This blog tracks the epic of kick-starting a whole writing career, with spies and thrillers, now saints and vampires. I cover the creative process, stuff that blows up, history, philosophy, and theology. If you like any or all of the above, you'll like this one. We talk about comic books, movies, music, and writing. Usually, all at the same time.
[Note: All Amazon links here are associate links. Which means nothing to you, but it means Declan Finn gets a few pennies for the sale. Thank you.]
"We need someone to play an elitist, out of touch egomaniac." "How about that guy from West Wing." "We can't afford Martin Sheen." "No, not him, the other screaming nutcase." "The Jewish stereotype with a beard?" "No, the other flaming egomaniac." "Bradley Whitford?" "Yeah. Him. Let's stick him in a setting where the locals make fun of him, and they poke fun at their own foibles."
And this is how Perfect Harmony was born.
The setup is simple. A retired music professor has lost his wife. After taking her to the deep south town where she was born to bury her, he is about to commit suicide... when he is stopped by horrendous singing of a church choir. Drunk, and deciding he will not die to such painful sounds, he marches in, corrects all of their singing foibles, and passes out.
The local southerners take pity on him, and adopt the arrogant SOB.
And this is a comedy.
I will grant that a lot of the humor is culture shock comedy. Those aspects are hit or miss -- the hits usually land in Bradley Whitford's head, so are much appreciated. (Can you tell he may have played this part a little too often?)
But where the show usually shines is in the music. And they have funny music moments. Whether they're slowing down a song to make it intelligible, and it works, or they're doing a rock version of a hymn (I believe one was Nearer My God to Thee).
I'm not going to say it's going for depth, but it does tell you something that I have gotten more laughs out of this show than I have out of any "comedy" in 30 years. (The last comedy I watched was Night Court reruns... or Head of the Class.) And merciful God, the humor DOES NOT RELY on the characters being total morons, or sex, or "I'm so smart, society is stupid." In fact, only one character here is actually a moron ... and even he's not so stone stupid, you expect him to stop breathing.
Anyway, you might want to give Perfect Harmony a try. It has been getting steadily better about the culture shock humor, but solid on the music fun. Expect at least three good laughs.
Let's call it a 6/10. Maybe even 7/10, depending on the episode.
To start with, psychologist Kristen Bouchard (actress Katja Herbers) was going to profile a simple serial killer. Then he started speaking in tongues and going insane at the sign of the cross. Vatican assessor David Acosta (Luke Cage's Mike Colter) thinks it might be a case of demonic possession. When the DA tries to twist arms to force Bouchard's verdict, she quits... And the Vatican needs a psychologist to help with assessments, because demonic possession can be confused with mental disorders and vice versa. But assessor David Acosta comes with his own nemesis, Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson). Leland another psychologist who wants to promote dark, twisted behavior, going so far as to tell our heroine that he wishes to release the guilty and condemn the innocent. And went Acosta tries to pray, something that looks very much like Townsend comes to harass and harangue him. And thus begins Evil, one of the creepiest, smartest shows I've seen outside of Prodigal Son.
Our Trinity. The assessor, the shrink, and the tech guy.
This show is ... horror, after a fashion. The main plots with the miracle / possession of the week are relatively good procedurals.
Somebody actually read the novel The Exorcist and decided "Wow, there are a LOT of tests you have to run before doing an exorcism ... or declare a miracle. We could make this a whole series." These are some nice flashes of creepy in the main plot, and a lot of character driven element to the main story. Though a lot of it is deflated by the scientific, rational explanation presented as a possibility offered by the end of the episode. There is usually a subplot including Bouchard's four Catholic school girl daughters, so seem to be getting sucked more and more into a tidal pool of darkness. And while everything that seems to be creeping in on them has a perfectly rational explanation, no one actually stops and spells out those explanations, unlike in the main plot. While I don't know the actress playing Bouchard, she pulls it off quite well. And I've enjoyed Mike Colter's work ever since he was on Ringer, here is no exception. I do have trouble with reconciling how Michael Emerson can be so normal, while being the creepiest freaking thing in the entire TV show...Okay. He's not the creepiest thing on the show. But damn, is he close. Then there's "George" -- a Joss Whedon demon who plays a recurring night terror. Though whether or not he's a night terror or a real demon is left up for grabs. But he's entertaining anyway. While this so is filled to the brim with wall to wall creepy things, much of them from the main plot are explained away, or are just ambiguous enough to be eerie. Because after all, this show isn't called Supernatural, it's called Evil. And the most evil, creepy things in this entire show isn't the potential possession that might be demonic. They're the things that are almost certainly "merely" human... but they're still pure flipping evil. Right now, an 8/10. Yes, I'm grading it lower than Prodigal Son, but that's because the latter has more laughs. Dark Laughs, but laughs. Speaking of dark, check out the kickstarter for my current horror series, Saint Tommy, NYPD. It's got a dark, twisted sense of humor, a strange perspective, and generally ... dark. And having fun with it.
