DARWIN LOOKS AT THE TV LINEUP: PART VI
January 21st, 2002
THE SEASON: PART VI.
Have we reached part six already? How time flies. I want to pat the back and kick the butt of a few shows weve already talked about, then jump into all those (sigh) midseason replacements and shows hitting the airwaves later in the year.
BOSTON PUBLIC. David E. Kelley is his own worst enemy on Monday nights. For some reason the credo for people has become: BOSTON was great; ALLY MCBEAL is slipping. Ill agree with the first statement. Sometimes the air at Winslow High can get heavy, but I think the greatest thing Kelley did this year was not to make Kathy Bakers character a murderous psycho and instead give Guber his first relationship in years. Their union is one for humor and zingers, but theres a desperate intimacy about it that sparkles.
The great Nicky Katt (and his great character Harry), as well as the character of Lauren, have been pushed to the background this year. I know theyre using up all the time they have with here-and-then-gone Michael Rapaport (who settled in nicely) but that doesnt mean everyone else has to sit in the back of the class. It was worth Lauren breaking up with Harry to see that fantastic series of episodes where she had an affair with a delusional (or not-so-delusional) former student, but maybe its about time they got back together.
ALLY MCBEAL. Jon Bon Jovi? Really now, David. Really now.
CROSSING JORDAN. JORDAN has settled into one of my favorite things: a show with a skewed sense of humor. The murders are still happening and Jordan is still solving them. With that, though, you find more genuine yuks than you can shake a rigor mortised finger at. Dealing with dead bodies is creepy stuff, writing a show about a persistent and ardent M.E. can be humdrum, so why not stir it up with some laughs? The truth is, the laughs feel real. The stuff you and your buddies say and do when youre together. A pinch here and there about someones love life (or lack thereof). Some friendly competition and ribbing among mates. The show was rolling along before, and now -- with the humor style set the way it is -- the show can only get better.
IMAGINE THAT. Hank Azaria is the guy that does about half of the voices on THE SIMPSONS. He was also the accent-enhanced, thong-wearing dude in BIRDCAGE. Hes been on MAD ABOUT YOU and was recently in AMERICAS SWEETHEARTS. The guy is talented. Which is why NBC probably thought people would watch his show. But theyre not.
I saw the opening episode. And I was underwhelmed. It wasnt that Azaria wasnt charming, or that he wasnt surrounded by good actors, or that the jokes werent funny. Those first two things are very true; the second is, well, fairly true. The thing that sapped the show was the incessant, obstreperous laugh track! A laugh track is an insult: its telling you when to laugh. (Its a creation Id like to go back in time and destroy -- it is that friggin dumb.) And while I stomach it on SEINFELD and KING OF QUEENS because I have to, Ive never seen a show use it to worse effect. It sounded like the laughs were never meant to be there. Like the studio said, That thong joke is too subtle! CRANK THE LAUGHS! Watching the show that first night was like being in a movie theater next to a bozo who barks his laughs in your ear. Every time you chuckle its ruined by the honk of the laugh that attacks you from the side.
The jokes were on par, I guess, and Julia Schultz (Playboy playmate and TOMCATS alum) was funny in her role. But dont expect to see this for long -- laugh track or not -- because its ratings make EMERIL look like a hit.
UNDECLARED. It was bound to happen. Someone creates a great show about college life and young people -- it makes you laugh and makes you remember (fondly) -- and the studio plans to cut it down like so much old-world redwood. UNDECLARED was told to pull back its output. Some awful-sounding midseason replacements are going to take over its slot for a while. UNDECLARED never really clicked with an audience. And, though its stayed alive this long, Im not sure its going to last till next season. I hope to God it does, because its among the funniest shows on the air. A big surprise was how unfunny the two episodes -- two and three in the order -- that never aired were. The second episode in particular. Everything about it was just...wrong. Even the people we know were acting uncharacteristically. From the look of things it would appear they envisioned Timm Sharps character as a slob and a weirdo. It was nice to see the morning-after of the first-episode sex, but the show was otherwise a bust. The history class Steve is attending suggests it was Oliver Stones JFK. In any event, UNDECLARED has shown us wonderful things -- the fraternity shows were purrr-fect -- and to lose it would be a real shame. Maybe they should move the show. Maybe the same people who watch THAT 70s SHOW just dont want to see it. Go to the UNDECLARED web site and you can link to a guy whos doing a save-UNDECLARED letter-writing campaign.
NYPD BLUE. With John Clark essentially tossed out of view (I dont see him being there for more than two years) the show has never been better. Connie McDowell is sort of like a female Danny: shes got skeletons overflowing from her closet, shes a good cop with demons that invade her work, and shes forging a powerful, needy bond with one of her coworkers. In this case, though, the bond is really with a coworkers kid and I dont think Connie and Andy -- as opposed to Danny and Diane -- will get sexual. But...why not? The cases on NYPD BLUE (thanks to real cop Bill Clark) have always been entertaining and real and involving. The human interaction jumps around. Even this year we have the boring subplot with Baldwin (who the writers never really know what to do with) and the D.A. But Andy and Connie? Classic stuff. Connie is doing something else the Danny character did: floating the show so high its untouchable.
TWENTY-FOUR. Things are interesting around here. Now that Bauer and the people pulling his strings failed to kill Palmer -- whats the show going to be about? Hopefully, not another long setup to another kill. The fact that they shot their guns this early suggests theres more up their sleeves. And maybe now well know what the producer was talking about when he said the show was about a mans jealousy.
ED. How can you not love ED? The character and the show. The other night, when Ed walks out of the barber shop with that funky dyed hair? Stupendous. ED got into weird territory the other night when Big Pussy guest-starred as a husband given two free days to do whatever he wants: drink, smoke, have sex with another woman. It comes down to the husband sleeping with a woman and telling Ed he doesnt want him to tell his wife. When Ed is faced with the crisis-of-conscience...he finds out the wife already knows. And she makes up some bizarre line of thought about how hes been faithful for fifty years and if he wants this he should have it. Really?! Could she write a book about this and hand it out to all new wives? I mean, hey, I guess this means everyone should do anything they want as long as theyve been doing something else for a long time. I dont agree with where the episode ended -- Rob and Jon are married, so it was probably a fantasy -- but ED is still knocking em dead. Now if theyd only get rid of that damned Dennis Martino...
