Tonight is the night for the new series premiere I'm most excited for people to see: Ugly Betty on ABC.
There's a style, attitude and energy to this show that's like nothing else on TV. It's light, funny, immediately involving and features the actress who everyone has pegged as the season's breakout star: America Ferrera. And in her case it's not just empty hype.
I wrote a little about the show before (back when it was still called "Betty the Ugly," a literal translation of its original telenovela title) and I'm pleased that's it has received a good amount of pre-season attention. Pairing the show with monster hit Grey's Anatomy will hopefully work in Betty's favor (it's much better than the Friday timeslot the show originally was set for).
Hopefully there will be a backwards halo effect since Grey's didn't help lead-out Six Degrees much last week. Betty is a significantly better show and if it becomes a ratings success like the network's Lost and Desperate Housewives were in their first seasons it would be another victory for that all too rare breed: quality network television.
Hopefully it won't face the same sophomore slump as those shows, but I'm way ahead of myself there. Let's just get through the first season and hope we don't get a repeat performance of last season's ABC buzz series.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Fall TV Top 5: Heroes
The concept of NBC's Heroes—"ordinary" people discover they have extraordinary superpowers, but don't know why or what for—sounds like it could be a perfect TV show, or an incredibly ridiculous one. The first episode of the show falls somewhere in the middle, but it's more on the positive side and there's enough that's intriguing to make me optimistic about where this one is going.
Superheroes aren't very common on TV and when they do turn up it's often cartoony. The most important thing to know about Heroes is that it's not like that at all. It's closer to the first two X-Men films' or Batman Begins' approach to superhero mythology, or Lost's "realistic" take on fantasy/sci-fi story elements. This is a show rooted in characters, necessitated by smaller budgets in TV no doubt but also a clear creative intent to make its world relatable and recognizable first, fantastic second.
The best superhero show I've ever seen was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the best superhero stories in any medium of storytelling. After one episode Heroes can only aspire to that show's masterful blend of comedy, drama, horror, romance and action, but the aspiration is clearly there.
Not every storyline in the premiere works—I found one a little too melodramatic (Ali Larter's single mom stripper) and one a little too self-consciously "funny" (Masi Oka's bored Japanese worker)—but I'm very curious to see where this is all heading. And, unless the episode that airs is different from the one I saw, we won't even meet a key player (a police officer played by Alias vet Greg Grunberg) until the second episode.
Also Airing Tonight:
Runaway is officially the first new show of The CW. It's basically The Fugitive if Richard Kimble had a family. A whole family—dad, mom and three kids—goes on the run when the patriarch (Donnie Wahlberg) is falsely accused of murder. It's not bad but the big question is why get wrapped up in another show with an overarching mystery when there are so many—new and returning—on television right now. And also when this show's timeslot competition is Heroes for the immediate future and the return of 24 come January, if Runaway lasts that long. Still, since this one is on CW it may wind up the beneficiary of lowered network expectations.
After watching the second episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip I've decided the thing I hate most about the show is that it's not bad. It would be so much easier to simply ignore. It's still way too much like The West Wing to feel fresh, and I still don't really like any of the characters. But tonight's episode goes by pretty fast anyway. And I give them credit for doing something I really didn't expect they would: actually showing us part of the show, within the show.
Superheroes aren't very common on TV and when they do turn up it's often cartoony. The most important thing to know about Heroes is that it's not like that at all. It's closer to the first two X-Men films' or Batman Begins' approach to superhero mythology, or Lost's "realistic" take on fantasy/sci-fi story elements. This is a show rooted in characters, necessitated by smaller budgets in TV no doubt but also a clear creative intent to make its world relatable and recognizable first, fantastic second.
The best superhero show I've ever seen was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the best superhero stories in any medium of storytelling. After one episode Heroes can only aspire to that show's masterful blend of comedy, drama, horror, romance and action, but the aspiration is clearly there.
Not every storyline in the premiere works—I found one a little too melodramatic (Ali Larter's single mom stripper) and one a little too self-consciously "funny" (Masi Oka's bored Japanese worker)—but I'm very curious to see where this is all heading. And, unless the episode that airs is different from the one I saw, we won't even meet a key player (a police officer played by Alias vet Greg Grunberg) until the second episode.
