In news that should make every genre fan happy for a variety of reasons, CBS has greenlit the pilot for the J.J. Abrams/Jonathan Nolan project, Person of Interest.
“The project, from Warner Bros. TV and Abrams’ Bad Robot, is a crime drama centered on a CIA agent, presumed dead, who is recruited by a reclusive billionaire to wage war against violent criminals in New York City.”
The interesting thing about this is that the first time we looked at this piece the other day, in the description it featured the phrase,
“An ex-CIA hitman and a scientist team up to prevent crimes before they happen.”
You’ll notice that in the comments section of the Deadline piece that the above description is even referred to by one of the various whiny posters on that site. We don’t know why this was scrubbed from the original piece but we were able to find the same description posted at Entertainment Weekly and it is described as “official” although no sources were indicated to verify that it is indeed official, but it is coming from EW so there’s no reason to assume that it’s not legitimate.
That being said, though, since it isn’t sourced at this point and Deadline did scrub their original piece (and ALL Abrams’ projects are notoriously secretive), officially we can’t say whether it’s more like Human Target or more like the Stephen Spielberg Sci-Fi flick Minority Report or a hybrid of both, perhaps.
So what is so great about this project, anyway? Well, of course, it’s a J.J. Abrams project and he’s just about the hottest property in Hollywood right despite the recent failure of NBC’s Undercovers(which, unlike audiences, we actually liked) so that’s the biggest selling point but maybe as cool is that this story is the brainchild of Jonathan Nolan.
Jonathan (whose nickname is “Jonah”) is of course the younger brother of esteemed director and writer Christopher Nolan who is of course famous for the most recent Batman film franchise, Memento, The Prestige and 2010’s blockbuster hit (and Academy Award nominee for Best Picture) Inception. What folks may not know (we certainly didn’t) is that Jonathan Nolan actually co-wrote The Dark Knight and The Prestige with his brother as well as Memento and he actually wrote Memento Mori, the original short story which the film is based on. Oh, yeah… he also wrote the screenplay for the highly anticipated third installment of the Batman films, The Dark Knight Rises and he co-wrote 2009’s Terminator: Salvation. You can check out his whole bio here.
CBS: "Don't worry, genre fans. We're not FOX."
Needless to say, Jonathan Nolan is an experienced and talented genre writer and we are looking forward to what he can bring to television with J.J. Abrams and though normally we would worry about a show like this because it usually winds up getting pitched to FOX and we all know what happens with brilliant genre and scripted drama that FOX gets their hands on, even with J.J. Abrams’ name attached to it. This is not the case with CBS who tends to have a pretty good eye (no pun intended, but we’re going with it) for this type of scripted genre programming and give shows like this some time to build an audience.
Michael Emerson
Oh, and one more thing: Guess who’s already been cast for the pilot? None other than Lost alum Michael Emerson. According to Reuters, Emerson who’s best known for his Emmy award-winning role as Ben Linus on Lost, will play the billionaire benefactor who will aid our player-to-be-named-later in fighting crime.
We don’t really know any more details right now about Person of Interest and probably won’t for some time (again, that’s to be expected with Abrams) but we are hopeful for an air date of Fall 2011 for the pilot but realistically it’s probably going to air mid-season 2011 – 2012. The ‘Tastic, of course will keep you updated.
“Outsourced” is NBC’s new workplace comedy series centered around a catalog-based company, Mid America Novelties, that sells American novelty goods including whoopee cushions, foam fingers and wallets made of bacon, and whose call center has suddenly been outsourced to India.
After recently completing Mid America Novelties’ manager training program, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport, off-Broadway’s “The Gingerbread House”) learns that the call center is being outsourced to India, and he is asked to move there to be the manager. Having never ventured out of the country, he is unprepared for the culture shock. Overwhelmed, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world.
The sales team Todd inherits includes Gupta (Parvesh Cheena, “Help Me Help You”), a socially awkward employee; Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan, BBC’s “Five Days II”), a young romantic who is enamored with America; Asha (Rebecca Hazlewood, BBC’s “Doctors”), a smart, striking woman who finds herself intrigued by Todd; Rajiv (Rizwan Manji, “Privileged”) the assistant manager who wants Todd’s job; and Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan, Broadway’s “Bombay Dreams”), a wallflower who suffers from extreme shyness.
Todd also discovers other transplants working in his office building, including an American expatriate, Charlie Davies (Diedrich Bader, “The Drew Carey Show”), who runs the All-American Hunter call center, and Tonya (Pippa Black, “Neighbours”), a beautiful Australian who runs the call center for Koala Air. – NBC
Shawn: I don’t know what appeals to me more, the politically incorrect tone of this series or the fact that it looks absolutely hilarious. I also like the premise that they telemarket novelties like rubber vomit and whoopee cushions. Looking forward to this, I hope the show can live up to the hype in the trailer.