From the mind of the creator of Chuck -- Prodigal Son. So, our hero, Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) is the offspring of Doctor Martin Whitly, alias the serial killer named The Surgeon (actor Michael Sheen). Bright discovered what his father was and turned him into the cops, let by Gil Arroyo (Lou Diamond Phillips). Fast forward twenty years and Bright is very ... intense for the FBI. When they declare that they're afraid he's about to break, Bright goes back home to New York. To his mother the blue blood, and his sister the reporter. Now that Bright is out of a job, he's recruited to the NYPD by the very man he turned his father in to. This series is dark. But it's also got a dark sense of humor. The father and son are delightfully deranged and demented. Everyone is slightly broken and nuts. I love it. Michael Sheen is so wonderfully creepy. He is so evil, and the actor is clearly having fun being Hannibal Lecter with a personality. He's so joyful as he chews the scenery. This smiling psycho is so normal, and yet so freaking creepy at the same time. The camera angles and the lighting are so perfect at highlighting him. Tom Payne's Malcolm Bright is also wonderfully insane. He has PTSD up one side and down the other. He's only really doing "okay" when he's working on murderers. He's so intense in his performance, he's the right kind of over the top. Prodigal Son is a fun, insane, dark romp that makes Criminal Minds look like ... okay, Criminal Minds is still flipping dark. But this is more enjoyable in a lot of respects. Let's call it a 9/10 right now. Speaking of dark, check out the kickstarter for my current horror series, Saint Tommy, NYPD. It's got a dark, twisted sense of humor, a strange perspective, and generally ... dark. And having fun with it.
As you all know, in previous years, I've done reviews of the new fall lineup as I see it. I get some of these continuing shows, even after I've given up on them, so I can give you slight updates about some of the crap that's still crap. But I can give you the best reporting on the stuff that isn't garbage. So, previously on .... God Friended Me... As noted in my original review, this is a bit of Person of Interest, only they have managed to show off how to show all of the problems of being a prophet, without making it necessarily about religion. Frankly, when this show ends, its best move may be to either leave it entirely vague, or have a direct visitation. Frankly, the writing is getting better, and it was really tightly written before. I think someone plots out an entire season in advance, which is the only way they can pull some of the plot points they use here. Perhaps the best show on TV right now. Even though they've had plenty of opportunity to go full social leftist nut bar, they haven't. And I am so grateful for that. The Rookie-- Now on Sunday nights, it may be doomed to a time slot that will eventually kill it. But ABC has had some success in that time slot, so who knows? Nathan Fillion is finally starting to expand some of his acting chops, so he's no longer playing just Mal Reynolds or himself -- which, so far, seem to be his own two modes of acting. Believe it or not, the series is actually getting better. And frankly, I think Joseph Wambaugh or Michael Connelly would both appreciate this show. Magnum, PI -- Still sucks. In fact, I'm not even sure why they called it Magnum, except to skin the original property and wear it like a skin suit. There were originally plans for a Magnum spinoff series with his Eurasian daughter ... but apparently, making him a lazy Hispanic played by Jay Hernandez, and turning "Higgins" from a stuffy English WWII vet to blonde Bond girl was apparently the ... better option? (No, it wasn't). Totally unwatchable crap, and probably even worse than my original review. The only positive is that Tim Kang from The Mentalist has got work in Hawaii.
SWAT -- they went full SJW BS. It's crap. Worse than the knockoff Magnum. Worse than the new thing calling itself MacGyver. For more details, see my Agit-Prop TV article. NCIS -- It's the same as ever. So your mileage may vary, depending how what you thought of it before. NCIS LA -- I watch it for Linda Hunt, and the banter between two sets of characters (Hint: neither one involves LL Cool J or Chris O'Donnell). There is no plot, no matter how much they pretend otherwise. But the banter is fun. NCIS NO -- Mediocre. Though it's nice to see that Scott Bakula has work. Bull -- Original review is here. And frankly, it's largely the same thing, different day. Last season was ... my last season of it. Screw it, I'm out. Blue Bloods -- The writing is actually getting tighter on this series. Character development is still ongoing for most of the major players, and several of the minor recurring characters. I'm not going to say it's Babylon 5 level writing and planning, but the recent episodes are handling 3 or 4 plotlines at the same time, and usually tying together their issues around the Sunday dinner table. It's a nice balance, and every actor gets a workout over the course of the episode. In competition for best TV show out right now. Hawaii 5-0: I was fed up with this show a few seasons ago. Strangely enough, though, they managed to breathe new life into the show by bringing in new blood and letting them take up most of the screen time. That's good, because Alex O'Loughlin and Sonny Corleone's kid were getting tiresome.