THE BERNIE MAC SHOW. Bernie Mac has a way of mumbling words into his chin. The distorted effect is actually funnier than the words. Bernie is shockingly fit -- after years of his dirty act -- to be on a family sitcom. All he has to do is widen his huge, golf-ball eyes in disbelief to make you bust out laughing. While I could hear that little girl lilt Uncle Berrrnnniiieee all day long, Im finding the other two kids annoying as bloody hell. In the last episode they lock Bernie out of his own house in the brutalizing sun. And for what reason? Listen: this is a sitcom and all, but Bernie took these kids in when their mother ran into trouble. Bernie didnt have to do that. He may be strict at times, but he more or less saved their lives. Why the hell do they abuse him? After a nonstop Bernie-bashing from people he took in out of the goodness of his heart, the show becomes frustrating and not funny.
LAW & ORDER. Theres been an improvement since I was last in here talking about its decline in quality, but still there exists an...I dont know...indifference. Last Wednesdays show had a classic LAW buildup where the story could have shot off into a million directions. Then the story it settles for -- a sort of JOHN Q. about a man desperate to save his ill child -- was so ridiculous and poorly done you immediately tune out. Heres the deal: the guys kid needs certain medication; its expensive (and she has to take it for the rest of her life) so his insurance company wants to do a bone-marrow transplant instead. The father, with no other choice, kills the insurance man who was the deciding vote on whether to give the girl the medication. Now, the mans lawyer proposes that this is a justifiable killing. Its self-defense because the man thought he was saving his daughter. I dont mind the show putting this out there, but why didnt they tear it apart and have Sam Waterston do his patented rending of a witness to expose how silly the idea is? Wheres the simple-but-compelling argument that murder is never justified? To let the guy walk in the end was a bad, bad choice. Clearly, LAW & ORDER is moving away from the actual law for more exciting and thought-provoking episodes. They never needed to do that in the past.
THE TICK. Say good-bye to THE TICK, ladies and gentlemen. Its gone for good. The ratings were feeble and it was only a matter of time. Larry Charles will just have to spread his lavish ladle of laughter, with all its laughnious laughitude somewhere else.
The good news is that Fox is putting PASADENA back on the air -- in TEMPTATION ISLAND IIs spot once that show is over with.
DARK ANGEL. For all of you who lust after Alba and watch so you can slo-mo her kicks...start taping! This show, which has seen its ratings plummet more than fifty percent, wont be around next year. Its too expensive to leave up for the few remaining diehard fans. Sci-fi is pretty hard to sell as it is. The fighting-injustice kind that this show has been about is even harder. In the end, DARK ANGEL will be remembered as the show that launched Jessica Albas career as an actress.
What the producers dont seem to realize is that, at this point, the show doesnt have to follow an arc and it doesnt always have to be about Alba and how she kicks ass. Honestly, if they had a run of two shows where she didnt scream HAAA! and hit someone in the face with a spinning kick I think the ratings would go up.
The best episodes so far this year were about a freaky birdlike man and Maxs Manicore sidekick. They gave that guy his own episode Friday and it was...highly melodramatic and riddled with cliches -- but still effective and watchable. Even that slight departure from the Max-and-Logan saga was welcomed. And P.S.: learn to laugh a little.
LAW & ORDER: SVU. Who the hell is running this show? Can they degenerate a little more? Can the show become any worse? Fridays show started out with promise: a dog cop is found murdered in the park. Who did it? Well, what about the moody androgynously pretty teen she had run-ins with? They look into it and find that the kid is obsessed with death, serial killers, books written by FBI agents, police work. A teen serial killer...? That knows all the rules...? Thats outsmarting our detectives...? Intriguing. But, oh, wait, its some guy that the dog cop worked with. Say what? The episode spent about forty minutes with this kid, hinting and then telling us he was our man, and suddenly cuts off out of nowhere to say it was this other guy. This other guy who comes out of nowhere! Are we supposed to be creeped out by the kid, and enjoy how he, like a young, prettier Lecter, helps out the cops in a ghoulish way? Please.
THE SIMPSONS. Let me state up front that I dont think THE SIMPSONS has ever had a bad episode. Post-first season, its never slowed, never waned. Having said that...
I love THE SIMPSONS. Ive been watching religiously from the very first day. Mike Scully was running the show for the last few years -- only to get abused unremittingly by the maniacs who write to the message boards -- and this year hes handed it off to former show-runner Al Jean. Al is and was one of the best writers on the staff. He was a fine show-runner when he had that job with his partner Mike Reiss. But his latest gig is getting off to a shaky start. THE SIMPSONS, all the sudden, feels more juvenile. The Christmas episode, which marked Als first show back as King of the House, was shoddy and hollowly unfunny in parts. The church-goes-to-the-ad-men episode had its moments, but writer Joel Cohens self-references reeked of desperation. (The idea of bringing back the whores Homer and Ned married in Vegas was a brilliant idea, but where was the follow-through?) Last nights episode, written by Carolyn Omine, at least tells us all is not lost. It was hardly a classic, but you found enough funny moments to calm your nerves. There are a lot of new names on the credits this year, suggesting, maybe, that Al brought in a few friends (just a guess on my part). THE SIMPSONS was always smarter than everything else and to call it a cartoon for adults was even a bit of an insult. To see it slipping into younger-demo markets is just something I couldnt stand. But Als tenure has just started, so Im not worried. John Swartzwelder, George Meyer, Dan Greaney, and all the other regulars havent written scripts for him yet.
THE X-FILES. Its going off the air. (Some would add finally.) Carter intends to pay off the fans for their long years of loyalty. And as much as I deserve that payoff, nothing could take me away from its two competitors on Sunday night.
LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT. Rene Balcers show is discussing the big issues, wrapped in the cloak of mystery plots, in ways the original LAW & ORDER isnt doing any more.