Also Airing Tonight:
Runaway is officially the first new show of The CW. It's basically The Fugitive if Richard Kimble had a family. A whole family—dad, mom and three kids—goes on the run when the patriarch (Donnie Wahlberg) is falsely accused of murder. It's not bad but the big question is why get wrapped up in another show with an overarching mystery when there are so many—new and returning—on television right now. And also when this show's timeslot competition is Heroes for the immediate future and the return of 24 come January, if Runaway lasts that long. Still, since this one is on CW it may wind up the beneficiary of lowered network expectations.
After watching the second episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip I've decided the thing I hate most about the show is that it's not bad. It would be so much easier to simply ignore. It's still way too much like The West Wing to feel fresh, and I still don't really like any of the characters. But tonight's episode goes by pretty fast anyway. And I give them credit for doing something I really didn't expect they would: actually showing us part of the show, within the show.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Fall TV: Brothers and Sisters
Brothers and Sisters starts tonight on ABC. It's not one of my top five picks for new shows but I'll be watching it regularly.
So far, the show has been most notable in the entertainment press as the "troubled one" of the new season. The pilot wasn't included with the rest of ABC's pickups in the Fall Preview DVDs that TV writers received back in May. Supposedly that was due to "recasting" a few key roles and "reconceiving" the tone and story of the first episode. Understandable reasons but not the kind of explanations that generate good buzz. And even before the show was picked up there had been negative buzz about how test audiences were reacting, specifically to series star Calista Flockhart (she's a good actress but can be an alienating screen presence). Then, just as production was ramping up, the show lost an executive producer (Marti Noxon who worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) due to "creative differences." (She was ultimately replaced by Everwood creator Greg Berlanti.)
All along those working on the show—including executive producer Ken Olin, playwright/creator Jon Robin Baitz and actors Rachel Griffiths and Ron Rifkin—tried their best to reassure the media that everything was fine. They weren't wrong. The first episode of Brothers and Sisters is really pretty good. Revolving around the relationships of a family with two daughters and three sons, all adults, it has that Zwick/Herskovitz high class, character driven soap vibe. And I've been missing that since Once & Again went off the air several seasons ago.
Plus, the show has what everyone was interested in in the first place: an incredible cast. Yes, you get to see Ally McBeal, Brenda Chenowith and Arvin Sloane back on TV (all playing significantly different characters), as well as the recognizable TV faces of Sally Field, Patricia Wettig and Tom Skerritt.
There are a few too many characters for the first episode to handle (Wettig and Sarah Jane Morris—as the family's only daughter-in-law—are barely even introduced) but in a season where so many shows have people doubting their long-term potential Brothers and Sisters deserves some credit for creating a world with a lot left to explore. And at least there's a built in reason for these characters to be together and for the audience to care about them, unlike ABC's generally limp Six Degrees.
I have my doubts about the show's audience appeal but creatively it's off to an interesting start.
So far, the show has been most notable in the entertainment press as the "troubled one" of the new season. The pilot wasn't included with the rest of ABC's pickups in the Fall Preview DVDs that TV writers received back in May. Supposedly that was due to "recasting" a few key roles and "reconceiving" the tone and story of the first episode. Understandable reasons but not the kind of explanations that generate good buzz. And even before the show was picked up there had been negative buzz about how test audiences were reacting, specifically to series star Calista Flockhart (she's a good actress but can be an alienating screen presence). Then, just as production was ramping up, the show lost an executive producer (Marti Noxon who worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) due to "creative differences." (She was ultimately replaced by Everwood creator Greg Berlanti.)
All along those working on the show—including executive producer Ken Olin, playwright/creator Jon Robin Baitz and actors Rachel Griffiths and Ron Rifkin—tried their best to reassure the media that everything was fine. They weren't wrong. The first episode of Brothers and Sisters is really pretty good. Revolving around the relationships of a family with two daughters and three sons, all adults, it has that Zwick/Herskovitz high class, character driven soap vibe. And I've been missing that since Once & Again went off the air several seasons ago.