New Amsterdam -- It's a fun show, though our main character is a little stupid at times. He thinks he can cut through bureaucracy with a personal touch and face-to-face communication. The answer is usually no. While he talks a game of socialism every so often, the solutions offered tend to be capitalistic or Catholic. (No, seriously, someone needs to explain to him what the concept of Solidarity is.) There is one particular new character who's a vet, who seriously needs to make a comeback, as he got in some solid hits to our lead's head, and his ego. (EG: "This person needs a home health aid to check on her twice a day." Solution: "Get her a puppy. And a dog walker. The dog walker will check in twice a day to walk the dog, and cost $20, instead of $200.") It's actually getting better from last season, and if it continues like this The Blacklist -- While I admit, they had some sucky moments for a while, it got better as they have dropped a lot of the family drama and replaced it with the insane Bond villain of the week. Again. They've made what little family drama they have into spy thriller. Even their computer nerd has become a badass. Who knew? However, to be perfectly fair, since there are only three shows here that have my full-throated endorsement, how about you check out the latest kickstarter -- because books don't need wifi to stream, or TV's to view on, and they'll go with you anywhere, even the bathroom. Just please don't drop it.
Blanket statements annoy me. For example, "All TV shows are propaganda." Frankly, that's not true, even with CBS shows, where there is at least one episode of agit-prop per season demanded from the higher ups. (You can tell it's a command from above when you get a character in one episode being a monumental jerk in one episode, then the character returns in the very next episode, and it's like nothing ever happened. For whiplash like this, see Blue Bloods Season 5, episodes 3 and 4). However, this season I can make you one very exact generalized statement. All TV lawyer shows are propaganda... Especially this season. I think it's been a near constant over the past 20 years. David E Kelly was broken by the existence of George W Bush in the White House. As far as I can tell, every lawyer show he's done since then has been less about the law and more about whatever BS agit-prop agenda du jour the writers wanted to push. Fast forward to the two TV lawyer shows of today. All Rise and Bluff City Law. They are both crap shows with lousy acting and writing -- in one case from a halfway decent actor. All Rise... my Lord, is this such insulting garbage. The TV show is supposed to be about a new judge appointed to the LA bench. But the first episode spends a few seconds on how she's "different" from other judges -- mostly that she's black and female. The casual racism is very casual, and is even insulting to the people of Los Angeles ... about which I don't care, though; LA can burn for all I care. And while the first episode was mostly trying to treat Night Court scenarios in a straight fashion, it was largely harmless. However, you know the entire series goes straight to garbage in short order when the second episode is all about agit-prop. And I mean all of it. From minute one to the last. First, you have to believe that an ICE agent can charge willy-nilly into an LA court in pursuit of an illegal alien. Then you have to believe that ICE stakes out the LA court houses in order to "go fishing" to "get easy catches"... I'm sorry. I'm wrong. The first thing you have to believe is that ICE is even allowed in the City of LA or the state of California. But then you have to believe that the "solution" to the episode involves an LA prosecutor, judge and defense attorney all conspiring against the federal government to make certain to enforce the "sanctuary" status of California ... which, if anyone was honest, is a flagrant disregard for the actual law. This is the same week that real life California released two men charged with rape and murder because they were illegal aliens. So the idea that ICE is even some sort of threat is ludicrous. This was followed by Bluff City Law. Someone wanted to make Erin Brockavich, the TV show, so it's "small lawyer versus big business" every week. Which works fine if you're Leverage and you want to do a cross between The Sting and Mission: Impossible. But this is more like Matlock -- where the writers cheat and pull out a deus ex machina solution for everything. I would feel sorry for Jimmy Smits being part of this garbage on Bluff City Law, but apparently, he's one of the producers. Even the "villains" are stock cardboard cutouts from the communist playbook. Evil chemical company. Big Agra. I'm relatively certain that they even stole the antagonists from Leverage episodes. Both of these would be bad enough as they are for the main plots alone. We won't even go into the tonnage of schmaltz and soap opera crammed into each of the episodes. And of course, the curse of every "legal drama" -- the speeches. The endless, lengthy, "heartfelt" speeches that have no place in a courtroom, and dialogue that has never been spoken by a living person who knows how to actually use the English language. And while we're at it, let's throw in another bit of agit-prop TV. S.W.A.T. No, not the 1975 TV show, the PC crap starring Shemar Moore. I can tell you how most of these plots are developed.