ALIAS. PULP FICTION director Quentin Tarantino started his two-part guest-starring role Sunday night. QT hasnt made a movie in four years and now we know what hes been doing all that time...eating! Quentin looks like hes three hundred pounds. Watching him huff-and-struggle in the ALIAS running-toward-camera shot was painful. Just squeezed into a broad-shouldered suit, Tarantino was bulging out all over the place and couldnt even walk a straight line! The guy is waddling. Someone tape a Subway sandwich in his mouth.
With QTs rapidly receding hairline and upturned hook of a jaw (which makes his mouth close in on itself) hes about as dangerous-looking as Mr. Magoo. But ALIAS cast him anyway in the role of an ex-soldier who was left behind and has now taken over SD-6. The episode is basically a rip-off of DIE HARD, and while I know ALIAS doesnt have that budget, how can we ever seriously believe how huge SD-6 is if these morons can break in with nary a problem? How come SD-6 (its California branch) doesnt have a team of guards at the ready with M-16s? It looked, as in every film where people break into a building, that the place is guarded by rent-a-cops. People trained by something like SD-6 arent supposed to assume its just some glitch.
There were two other great subplots going on, though. We learned last week that Sydneys mom was a KGB operative who killed more than one hundred FBI agents -- including Vaughns father! What a perfect dynamic: this man, who is clearly falling for her, is facing the offspring of the woman who murdered his father and scarred his life. Sydney now sees her father in a new light: he was the good guy and the woman she mourned was a monster; her father was suckered by this woman, used for information, and was hurt by her in ways Sydney will never know. No wonder the guy is so cold! He found out the woman he loved was just playing a part.
Will, meanwhile, is getting deeper and deeper into finding out what SD-6 really is. My question here is: though this is entertaining as hell to watch, what happens when he discovers SD-6 and Sydneys involvement? Will they actually kill him? Does Will suddenly become apart of that? Dont like the sound of it.
J.J. Abrams wasnt kidding when he said him and his writers would make everything pay off. It wasnt apparent when it first aired, but ALIAS is one giant script. As meaningless as each episode might have looked -- one adventure after the other -- it all comes back to be apart of this sticky conglomeration. Doing a sort of anti-David E. Kelley move by mapping out exactly what twists and turns the story of the first season would take was, as the season points out, a brilliant move.
THE PRACTICE. Not much to say on the quality or anything like that. Good as always. My problem is the schedule. THE PRACTICE has suffered a stop-start season worse than anything else on. Has there been more than two episodes without an interruption all season?
Now lets talk reality TV:
The granddaddy of them all is now over. SURVIVOR: AFRICA ended its run two weeks ago, awarding Ethan the top prize. Ratings were down (to an oh-how-sad twenty million) but I found it much easier to watch these people than the fools of last year. The proof that the personalities on SURVIVOR: AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK were weak is that you never see them anywhere. Richard Hatch was on every goddamned TV show and in every goddamned magazine in the world. Colby and Tina disappeared. And trust me, they didnt want to.
Ethan proved the nice, smart guy could win. Big Tom shows that you need a bumpkin who mumbles his words to keep things lively. Kim J. scared the hell out of me in the end (if she won I never would have watched the show again). And Lex was the smartest-but-dumbest guy Ive ever seen. Clearly intelligent, he let little things like a vote against him and some BS rumors throw his whole game. (By the way, for those who think Big Tom was all an act and that hes really a smart guy? Check out the way he spelled Ethan on the last episode. I believe it was Eathen.)
FEAR FACTOR. This show is educational. It reminds us that people have zero shame and will completely degrade themselves for money. I respect a hooker more than I do the contestants on this show. At least a hooker demands her own price and chooses who shell see. The guys and gals on this show are sacrificed for our gross-out needs.
Which isnt to say I dont love it. I find the idea of good-looking wannabe actors gnawing on buffalo testicles or cow brains a great way to spend an hour. Host Joe Rogan, who flirts more than he does anything else, is perfect, in a way, because the tone of his voice and his spot-on jokes never let these people forget what a silly, stupid, humiliating thing theyre doing.
TEMPTATION ISLAND II. By far the best of all reality shows. A lot of people hate TEMPTATION ISLAND for some reason. I think their mistake is in taking this crap seriously. I like to sit around and make fun of the brainless stud-boy and -girls they get to be on this show.
Right now the real-Erin-Brokovich lookalike Shannon takes the cake for stupidest female. On the last episode, where shes hysterical crying and railing against her debauched cohorts for cheating on their boyfriends? Priceless. The dumbest guy has to be the new one (forget his name). He goes out on a date with this hot-to-trot foreign woman and, when they go to get massages, he refuses to take his clothes off! This is TEMPTATION ISLAND, you fool!
The one complaint I have is that the show is never clear exactly who is doing what with whom. Sex is implied, but never revealed.
Then we have THE CHAIR and THE CHAMBER. The producers of THE CHAIR are suing THE CHAMBER because they say those guys stole their idea. Maybe they did. But they should save the ink of the legal papers: THE CHAMBER has THE CHAIR beat hands down. THE CHAIR is an absurd game show: keep your heart rate below a certain mark while answering questions and you win money. But look out! -- we spring heart-stoppers at you! -- like an alligator hung from a rope. The show is created to be boring: its like watching a car speedometer. Are we supposed to be on the edge of our seats screaming, "OH, MY GOD! SHES REACHED 110 -- SHES GOING OVER! I dont think so. Theres nothing to enjoy here; the questions are so easy they are an afterthought. Which of these shows is not set in Boston? Name three movies Tom Hanks received Oscar nominations for? Since most of these fools never get beyond the first heart-stopper the show is tedious. What seems to scare people more than alligators and fire is just being on a TV show with a live audience. They have a sort of good idea going here. But why put them in a chair? Why not send them to a haunted house or something really, really creepy and see who can stay calmest in distressing situations?
THE CHAMBER, which is like FEAR FACTOR mixed with WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?, is the much cooler entry in the chair game-show genre. People are locked into this space -- the chamber -- and buffeted by wind, burned by fire, shaken by vibrations...and all the while they have to answer inane questions. Can they keep their concentration? Well, you dont really care, because on THE CHAMBER the fun part is seeing some guy get ice dumped on his head or some woman scream an answer to a movie question upside down.
Will either last? Probably not. But at least THE CHAMBER will entertain a few before it goes the way of GREED.
