots to fight a corporate Goliath? Dead before the end of the season, no renewal.

Now that I’ve watched the episode, it’s even worse than I expected. She’s from the small town and she wants to go back, partly as whatever happened when she left with her parents involved some sort of scandal and she wants to sort of face it. But her character is ALL over the map. I have no idea who she is or who she is supposed to be.

At the start of the episode, she’s the organized, competent lawyer — the star of the firm. Which we find out because people tell us, but the evidence is sparse except for her high-end loft-style apartment. If she’s chic, she must be good, right? Whatever. Anyway, she seems more insecure than hard-edged pro litigator, which is Kreuk’s strength — not hard edged, but softer edged. A thousand actresses could do it better, and all of them guest-starred on LA Law 20 years ago. Heck, some of them are on Suits now. But I digress.

Then she’s Daddy’s little girl at the firm, except not really, there’s very little sign of actual comfort between them. Yet apparently they work together all the time and have done so for years. Riiiight.

I don’t know who the guy in her main office is…husband, boyfriend, fiancée, wannabe something? It seems like they’re involved together, then it seems like they’re not, I’m lost. I don’t even remember what they said the relationship was, but I didn’t “see” it.

So drive to her old hometown, visit her old school, meet with someone leading a charge in favour of a vaccine that people claim is causing the problem, except it isn’t. And these two former best friends have ZERO chemistry. Not old chemistry, not new chemistry, nada. So nothing to see or bond with.

There is a local bohunk in the form of opposing counsel, but after he’s trounced in court, they can make nice nice and work together on finding a new defendant i.e. cause. Because as he informs her, “You know you’re the bad guy, right?” in the initial scenario where she’s trouncing him in court. And while they’ll work together, and eventually there will be romance of some sort for the viewers to watch their angst, they have NO SPARK at all together.

There are only two scenes in the entire episode that have any spirit. The first is a woman in a bar who finds out Kreuk’s last name and slugs her (trite but interesting); the second is a young victim, whose life has been turned upside down because of the symptoms, calling out Kreuk’s character for who she is and what she does for a living. The big moment. And it’s NOT EVEN THE LEAD’S moment. She’s just watching it.

I don’t know which I found worse. The lameness of her character’s passivity for the whole episode or the blandness of the entire premise, where they even have to stoop to showing you the various scenes of all the victims so they can pull at your heartstrings and let you know “this is serious stuff”. Snore.

Maybe somebody from the Beauty and the Beast fan base will be following, or the conspiracy fans who hate large corporations (you know there has to be a bad guy found eventually). But it sure won’t be me. It is one of the worst shows I have seen in five years.

Series premiere: L.A. to Vegas

February 3 2018

The first half of the traditional TV season is over, and it’s time for the mid-season replacements to debut. Back when the announcements were made, here’s what I said about LA to Vegas:

FOX: L.A. to Vegas – Workplace comedy? Sure. Airlines to Vegas? Umm, no – CANCELLED;

Now that I’ve seen the first episode, I’d like to edit that to say, “Umm, HELL no”. If you took all the funny bits from the episode, condensed it down to 4-5 minutes, it wouldn’t make it as an SNL skit. During their slow years.

They had a cute line or two, sure. The opening premise of the stewardess arriving late to work, getting changed as she ran through the terminal, sprinting to the plane past the various passengers in time to get on board and greet the boarders. Her obviously gay steward coworker asks her to confirm if she got dressed in the terminal again, and cue the punchline, “At least I wore underwear this time”. Ba-dum bah.

The lead character is the stewardess and she goes from “I’m trying to get it together” to “existential crisis” to “total confidence in herself” as she flirts with a passenger at the end. All over the map. Wait, I think I have a line for the writers there…

She works with a pilot who’s a one-trick caricature (pilot, drunk, divorced, pathetic), gay co-steward, and a few regular passengers (a stripper, an econ professor, and a gambler), and NONE of the characters are worth watching. I was expecting to see them outside the plane, doing something in Vegas, but it literally is about the flight there, and the flight back. So far, that’s it. Now, don’t get me wrong, you can have a huge successful show where nobody leaves a bar, or even operating a flight terminal, but they’re on a discount airline with the most spacious seating known to man. Really?

As I’m reviewing this, I’m not even bothering to look up the actors’ names, because I really didn’t care that much. I can’t believe this got green-lighted.

Series premiere: Marvel’s Inhumans

December 17 2017

When the new season started and I read the original description, my prediction was:

ABC: Marvel’s Inhumans – ABC really wants to be in the superhero game, and this is what they have to work with, so RENEWED;

That was before I really new what the new premise was for the show. I had no idea what the Inhumans were, I assumed it was X-Men / Gifted / Mutant X, etc. I had no idea the premise was a transgenic compound that gave people powers and they were now living on the moon. On the moon? Seriously?

