Pilot Roundup Part 5: I Am Terribly Behind, But It Wasn’t My Fault This Time
What a perfect time to have my computer broken for a week and a half! The good part of this - I’ve watched more episodes of these shows, so opinions will certainly be stronger than with just the pilot. Things should resume to normal status by Sunday, ideally.
Free Agents
- This is pointless, because Free Agents became the second show to get the axe this year, but the show had some promise through the first three episodes. The pilot was frequently funny, but more importantly laid some groundwork. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was good enough to keep me intrigued. The second episode was pretty terrible, and the third was somewhat better; but overall, I won’t be too sad about Free Agents.
- I do love Hank Azaria endlessly, through. He and Tom Wilkinson are my favorite random actors, I think. This has been a bad week for him, with the cancellation and the Simpsons pay cut.
- One last thing: the editing was really strange. It was like the show was originally 22 1/2 minutes and was cut down to 22 minutes, or something, so everything was just a little too fast. No room to breathe, and on a show like this, it felt off.
Terra Nova
- I will probably cover this show weekly, so I won’t go too crazy right now. But this is a show you should try, at the very least. It has ambition, a decent base to work with, and a good amount of money, which usually helps. I kind of love this show - even the second episode, which wasn’t a really strong episode of television. This is because it’s in my wheelhouse, doubly: it has a strong sci-fi premise and seems devoted to a Lost-style discussion about community. Plus, there’s guys with future guns shooting dinosaurs. How could I not be into that?
- Trying to put myself in a normal viewer’s shoes, however, is trickier. The characters are still barely there, and the son’s journey in the pilot was terrible. But I think the most important thing to note for any prospective viewers: this show has ambition. It doesn’t want to tell a standalone story every week, and it doesn’t even seem content to simply tell the continuing story of TN v. Sixers every week either. I’m making this pronouncement after two episodes, I know, but Terra Nova seems to be the most Lost-like of any show I’ve seen since 2006. (Invasion, I miss you.) There are week-to-week plots, sure, but there are multiple long-term arcs building, and there’s a definite sense of certain themes beginning to emerge.
- The clear problem thus far is with the characters. Lost had multiple strong characters even just from the pilot, and I think Terra Nova only has one (Commander Taylor). Everyone else has little development (the son finding out he’s JUST LIKE THE FATHER!!!!! does not count), and that is what will ultimately break this show. I think Terra Nova can be a moderate success focusing on the world and plot, but to be a real success, the characters have got to be better-developed. Bottom line.
- Just to beat this into the ground, this reminds me of Lost in plotting, too. There seems to be a normal set-up: plane crash on an island, moving through rip back in time. We learn that that’s not totally the case - the plane was supposed to be there, and there’s the sense in the pilot the rip is intentional, or not completely what it seems, what with the weird beacon stuff. The Others - the Sixers. The BSM has to be Taylor’s weird, ultra-smart son. Basically, watching this, I have a great time. When I think about it afterward, though, I realize this show may be pandering strictly to me.
- Still, the ratings are good enough, and that should give the show time to develop. I urge everyone to try Terra Nova - I adore shows that have ambition, even if they don’t hit the mark exactly.
Happy Endings
- Funny story - I watched this show and only when writing this did I realize it’s that show, and not a new pilot. Whoops. Anyway, a lot of people like this show because it’s breezy and casual, but I don’t like it for perhaps the same reasons. There’s just so much good, ambitious television on, and I don’t see that at all here. Why waste my time? I also don’t really find it funny, and too many of the jokes rely on lazy stereotypes. The actors are fun sometimes, but it’s mostly just pretty colors.
How To Be A Gentleman
- The best thing I can say about this is it’s not aggressively bad, like Two and a Half Men or even Big Bang Theory is sometimes. It’s just a normal CBS sitcom churned out of the machine. If people want to watch it, then so be it. I won’t protest. Judging by the ratings, people do not, and the show will have a quick death.
Prime Suspect
- The good: I like how the ending took me by surprise. Maria Bello spends the entire episode trying to solve this murder, and she does, and seems to successfully assimilate herself as one of the jerk misogynist NYPD cops. But this main jerk still doesn’t like her, and says he’ll continue to be a jerk and try and mess her up. I was genuinely surprised, as most shows would’ve wrapped it up in this episode. Drawing from the British series, the sexism seems to be a key part of the series, which is a promising sign. I was actually slightly interested at the end of the pilot, more than I can say for most procedurals.