And now some thoughts on shows that will be gracing your TV screen in the near future:
WATCHING ELLIE. So far, the only person out of SEINFELD who has had post-FELD success is Larry David. Which is fitting, because he was the main creative force behind the show. Besides being the man who wrote most of it, SEINFELD is David. When you say something is SEINFELD-ian, youre really saying Larry David-ian.
This show is Julia Louis-Dreyfus first follow-up to her work on SEINFELD -- hot on the heels of Jason Alexander and Michael Richards failures.
The show is a real-time comedy about a lounge singer in L.A. JLD has been pretty good in things besides SEINFLED, but what this show is going to suffer from is the its-stealing-from-24 mantra. Like 24, there will be a clock in the corner clicking off the minutes.
Want to know why I think everyone has fallen on his or her face after SEINFELD? Though the actors werent the people they played, they were tapping into the best of their abilities. Georges selfishness. Kramers slapstick. But it took someone else -- namely Larry David -- to shape it and wean it down to something swift and workable. It wasnt something they could just rush out onto a stage and do themselves. So if JLD is able to restrain herself and has the right writing staff -- who knows. But I will say this: the Enron-like collapse of SEINFELD after Larry David left was proof enough that he was the one that made the show what it was. That his actors are struggling to find a break without his writing is another.
ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE. So this is what Fox is going to replace UNDECLARED with, right? Oh, good Lord...
When Andy first left Conans show the first few episodes were weird. It was like Conan seemed lost; there were moments when you knew he wanted to bounce something off of someone. And then a week passed -- and you know what? You forgot Andy was ever there. And the show improved greatly once Andy left. You realized that Conan didnt need any damned sidekick. And Andy was usually so acerbic -- smoldering offscreen -- that he became a nuisance.
Now he gets his own show. If the title didnt tip you off to its playful surreal nature, heres its hook: its about this Chicago technical writer, right, and he has -- GET THIS! -- an active fantasy life! Wow. Weve never seen that before. Its so original, in fact, that its star defensively said, SCRUBS didnt invent goofy cutaways, and neither did ALLY MCBEAL. Were all ripping off THE MONKEES. A person citing an older work, saying, in a circuitous way, Were all stealing? Doesnt sound too despairing, eh?
THAT 80s SHOW. Not surprisingly, this is -- as the ads blare -- from the creators of THAT 70s SHOW. I dont watch 70s SHOW and nothing could make me start. So I wont be watching this either. But if the ads are any indication, this show is going to be putrefying sitcom slag. Right in the goddamned first ad, which Im sure youve seen a hundred times (like I have), they commit an error with anachronistic dialogue. The girl with the spiked hairdo says, Im so not going to the prom with you. Well, sweetheart, I hate to tell you, but people didnt start using so in that way till the late nineties. They didnt butcher it till Clinton was in the White House. If they get showstopping cues like this wrong -- how much can they know about the era?
SURVIVOR: MARQUESAS. Cool. Ill be there. But whats with the name? No one will be able to say it. The gimmick this year around will be that they give the survivors no food. Not even rice. Which means after a week and a half of these people unable to fish or hunt, Jeff will wander in and say, Okay, you can have this food, but you have to...
THE COURT. Just what your kids have been hoping for: another Supreme Court melodrama! Sally Fields jumps back to TV (not that anyone was asking her to) in a show taken over by ER producer John Wells. That other Court show, FIRST MONDAY, is a bad WEST WING rip-off. Im sure this will be more like THE PRACTICE and PHILLY -- with more prestige, of course.
TAKEN. Steven Spielberg creates another show no one will watch! Its about alien abduction and its airing on the Sci-Fi Network. With THE X-FILES closing its doors and the Sci-Fi Network so hard to find, this sounds like a waste of hard-earned dough.
AMERICAN EMBASSY. It started out as an ALLY MCBEAL rip-off with a car bombing at the end of its first episode. And now its just a boring show about world issues. Go figure.
LEAP OF FAITH. SEX AND THE CITY writer Jenny Bicks gives us a show about a woman who calls off her engagement to a wealthy lawyer. Hmm. Sounds very interesting. Expect this to be a rerun of how all the hot FRIENDS writers went off and created their own shows only to have them fall from the sky like murdered ducks. Lets see how Bicks handles the no-nudity, no-cursing restrictions of network TV.
THE DEAD ZONE. USA picked this up after UPN tossed it away. Yet another adaptation of a Stephen King work (this was already made into a film). Anthony Michael Hall gets a job, which is cool, but Im too big a fan of Kings books to really care about the adaptations. Seeing someone else do his work is like watching someone else raise my kid.
THE NORM MCDONALD & JON LOVITZ PROJECT. Im intrigued. As long as these two pros get to be cranky and who they are in real life. Not watered-down versions of Felix and Oscar. And I want Norman to deadpan Dirty crackwhore at least once an episode.
THE BONNIE HUNT PROJECT. When will they learn? Cant they take a clue from David Lettermans failure with this material a while back? Bonnie Hunt isnt appealing enough to carry her own show and this will, hopefully, die as fast as her first tryout THE BONNIE HUNT SHOW.
MR. AMBASSADOR. Rupert Everett is a British dignitary adjusting to life in Washington, D.C. It sounds as bad as the spoof-show in SEINFELD.
THE YOUNG PERSONS GUIDE TO BECOMING A ROCK STAR. Its not another POPSTARS. Too bad. That might have been pretty cool. Rock stars -- those guys that start out as longhaired loners in high school -- actually have talent, unlike their pop-star counterparts. So seeing some talented young rockers get picked from the muck of obscurity could have been fun. Instead its about...oh...well...youre not going to watch it, anyway.
GREG THE BUNNY. A show about the lives of the people who make a kids show starring a bunny. Seth Green is the producer of the show-within-a-show and the roommate of the alive-and-talking bunny of the title. I dont know what I buy less: a talking stuffed animal or young Seth Green as the producer of a TV show.
Thats it for now, ladies and gents. Probably wont be back in this neck of the woods for a few months. But you never know. I might have to write to you about Tarantinos gut hitting the floor after next weeks ALIAS.
Until next time...
Stay safe, America.
