New TV Review Part Trois
Where have I been? I've been here, just lazy. On the one hand that's bad for this TV review feature because I've forgotten some of my impressions of the new shows I've watched. On the other hand it's good because I can give follow up reviews of subsequent episodes of other shows. First with the new:
Pushing Daisies - I really was looking forward to this show. It's created by the same guy who did one of my favorite shows of the past decade: Wonderfalls. It also has one of Wonderfalls' actors in it, Lee Pace (sadly, not Caroline Dhavernas). The show defintely has a unique visual style and quirky character, aside from the interesting premise. If you're not familiar with the premise: Ned (Pace) has the power to bring dead people back to life by touching them. If he touches them again, they die for good. If he doesn't re-touch someone he's brought back within one minute, someone else dies. (This fact creates tension and a major plot point.) Because of his power, he isolates himself from the rest of the world, running a pie shop. When a private detective discovers his power, he enlists Ned as a partner where Ned reanimates someone murdered, asks the person how they died, and he and the PI collect the reward money when they solve the case.
The best way I can describe the quirky style of the show is that if you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear it was done by Tim Burton. From the neogothic set design, robust colors, whimsical characters, and charming English accent voice-over, Burton's influence is undeniable. That style melds beautifully with the show's concept, making Pushing Daisies the most unique and intriguing new show of the season. And the cast is top-notch. I really like it, but I have some doubts about its staying power. The style is well suited to a movie, but it may become grating or old over several episodes with new plots each week. We'll see.
Life - I decided to try this out on the recommendation of another blogger. It airs the same time as Dirty Sexy Money, with which I wasn't too enamored. It's the story of a police detective who is convicted of a murder and sentenced to life in prison. After he is exonerated with DNA evidence, he gets released, awarded a huge settlement for his troubles, and decides to go back to work as a detective. While in prison he's gained a new Zen calm that he brings to his police work, and also an almost unnatural love of fruit.
It sounds quirky, but it doesn't really come off that way. The show is a serious police procedural, and so his personality quirks seem a bit out of place. Adam Arkin stars as his friend, and he's great (in the limited time he had in the episode). The rest of the main cast I could take or leave. Nothing too exciting. For the most part, I'm pretty blah about the show. Damian Lewis, who plays the freed detective Charlie Crews, actually comes off kind of creepy with the Zen and fruit fetish. Having red hair doesn't help (see e.g. Ginger Kids). It was this creepiness that probably confused me a bit about the show's ongoing plot arc (not seeing the pilot also contributed to this confusion, I'm sure).
The show uses interviews of people who participated in Crews' conviction, who are convinced of his guilt regardless of the evidence. I thought that this was supposed to plant doubt about his innocence, and stretch out the mystery of who he really is: killer or not. I think instead the plot is that Crews really is innocent, and that he spends the season trying to figure out who framed him and why. This conspiracy plot is much less interesting to me than the possibility of him being a killer and the audience trying to figure it out. It would make him a great anti-hero, and would explain our uneasy reaction to the character. This show is unlikely to go on my DVR schedule, but I'm going to give it another try this week. One interesting bit I noticed in the second episode, though: the actress who plays Crews' former-partner's wife is Meredith Salenger, the busty teen girl in such movies as "Dream a Little Dream" and "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon". I remember her fondly.
Here are some short follow-up reviews:
Cavemen - Episode two was pretty dumb, but not awful. Episode three last night was better. Pretty funny. I just don't see why people are calling this a TV travesty.
Reaper - Still awesome.
Dirty Sexy Money - Still uninteresting and thin on character depiction. The "big mystery" developments don't pull me in, either.
Moonlight - Dumb dumb dumb.
Journeyman - Haven't watched a second ep. I may have to start recording it, though, because the tail end of Heroes keeps getting cut off by the DVR, so we'll have to watch it at the start of Journeyman. If anyone is liking Journeyman, let me know and I'll check out another episode.
I think there may be one or two more new shows I'm going to check out, so there may be a couple more of these posts. After that I'll review the shows I used to write about, like The Office, 30 Rock, Earl, Heroes, etc. In the meantime, here are some pictures I took at my house that I meant to post a while back.