If I had known that, I likely would have downgraded to cancelled, or at least put in some caveats. Nope, I thought it might get renewed. Ratings so far have TV Grim Reaper predicting cancellation, and I’m not surprised. I actually enjoyed the two part premiere though.

The King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt, never speaks as his power is that his voice sends powerful sound waves forward — it’s how he accidentally killed his parents, not understanding his power. So he speaks only with sign language. The King is played by Anson Mount, and since he has to do all his acting with just a look and a gesture, it’s hard to have much presence. His wife, the Queen i.e. Medusa, is played by Serinda Swan. Since she already played Aphrodite back in the Percy Jackson movie, she has some experience with god-like powers. She’s not bad in the first two parter, has a decent fight scene, but is just a little too earnest looking.

A twist in the show is that it isn’t Inhumans against humans, it is Inhumans against the brother of the king, played by a scheming Iwan Rheon. Rheon is great, but hard to see him as a serious long-term threat. Would be great as a secondary traitor, hard to see him as the man who would be king.

The supporting cast includes Ken Leung (Lost, Person of Interest), Eme Ikwuakor, and Isabelle Cornish. All three are decent, although hard to tell their potential from just two episodes. And if TV Grim Reaper is right, I may never find out. On the other hand, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is still on the air. Maybe there’s hope.

Series premiere: Seal Team

December 17 2017

When the new TV season started, I was surprised to see three new shows with what sounded like similar premises — Valor, a failed copter mission in Somalia; Brave, undercover military heroes; and this one, about Seals and weekly missions. That’s not unusual, multiple shows with a similar premise, but the fact that it was all hardcore military seemed unusual, particularly as few shows of this nature ever make it. If there’s too much rah rah rah, people tune out; if it’s all about the family drama, people tune out. The balance is hard to find.

From the original description, my prediction was:

CBS: Seal Team – It was a toss up with S.W.A.T., but I’m not convinced David B is right for the series – CANCELLED;

David Boreanaz is the leader of the SEAL team, and as you can see from my prediction, I wasn’t sold on his casting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him as Angel. But I hated him in Bones and a few other quick roles. Yet I have to say, he doesn’t completely suck in the pilot. He’s still a bit uneven in places, using some sort of manic look to indicate his inner emotional turmoil, but for the team leader role, he’s not bad. Lots of quick scenes, good action, fits his abilities.

The rest of the team has a bunch of familiar faces, including A.J. Buckley. I watched him through five or six seasons of Justified and never realized he was Adam Ross from CSI: New York. How did I miss that? Some others, all fine, no issues. I really like the casting for the female roles…Michaela McManus (Aquarius, Awake, L&O: SVU) is relegated to playing David’s wife, not sure how big a role that will be for the series, but she’s capable of more. So is Jessica Pare (Jack and Bobby), as a CIA analyst.

Ratings are pretty good now that they’re nine shows in, and TV Grim Reaper is predicting renewal. Might be the first one I get wrong all year, and if so, I’m okay with that. I underestimated the show, and Boreanaz. Not enough for me to keep watching, but I can see where it might have grabbed some eyeballs.

Series premiere: Dynasty

December 16 2017

Each new TV season, I often try to watch at least one episode of just about every show that has even a scintilla of interest for me. This was the lowest scintilla of all, mostly just curious how the show would skew young to grab better demographics. The original Dynasty was campy for lots of viewers, yet a small but steady crew grabbed on to it because it was “new and different”. Or more pointedly, it was rich people behaving badly and lots of people loved seeing John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins grinding each other up. But 30 years later, we’ve progressed through the Melrose era and the Kardashians, and the world of Beverly Hills Wives. Fictional “bad families” aren’t that scandalous anymore.

From the original description, my prediction was:

CW: Dynasty – while the reboot year is upon us, the CW runs young, and I don’t think they’re ready for Melrose Place without a 90210-like lead up, the various ages of the characters won’t pull them in – CANCELLED;

So I watched an episode, as painful as it was. A few faces leaped out, but it was the overall casting I found interesting, not the individuals. Blake isn’t the geezer anymore, he’s a much younger Blake, marrying a young wife and appointing her COO of his company. Much to the chagrin of the daughter who wanted the job, when she’s not running around trying to look like Taylor Swift. I don’t know that the dad will pull the younger crowd, but he’s watchable for the now-older Melrose crowd, and perhaps the young daughter will hold the young’uns. The son is *gasp* gay, isn’t that exhilirating? Snooze. Oh, and there’s biracial stuff going on, aren’t we all progressive and diverse in our casting?

About all I can say about the one episode is that it didn’t completely suck. Sure, it was bad acting. Yes there was a cat fight. People were wheeling and dealing. And there’s eye candy to watch for both sexes and orientations. Yet while the ratings for the series haven’t been stellar, Netflix is interested, which makes me wonder if it might move over and add some more graphic content. Netflix has a different business model, so maybe it works for them, and it’s enough to get it renewed.

I doubt it would make it on any other network than CW, and definitely not without a Netflix buy-in.