-- Darwin Mayflower (darwinmayflower@yahoo.com)
Have we reached part six already? How time flies. I want to pat the back and kick the butt of a few shows weve already talked about, then jump into all those (sigh) midseason replacements and shows hitting the airwaves later in the year.
BOSTON PUBLIC. David E. Kelley is his own worst enemy on Monday nights. For some reason the credo for people has become: BOSTON was great; ALLY MCBEAL is slipping. Ill agree with the first statement. Sometimes the air at Winslow High can get heavy, but I think the greatest thing Kelley did this year was not to make Kathy Bakers character a murderous psycho and instead give Guber his first relationship in years. Their union is one for humor and zingers, but theres a desperate intimacy about it that sparkles.
The great Nicky Katt (and his great character Harry), as well as the character of Lauren, have been pushed to the background this year. I know theyre using up all the time they have with here-and-then-gone Michael Rapaport (who settled in nicely) but that doesnt mean everyone else has to sit in the back of the class. It was worth Lauren breaking up with Harry to see that fantastic series of episodes where she had an affair with a delusional (or not-so-delusional) former student, but maybe its about time they got back together.
ALLY MCBEAL. Jon Bon Jovi? Really now, David. Really now.
CROSSING JORDAN. JORDAN has settled into one of my favorite things: a show with a skewed sense of humor. The murders are still happening and Jordan is still solving them. With that, though, you find more genuine yuks than you can shake a rigor mortised finger at. Dealing with dead bodies is creepy stuff, writing a show about a persistent and ardent M.E. can be humdrum, so why not stir it up with some laughs? The truth is, the laughs feel real. The stuff you and your buddies say and do when youre together. A pinch here and there about someones love life (or lack thereof). Some friendly competition and ribbing among mates. The show was rolling along before, and now -- with the humor style set the way it is -- the show can only get better.
IMAGINE THAT. Hank Azaria is the guy that does about half of the voices on THE SIMPSONS. He was also the accent-enhanced, thong-wearing dude in BIRDCAGE. Hes been on MAD ABOUT YOU and was recently in AMERICAS SWEETHEARTS. The guy is talented. Which is why NBC probably thought people would watch his show. But theyre not.
I saw the opening episode. And I was underwhelmed. It wasnt that Azaria wasnt charming, or that he wasnt surrounded by good actors, or that the jokes werent funny. Those first two things are very true; the second is, well, fairly true. The thing that sapped the show was the incessant, obstreperous laugh track! A laugh track is an insult: its telling you when to laugh. (Its a creation Id like to go back in time and destroy -- it is that friggin dumb.) And while I stomach it on SEINFELD and KING OF QUEENS because I have to, Ive never seen a show use it to worse effect. It sounded like the laughs were never meant to be there. Like the studio said, That thong joke is too subtle! CRANK THE LAUGHS! Watching the show that first night was like being in a movie theater next to a bozo who barks his laughs in your ear. Every time you chuckle its ruined by the honk of the laugh that attacks you from the side.
The jokes were on par, I guess, and Julia Schultz (Playboy playmate and TOMCATS alum) was funny in her role. But dont expect to see this for long -- laugh track or not -- because its ratings make EMERIL look like a hit.
UNDECLARED. It was bound to happen. Someone creates a great show about college life and young people -- it makes you laugh and makes you remember (fondly) -- and the studio plans to cut it down like so much old-world redwood. UNDECLARED was told to pull back its output. Some awful-sounding midseason replacements are going to take over its slot for a while. UNDECLARED never really clicked with an audience. And, though its stayed alive this long, Im not sure its going to last till next season. I hope to God it does, because its among the funniest shows on the air. A big surprise was how unfunny the two episodes -- two and three in the order -- that never aired were. The second episode in particular. Everything about it was just...wrong. Even the people we know were acting uncharacteristically. From the look of things it would appear they envisioned Timm Sharps character as a slob and a weirdo. It was nice to see the morning-after of the first-episode sex, but the show was otherwise a bust. The history class Steve is attending suggests it was Oliver Stones JFK. In any event, UNDECLARED has shown us wonderful things -- the fraternity shows were purrr-fect -- and to lose it would be a real shame. Maybe they should move the show. Maybe the same people who watch THAT 70s SHOW just dont want to see it. Go to the UNDECLARED web site and you can link to a guy whos doing a save-UNDECLARED letter-writing campaign.
NYPD BLUE. With John Clark essentially tossed out of view (I dont see him being there for more than two years) the show has never been better. Connie McDowell is sort of like a female Danny: shes got skeletons overflowing from her closet, shes a good cop with demons that invade her work, and shes forging a powerful, needy bond with one of her coworkers. In this case, though, the bond is really with a coworkers kid and I dont think Connie and Andy -- as opposed to Danny and Diane -- will get sexual. But...why not? The cases on NYPD BLUE (thanks to real cop Bill Clark) have always been entertaining and real and involving. The human interaction jumps around. Even this year we have the boring subplot with Baldwin (who the writers never really know what to do with) and the D.A. But Andy and Connie? Classic stuff. Connie is doing something else the Danny character did: floating the show so high its untouchable.
TWENTY-FOUR. Things are interesting around here. Now that Bauer and the people pulling his strings failed to kill Palmer -- whats the show going to be about? Hopefully, not another long setup to another kill. The fact that they shot their guns this early suggests theres more up their sleeves. And maybe now well know what the producer was talking about when he said the show was about a mans jealousy.
ED. How can you not love ED? The character and the show. The other night, when Ed walks out of the barber shop with that funky dyed hair? Stupendous. ED got into weird territory the other night when Big Pussy guest-starred as a husband given two free days to do whatever he wants: drink, smoke, have sex with another woman. It comes down to the husband sleeping with a woman and telling Ed he doesnt want him to tell his wife. When Ed is faced with the crisis-of-conscience...he finds out the wife already knows. And she makes up some bizarre line of thought about how hes been faithful for fifty years and if he wants this he should have it. Really?! Could she write a book about this and hand it out to all new wives? I mean, hey, I guess this means everyone should do anything they want as long as theyve been doing something else for a long time. I dont agree with where the episode ended -- Rob and Jon are married, so it was probably a fantasy -- but ED is still knocking em dead. Now if theyd only get rid of that damned Dennis Martino...
