In the wake of last fall's stunning crop of new TV shows—which revitalized the hourlong drama and gave the entertainment media fodder for myriad new "inside look"s and episode guides—the 2005 season has a lot to live up to. And while there doesn't appear to be another Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, or Veronica Mars in the latest batch of shows, the news is mostly good for those who like serialized genre pieces and smart sitcoms. Below, The A.V. Club begins the first of a two-part look at the most intriguing new series, and how we think they'll hold up come fall 2006.
My Name Is Earl (NBC)
The premise: Immediately after trailer-trash hero Jason Lee nets $100,000 in the lottery, he gets hit by a car and winds up in traction, where he experiences a morphine-induced epiphany, courtesy of Carson Daly. Hearing Daly credit his success to "karma," Lee makes a list of all the bad things he's done in his life and goes about setting them right, one at a time.
The difference: Continuing to take baby steps out of its staid sitcom format after The Office, NBC drops the laugh track and embraces this quirky homage to Raising Arizona, which adds an all-important sliver of sophistication to its rowdy redneck humor. My Name Is Earl also has a trump card in Lee, whose laidback presence is genuine enough to authenticate a character who might otherwise seem sprung from a Jeff Foxworthy routine.
The future: The premise is gimmicky, but based on the promising first two episodes, Lee's infinite list of wrongdoings should provide many seasons' worth of amiable comedy. The key question is, will the characters evolve over time, or will the show be content just to spin its wheels every week? How much cosmic redemption can one man get? But even in the worst-case scenario, it should still be good for a few laughs.
Prison Break (Fox)
The premise: Wentworth Miller arranges to have himself arrested and sent to the prison where his half-brother is about to be executed for a crime he didn't commit. Miller enters with intimate knowledge of the prison blueprints and a clockwork plan for escape literally tattooed all over his body. But the brilliant engineer fails to account for the human factor, like the capriciousness of mob bosses and the unpredictability of race riots.
The difference: Call this twisty, action-packed hour the anti-Lost. Rather then filling up on backstory and circling the same locked door for a dozen episodes, Prison Break races the clock each time out, scattering new mysteries while resolving others. The results are more disposable and less rich than Lost, but almost as addicting.
The future: A lot about this series is frankly preposterous, but as pulp logic goes, Miller's bust-out plan is both ingenious and way cool. (Miller may be the find of the fall season, with his casual wit and surprising tough-guy intensity.) It's also packed with narrative possibilities. At this pace, the main characters will be out of jail and on the run by Christmas, at which point this could become an entirely different show... and maybe an even better one.
Kitchen Confidential (Fox)
The premise: Loosely inspired by Anthony Bourdain's vivid memoir about the restaurant business, the show stars Bradley Cooper as chef Jack Bourdain, a self-styled culinary rebel whose womanizing and substance abuse led him to exile. Given a second chance as executive chef at the swank New York eatery Nolita, Cooper assembles a pirate crew of outcasts and eccentrics to put him back on top.
The difference: Sex And The City producer Darren Star tries to impart that series' urban hipness to a half-hour sitcom format, and he's assembled the right cast for the job, including the magnetic Cooper (Alias) and castaways from beloved shows, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Nicholas Brendon and Freaks And Geeks' John Francis Daley. But it feels more like Star's show than Bourdain's, with a lot of smug, smutty humor standing in for the book's juicy behind-the-scenes anecdotes.
The future: All the elements of a first-rate show are in place: A novel setting with endless potential, a seasoned, likeable comedic cast, and a breezy confidence that sometimes borders on cocky. So why isn't it funnier? If the writers can capture the spirit of Bourdain's book, Kitchen Confidential might turn itself around, but the dreadful ratings so far suggest an uphill battle.
- Comments