As a new fall television season begins, I have decided to watch as many of the new shows (and returning old shows) as possible. I will post my brief opinions on all these series as they premiere, with an emphasis on any shows I think may be good/mildly interesting. I will not watch all of these beyond this first episode—I won’t watch most of them, in fact—but writing these posts will give me incentive to watch as much television as possible. Because why not? This third and final post looks at the pilots for A Gifted Man, How to Be a Gentleman, Pan Am, Person of Interest, Prime Suspect, Suburgatory and Terra Nova. Also: the second season premiere of Boardwalk Empire, and I watch my first episode of the cult hit in the making Happy Endings.
Boardwalk Empire – “21” (HBO)
Some people have chosen to badmouth the HBO series Boardwalk Empire simply because it moves forward with all the speed of an inebriated tortoise. But for me, this has always been part of the show’s charm. While at times its reluctance to push its characters into more interesting and unfamiliar situations can be frustrating, it’s a beautiful show in too many other ways to be dismissed. While “21” was a typical season premiere in several ways, it also had some of my favorite moments the show has ever done. First, there was the KKK attack on Chalky White’s “compound.” Then, there were Nucky Thompson’s two speeches in response to the event. Those two moments alone were enough to remind me of why I love this show.
However, the brightest spot in Boardwalk Empire for me thus far has been Michael Shannon as Agent Van Alden. This character got some of the first season’s best moments, and his storyline in “21” was all kinds of terrific. While it felt rather disconnected from everything else going on, it worked just about perfectly as a short story that establishes who he is and what his struggles are going to be over the course of the season. The first season of Boardwalk Empire was a terrific show that never quite took the next step up to all-time greatness, and I hope it finally does that this season. All it needs is one defining episode that wins all the doubters over. “21” was an awesome episode, even if it did little more than preach to the converted. But converted I am.
Grade: A-
A Gifted Man (CBS)
I am never going to watch another episode of A Gifted Man, but that doesn’t mean the pilot wasn’t any good. For all its clunkiness, it was a well-directed and performed little story about a surgeon who starts interacting with his dead wife and winds up becoming a better person in the process. In the lead is Patrick Wilson, who I maintain is one of the best actors out there who stubbornly winds up in lousy projects time and time again. I’m not exactly wild about his choice to become the lead in a Friday night CBS drama, but whatever. At least he’s good in it. His cast mates Jennifer Ehle (Contagion) and Margo Martindale (Justified) are also strong, as is the brief appearance from The Wire’s Pablo Schreiber. All of the material is elevated by director Jonathan Demme, whose talents probably belong elsewhere as well. Yet, here all these wonderful people are, creating a surprisingly touching and interesting pilot with a premise that can never sustain multiple seasons of television in a million years. Heck, I wonder where this show could possibly be by the time we get to episode five. I liked A Gifted Man well enough, but I have absolutely zero interest in pursuing it further. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.
Grade: B
Happy Endings – “Blax, Snake, Home” (ABC)
Over the summer, one television series I kept hearing good things about was Happy Endings, the latest comedy about a group of young friends who hang out and learn about relationships and yaaaaaaawn… As you can tell, I wasn’t all that interested at first. However, as I was watching last week’s Modern Family (subpar again, I should note) I decided to stick around to see just what this show had to offer. And it was funny. Like, really funny. It doesn’t seem like it quite has the great character work of a Parks and Recreation or a Community, but it has this whole “humor” thing down quite well. I’ll have to watch several more episodes before I come down with a verdict on the series, but I suspect my unfamiliarity with Happy Endings actually helped the experience rather than hurting it. I had no knowledge of the allegedly not-that-great early episodes, and thus I went in with a completely clean slate. And I loved it to pieces. Over the course of 20 minutes, I went from a skeptic to a true believer, and I will be watching every week until it goes sour.
Grade: A-
How to Be a Gentleman (CBS)
Just as I felt New Girl was a multi-camera sitcom at heart that unwisely chose to go single-camera, the new CBS sitcom How to Be a Gentlemen feels like a single-camera comedy forced to fit the traditional multi-camera mold. This is a show that feels like it should be clicking along at top speed—tossing out joke after joke without taking a breath—but instead the whole affair just feels dead and uninspired. This is surprising considering the cast and creators, all of whom are famous for doing fine work in the past. The creator and star David Hornsby is best known as Rickety Cricket on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and here he plays a cleaned-up columnist who writes about “how to be a gentleman,” hence the title. Now he is told to make his writing more “sexy” and “hip,” so he enlists the help of personal trainer Kevin Dillon. The results are shockingly unfunny and—even worse—not particularly promising.
Besides Hornsby and Dillon, this show also boasts the presences of Dave Foley, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Rhys Darby. All of these people have been funny in other things. Here they are not, and the use of voiceover narration is not a natural fit with the multi-camera format. There’s a good show to be found here, but Hornsby and company have decided to attack it in precisely the wrong way. I dearly hope all the problems get fixed and this becomes the great sitcom it should be, but right now it’s not even close.
Grade: C-
Pan Am (ABC)
I went into the Pan Am pilot expecting to hate it, and then was surprised when I came out the other end with a smile on my face. This fall’s “create your own Mad Men” phase resulted mostly in series that tried to copy that show’s success but never understood what truly made it tick. Pan Am goes precisely the other way; it doesn’t copy Mad Men it all. It simply takes the ’60s setting and uses it for its own escapist intentions. I’ll admit that the show just seemed absolutely bonkers at first, but by the time it delved into each of the characters’ backstories I was surprised to find that I actually cared. It does nothing subtly, but that’s part of its charm. Pan Am is not an overly-serious drama so much as it is a fantasy about a world where a group of gals can go around the world, meet a bunch of people and fall in love. Or perhaps they could be spies!