The Review:
7 out of 10
Unfortunately, Outsourced looked a lot funnier in the trailer than it has turned out to be. I’m not saying that I don’t like the show but I think the whole concept of the series works better for a film than it does for a weekly sitcom.
The hilarious trailer is literally a four-minute summation of the entire pilot episode and though the jokes while rapid-fire in the trailer are very funny, they don’t work particularly well for comedic value over the course of 23 minutes. That or it was one of those issues like with the film The Hangover where they literally showed every funny scene in the movie in the trailers and because of that when I actually saw it I didn’t think it was that funny. Probably not, though, because every episode following the pilot has followed the same trend and I’m still not laughing as much as I would have hoped.
Every single episode kind of follows the same formula and that is Todd dealing with an issue involving the differences between American culture and Indian culture. Some of the jokes work but a lot of them don’t and the reason why is that they keep reverting to this standby of taking an American turn-of-phrase and having one of the Indian characters repeat it using a funny accent and saying it in the style of… well… an Indian. Here’s an example:
Gupta: As you say in America, it looks like you are up a creek and have forgotten your paddle. Also, this is a creek of feces… a most unpleasant creek for you.
See what I mean? That line was one of the funnier ones but every episode is full of these and it gets a little stale when there’s a dozen of those per episode because you really just start expecting it. Like I said, it’s the kind of thing that works sporadically in a feature film but it can’t carry a series. Just think of how well it worked during the few cameo scenes with Mooj (Gerry Bednob) in The 40 Year-Old Virgin (and it was even funnier because he was so foul-mouthed).
WARNING: NSFW (LANGUAGE, SEXUAL REMARKS)
But you wouldn’t want a whole series based around that (foul language and sexual remarks notwithstanding). It would be like having an entire series based around people who tried to speak American English but they also sounded like Yoda. It would be funny the first couple of times but it would lose its appeal rather quickly.
Beyond that, though, these characters are very likable and although the different scenarios all have the same general premise, I find myself still wanting to tune in every week. It’s very charming.
So, in the end, Outsourced is an enjoyable show even if it’s not as funny as I would have expected and it does have the potential to pick up steam and become a lot funnier with a little bit of effort on the writer’s part.
From acclaimed writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek,” “Fringe,” “Lost,” “Alias”) and executive producer/writer Josh Reims (“Brothers and Sisters,” “What About Brian”) comes a sexy, fun, action-packed spy drama that proves once and for all that marriage is still the world’s most dangerous partnership.
Outwardly, Steven Bloom (Boris Kodjoe, “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Vacation,” “Soul Food,” “Resident Evil: Afterlife”) and his wife, Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Dr. Who,” “Bonekickers”), are a typical married couple who own and operate a small catering company in Los Angeles – with help from Samantha’s easily frazzled handful of a sister, Lizzy (Mekia Cox, “90210,” “This Is It”). Secretly, the duo were two of the best spies the CIA had ever known, until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired.
When fellow spy and good friend Leo Nash (Carter MacIntyre, “American Heiress,” “Nip/Tuck”) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated by boss and agency liaison, Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney, “Deadwood,” “Jericho”), to locate and rescue Nash.
With assistance from resourceful CIA field agent Bill Hoyt (Ben Schwartz, “Parks and Recreation,” “Bronx World Travelers”), whose professional admiration for Steven isn’t hard to miss, the pair is thrust back into the world of espionage, disguises and hand-to-hand combat.
Following leads that take them to cities spanning the globe, Steven and Samantha quickly realize that perhaps this supercharged, undercover lifestyle provides exactly the kind of excitement and romance that their marriage has been missing. – NBC
Shawn: Wow. There is not a whole lot more to say about Undercovers than that. J.J. Abrams has done it again and NBC has proven again that they have gone from being the worst network on TV to perhaps the best. Do we really have to see even see one episode to be sure that this show is going to be great? The answer is a resounding, “no.” You’ve got a great cast with some actual chops, a relationship that I truly believe and care about from just the trailer and non-stop, J.J. Abrams-style action and spy-goodness that makes this show another moral imperative.
The Review:
8.5 out of 10
As I noted in the preview, there isn’t a whole lot to say about Undercovers than “wow.” Seriously, if it’s action, Sci Fi or mystery and J.J. Abrams is attached to it you can pretty much guarantee that it’s going to be fantastic. It’s akin to when Martin Scorcese’s name is attached to projects about organized crime or if Stephen Spielberg’s name is attached to a project about World War II. We know what these greats do best and Abrams is establishing himself as one of the greats in both Film and TV.
