Fall TV: New shows
I’ve always found it odd that if you go to a site like Metacritic to see all the reviews coming in for a new TV show, they’re basically just judging it based on the pilot and maybe one more episode. I, on the other hand, prefer to give the shows a little time. Unless the pilot really sucks.
Anyway, a quick rundown of the new shows I attempted to get into this season…
“Modern Family”
Easily the best new show this season. I didn’t expect they’d move beyond the single note jokes that are built into each family situation (the gay parents, the old guy with the hot young wife, the “cool” dad, etc.), but they’ve really made it work and each episode feels pretty fresh. And the jokes almost always land.
Ed O’Neill slides into his role as the family grandfather with the aforementioned hot younger wife, played by Sofia Vergara. You know a role is working when you stop calling the character by their name from a more famous previous role. For instance, I call O’Neill’s character by his name, “Jay”, now instead of still referring to him as “Al Bundy”. I think the real show-stealer most of the time is his step-son Manny, played by Rico Rodriguez. Comedy gold star for that kid. But honestly, there isn’t a character on the show I don’t like.
What takes the show even a notch higher is that the more tender moments work well, too. They’re still funny, but they’ve got a lot of heart without being sappy. This final scene from the pilot is one of my fav moments from the show. Cameron and Mitchell have adopted a Vietnamese girl and this is how they let their family know…
“Community”
I wasn’t sold on this show after the first couple episodes. I had tuned in mainly because they used a Matt & Kim song in the teasers for it and Donald Glover from the Derrick Comedy Group was in it. But the characters seemed a little over the top for me and I only laughed hard a couple times. However, it quickly hit a stride and has secured a spot in my regular schedule. It’s a very funny show and the best character is Abed (Danny Pudi). For example…
“FlashForward”
Based on a Robert J. Sawyer book, brought to the screen by David S. Goyer, touting “Lost” connections in its cast, and boasting a fantastic mysterious premise, I was pretty pumped for this new show as something to get into and then have down the road when “Lost” ends in 2010. So far….pretty good.
The pilot was great and the episode quality has remained steady, but short of fantastic. The characters’ approach to everything is often a bit dim and repetitive. Their are some philosophical questions not getting their due attention, which is most unfortunate because when they do, the writers show they can knock it out of the park. (See episode 7, “The Gift”) There is an over-reliance on the motif of cutting to someone’s flashforward whenever it’s mentioned, so we see these time and time again and I just don’t want to see certain ones anymore. I’ve got it. No need to see it again. Also, Dominic Monaghan is performing his potentially villainous role well enough, but his conversations almost always involve some really, really clunky dialogue.
Still, the show maintains its potential. It’s probably not the replacement for “Lost” that I’d hoped for, but I plan on sticking with it for now. Even if Joseph Fiennes does look completely ridiculous in this promo pic:
“V”
I was also really excited about “V”. Big-budget sci-fi reboot with “Firefly” cast connections? Okay, sir. There were also a number of glowing reviews coming out in the weeks before the premiere. And then the show actually, you know, premiered.
And it’s a frakking mess. “Battlestar”-quality this is not, friends.
Talking with people afterward, the best description of how the pilot felt was that it was meant to be two hours, but an hour had been cut. It was seriously one of the worst-written and worst-directed pilots I’ve ever seen. There’s no build-up for the mysteries. They’re just revealed left and right. And don’t even get me started on the world’s ridiculous response to the aliens’ arrival in general. When Roland Emmerich’s films better understand humanity than your show, it’s in trouble.
Perhaps the most striking aspect, though, was the pointed aim it seemed to take at the Obama administration. A stray line about the Visitors hoping to provide “universal health care” would appear to leave little doubt. Don’t get me wrong, I wish there was more popular and intelligent criticism of Obama-mania than the elephant-shaped media outlets like Fox and Drudge provide. No administration is without fault. But it’s hardly fair to compare a well-meaning but over-hyped politician to reptilian predators bent on destroying mankind. How this got on Obama-criticism-free realm of network TV is beyond me. I almost want to congratulate abc for having the balls to do it, but the assertions are so outlandish and the show is so bad…that I won’t.
And yeah, I know I said I try not to quit on things after a pilot, but I lost all interest after this one. I still do plan on running through the four-ep mini-season at some point this winter, though. Just in case.
