Having had some time over the weekend to catch up on a bit of TiVo, I have more initial impressions of the new shows from this season. I can feel you holding your breath in rapt anticipation. I assure you, it is perfectly safe to exhale.
More of the New
Invasion
A hurricane hits a Florida town, which may have been a cover for an alien invasion. Or it might have been a cover for William Fichtner. Possibly a little girl’s cat is involved. Ooh, look! Glowy lights!
Where Surface‘s pilot suffered from trying to do too much in the pilot, Invasion goes the polar opposite route and has an hour where practically nothing happens. The very convoluted relationships among the main characters needed more time to get straight than anything else. Ready? Main studmuffin Russell (Eddie Cibrian) is a park ranger dating/living with local news reporter Larkin (Lisa Sheridan) and her laid-off conspiracy-nut brother, Dave (Tyler Labine). They watch after Russell’s kids (Evan Peters and Ariel Gade) on weekends and return them to their mother, Dr. Mariel (Kari Matchett), the rest of the time to stay with her creepy Sheriff husband (Finchter) and his daughter from somewhere else, Kira (Alexis Dziena).
Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.
The big tense moment is when the young daughter wanders off as the hurricane is hitting and sees some lights (which aren’t effectively shown on screen) which gets Dave’s conspiracy-sense tingling as she recounts the experience. There is a car crash, a missing persons search resulting the the discovery of Dr. Mariel’s unclothed body (she pulls through, with some creepy help from the creepy Sheriff who stares creepily off camera for several seconds any time he gets on-screen), two boat rides, unidentified bodies dragged from a bayou and stuffed into a car trunk and a glowing manta ray under the water’s surface which maybe tries to eat Dave’s legs.
If this sounds exciting, rest assured it is not. Despite the “action” going on, everyone kind of walks around the whole show looking vaguely surprised to be on a set, much less on camera. The dialogue is cheesy and the suspense is played more like unintentional comedy, utterly failing to deliver anything remotely resembling a thrill. The special effects are not even effects, including the big “discovery” moment where the little girl sees… something, we presume since we’re not really allowed to share the awe. She does recount the story later in some detail but by then we don’t really care. The episode’s closing shocker (complete with thunderously ominous synthesizer music) is another half-shown look at some kind of unspecific something-or-other which may have something to do with Dr. Mariel but we can’t really tell since it looks more like someone may have dropped some Tide with Bleach into the swamp. However, the bubbling detergent sure makes William Finchter look creepy, so we must be shocked and appalled. Right? Right?
As per my rule I’ll give this one an episode beyond the pilot to straighten things out, but I can hardly wait to dump this Season Pass.
My Name is Earl
A petty thieving redneck with a two-timing wife and a blubbery brother/sidekick wins the lottery but loses the ticket. He learns about the concept of Karma in the hospital (from Carson Daily-hah!) and decides he needs to make amends for his life in order to get back the lottery winnings, so he makes a list and sets out to atone for his transgressions.
The show has promise. That’s the best compliment I can offer it. The semi-original setup deserves some mild acknowledgment and the show looks and plays like a movie comedy (which, after the raucous but wildly inappropriate canned laughter from How I Met Your Mother is so welcome as to get me all misty-eyed). Beyond that, the pilot felt pretty flat. Most of the jokes were Office-style “discomfort” humor—his wife gave birth to a black baby! How hilarious! But I didn’t laugh, because I didn’t laugh at the Office that much, either. The plot finally kicks in late in the episode with the guy who used to pretend to be the CEO of Del Taco playing a picked-on kid from Earl’s formative years as a lonely gay man in a small rural community.
ATTENTION: This is a public service announcement for all TV executives and movie producers. PLEASE NOTE: Gay jokes are done. Finito. Not funny any more. Seriously, we’ve heard them all. After Ellen, Will and Grace, Queer Eye, roughly 52,000 movies and Mythbusters you must surely know by now that it stopped being funny a long, long time ago. How many more “Oh my gosh! A straight guy dances with a gay dude!” jokes can you do? Find a different well because this one is dry. SERIOUSLY. KTHX.
