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January 26, 2006

The saddest line in a press release…ever

From a release announcing that The WB will combine with UPN next fall to create a new network, The CW:
“In addition, the WWE’s ‘Smackdown,’ which has been a mainstay at UPN, is expected to play a role in the schedule.�
Man, I thought that if there were any upshot of this whole Franken-network thing, it would be that some of both networks less interesting fare would get squeezed out.
And by “less interesting fare,� I’m referring to anything produced by the WWE.
But no. “Smackdown� will stay.
What is being smacked down? Good taste, that’s what.

Posted by amanda on 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

At long last, adequacy

In a midseason that has brought us such flat, unfunny sitcoms as NBC’s “Four Kings,� and ABC’s Heather Graham vehicle “Emily’s Reasons Why Not� (the latter of which has already been canceled), it’s shockingly refreshing to see a new sitcom that doesn’t stink.

The show in question is CBS’s “Courting Alex,� which debuts tonight at 9:30 p.m. Granted, the episode released to the press wasn’t great, but it was, at least, watchable, which is a good start in today’s sitcom landscape.
The show stars the infallibly likable Jenna Elfman as a workaholic lawyer who has a tough time putting down the cell phone and actually engaging with another human being.
Then she meets Scott, the impetuous owner of a tavern that a client of hers wants to buy and bulldoze to make way for a skyscraper. Fireworks fly between the two, and we sense Alex may soon lighten up.
It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but it is pleasant and mildly amusing.
Plus Elfman is engaging, as is the always welcome Dabney Coleman as her gruff dad. Yes, Dabney Coleman is in it, playing the same part he always plays – cranky yet lovable. But he does it so well that complaining seems unfair.
Coleman and Elfman have nice chemistry, and seem to be that rare TV parent and child who actually like each other. I also liked Hugh Bonneville as Elfman’s randy upstairs neighbor and confidant, although I did wonder how a strong woman like Alex became friends with such an obvious cad.
Josh Randall, who played Tom Cavanagh’s sidekick on “Ed,� is a bit bland as the love interest, and the show is a little too reliant on sappy pop songs.
Still, “Alex� signals a slight upswing in sitcoms. I smiled at it and laughed occasionally. And after the comedic wasteland of, say, “Four Kings,� that’s pretty positive.
“Courting Alex� airs at 9:30 p.m. Mondays on CBS.

Posted by amanda on 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2006

Jack’s back

The Fox spy drama “24� has gone in a number of bizarre and thrilling directions over the past four seasons.
So, when its fifth season debuts next week with two two-hour episodes airing on Sunday and Monday, I’m imagining that its plot won’t feature Kiefer Sutherland’s beleaguered Jack Bauer struggling with something like a tax audit or renewing his driver’s license.
No, Jack, as usual, will probably have to save the world. Jack always has to save the world. But it’s the inventive, often logic-defying ways in which he saves the world that have made the series so gratifying over the years.

First, he saved presidential candidate David Palmer from an assassination attempt, while also trying to free his wife and daughter from kidnappers.
The following season, he tried to stop a nuclear bomb. The next scenario featured a virus, and then last year’s plotline involved a sleeper terrorist cell planning an attack.
Through it all, two things have remained consistent:
1. The show has always operated in “real time,� with each episode representing one hour in a particularly hellacious day in Jack’s life.
2. People die. A lot. Even regular characters, like Jack’s wife Teri or his bosses George Mason and Ryan Chappelle, aren’t safe. That ups the tension, since we know that any character can go at any minute. In fact, it’s such an integral part of the series that last season, when Jack’s fellow agent and confidante Tony seemed fated to meet his maker and didn’t, it was actually shocking.
Even Jack himself bought the farm last season – sort of. To avoid arrest for a crime he committed in the name of public protection, Jack faked his own death.
The new season will, inevitably, find him hiding out under a new identity. That is, until he has to save the world again.
Sigh. Poor Jack. You’d think that at least death would allow him to rest in peace.
But we like our Jack pushed to the limit, and nobody does urgent, clenched teeth dialogue like Sutherland.
One of the things I look forward to every season is seeing whether the show can maintain its heightened sense of tension from beginning to end. It often can’t. Like any real day, some parts are just more exciting than others.
But last season was a high point, maintaining momentum all the way through, and delivering that whammy of a finale.
This season, there’s an impressive array of new cast members, including everyone’s favorite hobbit, Sean Astin, playing an agent at Jack’s former place of employ, the Counter Terrorism Unit. The always reliable Jean Smart is also on hand, playing First Lady to the annoying President Logan.
Unfortunately, the season also marks the return of the show’s least successful character, Jack’s constantly jeopardized daughter, Kim. After a season-long reprieve, she’s back. Those affiliated with the series have said that she’ll actually have an important role this time out.
We’ll see.
But, overall, I’m looking forward to the new season of “24.� What once seemed like a gimmick that would wear thin after a season has proven to have longevity.
Let’s hope they can keep it going another day.