Undercovers is no exception. It’s an exciting adventure from beginning to end on every episode. Kodjoe and Mbatha-Raw have excellent chemistry and both play the role of the domesticated spy perfectly. They both carry themselves with an air of sexiness that both male and female audiences can appreciate.
The supporting cast is fantastic and all provide differing levels of comic relief to lighten up the episodes. Gerald McRaney is their C.I.A. handler who’s supportive (albeit a little crotchety and annoyed by them at times) but who knows more about their reinstatement than he’s letting on. Carter McIntyre as the fellow agent who keeps it light with his sense of humor and wise-cracks and Bill Hoyt is the quirky, eager mission contact who provides the duo with operational support and can speak nine languages. He’s also an uber-fanboy of Steven and to Steven’s dismay, Hoyt has no shame about constantly reminding him of that.
The action and the fight scenes are great, the production values are fantastic with excellent CG that actually convinces you that you are in multiple foreign locales during every episode as opposed to watching scenes against an obvious green-screen backdrop, and most of all the character interaction and stories are compelling.
Undercovers is like watching a feature film every week and I look forward to many more adventures with the Blooms.
Part Four of the Seven Six Part Series (This has been edited because I realized that there’s nothing on Saturdays but College Football, COPS and America’s Most Wanted. Do you really need a review of those?)
Thursday
8:00 p.m.
ABC: My Generation (September 23, 2010 – NEW SERIES!)
What a difference ten years can make. In 2000, a documentary crew follows a disparate group of high schoolers from Greenbelt High School in Austin, TX as they prepare for graduation, then revisits these former classmates ten years later as they return home to rediscover that just because they’re not where they planned doesn’t mean they’re not right where they need to be.
These students couldn’t wait to graduate and head out into the real world. But the world they were entering got very real very fast. As these classmates return home to revisit their old hopes for their future, they’ll discover that, even if you don’t get exactly what you thought you wanted out of life, it’s not too late to get what you need. – ABC
Shawn: OK, ABC, that’s enough already with the pseudo-documentaries. It’s becoming as overused as 3-D is for feature films and like 3-D it’s just a cheap gimmick to try to convince people that your crap show really isn’t a crap show. Do you think audiences aren’t going to notice that this show is no different from any other show about 20-somethings from different walks of life who all have something in common that brings them together? This entire premise alone is going to piss off your target demographic for that hour (namely me) because it points out how old I am at 35 compared to these knuckleheads. Don’t need that, sorry. Despite the fact that the show makes me feel old, let’s be honest, it just looks dopey.
8:30 p.m.
CBS: $#’! My Dad Says – (September 23, 2010 – NEW SERIES!)
$#*! MY DAD SAYS (pronounced “Bleep My Dad Says”), based on the popular Twitter feed by Justin Halpern, stars Emmy Award winner William Shatner as Ed Goodson, a forthright and opinionated dad who relishes expressing his unsolicited and often wildly politically incorrect observations to anyone within earshot. Nobody is safe from Ed’s rants, including his sons, Henry, a struggling writer-turned-unpaid blogger; and Vince, the meek half of a husband/wife real estate duo with domineering Bonnie. When Henry finds he can no longer afford to pay rent, Ed reveals a soft spot and invites Henry to move in with him. Henry agrees, knowing that the verbal assault will not abate and now there will be no escape. Describing their father/son relationship is tricky, but Ed will easily come up with a few choice words. – CBS
Shawn:
This is by far the most unfortunate post I have to write. You see, I’ve been a big fan of Justin Halpern’s Twitter Page “Shit My Dad Says” for well over a year now and of course, I’m a huge fan of all things The Shat is involved with but I’m sorry to say that this is going to suck. Not only is it EVERYTHING that I absolutely hate about sitcoms with the recycled and clichéd jokes, characters and plots it’s 180 degrees backwards of the whole premise of “Shit My Dad Says!” Just watch the trailer below to see what I’m talking about but first read this from Amazon in which Halpern explains the premise of the book bearing the same title:
‘At 28 years old, I found myself living at home, with my 73-year-old father. As a child, my father never minced words, and when I screwed up, he had a way of cutting right through the bullshit and pointing out exactly why I was being an idiot. When I moved back in I was still, for the most part, an idiot. But this time, I was smart enough to write down all the things he said to me.’
Now please explain to me how a wise-cracking jerk of a father, who’s apparently pretty senile and his sensitive and always correct progeny bear any resemblance to the description you just read FROM THE GUY WHO INVENTED THE THING?!
AND WHY THE HELL IS HALF THE CAST OF MADtv IN THIS???