Plus, the show has what everyone was interested in in the first place: an incredible cast. Yes, you get to see Ally McBeal, Brenda Chenowith and Arvin Sloane back on TV (all playing significantly different characters), as well as the recognizable TV faces of Sally Field, Patricia Wettig and Tom Skerritt.
There are a few too many characters for the first episode to handle (Wettig and Sarah Jane Morris—as the family's only daughter-in-law—are barely even introduced) but in a season where so many shows have people doubting their long-term potential Brothers and Sisters deserves some credit for creating a world with a lot left to explore. And at least there's a built in reason for these characters to be together and for the audience to care about them, unlike ABC's generally limp Six Degrees.
I have my doubts about the show's audience appeal but creatively it's off to an interesting start.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Two weeks of reviews
There should be some good movies coming out soon but they're not here yet...
Last week:
The Black Dahlia
This week:
All the King's Men
Confetti
All bad, but even worse, all disappointing in their own ways.
The one exception to this is Half Nelson, which premiered at Sundance in January and opened back in August in New York and Los Angeles. It's making its way around the country now. It's offbeat in some ways, conventional in others, but definitely one of the most interesting films of the year. And Ryan Gosling delivers one of the year's finest performances.
Last week:
The Black Dahlia
This week:
All the King's Men
Confetti
All bad, but even worse, all disappointing in their own ways.
The one exception to this is Half Nelson, which premiered at Sundance in January and opened back in August in New York and Los Angeles. It's making its way around the country now. It's offbeat in some ways, conventional in others, but definitely one of the most interesting films of the year. And Ryan Gosling delivers one of the year's finest performances.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Fall TV Top 5: Smith
I haven’t said much about the new fall TV season yet. But now that the networks are starting to premiere their new shows I figure I should at least mention my favorites.
This was actually a very good pilot season and with the exception of everything on Fox (and ABC’s horrendous wedding day comedy Big Day) I’d be willing to sample a second episode of all the new shows.
But there are five that I’m already committed to based on the pilot alone. (Last season there was only one: ABC’s Sons and Daughters.) So I'll be sure to point those out here as each is about to premiere.
Of course none of those are on Fox. I deliberately ignored saying anything about their new series as the network started rolling them out a couple weeks ago. They’re all bad. The Thursday night comedy Happy Hour is particularly notable as the worst new show of the season. Thankfully ratings for the shows are in line with their quality.
ABC’s Anne Heche-led relationship “dramedy” Men in Trees has also already started airing. The pilot wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very good either. The show has a Friday night timeslot of death that pretty much guarantees it won’t be around come 2007.
Last night brought the premieres of the perfectly adequate traditional comedy The Class on CBS (after one episode I like it more than the same network’s How I Met Your Mother, but will I bother watching?) and the season’s most overhyped new show NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
But that brings us to tonight’s premiere: Smith on CBS. It’s a heist drama (a genre failed multiple times last season including FX’s Thief and NBC’s Heist) but it has a killer cast, the best production values of any new series and a potential for greatness.
The most surprising thing about Smith is that it feels like a cable show, but it’s on CBS. And it’s entirely possible that that will be an oil-and-water combination that will lead to failure. But I like ambitious TV and it’s rare to find something on network TV that is this ambitious.
That killer cast I mentioned is led by Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, welcome additions to series television, and also includes Simon Baker, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Franky G and Shoreh Aghdashloo. Not all huge names but put them together and they make a strong TV ensemble. The pilot isn’t heavy on character development for the supporting players but there’s enough to make you believe these people will go in interesting directions in the future.
And the characters and relationship written for Liotta and Madsen are fantastic. He leads the heists, she doesn’t know but she has demons of her own. It’s great to see good actors get good material (they wouldn’t find this kind of stuff on film very easily).
I don’t know if Smith is going to attempt to pull off a heist a week (a “commercial” choice, but also risky), or if it will focus in on the characters and explore their moral ambiguities with an occasional heist on the side (an “artistic” choice, but also wiser).
Either way I’ll be watching.
This was actually a very good pilot season and with the exception of everything on Fox (and ABC’s horrendous wedding day comedy Big Day) I’d be willing to sample a second episode of all the new shows.
But there are five that I’m already committed to based on the pilot alone. (Last season there was only one: ABC’s Sons and Daughters.) So I'll be sure to point those out here as each is about to premiere.