Posted by amanda on 1:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 6, 2006

TV’s best cop drama returns

Let others hotly anticipate the new seasons of buzz-heavy dramas “24� and “The Sopranos.�
For me, the first television high point of the New Year is the fifth season premiere of the FX drama “The Shield,� airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

The show that built FX’s ever-growing reputation as a basic cable powerhouse returns, and I’m psyched.
“The Shield,� for the uninitiated, follows a police department in a particularly high-crime, corrupt area of Los Angeles. It’s an ensemble drama, but the central figure in Michael Chiklis’s Vic Mackey, the bullish leader of a special investigation squad called the Strike Team.
The show’s catch is the Mackey and his team are often as dirty as the criminals they chase (in the now-famous pilot, Mackey shot a team member when he figured out that the man was planted on the team to spy on him).
Such a twist makes the show hard to take at times, and Chiklis’s sweaty, macho posturing isn’t for all tastes. But I find his aggressive performance a perfect fit for the role, and the show in general. Like its main character, “The Shield� may be off-putting at times, but it’s never boring.
“The Shield� hit a high point last season with a season-long guest-starring stint by Glenn Close as the department’s tough but compassionate new captain, who turned out to be the authority figure who could get through to bureaucrat-hating Mackey.
Now she’s gone, leaving the Strike Team with virtually no allies in their department. In her place is another fine film actor, Forest Whitaker, as an internal affairs agent on Mackey’s trail. The whole set-up sounds ripe with dramatic possibilities, and I can’t wait.
I also can’t wait for the return of what is, in my view, one of the best characters on television. No, not Mackey, but the character who has served as his foil throughout most of the show’s run, Detective Holland “Dutch� Wagenbach.
Played by the excellent Jay Karnes in possibly the most underrated performance on television, Dutch is all that Mackey is not.
He’s an intellectual who fancies himself a master profiler, whereas Mackey uses his gun and intimidating physicality to get arrests. Dutch is insecure and craves approval, whereas Mackey doesn’t care whose toes he steps on.
Dutch merely bends the rules that Mackey shatters.
Yet the show never makes Dutch a coward or a nerd. Just as Mackey is more than a corrupt bully, Dutch also has layers and complexities that make him deeply relatable.
Last season was arguably Karnes’s best, featuring a plotline in which he briefly betrayed his partner, the highly principled Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder, in yet another strong performance) so that he could have access to high profile cases. But he instantly felt bad about it, and set about repairing the damage he’d done to their friendship.
He also further damaged his already tense relationship with Mackey, by dating his nemesis’s ex-wife.
Yet, by the end of last season, Dutch emerged as somewhat heroic, turning down the captain’s position after Close’s character was forced out, because he knew that his superiors were merely looking for a Yes-man they could push around.
And he gets all the show’s best lines. My favorite was in season three when, while on the phone with a diplomat in Greece, Dutch snapped “If I sound superior to you, that’s only because I am American and you are Greek!�
Ok, so it doesn’t read funny. But Karnes’s dry delivery made it sing. Let’s hope this season gives him lots more rich material to dig into.
I have high expectations for season five of this fine show. The writing and acting on “The Shield� get better with each season, and last season was tough to beat. But creator Shawn Ryan and his team keeping topping themselves.
Let’s hope they do it again.

Posted by amanda on 5:16 PM | Comments (0)