NBC: Community – (September 23, 2010)
Shawn: I have to admit, I’m a convert to Community. When it debuted in 2009, I had high hopes for it because it looked clever and starred E’s Joel McHale (The Soup) and he’s always clever and funny. It took me three episodes to be very disappointed. Then, around Christmas-time (I think), I was in the garage working on a project and NBC was running a back-to-back marathon of the sitcom and I completely changed my mind. Community improved dramatically and is very funny. I definitely recommend Community.
When she was a deeply troubled teenager, Nikita (Maggie Q, “Live Free or Die Hard,” “Mission Impossible 3”) was rescued from death row by a secret U.S. agency known only as Division, who faked her execution and told her she was being given a second chance to start a new life and serve her country. What they didn’t tell her was that she was being trained as a spy and assassin. Throughout her grueling training at Division, Nikita never lost her humanity, even falling in love with a civilian. When her fiancé was murdered, Nikita realized she had been betrayed and her dreams shattered by the only people she thought she could trust, so she did what no one else before her had been able to do: she escaped. Now, after three years in hiding, Nikita is seeking retribution and making it clear to her former bosses that she will stop at nothing to expose and destroy their covert operation. – The CW
Shawn: I’ve already done a full review of Nikita, see it here. Good but not great.
Shawn: Fringe is one of my favorite shows on TV currently. If you haven’t watched it before it’s like The X-Files on steroids with a J.J. Abrams spin. The stories are great, the characters are well-developed and it’s grown into a wonderful and fascinating story arc. For those of you who are new to the series, don’t bother starting in, now. You’re going to have to go to Netflix and add the first two seasons to your queue, or you’ll be completely lost, but it’s certainly worth saving the new episodes on the divver recordification device for when you’re done watching the old episodes.
Shawn: Every time that I think The Office has run out of steam, it does something that keeps me coming back for more. Looking forward to yet another year at Dunder Mifflin.
“Outsourced” is NBC’s new workplace comedy series centered around a catalog-based company, Mid America Novelties, that sells American novelty goods including whoopee cushions, foam fingers and wallets made of bacon, and whose call center has suddenly been outsourced to India.
After recently completing Mid America Novelties’ manager training program, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport, off-Broadway’s “The Gingerbread House”) learns that the call center is being outsourced to India, and he is asked to move there to be the manager. Having never ventured out of the country, he is unprepared for the culture shock. Overwhelmed, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world.
The sales team Todd inherits includes Gupta (Parvesh Cheena, “Help Me Help You”), a socially awkward employee; Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan, BBC’s “Five Days II”), a young romantic who is enamored with America; Asha (Rebecca Hazlewood, BBC’s “Doctors”), a smart, striking woman who finds herself intrigued by Todd; Rajiv (Rizwan Manji, “Privileged”) the assistant manager who wants Todd’s job; and Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan, Broadway’s “Bombay Dreams”), a wallflower who suffers from extreme shyness.
Todd also discovers other transplants working in his office building, including an American expatriate, Charlie Davies (Diedrich Bader, “The Drew Carey Show”), who runs the All-American Hunter call center, and Tonya (Pippa Black, “Neighbours”), a beautiful Australian who runs the call center for Koala Air. – NBC
Shawn: I don’t know what appeals to me more, the politically incorrect tone of this series or the fact that it looks absolutely hilarious. I also like the premise that they telemarket novelties like rubber vomit and whoopee cushions. Looking forward to this, I hope the show can live up to the hype in the trailer.
Part Three of the Seven Six Part Series (This has been edited because I realized that there’s nothing on Saturdays but College Football, COPS and America’s Most Wanted. Do you really need a review of those?)
Wednesdays
8:00 p.m.
NBC: Undercovers – September 22, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
From acclaimed writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek,” “Fringe,” “Lost,” “Alias”) and executive producer/writer Josh Reims (“Brothers and Sisters,” “What About Brian”) comes a sexy, fun, action-packed spy drama that proves once and for all that marriage is still the world’s most dangerous partnership.
Outwardly, Steven Bloom (Boris Kodjoe, “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Vacation,” “Soul Food,” “Resident Evil: Afterlife”) and his wife, Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Dr. Who,” “Bonekickers”), are a typical married couple who own and operate a small catering company in Los Angeles – with help from Samantha’s easily frazzled handful of a sister, Lizzy (Mekia Cox, “90210,” “This Is It”). Secretly, the duo were two of the best spies the CIA had ever known, until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired.
When fellow spy and good friend Leo Nash (Carter MacIntyre, “American Heiress,” “Nip/Tuck”) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated by boss and agency liaison, Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney, “Deadwood,” “Jericho”), to locate and rescue Nash.
