Tag Archives: Television

June 25, 2009 · 12:06 am

Series Premiere: The Philanthropist – “Pilot”

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“Pilot”

June 24th, 2009

The Philanthropist has been a rather rocky development process for NBC, with numerous showrunner switches and some changes of vision in terms of what the show was supposed to be. The result is that it’s airing later than it was supposed to, hustled off into the summer months like it’s a half-baked Canadian (Worst. Canadian. Ever.) co-production rather than a globetrotting drama with a pretty high-profile cast. And while part of me thinks that this is strange since it seems like it could be quite a compelling piece of television programming, I sort of see their logic.

The Philanthropist is a show that derives its setup almost entirely from the notion of experience, as hero Teddy Rist is changed overnight from a billionaire who pays lip service to charity work to someone who risks his life in order to deliver cholera vaccine to a Hurricane-ravaged village in Nigeria. The pilot is all about us experiencing that moment with him, told as a story to an disbelieving waitress in a bar in the middle of nowhere. That experience, though, is a highly isolated one, as really it is only James Purefoy’s Rist who gets anything close to a setup here. This is his show, without question, and right now there doesn’t appear to be much of a story or characters around him to really go beyond that.

However, since Purefoy remains extremely charming, speaking here in his native accent even, it seems like that’s enough for the show, at least in its pilot. Not trying to bring characters to the various supporting players, and choosing to define them almost exclusively based on their relationships with our protagonist, this is a slavishly linear adventure of how a billionaire turned into a one man foreign aid machine, a transformation that Purefoy sells that that is honestly quite fun to watch, a sort of 24: Redemption meets Burn Notice kind of scenario that hits buttons both emotional and comic. They haven’t quite created a show around him yet, but as an experiential introduction into this world the pilot’s an effective tool for convincing me to give the show a shot.

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June 24, 2009 · 12:13 am

Better Off Ted – “You Are the Boss of Me”

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“You Are the Boss of Me”

June 23rd, 2009

I realized when preparing for this post that I have never written about Better Off Ted before here at Cultural Learnings, which means that I am officially “part of the problem.” Suffering from fatigued ratings, but bolstered by critical raves and strong network support, Better Off Ted left the airwaves having aired about half of its 13-episode order to an uncertain fate that thankfully (and surprisingly) ended in a second season renewal with a return at midseason paired with returning Scrubs. Then, bizarrely, ABC decided to burn off the remaining episodes of that order in the summer instead of holding them over to air at midseason.

Dan Fienberg has a big discussion of all of that logic (short form: it helps the show fit into the window being provided at midseason, plus ABC isn’t the brightest network around), but right now I just want to rectify what has been a poor oversight on this part. I’m sure I’ve told anyone who asked that Better Off Ted was the sharpest new comedy of last season, arriving without much fanfare with a top notch cast, a humorous setup, and one particular hilarious episode (“Racial Sensitivity”) with which non-fans can easily be turned into converts (which ABC has smartly made available for FREE on iTunes, in both Canada AND the U.S. even), but unfortunately I’ve never taken the time to really sit down and write about the show.

So, a few months too late, let’s take a look at why Better Off Ted, and “You Are the Boss of Me” by extension, presents a case for the show’s high quality.

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June 23, 2009 · 5:02 am

Weeds – “Su-Su-Sucio”

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“Su-Su-Sucio”

June 22nd, 2009

Weeds always sits at a perilous crossroads of plot and character development, as the two often aren’t synonymous terms as they relate to the early part of each season. By the end of the season, sure, they usually match up: there’s always a few events that bring everyone together and have the Botwin family and company in a dire situation. But early on, there’s always a sense that the plot takes over, carrying characters off to their future destinations without really stopping and letting it change or affect them in any way.