Anyway, aside from the lame side plot, the pilot mostly just suffers from not being funny. Jason Lee seems a bit bored with the role, his accent comes and goes in a manner reminiscent of Kevin Costner. The only amusing part is when the squirrelly gay guy sprays mace in his own eyes then runs face first into a wall. And they showed that on the promos.
I want to say this show has potential. The premise is interesting enough that with some much tighter writing it could end up being a quirky little gem. Or, since this is network TV after all, it will probably end up a tedious little dingleberry. I’ll give it two more episodes to win me over, but another short leash is in order.
The Ghost Whisperer
A young woman is gifted with the ability to see and talk to earthbound spirits that haven’t passed into “the light” who come asking for her help. Also, people cry. A lot.
I’m not exactly sure what I expected with this show. I know I didn’t expect quite as much Touched by an Angel. I think I was hoping for more The Sixth Sense.
Silly me.
Jennifer Love Hewitt gives it a decent go as the wearily afflicted/gifted young woman (Melinda) who kind of wishes she didn’t have to deal with all these ghosts and their problems. In an interesting twist we get a young lead character who is actually happily married (or at least newly married as of the pilot) which gives the series a different direction than the old and haggard “will they or won’t they” cliche, a move I kind of appreciated. Aisha Tyler isn’t even thrown a bone to nibble on as the best friend and co-shop owner? Co-worker? Like I said, calling her character sketchy would be generous. Melinda’s husband Jim (David Conrad) is a paramedic/EMT who throws himself into his job to try and lighten Melinda’s load which sparks a lot more tearful conversations about life and death.
The pilot’s plot involves a Vietnam soldier who died in a helicopter crash and the search for his son, now soon to be a father as well. Let me be clear here, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the show, the performances or the execution of all of the above. The problem is with the relentless schmaltz and puddle-eyed sentiment gushing from every scene. The actors are certainly given plenty of chances to emote, and they do so admirably, but the bottom line is I just don’t care.
I was more hoping for some kind of explanation about how the mechanics of Melinda’s gift worked; some sort of internal consistency or set of rules about how it worked would have been nice. How did the compass get there? How much can the ghosts influence the real world? How does she know if what she’s seeing is a ghost or not? What is the point of the dreams if she can see them when she’s awake? Do their physical bodies have something to do with their spiritual experience? And most importantly, why the heck isn’t this show scary?
One more to meet my minimum requirements, and that’s all. Seriously.
Killer Instinct
A “deviant crime” detective comes back from a leave of absence after his partner (and maybe more?) is killed in the line of duty. He’s assigned a new (young, female, attractive, natch) partner and they start searching for a serial killer who uses venomous spiders to paralyze and kill his victims so he can rape them.
As a standard cop show in the CSI (x3), Law & Order (x3), Cold Case, Without a Trace era, Killer Instinct has very little to offer. Deviant crime? Huh? But somewhere in the middle of the pilot (which TV Guide claimed was “disturbing” or “ghastly” or something like that but apparently I’m the only one who’s been watching CSI for the last five years if they think spiders are grotesque… sheesh) I found myself intrigued. The new partner to Detective Hale (Johnny Messner) seems to be a little too interested in him as she (played with off-kilter charm by Marguerite Moreau) drags info out of his files and stalks him all over the place.
The spider storyline was kind of shrug-worthy, but the closing sequence with the anti-toxin was intriguing from a character establishment standpoint and impressed me enough to redeem even some of the slower moments in the show. I also confess a soft spot for the show being set in San Francisco (and shot with impressive visual style that mercifully does not bite off CSI for once) but it’s hard to tell if that’s because I know and like the biggest city closest to me or because I’m just sick of seeing New York City as the setting for every other show.
I was a bit confused by the “Coming Next Week” promos which show a completely different character than Moreau’s. I’ve since confirmed that she was replaced by Kristin Lehman, which I can’t judge as a good or bad move but I thought Moreau was fine in the role. Either way, color me intrigued. I do however think this show has close to zero chance of survival and will likely be cancelled at the earliest opportunity; the limited fan buzz I have seen has been deafeningly apathetic which doesn’t bode well. I’ll watch it as long as it’s given a chance, I think.
Stay tuned for a round-up of the returning shows’ season premieres in part three…