With assistance from resourceful CIA field agent Bill Hoyt (Ben Schwartz, “Parks and Recreation,” “Bronx World Travelers”), whose professional admiration for Steven isn’t hard to miss, the pair is thrust back into the world of espionage, disguises and hand-to-hand combat.
Following leads that take them to cities spanning the globe, Steven and Samantha quickly realize that perhaps this supercharged, undercover lifestyle provides exactly the kind of excitement and romance that their marriage has been missing. – NBC
Shawn: Wow. There is not a whole lot more to say about Undercovers than that. J.J. Abrams has done it again and NBC has proven again that they have gone from being the worst network on TV to perhaps the best. Do we really have to see even see one episode to be sure that this show is going to be great? The answer is a resounding, “no.” You’ve got a great cast with some actual chops, a relationship that I truly believe and care about from just the trailer and non-stop, J.J. Abrams-style action and spy-goodness that makes this show another moral imperative.
8:30 p.m.
ABC: Better With You – September 22, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
The comedy explores love through three couples: Maddie and Ben, who have been dating for nine years; Mia (Maddie’s sister) and Casey, who have known each other for only seven weeks and are about to marry; and Maddie and Mia’s parents, who have been married for more than 30 years.
Shawn:(****sighs… shakes head and prepares for the shortest preview of the season***)
What more can be said but that this show looks awful. This is up there with Mike & Mollyas a prime example of why I hate sitcoms. This is recycled crap.
9:00 p.m.
ABC: Modern Family
Shawn: This is by far the funniest show on television, and yes, even funnier than The Office. The cast is brilliant and the writing is head and shoulders above any sitcom in the last decade and why brings it all together is just how incredibly relatable all of the less-than-perfect characters are that could really be in any of our families.
The CW: Hellcats – September 8, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
Marti Perkins (Aly Michalka) uses her dance and gymnastics skills to win a cheerleading scholarship at Lancer University after losing her other scholarship, but it is only the beginning of the drama she will encounter. – The CW
Shawn: (****sighs… shakes head and prepares for the second shortest preview of the season***)
The CW needs to be smacked on the nose with a newspaper for this. Although, I will say that this certainly will appeal to 14 year-old boys and I have no doubt that stock values of Jergens and Kleenex are going to skyrocket, so it’s definitely time to call your broker.
Here’s another group of Hellcats that seem far more interesting:
Watch full episodes of Hellcats, here (if you must).
10:00 p.m.
ABC: The Whole Truth – September 22, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
This unique legal drama chronicles the way a case is built from the perspective of both the defense and prosecution. Showing each side equally keeps the audience guessing, shifting allegiances and opinions on guilt or innocence until the very final scene.
Kathryn Peale, the product of a New England background and a sheriff father, is the Deputy Bureau Chief in the New York State District Attorney’s office. Jimmy Brogan, born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen and a friend of Kathryn’s since their days at Yale Law School, is one of New York’s rising criminal attorney stars. Buoyed by their respective teams, these evenly matched lawyers—each with a strong streak of competitiveness, a fervent belief in their clients and an equally intense passion for the law go about creating two different stories from the same set of facts. As this up-close, behind-the-scenes look at the legal process mirrors the excitement of a championship match, it becomes evident that truth has nothing to do with innocence or guilt—at the end of every trial, the only thing that matters is what the jury believes. – ABC
Shawn: “A totally new kind of legal drama!” Really, ABC? Sorry, but not quite.
So, yeah, I admit it. Occasionally I read other reviews before I post if for no other reason than to see if the pros caught the same thing about a particular show that I did. This certainly was the “case” with The Whole Truth, because this time, I knew that I had seen this show before but I just couldn’t put my finger on where and I was hoping that someone’s review would ring the proverbial bell for me. That’s when I came across this from Paige Wiser from the The Chicago Sun and it all fell into place:
There’s no skimping on the sordid and blunt evidence, but the cases are absorbing. And unlike “Law & Order,” which had a way of leaving us hanging, we do learn the “whole truth” by the end of each episode. You can’t put a price on closure.
That’s it! The multiple perspectives AND the big reveal at the end of the episode explaining what really happened… it’s Jerry Bruckheimer’s 2006 flop, Justice! So, apparently, Jerry is just recycling old projects and hoping that no one will notice. Regardless, I was one of the folks who really did like Justice, despite it lasting only 13 episodes. Like Justice, The Whole Truth has a very strong ensemble cast and appears to be pretty compelling. That being said, I am a little irked by the main premise of this show which is going to stick in my craw every episode: are we really supposed to believe that the same defense attorney and A.D.A. are going to be adversaries EVERY week in EVERY case… in New York City ??? Seriously, are these the only two lawyers in town? Jerry Bruckheimer plus the fact that it’s Justice recycled are the only two reasons that I am in the category of “reluctantly” watching the pilot.
