|
Post by Eddie Love on Jul 17, 2010 17:57:43 GMT -5
HAVEN A cute by basic cable standards F.B.I. agent investigates the strange goings-on in a quaint Maine town. It’s likeTHE X-FILES meets NORTH(East)ERN EXPOSURE. The cast is pretty low-wattage, but I like that the heroine is sassy and not depicted as the tight-assed basket case many career women are on TV. But then all these cheesy special effects kick in without a single character saying “Um…this is unusual.” Perhaps if this were served up with some creepy atmosphere instead of a fairly ho-hum, folksy procedural, it would work better. Not sure what to make of it, was hoping it would be better as it's based on the book Stephen King wrote for Hard Case and the boys there are producers.
Would I watch this again?: Pass
MEMPHIS BEAT Likable, but not great actor Jason Lee stars in a flavorful crime drama set in the eponymous city. The George Clooney produced show tries hard to slather on the local color and there’s a lot of good music. The plot in the pilot was nothing special, though it was interesting to see a story that dealt with elder abuse. Lee’s character is a lounge singer on the side and there are some scenes of him belting, but I wasn’t sure it was really him. I really liked the low-key actor who plays Lee’s partner. But seriously, this is how you use Alfree Woodard as the by-the-book boss brought in to bust Lees ‘nads? She’s way too good for this. And I’m a little uncomfortable with stirring classics like Change Is Gonna Come and If I Can Dream being invoked for a run-of the mill crime show.
Would I watch this again?: Probably not
THE ‘GLADES An unrelentingly smart-ass Chicago cop transplants himself to Florida where he solves crimes and plays golf. Quicker than you can say “Dexter and Rita”, he also strikes up a romance with a sexy ER nurse who has a precocious kid and a husband behind bars. The murder case in the pilot was actually pretty good and I didn’t see the resolution coming and it played out very well. The lead actor is like a cross between David Boreanz and Jeremy Renner, and he’s okay even if he must struggle with the character’s ceaseless flippancy. The nurse he romances is tres sexy, though I wasn’t sure if that character will reappear.
Would I watch this again?: Maybe.
COVERT AFFAIRS Doug Liman produced this C.I.A. dramedy on USA starring uber cute Piper Perabo as a newly minted agent for the Company. I don’t know why they harp on the fact that she’s supposed to be in her mid-twenties, because gamin features aside, she looks a good bit older. She’s a marvelous talent with a killer smile and she knows when to dial back the cuteness. This series has a solid supporting cast as well. This includes, as Piper’s blind operational support, Christopher Gorman who was excellent as the lead in the series HARPER’S ISLAND last summer. (I watched that whole thing and never realized ‘til it was over that he was the same actor who played Ugly Betty’s boyfriend Henry, a character and performance I couldn’t stand.) The pilot for this show was just okay –it’s derivative of ALIAS, which in turn owed its debt to LA FEMME NIKITA. I’m not sure how they’ll maintain a series about tense national securities issues and keep it in the caper-y esthetic of USA.
Would I watch this again?: Definitely. I watch all spy stuff.
|
|
|
Post by Derrick on Jul 17, 2010 22:17:01 GMT -5
HAVEN: Watched the pilot episode. Probably won't watch anymore. I'm on the yawn when it comes to these "little town with a big secret" type of shows. I have to wonder tho: with all these F.B.I. agents in various shows on different networks investigating the paranormal and strange little towns with big secrets and traveling between alternate universes, who's catching good ol' fashioned homegrown criminals?
MEMPHIS BEAT: Doesn't do a thing for me. First of all, it premiered way too quickly on the heels of the success of the much better written/acted/produced JUSTIFIED as if it was trying to catch the wave of a new genre of TV show: The Cornpone Cop Show. And it tries way too hard to be hip and cool. The only reason to watch this show is if you like Jason Lee and Alfre Woodard.
