Noel Murray and Keith Phipps engage in the first of a series of casual conversations about some of the new fall shows.
Noel: New shows are still trickling out, but by this point, we've had a chance to see most everything the networks have to offer, so let's jump right into it with one show we really like, and one we don't.
The new series I've been most surprised and delighted by has been CBS' Smith (CBS, Tuesdays, 10 p.m. ET). Yet another team-of-high-tech-crooks extravaganza, it didn't sound all that promising, especially coming on the heels of NBC's lame Heist and FX's not-as-good-as-it-could've-been Thief. And I wasn't persuaded by the creative team of John Wells and Christopher Chulack, who generally make good TV, but not great TV. But two episodes into what I fear will be a brief run, Smith is turning out to be pretty great TV. The heist ringleader, Ray Liotta, is as commanding as always, and Virginia Madsen is fantastic as his perpetually worried wife. But the surprise all-star—out of a supporting cast that also includes Simon Baker, Jonny Lee Miller, and Shohreh Aghdashloo—has been Amy Smart, playing the vixen of the team, on her way to masterminding her own counter-plot.
Still, what I really like about Smith isn't the story, which is admittedly kind of old hat, but the style. Wells and Chulack downplay the chatter and emphasize the visual, often delivering key pieces of information without a word uttered or a soundtrack cue bleating. They also play around with light and depth of field, obscuring faces with extreme foreground objects and bleeding pools of background sun. Smith's look underscores its moral haze, and makes it more than just another serialized crime drama.
Speaking of which, the only fall show I've actively disliked has been Fox's Vanished (Fox, Mondays, 9 p.m. ET). It's not that bad, really, but the kidnapping plot and every-week-a-new-secret-revealed structure just seems so contrived to me now. Most of these serialized shows—even Smith, to be honest—would work best as a six-part miniseries, or an extended feature film. After getting fed up with the "gotta fill 20 episodes" wheel-spinning of Prison Break last season, I'm only hanging with serialized shows that promise me something more than shocking revelations and weekly cliffhangers.
Keith: Noel, I'm not sure our TiVos are in sync. The two shows you're writing about are two I have yet to check out. But you've got me intrigued about Smith, and I think I'll skip Vanished for the reasons you cite. It sounds like one of those shows that would benefit from the HBO/BBC model of short, limited-run "seasons." There often isn't enough mystery to last 22 episodes. I'm even growing fatigued with Lost, much as I hate to say it.
So what have I been watching? I've tuned into Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (NBC, Mondays, 10 p.m. ET) faithfully so far. The pilot's probably the best I've seen since Veronica Mars, but the second episode has me worried. Let's talk about the good stuff: It's been a few years since I watched The West Wing, so all that Aaron Sorkin-trademarked patter-heavy, long-take filmmaking really worked for me. I like the leads, too. Bradley Whitford is able as always, and he's allowed to show more depth than he was on the Wing. Matthew Perry always struck me as the most talented actor on Friends, and this cinches that impression. And while others are complaining about Amanda Peet, I like what she's doing here. She gets to play the kind of aloof, mysterious, always-in-control character that usually doesn't go to women, and she's done a fine job of it so far. And we know nothing about her or her methods, which makes her all the more intriguing. Of course, all that looks to change with next week's episode, so maybe I'm speaking too soon.
But—and I hope I'm speaking too soon about this—I see big problems up ahead, most of them having to do with the Studio 60 within Studio 60, and the fact that the big sketch, the one that was so brilliant that it was supposed to reassure everyone everywhere that Studio 60 was back and more brilliant than ever, was… terrible. A self-deprecating Gilbert & Sullivan parody? Really? That's the new height of sketch comedy? I understand Sorkin is committed to writing every episode, but maybe he could treat the sketches the way West Side Story treated Natalie Wood's voice: Bring in someone who can actually sing. Also, why is taking care of Studio 60 apparently Peet's only responsibility? Doesn't she run, like, the whole network?
Noel: I'm worried about the show-within-a-show aspect of Studio 60 too, although I understand that Sorkin actually has SNL/Kids In The Hall refugee Mark McKinney helping with the sketches. Still, so far, Studio 60 has been at its best when it sticks with Sorkin's biggest strength: celebrating the way people work together to make something happen. I'm especially hooked on the Whitford/Perry relationship. Sorkin's Sports Night was one of the best examinations of male friendship in pop-culture history, and this looks like a strong follow-up.
I also appreciate that Studio 60 occupies that increasingly sparsely populated middle ground between serial drama and case-of-the-week procedural. Not that I mind the latter when it's done well. Until Fox put it "on hiatus," I was really enjoying Justice (Fox, Wednesdays 9 p.m. ET), Jerry Bruckheimer's attempt to CSI-ify the legal drama. Granted, some of the show's kick is the goofiness of using trumped-up special-effects sequences to show, say, a room full of paralegals looking for precedents. But the inside look at how high-paid legal teams conduct today's modern super-trials is genuinely fascinating, and in the early episodes, the writers and producers have done a good job of balancing Victor Garber's leading-man charisma with the slow reveal of his associates' personalities. And that end-of-every-episode gimmick of showing how the crime really went down is never not creepy.
Anyway, Justice is a lot better than Shark (CBS, Thursdays, 10 p.m. ET), which has James Woods going for it, but otherwise is a non-starter as a legal drama and as a character piece. The pitch is something like "House with lawyers," but Woods' character isn't as brilliant or thorny as House, and the cases aren't as wondrously perverse. Really, Justice is more like House. It shows how the people affected by our social institutions matter less than the institutions themselves. Shark, by contrast, is too conventional. It's the anti-Justice.
- Comments