THE BERNIE MAC SHOW. Bernie Mac has a way of mumbling words into his chin. The distorted effect is actually funnier than the words. Bernie is shockingly fit -- after years of his dirty act -- to be on a family sitcom. All he has to do is widen his huge, golf-ball eyes in disbelief to make you bust out laughing. While I could hear that little girl lilt Uncle Berrrnnniiieee all day long, Im finding the other two kids annoying as bloody hell. In the last episode they lock Bernie out of his own house in the brutalizing sun. And for what reason? Listen: this is a sitcom and all, but Bernie took these kids in when their mother ran into trouble. Bernie didnt have to do that. He may be strict at times, but he more or less saved their lives. Why the hell do they abuse him? After a nonstop Bernie-bashing from people he took in out of the goodness of his heart, the show becomes frustrating and not funny.
LAW & ORDER. Theres been an improvement since I was last in here talking about its decline in quality, but still there exists an...I dont know...indifference. Last Wednesdays show had a classic LAW buildup where the story could have shot off into a million directions. Then the story it settles for -- a sort of JOHN Q. about a man desperate to save his ill child -- was so ridiculous and poorly done you immediately tune out. Heres the deal: the guys kid needs certain medication; its expensive (and she has to take it for the rest of her life) so his insurance company wants to do a bone-marrow transplant instead. The father, with no other choice, kills the insurance man who was the deciding vote on whether to give the girl the medication. Now, the mans lawyer proposes that this is a justifiable killing. Its self-defense because the man thought he was saving his daughter. I dont mind the show putting this out there, but why didnt they tear it apart and have Sam Waterston do his patented rending of a witness to expose how silly the idea is? Wheres the simple-but-compelling argument that murder is never justified? To let the guy walk in the end was a bad, bad choice. Clearly, LAW & ORDER is moving away from the actual law for more exciting and thought-provoking episodes. They never needed to do that in the past.
THE TICK. Say good-bye to THE TICK, ladies and gentlemen. Its gone for good. The ratings were feeble and it was only a matter of time. Larry Charles will just have to spread his lavish ladle of laughter, with all its laughnious laughitude somewhere else.
The good news is that Fox is putting PASADENA back on the air -- in TEMPTATION ISLAND IIs spot once that show is over with.
DARK ANGEL. For all of you who lust after Alba and watch so you can slo-mo her kicks...start taping! This show, which has seen its ratings plummet more than fifty percent, wont be around next year. Its too expensive to leave up for the few remaining diehard fans. Sci-fi is pretty hard to sell as it is. The fighting-injustice kind that this show has been about is even harder. In the end, DARK ANGEL will be remembered as the show that launched Jessica Albas career as an actress.
What the producers dont seem to realize is that, at this point, the show doesnt have to follow an arc and it doesnt always have to be about Alba and how she kicks ass. Honestly, if they had a run of two shows where she didnt scream HAAA! and hit someone in the face with a spinning kick I think the ratings would go up.
The best episodes so far this year were about a freaky birdlike man and Maxs Manicore sidekick. They gave that guy his own episode Friday and it was...highly melodramatic and riddled with cliches -- but still effective and watchable. Even that slight departure from the Max-and-Logan saga was welcomed. And P.S.: learn to laugh a little.
LAW & ORDER: SVU. Who the hell is running this show? Can they degenerate a little more? Can the show become any worse? Fridays show started out with promise: a dog cop is found murdered in the park. Who did it? Well, what about the moody androgynously pretty teen she had run-ins with? They look into it and find that the kid is obsessed with death, serial killers, books written by FBI agents, police work. A teen serial killer...? That knows all the rules...? Thats outsmarting our detectives...? Intriguing. But, oh, wait, its some guy that the dog cop worked with. Say what? The episode spent about forty minutes with this kid, hinting and then telling us he was our man, and suddenly cuts off out of nowhere to say it was this other guy. This other guy who comes out of nowhere! Are we supposed to be creeped out by the kid, and enjoy how he, like a young, prettier Lecter, helps out the cops in a ghoulish way? Please.
THE SIMPSONS. Let me state up front that I dont think THE SIMPSONS has ever had a bad episode. Post-first season, its never slowed, never waned. Having said that...
I love THE SIMPSONS. Ive been watching religiously from the very first day. Mike Scully was running the show for the last few years -- only to get abused unremittingly by the maniacs who write to the message boards -- and this year hes handed it off to former show-runner Al Jean. Al is and was one of the best writers on the staff. He was a fine show-runner when he had that job with his partner Mike Reiss. But his latest gig is getting off to a shaky start. THE SIMPSONS, all the sudden, feels more juvenile. The Christmas episode, which marked Als first show back as King of the House, was shoddy and hollowly unfunny in parts. The church-goes-to-the-ad-men episode had its moments, but writer Joel Cohens self-references reeked of desperation. (The idea of bringing back the whores Homer and Ned married in Vegas was a brilliant idea, but where was the follow-through?) Last nights episode, written by Carolyn Omine, at least tells us all is not lost. It was hardly a classic, but you found enough funny moments to calm your nerves. There are a lot of new names on the credits this year, suggesting, maybe, that Al brought in a few friends (just a guess on my part). THE SIMPSONS was always smarter than everything else and to call it a cartoon for adults was even a bit of an insult. To see it slipping into younger-demo markets is just something I couldnt stand. But Als tenure has just started, so Im not worried. John Swartzwelder, George Meyer, Dan Greaney, and all the other regulars havent written scripts for him yet.
THE X-FILES. Its going off the air. (Some would add finally.) Carter intends to pay off the fans for their long years of loyalty. And as much as I deserve that payoff, nothing could take me away from its two competitors on Sunday night.
LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT. Rene Balcers show is discussing the big issues, wrapped in the cloak of mystery plots, in ways the original LAW & ORDER isnt doing any more.
ALIAS. PULP FICTION director Quentin Tarantino started his two-part guest-starring role Sunday night. QT hasnt made a movie in four years and now we know what hes been doing all that time...eating! Quentin looks like hes three hundred pounds. Watching him huff-and-struggle in the ALIAS running-toward-camera shot was painful. Just squeezed into a broad-shouldered suit, Tarantino was bulging out all over the place and couldnt even walk a straight line! The guy is waddling. Someone tape a Subway sandwich in his mouth.