I probably won't watch THE 'GLADES simply because I don't have the time and my overworked DVR is demanding time off. But I will be watching COVERT AFFAIRS for a couple of reasons. One: Piper Perabo. I've been following her career since "Rocky & Bullwinkle" and I like her a lot. She's very appealing and never seems like she 'acting' Two: the amazing Kari Matchett who I thought was brilliant playing a different role every week on A&E's "Nero Wolfe" series from about 10 years ago. She was also the best thing the short-lived ABC series "Invasion"
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Jul 18, 2010 11:26:25 GMT -5
Yes, I don't want to tax my DVR anymore than I have to as it's clogged with a lot of TCM. But I hope there's something this fall to take the place of 24.
Plus, just last night saw the return of my guiltiest, guilty pleasure: CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES on the Bio channel. No, I'm not proud of it, but that show is insanely addictive. I. Love. It.
|
|
|
Post by Derrick on Jul 18, 2010 11:50:28 GMT -5
Yes, I don't want to tax my DVR anymore than I have to as it's clogged with a lot of TCM. But I hope there's something this fall to take the place of 24. Every February and September I delete everything. I've got some stuff on my DVR from March and April I that I still haven't watched and my feeling is this: if I haven't watched it by now then I really don't want to see it and there's no point in clogging up the DVR with it when I could be recording new stuff I really do want to see.
|
|
|
Post by grubl on Jul 18, 2010 12:13:10 GMT -5
Yes, TCM eats up a lot. I'm waiting to finish GUN CRAZY.
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Aug 15, 2010 18:38:18 GMT -5
Two: the amazing Kari Matchett who I thought was brilliant playing a different role every week on A&E's "Nero Wolfe" series from about 10 years ago. She was also the best thing the short-lived ABC series "Invasion" Derrick, great call -- I agree with you on her now in COVERT AFFAIRS, her character is becoming the most interesting and her performance brings a welcome thread of intensity to the otherwise strangely sunny national security show. Although she dresses waaaaaaay too hot for the CIA workplace. (Shades of (...shudder...) Dana Walsh from the last season of 24.) I may queue up those NERO WOLFEs now. I initially gave a pass to that series as Timothy Hutton just didn't sell me as Archie. Is anyone doing RUBICON? I've invested three hours so far, and I guess I'll keep going, even though it's yet to be terribly involving or even particularity enjoyable. Hey, I can smell what you're cooking -- now it's time to serve something up. Speaking of 24, the lead in this played Chase in Season 3. He now has a kind of Art Garfunkel 'do, but when he was working at CTU he had a crewcut and people on the boards used to refer to him as "Charlie Brown", and I still think that when I see him sometimes. He's good on RUBICON so far. Let's see how he handles it when (if?) something actually happens...
|
|
|
Post by Derrick on Aug 15, 2010 23:57:05 GMT -5
Not watching RUBICON at all. I was turned off by AMC's relentless hyping of it. As if they were trying too hard to convince us it's a hit even before the first episode aired.
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Aug 16, 2010 0:25:23 GMT -5
You mentioned PARALLAX VIEW recently and the show certainly apes Pakula's austere style, even if the set up is more similar to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. I'm just worried I'm gonna invest more time in a drawn out storyline and then see the whole thing shelved ala that show, I think it was called VANISHED. One thing about 24, was they never teased out a set-up too long. They challenged themselves to pay off on things and let them actually play out
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Sept 12, 2010 16:10:50 GMT -5
Did anyone watch NIKITA? All around pretty involving and, oh that Q! It certainly did a better job of baiting me to revisit it than either the agreeable, but tame COVERT AFFAIRS or the insanely obscure RUBICON. (I keep watching the latter in the vain, quixotic hope that something -- anything! -- may actually, oh I don't know -- happen.)
|
|
|
Post by tombitd on Sept 12, 2010 18:53:59 GMT -5
Did anyone watch NIKITA? All around pretty involving and, oh that Q! It certainly did a better job of baiting me to revisit it than either the agreeable, but tame COVERT AFFAIRS or the insanely obscure RUBICON. (I keep watching the latter in the vain, quixotic hope that something -- anything! -- may actually, oh I don't know -- happen.) I watched the pilot this morning...and found it thoroughly and absolutely forgettable. The whole backstory is a strange-ass mashup of not only the Besson film, but elements from the Remo Williams novels, The Pretender, Alias and even Dollhouse, all filtered through a sort of stark design sensibility that screams out 'Hey, we're edgy!' And the thing that bugged me the most? That Nikita seems to have no real opposition. The pilot wants to drive home how scary Division is--notice how they shoot The Cleaner every time he shows up--without showing us for a moment how terrifying they are. When Nikita can wander into every single Division operation (and apparently is able to produce manniquins at will), there's no suspense. Yeah, I give the pilot credit for trying to make this a sequel to La Femme Nikita as opposed to the nineteenth retread of the movie, and Maggie Q is still Maggie Q...but this hour gave me no incentive to come back whatsoever....