CBS: The Defenders – September 22, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
Two colorful Las Vegas defense attorneys who go all-in when it comes to representing their clients. Nick and Pete are the local go-to guys with an eclectic client list who are still looking to hit their own jackpot. Leading the law firm of Morelli & Kaczmarek are Nick Morelli, an earnest, hard-charging attorney who represents his clients to the best of his ability, no matter how big or small the case; and his partner, Pete Kaczmarek, whose passion for the law is matched only by his love of fast cars, beautiful women and expensive clothes. Joining them in their growing law practice is new associate Lisa Tyler, an enthusiastic young attorney looking to put her exotic dancing days behind her; and their young assistant, Zoe Waters, a spunky and sweet ingénue who is eager to please her bosses. While Lady Luck shines on their legal careers, the partners have their hands full when it comes to their personal lives. With Pete busy cruising the Vegas Strip for his latest romantic conquest, Nick is focused on repairing a fractured marriage to his estranged wife and remaining present in the life of their young son. No matter the offense, Nick and Pete aim to prove that when the stakes are high, they’re willing to bet the house on the clients they defend in Sin City. – CBS
Shawn: I have to keep reminding myself that I am sick of legal procedurals and why but then I get dragged right back in by shows like The Defenders starring Jim Belushi (According to Jim) and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders) who star as a couple of working-stiff lawyers here in my city, Las Vegas. Here’s the thing, I’m not going to be watching this show because I expect it be some fantastic weekly legal thriller, on the contrary, I expect that part of the show to be clichéd as every other legal show. No, I’m watching because I like Belushi and O’Connell and after seeing the trailers and interviews associated with this show, I think I like these characters. Again, how relatable the characters are can make or break a series. Truthfully, this show doesn’t have to be about lawyers, it could have been about cops, plumbers, copier salesmen, the Mexicans on The Strip shoving the cards in your four-year old’s face offering hookers direct to you hotel room… whatever. It doesn’t matter because this is a buddy-[insert profession here] show and nothing more and this could work with Belushi as the comedian and O’Connell as the straight man. I think I’ll need to watch the first few episodes to get a handle on whether this show is worth hanging on to, but I will say this: if they start that crap like they do on CSI of randomly mentioning streets and neighborhoods in Las Vegas without any actual resemblance to where these landmarks truly are geographically-speaking, I will shut it off.
(EDIT: I completely forgot to include in ‘Terriers.’ Sorry about that. )
F/X: Terriers – September 8, 2010 (NEW SERIES)
Donal Logue plays Hank, an ex-cop who partners with his best friend to launch a P.I. business. The duo solve crimes while trying to avoid danger and responsibility.
Shawn: Terriers is a very good show and I’ve already done a full review on it, here. You can also watch full episodes of Terriers, here.
NBC: Law & Order: Los Angeles – September 29, 2010 (NEW SERIES!)
The newest addition to the Law & Order brand, “Law & Order: Los Angeles” fuses classic ripped-from-the-headlines storytelling with the distinctive backdrop of LA – delving into the unique attitudes, cultures and crimes of the West Coast.
The drama follows Detectives Rex Winters (Skeet Ulrich, “Jericho”) and Tomas “TJ” Jarusalski (Corey Stoll, “Midnight in Paris”) as they pursue cases through the diverse City of Angels. As members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite Robbery Homicide Division, Winters is a straight-shooting ex-Marine with a clear-cut worldview as stubborn as he is, while TJ, who grew up the son of an Oscar-winning Polish cinematographer, knows too well the dark underside that is behind-the-scenes Hollywood.
Deputy District Attorney Morales (Alfred Molina, “En Education,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “Spiderman 2”) is a sarcastic realist who believes moral righteousness is great in theory, but ineffective in a street fight. Though he knows how to manipulate both his public image and the behind-the-scenes politics, he’s still a killer in the courtroom who lives to see justice served. – NBC
Shawn: Hi, my name’s Shawn and I’m a recovering Law & Order fan. You see, one day about four years ago, I decided that the entire franchise, which I had been watching faithfully since 1990, had turned to utter crap (and that includes SVU which people still think is good for some reason). The formula was stale and the “ripped from the headlines” garbage became a convenient crutch that was about as exciting as your local theater group practicing their ad-libbing skills by randomly choosing topics from a hat (which of course, is a common theme in television production lately. see: Running Wilde in the Tuesday Preview.). Unfortunately, it took about a decade too long for this show to be cancelled. What I can’t seem to figure out is why the arrogant Dick Wolf thinks that simply taking the brand of crap that is Law & Order and moving it from one side to the country to another is actually going to produce a better product.