I won’t argue that this is the most intelligent show on the face of the Earth, but is it trying to be? I think not. This is as close to an intentional guilty pleasure as you’re going to find on television, and I’m perfectly okay with that. If it maintains this level of fun, I may just come along for the ride, if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more. You know, like on a plane.
Grade: B
Person of Interest (CBS)
Of all the pilots I chose to watch this fall, the worst is the CBS procedural Person of Interest. Why? Because it takes an interesting premise and destroys it by being so incredibly, irritatingly stupid, that’s why. This show has no interest in developing or properly introducing its characters, and thus it never feels even remotely worthwhile. It just sets everything up and knocks it down without regard for the viewer or the art of what makes television good. It stars Jim Caviezel as a former CIA officer who is hired by Michael Emerson to stop crimes before they happen by using a mysterious piece of technology that generates social security numbers. (Sadly, no precogs.) You would think this first episode would be about how Caviezel is slowly convinced to sign up. Nope. Instead, he agrees to hop on board rather quickly, and the rest of the episode just becomes a crappy chase scene.
Clearly the people behind this show are amateurs, correct? Wait… J.J. Abrams is an executive producer? Jonathan Nolan (brother of Christopher) is the creator? It also stars Taraji P. Henson? Wha? Wow, that’s depressing. Yes, there’s a chance that Nolan takes advantage of his resources and turns it into an interesting drama. However, there is one glaring piece of evidence that would suggest otherwise: he has made this. In fact, he was the one predominantly responsible for this. This is the man who came up with the original story for Memento, and who co-wrote The Prestige and The Dark Knight with his brother. And this is his television series? Oh boy. I can see who the real idea man in the family is.
Grade: D+
Prime Suspect (NBC)
When I first heard Maria Bello was going to become the star of an NBC police procedural based on a British Helen Mirren series, I was sad. She has become a perfectly good film actress, and her return to network television was not exactly welcome news in my eyes. Well, maybe I would have been more receptive if her show didn’t look like just another plain ol’ cop drama. Yet it did, and after watching Prime Suspect I can confirm that this is what it more or less is. However, I will also admit that it’s one of the more interesting cop drama premieres I’ve seen in quite some time. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but Bello is very good and it has a grittiness to it that most of run-of-the-mill CBS-type shows can only dream of. I appreciated that, even if I was less appreciative of the events and people surrounding Bello.
There are only so many times I can watch a show where the lone female is ridiculed for one reason or another, just like there are only so many times I can watch a procedural about a central character who’s willing to bend the rules to get results. As great as the original Prime Suspect may be, I’m pretty sure every single procedural made since then has just been a rip-off. Just because you choose to go back to the original source material doesn’t excuse the more conventional aspects of your show. The American Prime Suspect has such a good actress at the center that if it is able to come up with quality material we might have a great show on our hands. If it continues to be your average case-of-the-week deal, then it’ll just be a waste.
Grade: B-
Suburgatory (ABC)
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of ABC’s Suburgatory. On the one hand, several critics I trust called it one of the funniest, most promising shows of the year. On the other hand, just as many seemed to be running away screaming. Well, I have finally seen it and I must say I fall smack dab in the middle. While I was intrigued by the characters and the possibility that it could become one of the best comedies on television, I spent several scenes wanting to tear my ears out due to the Diablo Cody wannabe dialogue. (“Vagatarian?” Really?) That said, most of the actors sold their characters quite well, even if star Jane Levy seems to have watched a few too many Emma Stone movies. However, I think the future looks brighter for this show than even others whose pilots I may have preferred, simply because the creator/executive producer (Emily Kapnek) worked on Parks and Recreation, among other things. That is one of the great world-building sitcoms and recent memory, and if she’s able to turn the setting of Suburgatory into something resembling Pawnee, this is going to be one great show. The pilot was a decidedly mixed bag, but I very well may check back a few episodes down the line.
Grade: C+
Terra Nova (Fox)
When I first saw an ad for Terra Nova, my initial though was the following: “Awesome! The Jurassic Park/Avatar mash-up I never really wanted!” That was a joke, really, because I didn’t expect that the show itself was just going to be that. Imagine my surprise when I sit down to watch the entirety of the Terra Nova two-hour premiere, and that’s exactly what it freaking is. It takes the premise of Avatar, throws in some dinosaurs, spends several million dollars and calls itself a television series. When you pay all this money for what is supposed to be the next great TV sensation, you better have something we’ve never seen before. Sadly, this show is nothing but things you’ve seen before, packaged in an expensive-looking yet still shoddy couple hours of television. I’ll admit it has some interesting ideas, but after a while I grew bored with how they were presented. This is particularly true with the pilot’s second half, which throws away most of the human stuff in favor of becoming a weak Jurassic Park knockoff. Plus, the scale and premise of this show just seems so inherently limiting. What could season five of Terra Nova possibly look like?
That said, this is likely something that many people said about Lost when it first premiered. (“What? A bunch of weirdos stranded on an island? Try to sustain that.) To be sure, the Terra Nova pilot introduces a few mysteries and villains that could hang around for a while, but here’s the thing: they aren’t particularly interesting. And even worse, they’re predictable. With the exception of one character (Allison Miller’s Skye) I didn’t think there was much to connect with. Most annoying of all was the addition of the rebellious teenage son, who seemed to be just fine with everything until he suddenly stopped being fine for the sake of creating conflict. The characters of Terra Nova don’t feel organic; they feel as if they’re being manipulated by the script from moment to moment. Where comparable pilots take measures to draw audiences in with something new, Terra Nova is all too familiar to be seen as a success.
Grade: C
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