Scott: The botchjob on Bionic Woman still baffles me. Having Battlestar Galactica's David Eick and Katee Sackhoff imported as showrunner and Jamie Summers' evil nemesis, respectively, sounded like a can't-miss proposition. Add to that the gleefully malevolent Miguel Ferrer and the premise of a superhero with bionic lady parts, and you'd have to go out of your way to screw it up. But that's exactly what the show does. It's not just the flat, clunky dialogue that's a problem, but the super-serious tone, which sucks all the fun out of what should be a frivolous affair. No one except Sackhoff is having a good time, so it's no wonder that the show only really perks up when she flashes that mischievous grin of hers. The pilot episode really rushed through the origin story, too: Just establishing how an ordinary woman becomes bionic and starts coming to grips with her new powers would have been more than enough to cover in a single hour. But in the blink of an eye, she's past all of that and ready for action. What's especially irksome is that the follow-up episode makes her a reluctant heroine once more, as if the pilot never really happened at all. So it's one step forward, one step back.
Follow-up episodes often tell the real story. Over on his blog By Ken Levine—which includes a hilarious post about what would happen if Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball—the veteran TV writer recently posted about why "week two is often weak two." The gist of it was that TV producers have months to fuss over the pilot, but only a week to bang out the second episode. Levine suggests that viewers show a little patience if a promising show stumbles a bit in Week Two, because it may find its groove later on.
With that in mind, I still couldn't help but be disheartened by the second episode of Reaper, which worked like gangbusters in the Kevin Smith-directed pilot and then tried to do the exact same thing the next week, to much lesser effect. The show partially recovered with a passable stand-alone episode in its third week, but if it keeps hitting the reset button, my interest will start fading fast. Comparisons have been made to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and that sort of promise is clear in the pilot, which introduced a lot of compelling elements: a sharp best-buddy rapport between the reluctant hero and his schlubby friend (though Tyler Labine's second-rate Jack Black routine begins to grate), hell-sprung villains with cool powers, and of course the coup de grace, Ray Wise as the Devil. But the Buffy-verse was set on expansion from the beginning, and always struck the right balance between satisfying Monsters Of The Week and a "Big Bad" story that unfolded as the season progressed. I'm not convinced that Reaper has that kind of ambition, and I see myself bowing out soon if it doesn't have more up its sleeve.
The dazzling Pushing Daisies pilot presented another issue: How in the world can they keep this up? Other than maybe Twin Peaks or Firefly, I've seen few network pilots made with such cinematic brio, and in this case, with such obvious expense, evident from the candy-colored production design to the slick special effects to director Barry Sonnenfeld's trademark visual gags, which are technically challenging to say the least. There's no question that the show's weekly blast of whimsy will send some into sugar-shock, but count me among those who are charmed by it for now, and willing to look past some its overly precious ideas to the see the obvious care and intelligence that's been invested in it. The "mystery" of the second episode—something about crash test dummies for a car that runs on dandelions (yes, dandelions)—didn't do much for me, but how about that impromptu (and weirdly moving) rendition of "Hopelessly Devoted" or the offbeat detail of Chi McBride knitting himself "handgun cozies"? The next few weeks could tell a different story, because we'll have to see what happens after ABC banned Sonnenfeld from directing future episodes and demanded the production costs be brought into line. If the show settles into a more modest winner like creator Bryan Fuller's similarly cutesy Wonderfalls, it'll be a fine compromise.
Despite a few high points—Aliens In America and Pushing Daisies especially, and to a limited extent Dirty Sexy Money—I feel like declaring the fall season a bust overall. Watching returning favorites like The Office, Friday Night Lights, and, in the pay cable realm, Dexter, fall more or less back into a groove, I was struck by how much sharper they were than the new shows. Friday Night Lights introduced a distressing plot development, but the first episode was also bookended by two montage sequences (set to the great Wilco song "Muzzle Of Bees") that were as beautiful and moving as anything I've seen on television. Those who demand that The Office adhere to some standard of office-drone realism were put off by the "Fun Run" for a rabies cure that opened the season, but funny is funny, and the likes of Cavemen or The Big Bang Theory aren't even managing that much. And flawed as they might be, there's nothing on the schedule like Heroes or Lost that invite viewers to obsess over complicated mythology or hidden connections between characters. Pushing Daisies aside, the networks have shied away from anything truly ambitious or original.
Am I wrong? Any new shows you guys are ready to obsess about?
Noel: New shows? Obsess? Not really. Even the ones I like could be cancelled tomorrow and I wouldn't rend my garment. (Though like you I'm eager to see if Pushing Daisies can maintain its level of invention on a smaller budget.) But there are a couple of returning shows that have been rolling merrily along.
One of them is on NBC's Thursday night, and it's not The Office (which I realized last season was going to be merely funny from now, and no longer as sharp as it once was) or 30 Rock (which has been hilarious but spotty, and probably needs a week or two to find its natural rhythm again). No, it's My Name Is Earl, the forgotten stepchild of neo-Must-See-TV-Thursday, which has revived itself by sticking Earl in prison, where he still tries to perform good deeds, but with limited resources. I know some people find Earl's hick stereotyping offensive and/or unfunny, but as a born-and-bred-and-rooted Southerner, I see it as an absurdist abstraction, not mocking docu-realism. And unlike The Office, My Name Is Earl is more upfront about its gag-addicted style—although it's still gets to some pretty poignant and wickedly satirical places. Comedy snobs may well discount everything I write from here on in, but I don't care. My Name Is Earl is a good show, and deserves greater appreciation.
The other returning show that's been aces so far this year is House, which disappeared down a rabbit hole in season three but has come out the other side all the better for season four. The gimmick of having Hugh Laurie pick a new team from an army of applicants has been both funny and useful, providing a new way in to the same old medical mysteries. But it's been even more illuminating to follow what's become of the old team, as they start new jobs while still hearing the voice of their crackpot genius former boss ringing in their ears. The past two years of House have been all about what "being House" is doing to House himself. This year seems to be about how it's affecting the people closest to him. Anytime a show can hold to what made it entertaining in the first place, while also evolving to a point where its fans can see in a whole new way why they've always liked it… well, that's why I like to watch TV.
Keith: I've only seen the pilot to Pushing Daisies but I was totally blown away. I'm allergic to tweeness and whimsy when they feels forced but I'm the first to be won over when they work. (It's the difference between a Belle And Sebastian song and one by The Boy Least Likely To.) I don't know if they can keep it up, but I could probably watch that episode on a weekly basis. Does that count as obsession?
Otherwise, no. I like Dirty Sexy Money, which I took on as a weekly TV Club assignment. I don't love it yet, but I keep rooting for it. It has all the elements of greatness but needs to line them all up. Nothing else has pounded its way through my cold, cold heart yet. (Though I'll confess I still have some catching up to do.) Otherwise, it's back to the old favorites. And I can't improve on how Noel closed his last entry beyond saying, that and a really comfortable couch are why I like to watch television. For 44 or 22 minutes at a time everything else can wait.
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