And before you say to yourself, “Well, this could be different,” I’m going to have to stop you right there because, no, it’s not going to be different. Do you know how I know? There are two obvious reasons. First, take a look at the first sentence of the show description by NBC:
“Law & Order: Los Angeles” fuses classic ripped-from-the-headlines storytelling with the distinctive backdrop of LA – delving into the unique attitudes, cultures and crimes of the West Coast.
The first thing that they mention as a selling point is what made the show suck to begin with (the “ripped from the headlines” crap). It’s the reason that people stopped watching… period, you unoriginal nit-wits at Dick Wolf Productions.
The second reason that stands out is the simple fact that NBC doesn’t have a single trailer of this new series out that shows a single scene from the show. What are they hiding? After all, this cast is amazing. Skeet Ulrich, Alfred Molina and Academy Award nominated Terrence Howard star in this and NBC isn’t highlighting any of them in the promotions for this new “hit” series? It makes absolutely no sense, unless of course, they know the moment that they show five seconds of this show in a trailer, audiences are going to sing in unison, “I thought they cancelled this stupid show.”
Here’s my theory: NBC owes Dick Wolf a lot for twenty seasons of L & O, twelve seasons of SVU and amazingly, nine seasons of CI (whatever network it’s on now). That’s 41 seasons of television. To put that in perspective, that’s 50% more than all five series of the entire Star Trek franchise. So, Dick Wolf says, “You’re doing another ‘Law and Order’ series whether you like it or not and you’re going to do it in L.A., because that’s where I live now.” NBC’s response was, “How high did you say you want us to jump, Mr. Wolf?” and voila, L & O: L.A. is born. NBC knows it’s going to be crap but in order to keep it semi-profitable, they sunk a lot of money into casting and even I have to say that was a brilliant move on their part because as much as I have no interest in anything L & O, even I’m considering watching the pilot just for the cast. So, in principle, no, I would not recommend this but for curiosity’s sake I probably will watch the pilot and only make it halfway through because I’ll be so disgusted.
Allow me to start off by saying that in what is probably the most significant week of television in my lifetime with both the series finales of both Lost and 24 airing a night apart from each other, thus sounding the end of an entire era of the best suspenseful television of all time, to me, it is only fitting that my inaugural post be an analysis of The End, the Lost finale.
I have a bit of a heavy heart over this, as before Sunday, Lost was definitely somewhere in my all-time, top-ten television series list but after watching the finale, there is no doubt in my mind that Lost is the best television show ever produced or at the very least tied with SciFi’s 2003 – 2009 reboot of Battlestar Galactica.
Interestingly enough, I came to that conclusion about BSG after watching its finale, as well, and what the two have in common is the way both series ended. Their finales were beautiful, perfect and quite frankly, couldn’t have ended their stories in any other way. They also have the virtue of having pissed-off a significant portion of their fan base who just simply didn’t get it.
As you read this, please understand that this posting is specifically for those of you who at least casually watched the series and did see the finale. I’m not going to include a synopsis of The End. If you didn’t watch it, stop reading now because this won’t make a lick of sense to you. <<<DEEP BREATH>>> Here goes:
Lessons
So, what did we learn from The End? Well, the most significant thing we learned is that the explanation for an epic story that lasted six years can indeed be told in 2 1/2 hours… and it can be told wonderfully and poignantly.
As the article notes, quoting Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar… even on Lost (if you fell into this camp of fans than this analysis really is for you especially).
Moving right along…
During the first few seasons, each episode was focused on a specific character and we were inundated throughout each particular episode with cut-scenes of “flashbacks” of events that occurred during that character’s life before they arrived on the island that explained some mystery about them and provided some backstory. They explained why each castaway was the way they were and what brought them to the island. As you’ll recall, during season 4, the writers switched gears on us showing us “flash-forwards” (events that happened in the future as a direct result of things that happened on the island… that we hadn’t seen yet) and then by season 5 — to really throw us off — we had a season of time travel coinciding with a consistent storyline of events occurring in Los Angeles… post-season 4.
So, now, as if it wasn’t confusing enough, in season 6 we are introduced to the concept of the “flash-sideways.” In other words, they were showing us what was going on at the island but this time there would be cut-scenes involving all of the characters in an alternate reality in Los Angeles where flight 815 did NOT crash and the characters are all slightly different from how we knew them. Jack is still a surgeon but has a son from a prior marriage (and the ex-wife turns out to be Juliet), Sawyer is a detective for the L.A.P.D. and not a con-man (Miles is his partner), Ben is a high school history teacher who mentors to the fatherless Alex and becomes a surrogate father to her, John Locke lost the use of his legs in a plane crash, Jin and Sun were not married but Jin worked for Sun’s father and they were having an affair under his nose, and most significantly, there is no island (they show it under water in the first episode of the season).