With QTs rapidly receding hairline and upturned hook of a jaw (which makes his mouth close in on itself) hes about as dangerous-looking as Mr. Magoo. But ALIAS cast him anyway in the role of an ex-soldier who was left behind and has now taken over SD-6. The episode is basically a rip-off of DIE HARD, and while I know ALIAS doesnt have that budget, how can we ever seriously believe how huge SD-6 is if these morons can break in with nary a problem? How come SD-6 (its California branch) doesnt have a team of guards at the ready with M-16s? It looked, as in every film where people break into a building, that the place is guarded by rent-a-cops. People trained by something like SD-6 arent supposed to assume its just some glitch.
There were two other great subplots going on, though. We learned last week that Sydneys mom was a KGB operative who killed more than one hundred FBI agents -- including Vaughns father! What a perfect dynamic: this man, who is clearly falling for her, is facing the offspring of the woman who murdered his father and scarred his life. Sydney now sees her father in a new light: he was the good guy and the woman she mourned was a monster; her father was suckered by this woman, used for information, and was hurt by her in ways Sydney will never know. No wonder the guy is so cold! He found out the woman he loved was just playing a part.
Will, meanwhile, is getting deeper and deeper into finding out what SD-6 really is. My question here is: though this is entertaining as hell to watch, what happens when he discovers SD-6 and Sydneys involvement? Will they actually kill him? Does Will suddenly become apart of that? Dont like the sound of it.
J.J. Abrams wasnt kidding when he said him and his writers would make everything pay off. It wasnt apparent when it first aired, but ALIAS is one giant script. As meaningless as each episode might have looked -- one adventure after the other -- it all comes back to be apart of this sticky conglomeration. Doing a sort of anti-David E. Kelley move by mapping out exactly what twists and turns the story of the first season would take was, as the season points out, a brilliant move.
THE PRACTICE. Not much to say on the quality or anything like that. Good as always. My problem is the schedule. THE PRACTICE has suffered a stop-start season worse than anything else on. Has there been more than two episodes without an interruption all season?
Now lets talk reality TV:
The granddaddy of them all is now over. SURVIVOR: AFRICA ended its run two weeks ago, awarding Ethan the top prize. Ratings were down (to an oh-how-sad twenty million) but I found it much easier to watch these people than the fools of last year. The proof that the personalities on SURVIVOR: AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK were weak is that you never see them anywhere. Richard Hatch was on every goddamned TV show and in every goddamned magazine in the world. Colby and Tina disappeared. And trust me, they didnt want to.
Ethan proved the nice, smart guy could win. Big Tom shows that you need a bumpkin who mumbles his words to keep things lively. Kim J. scared the hell out of me in the end (if she won I never would have watched the show again). And Lex was the smartest-but-dumbest guy Ive ever seen. Clearly intelligent, he let little things like a vote against him and some BS rumors throw his whole game. (By the way, for those who think Big Tom was all an act and that hes really a smart guy? Check out the way he spelled Ethan on the last episode. I believe it was Eathen.)
FEAR FACTOR. This show is educational. It reminds us that people have zero shame and will completely degrade themselves for money. I respect a hooker more than I do the contestants on this show. At least a hooker demands her own price and chooses who shell see. The guys and gals on this show are sacrificed for our gross-out needs.
Which isnt to say I dont love it. I find the idea of good-looking wannabe actors gnawing on buffalo testicles or cow brains a great way to spend an hour. Host Joe Rogan, who flirts more than he does anything else, is perfect, in a way, because the tone of his voice and his spot-on jokes never let these people forget what a silly, stupid, humiliating thing theyre doing.
TEMPTATION ISLAND II. By far the best of all reality shows. A lot of people hate TEMPTATION ISLAND for some reason. I think their mistake is in taking this crap seriously. I like to sit around and make fun of the brainless stud-boy and -girls they get to be on this show.
Right now the real-Erin-Brokovich lookalike Shannon takes the cake for stupidest female. On the last episode, where shes hysterical crying and railing against her debauched cohorts for cheating on their boyfriends? Priceless. The dumbest guy has to be the new one (forget his name). He goes out on a date with this hot-to-trot foreign woman and, when they go to get massages, he refuses to take his clothes off! This is TEMPTATION ISLAND, you fool!
The one complaint I have is that the show is never clear exactly who is doing what with whom. Sex is implied, but never revealed.
Then we have THE CHAIR and THE CHAMBER. The producers of THE CHAIR are suing THE CHAMBER because they say those guys stole their idea. Maybe they did. But they should save the ink of the legal papers: THE CHAMBER has THE CHAIR beat hands down. THE CHAIR is an absurd game show: keep your heart rate below a certain mark while answering questions and you win money. But look out! -- we spring heart-stoppers at you! -- like an alligator hung from a rope. The show is created to be boring: its like watching a car speedometer. Are we supposed to be on the edge of our seats screaming, "OH, MY GOD! SHES REACHED 110 -- SHES GOING OVER! I dont think so. Theres nothing to enjoy here; the questions are so easy they are an afterthought. Which of these shows is not set in Boston? Name three movies Tom Hanks received Oscar nominations for? Since most of these fools never get beyond the first heart-stopper the show is tedious. What seems to scare people more than alligators and fire is just being on a TV show with a live audience. They have a sort of good idea going here. But why put them in a chair? Why not send them to a haunted house or something really, really creepy and see who can stay calmest in distressing situations?
THE CHAMBER, which is like FEAR FACTOR mixed with WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?, is the much cooler entry in the chair game-show genre. People are locked into this space -- the chamber -- and buffeted by wind, burned by fire, shaken by vibrations...and all the while they have to answer inane questions. Can they keep their concentration? Well, you dont really care, because on THE CHAMBER the fun part is seeing some guy get ice dumped on his head or some woman scream an answer to a movie question upside down.
Will either last? Probably not. But at least THE CHAMBER will entertain a few before it goes the way of GREED.