Of course none of those are on Fox. I deliberately ignored saying anything about their new series as the network started rolling them out a couple weeks ago. They’re all bad. The Thursday night comedy Happy Hour is particularly notable as the worst new show of the season. Thankfully ratings for the shows are in line with their quality.
ABC’s Anne Heche-led relationship “dramedy” Men in Trees has also already started airing. The pilot wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very good either. The show has a Friday night timeslot of death that pretty much guarantees it won’t be around come 2007.
Last night brought the premieres of the perfectly adequate traditional comedy The Class on CBS (after one episode I like it more than the same network’s How I Met Your Mother, but will I bother watching?) and the season’s most overhyped new show NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
But that brings us to tonight’s premiere: Smith on CBS. It’s a heist drama (a genre failed multiple times last season including FX’s Thief and NBC’s Heist) but it has a killer cast, the best production values of any new series and a potential for greatness.
The most surprising thing about Smith is that it feels like a cable show, but it’s on CBS. And it’s entirely possible that that will be an oil-and-water combination that will lead to failure. But I like ambitious TV and it’s rare to find something on network TV that is this ambitious.
That killer cast I mentioned is led by Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, welcome additions to series television, and also includes Simon Baker, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Franky G and Shoreh Aghdashloo. Not all huge names but put them together and they make a strong TV ensemble. The pilot isn’t heavy on character development for the supporting players but there’s enough to make you believe these people will go in interesting directions in the future.
And the characters and relationship written for Liotta and Madsen are fantastic. He leads the heists, she doesn’t know but she has demons of her own. It’s great to see good actors get good material (they wouldn’t find this kind of stuff on film very easily).
I don’t know if Smith is going to attempt to pull off a heist a week (a “commercial” choice, but also risky), or if it will focus in on the characters and explore their moral ambiguities with an occasional heist on the side (an “artistic” choice, but also wiser).
Either way I’ll be watching.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Where I've Been...
It's been quite awhile since I posted here (my longest break ever in fact, I never went more than a month without posting before) but I've been keeping busy.
My new job has meant a lot of writing and a lot of editing and it's been a great experience so far. But I don't want this blog to die out and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up on a more regular basis now that I've settled into the new job somewhat.
First up I'll just share links to what I've been doing over there, with other "normal" posts to follow.
The biggest project I've done so far is this Fall Movie Guide, which I'm pretty happy with. I wrote just about everything you'll see on the pages, selected all the art and built the pages. It was massive but it was fun. (My colleague helped with the related photo gallery, and did a great job.)
I've written film reviews for:
World Trade Center
Quinceañera
Idlewild
The Descent
Crank
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
The King
Crossover
And I've also done this Q&A with Crank star Jason Statham and a review for Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke.
I'll supply links on a regular basis here, since some of this might be the kind of stuff I would've done on the blog anyway (though a little more formal, not as "bloggy"). But I'll try not to let this replace regular blogging, since I have fun with that too.
I'd like to revisit my pre-season picks for the summer movie season that was and do my own picks for fall, which will differ quite a bit from what I did for Metromix. But that will come soon.
My new job has meant a lot of writing and a lot of editing and it's been a great experience so far. But I don't want this blog to die out and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up on a more regular basis now that I've settled into the new job somewhat.
First up I'll just share links to what I've been doing over there, with other "normal" posts to follow.
The biggest project I've done so far is this Fall Movie Guide, which I'm pretty happy with. I wrote just about everything you'll see on the pages, selected all the art and built the pages. It was massive but it was fun. (My colleague helped with the related photo gallery, and did a great job.)
I've written film reviews for:
World Trade Center
Quinceañera
Idlewild
The Descent
Crank
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
The King
Crossover
And I've also done this Q&A with Crank star Jason Statham and a review for Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke.
I'll supply links on a regular basis here, since some of this might be the kind of stuff I would've done on the blog anyway (though a little more formal, not as "bloggy"). But I'll try not to let this replace regular blogging, since I have fun with that too.
I'd like to revisit my pre-season picks for the summer movie season that was and do my own picks for fall, which will differ quite a bit from what I did for Metromix. But that will come soon.
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