Look what was hanging out on the front of our house:
Sucker was huge! That's the before, here's the after:
The stain is still on the brick. I've been too lazy to clean it off.
Pushing Daisies - I really was looking forward to this show. It's created by the same guy who did one of my favorite shows of the past decade: Wonderfalls. It also has one of Wonderfalls' actors in it, Lee Pace (sadly, not Caroline Dhavernas). The show defintely has a unique visual style and quirky character, aside from the interesting premise. If you're not familiar with the premise: Ned (Pace) has the power to bring dead people back to life by touching them. If he touches them again, they die for good. If he doesn't re-touch someone he's brought back within one minute, someone else dies. (This fact creates tension and a major plot point.) Because of his power, he isolates himself from the rest of the world, running a pie shop. When a private detective discovers his power, he enlists Ned as a partner where Ned reanimates someone murdered, asks the person how they died, and he and the PI collect the reward money when they solve the case.
The best way I can describe the quirky style of the show is that if you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear it was done by Tim Burton. From the neogothic set design, robust colors, whimsical characters, and charming English accent voice-over, Burton's influence is undeniable. That style melds beautifully with the show's concept, making Pushing Daisies the most unique and intriguing new show of the season. And the cast is top-notch. I really like it, but I have some doubts about its staying power. The style is well suited to a movie, but it may become grating or old over several episodes with new plots each week. We'll see.
Life - I decided to try this out on the recommendation of another blogger. It airs the same time as Dirty Sexy Money, with which I wasn't too enamored. It's the story of a police detective who is convicted of a murder and sentenced to life in prison. After he is exonerated with DNA evidence, he gets released, awarded a huge settlement for his troubles, and decides to go back to work as a detective. While in prison he's gained a new Zen calm that he brings to his police work, and also an almost unnatural love of fruit.
It sounds quirky, but it doesn't really come off that way. The show is a serious police procedural, and so his personality quirks seem a bit out of place. Adam Arkin stars as his friend, and he's great (in the limited time he had in the episode). The rest of the main cast I could take or leave. Nothing too exciting. For the most part, I'm pretty blah about the show. Damian Lewis, who plays the freed detective Charlie Crews, actually comes off kind of creepy with the Zen and fruit fetish. Having red hair doesn't help (see e.g. Ginger Kids). It was this creepiness that probably confused me a bit about the show's ongoing plot arc (not seeing the pilot also contributed to this confusion, I'm sure).
The show uses interviews of people who participated in Crews' conviction, who are convinced of his guilt regardless of the evidence. I thought that this was supposed to plant doubt about his innocence, and stretch out the mystery of who he really is: killer or not. I think instead the plot is that Crews really is innocent, and that he spends the season trying to figure out who framed him and why. This conspiracy plot is much less interesting to me than the possibility of him being a killer and the audience trying to figure it out. It would make him a great anti-hero, and would explain our uneasy reaction to the character. This show is unlikely to go on my DVR schedule, but I'm going to give it another try this week. One interesting bit I noticed in the second episode, though: the actress who plays Crews' former-partner's wife is Meredith Salenger, the busty teen girl in such movies as "Dream a Little Dream" and "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon". I remember her fondly.
Here are some short follow-up reviews:
Cavemen - Episode two was pretty dumb, but not awful. Episode three last night was better. Pretty funny. I just don't see why people are calling this a TV travesty.
Reaper - Still awesome.
Dirty Sexy Money - Still uninteresting and thin on character depiction. The "big mystery" developments don't pull me in, either.
Moonlight - Dumb dumb dumb.
Journeyman - Haven't watched a second ep. I may have to start recording it, though, because the tail end of Heroes keeps getting cut off by the DVR, so we'll have to watch it at the start of Journeyman. If anyone is liking Journeyman, let me know and I'll check out another episode.
I think there may be one or two more new shows I'm going to check out, so there may be a couple more of these posts. After that I'll review the shows I used to write about, like The Office, 30 Rock, Earl, Heroes, etc. In the meantime, here are some pictures I took at my house that I meant to post a while back.
Look what was hanging out on the front of our house:
Sucker was huge! That's the before, here's the after:
The stain is still on the brick. I've been too lazy to clean it off.
posted by at 9:46 AM
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