I’d argue that, based on these concerns, “Su-Su-Sucio” is a fairly effective turn, maintaining a strong comic sensibility and offering a welcome respite from the darkness of the early parts of the season without abandoning it entirely. While it may be too simple a formula to repeat ad nauseum, the introduction of Nancy’s sister Jill has kept that particular plot development from becoming too disconnected from notions of characters, and Andy’s return to the fold has had similar effects in terms of giving Nancy some more levity as it relates to her situation.

The result is an episode that, although smack dab in the middle of the show’s usual march towards a plot of some kind, felt like it was rushing through the storylines it should rush through, and pausing on the ones that deserved a bit more time. The early season pacing is the fastest its been in quite some time (at least in terms of bringing the cast together), and that’ll make for an interesting extension into the rest of the year.

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June 22, 2009 · 11:59 pm

Nurse Jackie – “Chicken Soup”

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“Chicken Soup”

June 22nd, 2009

Nurse Jackie is really turning into an interesting cross-section of television narratives at the moment, in a way that it wasn’t early on. There was a point in last week’s episode, when Anna Deavere Smith was high on percocet and turned into a one-note gag, where I legitimately questioned the show’s ability to inject humour into this series, but “Chicken Soup” brings that back into focus by presenting one legitimately comic storyline and a couple of human-interest patient storylines that offered some more light-hearted fare. When focused on interpersonal interactions, the show is finding plenty of humour, and capturing the desireable elements from a show like Grey’s Anatomy from a slightly darker, and therefore slightly better, perspective.

At the same time, though, there are points where the darkness of this world become a bit too overwhelming, and one can’t particularly blame young Grace for deciding that the Bubonic plague is ready to strike again. While some may argue that the very presence of this darkness is problem enough, I’d tend to argue that the concern is less in the existence of a dark side to both Jackie and the show as a whole and more in the execution. Presented in the form of one general cliche followed by a procedural medical faux pas of the worst order, Jackie’s darkness is emerging less and less through organic channels, and more through clearly identifiable insertions into every day life designed to remind us that she is addicted to drugs, or remind us that she’s an adulterer.

It’s a reminder that I don’t think we particularly need, nor one that feels particularly effective in this episode at least: sometimes a simple episode about humanity does more to speak of Jackie’s occasional lack of humanity than does outright character homicide, and on a show where humanity is sent through the wringer and complicated in so many ways a more subtle approach would certainly be in the show’s best interest moving forward.

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June 21, 2009 · 6:37 pm

Series Premiere: Merlin – “The Dragon’s Call”

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“The Dragon’s Call”

June 21st, 2009

[Two episodes of the BBC/NBC co-production Merlin air tonight on NBC at 8pm EDT (“The Dragon’s Call” and “Valiant”), but the below review sticks to the pilot – really, I just didn’t have much interest in seeing another episode when the show’s formula had pretty much been set up already.]

I once wrote a paper on what I called the near unadaptability (not a word, but I’m okay with that) of the Arthurian Legend on film, at least based on the work of Sir Thomas Malory in writing Le Morte Darthur, considered the definitive version of the myth. Now, yes, Excalibur is considered to be a worthwhile film in and of itself, but as an adaptation it fails to capture those elements of Malory’s text which make it so distinctive: a unique code of honour, for example, that finds its conflict not between individuals or based on love triangles but in a code of ethics that remains foreign to those who haven’t studied the text intricately. By turning the conflict into one between individuals and not between their actions and this code, films tend to lose track of the fact that Malory is writing about the fall of an entire kingdom more than the fall of one man – despite containing heroism and capturing a spirit of adventure, the text is ultimately a tragic story of the powerlessness of a king to save his own people, a narrative that may never be properly put to film.

However, at the time, I hadn’t really considered the notion of a television adaptation of the material, which is strange considering my role as a critic. Generally, I treat any adaptation of the Arthurian Legend with great skepticism, knowing it has expectations too high to properly capture what drew me to write my thesis based on the material, and the BBC/NBC co-production Merlin is no exception to this role. In fact, presented as it was as a hip reimagining of the legend, finding Arthur and Merlin as teenagers in the origin of their complicated relationship, I had every reason to avoid the show like some sort of plague, writing it off as an attempt to treat this epic medieval romance as a superhero origin story.