And now some thoughts on shows that will be gracing your TV screen in the near future:
WATCHING ELLIE. So far, the only person out of SEINFELD who has had post-FELD success is Larry David. Which is fitting, because he was the main creative force behind the show. Besides being the man who wrote most of it, SEINFELD is David. When you say something is SEINFELD-ian, youre really saying Larry David-ian.
This show is Julia Louis-Dreyfus first follow-up to her work on SEINFELD -- hot on the heels of Jason Alexander and Michael Richards failures.
The show is a real-time comedy about a lounge singer in L.A. JLD has been pretty good in things besides SEINFLED, but what this show is going to suffer from is the its-stealing-from-24 mantra. Like 24, there will be a clock in the corner clicking off the minutes.
Want to know why I think everyone has fallen on his or her face after SEINFELD? Though the actors werent the people they played, they were tapping into the best of their abilities. Georges selfishness. Kramers slapstick. But it took someone else -- namely Larry David -- to shape it and wean it down to something swift and workable. It wasnt something they could just rush out onto a stage and do themselves. So if JLD is able to restrain herself and has the right writing staff -- who knows. But I will say this: the Enron-like collapse of SEINFELD after Larry David left was proof enough that he was the one that made the show what it was. That his actors are struggling to find a break without his writing is another.
ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE. So this is what Fox is going to replace UNDECLARED with, right? Oh, good Lord...
When Andy first left Conans show the first few episodes were weird. It was like Conan seemed lost; there were moments when you knew he wanted to bounce something off of someone. And then a week passed -- and you know what? You forgot Andy was ever there. And the show improved greatly once Andy left. You realized that Conan didnt need any damned sidekick. And Andy was usually so acerbic -- smoldering offscreen -- that he became a nuisance.
Now he gets his own show. If the title didnt tip you off to its playful surreal nature, heres its hook: its about this Chicago technical writer, right, and he has -- GET THIS! -- an active fantasy life! Wow. Weve never seen that before. Its so original, in fact, that its star defensively said, SCRUBS didnt invent goofy cutaways, and neither did ALLY MCBEAL. Were all ripping off THE MONKEES. A person citing an older work, saying, in a circuitous way, Were all stealing? Doesnt sound too despairing, eh?
THAT 80s SHOW. Not surprisingly, this is -- as the ads blare -- from the creators of THAT 70s SHOW. I dont watch 70s SHOW and nothing could make me start. So I wont be watching this either. But if the ads are any indication, this show is going to be putrefying sitcom slag. Right in the goddamned first ad, which Im sure youve seen a hundred times (like I have), they commit an error with anachronistic dialogue. The girl with the spiked hairdo says, Im so not going to the prom with you. Well, sweetheart, I hate to tell you, but people didnt start using so in that way till the late nineties. They didnt butcher it till Clinton was in the White House. If they get showstopping cues like this wrong -- how much can they know about the era?
SURVIVOR: MARQUESAS. Cool. Ill be there. But whats with the name? No one will be able to say it. The gimmick this year around will be that they give the survivors no food. Not even rice. Which means after a week and a half of these people unable to fish or hunt, Jeff will wander in and say, Okay, you can have this food, but you have to...
THE COURT. Just what your kids have been hoping for: another Supreme Court melodrama! Sally Fields jumps back to TV (not that anyone was asking her to) in a show taken over by ER producer John Wells. That other Court show, FIRST MONDAY, is a bad WEST WING rip-off. Im sure this will be more like THE PRACTICE and PHILLY -- with more prestige, of course.
TAKEN. Steven Spielberg creates another show no one will watch! Its about alien abduction and its airing on the Sci-Fi Network. With THE X-FILES closing its doors and the Sci-Fi Network so hard to find, this sounds like a waste of hard-earned dough.
AMERICAN EMBASSY. It started out as an ALLY MCBEAL rip-off with a car bombing at the end of its first episode. And now its just a boring show about world issues. Go figure.
LEAP OF FAITH. SEX AND THE CITY writer Jenny Bicks gives us a show about a woman who calls off her engagement to a wealthy lawyer. Hmm. Sounds very interesting. Expect this to be a rerun of how all the hot FRIENDS writers went off and created their own shows only to have them fall from the sky like murdered ducks. Lets see how Bicks handles the no-nudity, no-cursing restrictions of network TV.
THE DEAD ZONE. USA picked this up after UPN tossed it away. Yet another adaptation of a Stephen King work (this was already made into a film). Anthony Michael Hall gets a job, which is cool, but Im too big a fan of Kings books to really care about the adaptations. Seeing someone else do his work is like watching someone else raise my kid.
THE NORM MCDONALD & JON LOVITZ PROJECT. Im intrigued. As long as these two pros get to be cranky and who they are in real life. Not watered-down versions of Felix and Oscar. And I want Norman to deadpan Dirty crackwhore at least once an episode.
THE BONNIE HUNT PROJECT. When will they learn? Cant they take a clue from David Lettermans failure with this material a while back? Bonnie Hunt isnt appealing enough to carry her own show and this will, hopefully, die as fast as her first tryout THE BONNIE HUNT SHOW.
MR. AMBASSADOR. Rupert Everett is a British dignitary adjusting to life in Washington, D.C. It sounds as bad as the spoof-show in SEINFELD.
THE YOUNG PERSONS GUIDE TO BECOMING A ROCK STAR. Its not another POPSTARS. Too bad. That might have been pretty cool. Rock stars -- those guys that start out as longhaired loners in high school -- actually have talent, unlike their pop-star counterparts. So seeing some talented young rockers get picked from the muck of obscurity could have been fun. Instead its about...oh...well...youre not going to watch it, anyway.
GREG THE BUNNY. A show about the lives of the people who make a kids show starring a bunny. Seth Green is the producer of the show-within-a-show and the roommate of the alive-and-talking bunny of the title. I dont know what I buy less: a talking stuffed animal or young Seth Green as the producer of a TV show.
Thats it for now, ladies and gents. Probably wont be back in this neck of the woods for a few months. But you never know. I might have to write to you about Tarantinos gut hitting the floor after next weeks ALIAS.
Until next time...
Stay safe, America.
-- Darwin Mayflower (darwinmayflower@yahoo.com)
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