“The Honeymoon’s Over”
July 30th, 2009
There are moments when watching a summer show that you start to realize just how much you’ve been treating it as a summer show, and at the start of tonight’s episode of Royal Pains I had one of those moments. As Jill and Hank seemed to be at some sort of relationship crossroads, I realized something: I have no idea why. I don’t even think I care to know why. Something apparently happened in last week’s episode that made Jill weary of any kind of actual relationship – I remember something about a summer crush, and concerns over Hank leaving, but I didn’t think things were quite as cold as they seemed to be.
And really, this is the problem with a show like Royal Pains where the conflict in each individual episode is contained, meaning that any conflicts needs to come from the same people each and every week. For Burn Notice (which I haven’t watched yet, but might blog about to get back in the swing of things), this is achieved through a single storyline that while occasionally repetitive is quite focused on one idea and executed as such. With Royal Pains, however, it seems like they want to just keep pulling out the Jill/Hank relationship drama card, and to be honest I don’t think it’s working for me. I don’t find they have a terrible amount of chemistry, and it just isn’t something that can legitimately sustain my interest for too long.
So, as we bounce from machination to machination, I’m looking for Royal Pains to really find its footing outside of its weekly medical stories, which quite strangely for a procedural have kind of been its strong point to this point in its first season – while I’m pleased the show has received a second season, I’m less pleased with the fact that it could mean two seasons of this less than wonderful relationship.
Cultural Learnings 