But, as both a student of the Arthurian Legend and as a critic of television, it seems like I should offer my thoughts in order to fill in some gaps and try to explain how, in all honesty, this isn’t actually a terrible idea. Yes, it’s poorly executed and loses track of its purpose about fifteen times in the span of its pilot, but the relationship between Arthur and Merlin is actually a fairly interesting one, and if I were to ever suggest a way to take the epic scale of this story and turn it into a television show this would be a pretty strong pitch.

The resulting show, of course, is a hodgepodge of Lord of the Rings and Smallville, entirely missing the real potential in this particular period of their lives. However, the show does demonstrate the ways in which a television format may actually be the right way to tackle this material, just not quite with as many wacky hijinks as we see here.

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June 19, 2009 · 12:22 pm

Royal Pains – “Strategic Planning”

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“Strategic Planning”

June 18th, 2009

Ah, the ol’ second episode switcheroo. It happens more than you’d expect, really, for some pretty obvious reasons: when a show is in its infancy and needs to make sure that it keeps viewers’ attention, that second episode is extremely important. “There Will Be Food” wasn’t necessarily a far better representation of what the show will do, but the continuity of Tucker, who is without question the show’s most likeable Hamptonite, was the smart decision in terms of convincing us that the rich won’t be too heavily dehumanized or even necessarily fall into the same one and done patient formula of other procedural medicine shows.

“Strategic Planning” is pretty much what I expected the show to be, and in some ways what I was hoping it wouldn’t become, but in the end it’s all pretty inoffensive. By recreating the environment in which an episode of House is capable of taking place, and by essentially playing out an episode of House in that environment, the show isn’t doing itself any favours in the originality department. Combine with a lifeless Evan storyline, and some issues of continuity on the Jill/Hank front, and the hold on airing the episode makes a lot of sense. That being said, though, the episode also does a lot to explain how Hank’s business is working, and why Boris would be willing to rent out his guest house to a concierge doctor, which contributes enough to the show’s universe to forgive this well-acted, well-intentioned but ultimately well-treaded territory.

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June 19, 2009 · 1:57 am

Burn Notice – “End Run”

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“End Run”

June 18th, 2009

It seems like every time I’m writing about Burn Notice, like in a quick catchup piece I put together ahead of the season premiere for Geeks of Doom, I’m talking about the progression of the show from its first season to where it stands today. Watching “End Run,” it’s clear that the writers are a fan of evoking this particular discourse, for this episode presents itself as a high stakes, no holds barred, greatest hits of what the first season used to do on a small scale, and what now feels more suspenseful, more entertaining, and simply more effective.

By bringing absent Nate (Michael’s brother) back into the picture, the show reminds us that there was a time when “annoyingly ignorant family members” was actually a trope that the show was relying on for some of its drama. Now, meanwhile, the show finds drama from a no hold barred arms dealer holding Michael hostage in order to utilize his skillset for an upcoming job, and from a police threat that shows no signs of going away anytime soon. There was a time when Michael was fighting against the people around him, whether it was Sam reporting to the FBI or his mother knowing nothing about his job and annoying him, but now everyone is banding together in an effort to assist Michael in keeping his friends and family safe, and staying out of jail in the process.

For now, the result is an episode that simultaneously contributes to ongoing storylines, connects with numerous satellites within the show’s universe, and gives us perhaps the best showcase yet for Michael’s unique skillset, all without feeling the least bit contrived or put together.

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June 17, 2009 · 11:43 pm

Don’t Call it a Comeback: Dancing out of the Bottom Three on So You Think You Can Dance?