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Sept 12, 2010 19:32:13 GMT -5
Yeah, that's definitely a good point, that we're told "division" is scary, but have no real reason to believe they are, very much the opposite of ALIAS where the nefariousness of SD6 made the show compelling and, ultimately, so depressing. (But I do love the great Xander Berkeley as the chief.)
Why I'll likely to watch again was the big reveal, where we saw that there was another agenda to the DOLLHOUSE subplot, which was, for me, the least interesting part of the show 'til that point. I think that could make for an interesting over-arcing storyline, as opposed to COVERT AFFAIRS were the mega story is so weak.
|
|
|
Post by tombitd on Sept 22, 2010 20:50:56 GMT -5
Yeah, that's definitely a good point, that we're told "division" is scary, but have no real reason to believe they are, very much the opposite of ALIAS where the nefariousness of SD6 made the show compelling and, ultimately, so depressing. (But I do love the great Xander Berkeley as the chief.) Okay, just for you I watched the second episode of Nikita. I'm still not sold, and prolly won't watch episode three. Sure, Maggie Q is great (and is hella sexy; I'll even go so far as to say that Lyndsey Fonseca is also pretty cute, albeit in that Causcasin Wankery Network Cookie Cutter way)...but Division still seems like a cardboard tiger, Shane West is thoroughly wooden as Michael (if you follow my principle that a character is only as good as his/her villian....well, then Nikita is a pretty poor character), that whiff of Dollhouse is blossoming thanks to that character Birkoff, I find the action sequences well, not very action-y, the characterization is piss-poor (dragging out yet another 'I was molested by my dad' shorthand trope to get us to sympathise with Alex).... And another, potentially killshot-like, problem is that Nikita doesn't struggle to overcome anything. Every single complication is solved within a matter of minutes, and she has everything in hand in every scene. It's no fun watching a hero who isn't challenged by anything... Granted, there's not a lot on this new television slate I'm interested in trying out--I taped Hawaii Five-O, but I've heard horrendous things about it, and I may sample the Saturday rebroadcast of Chase based on the positive feedback of some friends of mine--but I can't see this show lasting beyond its thirteen-episode commitment.
|
|
|
Post by Eddie Love on Sept 22, 2010 21:12:13 GMT -5
Granted, there's not a lot on this new television slate I'm interested in trying out--I taped Hawaii Five-O, but I've heard horrendous things about it, and I may sample the Saturday rebroadcast of Chase based on the positive feedback of some friends of mine--but I can't see this show lasting beyond its thirteen-episode commitment. I watched the beginning of HAWAII 5-0, and thought it was way over the top with a laborious set up of the whole "it's personal!" rationale, without which no one would be a police officer, or we as an audience be at all interested in them. But the scenery was spectacular!
|
|
|
Post by tombitd on Sept 22, 2010 21:15:02 GMT -5
I watched the beginning of HAWAII 5-0, and thought it was way over the top with a laborious set up of the whole "it's personal!" rationale, without which no one would be a police officer, or we as an audience be at all interested in them. But the scenery was spectacular! You shouldn't really talk about Grace Park like that....
|
|
|
Post by Derrick on Sept 23, 2010 0:20:05 GMT -5
I loved HAWAII FIVE-O. I am so happy to see cops who kick down doors, blast the bad guys without hollaring at them to drop their weapons, violate civil rights and do it with a laugh.
I'm trying to be funny here but it's just that I've had it up to here where cops solve crimes by using computers and DNA. These are Old Skool ass-kickin' cops here and I for one enjoy it.
Now as for THE EVENT...meh. I'll give it a couple more episodes but I don't hold much hope for it. NBC is trying awfullly hard to make us think THE EVENT is the next "Lost" but I dunno...
|
|