“There is No Time Here” and Recycled Star Trek
So why the parallel universe/alternate reality? Well, what we find out in the last three minutes of the finale is that the parallel universe/alternate reality (unlike the island itself) IS indeed Purgatory.
Boom. There it is and it’s not nearly as complicated as some fans have made it out to be, and unfortunately I count myself as one of those fans who over-complicated this at first as well… but just for a little while. The trouble that I was having until about an hour after the episode was the time factor. I knew Jack died at the end of the finale and I figured that he and everyone else was dead during the whole season of “flash sideways” scenes but it didn’t make sense to me that they all died at the same time and were living in this Purgatory at the same time because I knew that they hadn’t. What had completely slipped past me was what Jack’s father, Christian, said to him as they were standing over his casket in the church which was, “there is no time here” and, “everyone dies eventually.” In other words it’s “non-linear” and that’s when I had my Homer Simpson moment (D’oh!).
As an aside, explanation of non-linear time is probably most prominently demonstrated on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which makes perfect sense because the writers and producers of Lost are of course not just heavily involved in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek re-imagining, but they are also all huge Trek fans as well and this is not the first time that they have used a Trek premise and re-worked it to advance a plot. For the most recent and obvious example of this you simply need to look at the entire time travel premise of season 5 which is based exclusively on Trek’s “causality loop”/”predestination paradox” theory of time travel. Because of that geeky reference, it was the one and only time that I had everything figured out well in advance of a big event on Lost (i.e., Daniel Faraday’s death).
Back to the concept of “non-linear time.” You see, time, of course, is completely irrelevant in the afterlife. They all died at one point eventually (because we all die sometime, right?) but when there is no linear time, what happens today is no different in time than what happens 50 years from now or 50 years ago. There is no past, there is no future, there is just the “now.” All that mattered was that these people would meet to reconnect in Purgatory to “move on” together.
The Sublime
And this, of course, was the ultimate point of the show that no one’s talking about and I’m not sure if they just don’t realize it or just don’t want come to terms with it because we’ve been so focused on all of the other mysteries like the Dharma Initiative, the Smoke Monster, the fact that women can’t carry babies to term, the Others and of course, the island itself. The fact is that in the end, the ultimate point of the whole series had nothing to do with any of these mysteries. I know it’s almost blasphemous to suggest this amongst fans of the series, but even the island itself turned out to be completely irrelevant.
As Desmond says:
“It doesn’t matter. You’re going to lower me into that light and I’m going to go somewhere else; a place where we can be with the ones we love, and we don’t ever have to think about this damned island again. And you know the best part, Jack? You’re in this place.”
Desmond had it right all along and we should have realized this in the season 4 episode The Constant. The only thing that mattered ultimately was the relationships these people had with each other and the bonds that they formed. The only “place” that mattered was the afterlife.
This wasn’t a story about an island, it was a story about a group of incredibly flawed people who overcame their personal demons to help one another and become better people in the process… and to become a family that truly loved each other. The island was nothing more than a vehicle for their own penance and redemption.
I keep reading these blogs where people are complaining because they didn’t tell us what the ultimate fate of the island was and “didn’t tie up the loose ends” and it just proves to me that a good 50% of the fan base of the series did not understand the finale and ergo did not understand the series.
In my opinion, the writers were very careful to not dwell on the details of the show in the end and made a point to not to tie up loose ends, not so much because they wanted to leave it to the audience to figure out all the odds and ends on their own, but because they wanted the audience to come to the realization that in the very end that all of those details were inisgnificant to the big picture and if you haven’t put two and two together yet, it’s an allegory for the journey that we all are on in life and in death.
Final Impressions: “You Can Let Go, Now.”
What I got out of the finale was that the writers were far deeper than any of us ever gave them credit for and far more clever than any of us fanboys/girls could ever have been. We thought we were so smart and had everything figured out. What’s really funny is that I have been compelled to come to the conclusion that I didn’t know anything about this series until the last three minutes of the finale, despite the fact that I have followed it religiously for six years.
The common refrain that was sung during all of season 6 dating all the way back to the first episode was simply, “You can let go, now.” That wasn’t just a message for our castaways, that was a message for all of us as fans as well. We can let go now. We can let go of the mysteries, we can let go of all of the loose ends, we can let go of all of the arguments amongst the fans and now we can let go of this epic tale that has consumed us for so long. In the very end, when Jack laid there dying on the island looking up at the sky in the exact same spot where he first woke up after the crash, he achieved a contentment and inner-peace that he rarely found in life. When he closed his eyes for the final time, I felt that peace with him and I still do.
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