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Don’t Call it a Comeback

Season Five, Top 18 Performance Show

I’m not quite an authority on dancing, nor do I really have the endurance to really comment on every single one of the Top 9’s dances during tonight’s performane show. As a result, I’m going to focus on the most interesting element of the week for me, which is seeing how the two surviving couples from the Bottom Three (Asuka & Vitolio and Jonathan & Karla) manage to bounce back from rough first weeks, plus offer some general thoughts on who I liked, and how the night went overall.

What I found from this perspective was honestly quite interesting, as you see how the luck of getting the right dance combines with the producers’ efforts to provide a moving story, as well as the dancers themselves stepping up to the plate to try to stay alive. The judges don’t want dancers to be down and out this early in the competition, nor are they going to purposefully try to sink someone, so these dancers are fully capable of making a dramatic comeback, winning the hearts of the judges, and winning over America at the same time.

Whether these two couples have done that…well, I’m not quite so sure, as it’s kind of tough to make that call without understanding the show’s dynamics.

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June 16, 2009 · 11:57 am

Weeds – “Machetes Up Top”

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“Machetes Up Top”

June 15th, 2009

Weeds, perhaps more than any other half-hour “comedy”, follows a particularly serialized structure, where almost all of its characters are on separate and interconnected paths that always take a few episodes to get going. This is especially true early in the season, where everyone sets off on their own path until they slowly begin to return to their place of origin. When that origin was the community of Agrestic, you felt like there was a potential stabilizing force in the universe, the oppressive nature of the suburbs nonetheless offering something of a protection from the world of drugs, or gangs, or anything else you can imagine.

But when the Botwins moved to Ren Mar, the show and more importantly its characters lost that comforting sense of home, and in many ways the fifth season is about where they go to find safety and security in a situation that is quickly spiralling out of control. However, for various reasons, that security if proving difficult to attain, leaving nearly every character in a position to find themselves back in Ren Mar with Nancy waiting to see when the axe is going to fall.

For now, at least through “Machetes Up Top,” I think it works for the show, as the impending doom on one end is tempered by the comedy elsewhere, albeit all tinged with that sense that no one is going to escape the fallout – of course, at the same time, everyone probably is, considering that Nancy is unlikely to stop being alive anytime soon.

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June 15, 2009 · 11:59 pm

Nurse Jackie – “Sweet ‘n All”

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“Sweet ‘n All”

June 15th, 2009

If we look at Weeds, The United States of Tara and Nurse Jackie as similar shows (which, being half-hour, female-led, Showtime-airing dramedies, they really are), one of their most defining characteristics is that each of their pilots found them “in medias res,” as whatever story there is in the series has already been in progress for quite some time. We weren’t seeing an origin story, or a whole new situation that forms the setup for a series; rather, in each instance, we find women struggling from various ailments (supporting a family through selling drugs after her husband’s sudden death, coming off of medication for multiple personality disorder, and an addiction to painkillers and adultery, respectively), and we’re missing that point where their suffering (going broke, becoming numb, etc.) went so far as to bring them to their current position.

I think that sets Nurse Jackie apart from these two shows is that there is nothing funny or light-hearted about her current position: Jackie’s adultery appears to only be hurting her husband and children, and her drug dependency is certainly not something to be considered humorous. While not seeing that moment when Nancy turned to drugs, or when the numbness proved too much for Tara to handle, wasn’t a big deal, it’s kind of a huge deal that we don’t understand why Tara would betray her happy little family; the drugs we can understand as part of a broader physical addiction, but without linking the two together it becomes a problematic element of the series’ “in medias res” setup.

“Sweet ‘n All” does not really come close to resolving these concerns, but shows a subtle and nuanced approach to doing so in the long run. Through the power of the fabulous Edie Falco and the complexity of the Hadron Collider, Nurse Jackie has moved one step towards filling in its own gaps, even if the rest of the show didn’t really evolve much beyond the pilot.

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