- The bad: the cops are all stereotypes to the worst degree, and so is the ex-wife. She, in particular, was such an obvious plot contrivance to show Maria Bello doing something and make people root for her yet feel kind of scandalous. Everything not related to the sexism was pretty bad, and even that was heavy-handed.
- The usual: this will be what kills Prime Suspect in critic’s eyes and what may save it in viewer’s eyes. The procedural element is so completely normal, there’s no way to differentiate this from a Law and Order case. For a show that’s trying to critique institutional sexism, showing a rape/murder with her children watching and never discussing the obvious mental problems that come from this is just not a good sign. Having the kids there was the extra kick that tries to make a “normal” rape/murder exceptional (writing that clause made me feel terrible, even), and the show simply used it for the plot device later in the episode. There needs to be thematics in the plot too, just not Maria Bello’s performance.
A Gifted Man
- Helicopter pilots who take video of New York City must make a lot of money.
- I find it hilarious one of the best doctors in the world would google “hallucination causes.”
- This show has an entirely silly premise, but it goes all the way with it: world’s best neurosurgeon starts seeing his dead ex-wife. This is exactly as sappy as it sounds, but it’s also executed well.
- There’s some semi-subtle character work here through the decent script. I can’t say I was intrigued watching the pilot, but I wasn’t flipping away, either. Everything was pretty tight and well done.
- I could keep on about the pilot, about how it’s generally good and how you should check it out. But after watching the other two episodes, it’s colored my perception of A Gifted Man as a whole. As solid and as good as the pilot is, the next two episodes are solid medical procedural crap. A lot of this has to do with the premise - how do you keep a rich jerk constantly learning lessons from his dead wife for 22 episodes? - but I think a show could still work through that. Instead, the show has gone much more procedural-heavy, whereas in the pilot that was in the background and character was in the foreground.
- Also nice in the pilot was Jonathan Demme’s direction, and that is also sorely missing in the next episodes. Everything just feels more…average. It turns the premise into a boring procedural instead of something with promise.
- But maybe I’m not seeing the show for what it should be. I mean, this isn’t in AMC’s Sunday night - hell, it’s not even in CBS’s Sunday lineup. It’s a Friday night show, and plenty of old people will love it. It’s spiritual-ish enough and procedural-ish enough to continue.
Suburgatory
- I’ve talked all throughout these pilot capsules about how comedy pilots usually aren’t very funny, and the best thing to figure out is whether they will be funny. I try and figure this out by looking at the characters and what type of jokes the show is trying to tell. In Suburgatory, there are two characters with actual emotion, and some of the jokes weren’t stereotypes. Then why did I hate it so much?
- Maybe it’s the tone. The main character is a detached high school girl, Tessa, who constantly bites back with sarcastic remarks to everything. I get it. She is intelligent and sarcastic. It just grates on me over 22 minutes, much less 22 episodes. She’s not mean-spirited, so it shouldn’t be that bad. But it just constantly makes me want to turn it off.
- Maybe it’s the premise. I know that the premise really shouldn’t matter in most shows (see above), but here it’s the main theme of the show. It’s unbelievable that a parent would move both of them just because of some condoms, and especially since George thinks it’s such a terrible idea anyway. There’s this comical idea of the suburbs to contrast with the city Tessa loves, but the show tries and relate to the broadly comic characters. Sure, it’s the first two episodes, but it seems a little off-base.
- Maybe it’s the jokes. I laughed once during both episodes combined (“Scarlett Johansson, dead”), and while it’s not terribly important this early into a run, it is somewhat important. I’m just not laughing, or smiling. Sorry.
- Maybe it’s me. I am a college student, which means I have to deal with people who are Tessa-like. I just got out of high school, where I had to deal with a lot of petty debates. Maybe in 20 years I’d be more receptive to this type of young person’s show. But it’s not specific enough to be funny to me, and it’s not broadly comic enough to be funny either. I just keep getting aggravated.
- It’s probably a combination of all of these things. This is a good show - it’s well made, and isn’t making the world a worse place. But just like Terra Nova is my type of show, Suburgatory isn’t. Maybe they’re reverse for you.
Next Time: Up All Night with all of its problems, American Horror Story, and Person of Interest. Man, that won’t be a very fun write-up.