"Hey! Let's make a story around illegals!"
"Hey! Let's make a story around LGBTBBQ"
"Hey! Let's make a story around evil white people."
"Hey! Let's make a story around commie protesters who hate cops, but make them smarter than our heroes."
I've actually being watching the 1975 TV show S.WA.T. on DVD. Why? Because it was $10 remaindered in the Edward R Hamilton catalog and I'm cheap. The funny thing about the 1975 show? The plots are smarter than the current edition. The writing is stronger. The tactics ... exist (S.W.A.T 1975 knew what vertical movement meant, and what rappelling was for). Hell, the 1975 version has better characterization. How is that possible? I've seen 70s TV. It largely sucked. But this is so much better than the current edition, I used it to convince current viewers of the new show to stop watching it.
But you know how bad all three of these the currentshows are? Here's how bad.
I would rather watch Bull, which is average on its best day.
I would rather watch the current thing that calls itself MacGyver, which is barely even watchable on its best day.
I would rather watch the current Hawaii 5-0, which makes me want to take a power drill to my ears.
I'd rather watch the thing call Magnum, PI, which has exactly one actor I even find tolerable, and he's only there for three minutes every episode.
Frankly, I'm going to recommend a laundry list of books rather than this current batch of suck. Only some of them are mine. But you can check out any review on this website, I'll back it over the current schlock. Start here, though, if you wouldn't mind. :)
Let's keep this simple and start with the official description of the show.
Miles Finer is an outspoken atheist whose life is turned upside down when he receives a friend request on social media from God and unwittingly becomes an agent of change in the lives and destinies of others around him. After repeated pokes by God, Miles' curiosity takes over, and he accepts the ultimate friend request and follows the signs to Cara Bloom, an online journalist. Brought together by the mysterious account, the two find themselves investigating God's friend suggestions and inadvertently helping others in need. Miles is set on getting to the bottom of what he believes is an elaborate hoax, but in the meantime, he'll play along and -- in the process -- change his life forever.
If I were to sum up this show into one tagline, it would be "One part Person of Interest, one part Joan of Arcadia." And you can tell that they want to reference PoI because they reference "predicting algorithms in Artificial Intelligence" in the show.
So, someone has figured out what their audience watches.
This one is very WYSIWYG. Atheist podcaster is harassed by "the God account," and curious enough to follow where these "annoying hints" are.
Though from a Catholic POV ... someone was taking their cues from the poem The Hound of Heaven, because boy, is this fellow God-haunted. And stalked.
Right now, the best I can say is that it's a charming little show. I like the primary actor and his character, because he feels fairly true to life. He's not going to change immediately just because he's had a brief experience, and he falls into familiar patterns easily.
The reporter side kick is fairly charming, and this is a step up from her character of Jessie Quick on Flash.
And thank you God, Joe Morton might actually have a long running TV show. If they can keep it up.
Overall, probably the best new show of the season thus far.
Let's see if I can do a really short version of the a review of the new tv show FBI.
FBI, in this case, stands for "Fascists, but Integrated."
Yes, Dick Wolf, not content with merely screwing up the Second City even more than it is in real life, returns to fuck up New York once more.
Actually, that's insulting to Law and Order, since they occasionally had some good lines, and they had Sam Waterson and Jerry Orbach putting genuine effort into delivering their lines.
All you need to know about FBI is from the original trailer. They are unprofessional characters who don't believe in innocent until proven guilty, played by actors who can't be bothered to emote as they deliver their lines.
The pilot episode forces you to believe that 1) Alt-right = Nazis and 2) said "Nazis" are going to team up with MS-13 to start a race war .... yes, really, that was the plot. No, I'm not making this up, do you know how many brain cells I had to sacrifice to even type that moronic BULLSHIT.
Yes, I'm cussing on my blog. That's just how full of shit this show is.
Okay, let's back up a few steps.
The Writing.
The writing, it is bad. It is so bad, they have to force emotional moments out of a child being trapped in a bombed building. The mother of the dead child wishes she had been allowed to go into the building and die alongside him.... it should have been a powerful moment, except SHE HAS ANOTHER SON. She literally declared that she wanted to leave her remaining son without any parents whatsoever. The actress playing our female lead cannot really even be bothered to pretend sadness, but she does seem to be very close to saying "YOU HAVE ANOTHER KID, YOU SELF CENTERED BITCH. YOU MAY WANT TO TAKE CARE OF HIM." Or maybe I was projecting.
Nice 9-11 homage.
Pity you couldn't make me FEEL ANYTHING.
You know how bad this writing is? They blow up a building in New York City, generating clouds of gray ash and dust, and it is dead. There is no emotion. It is flat. It is dead. They can't even make ME think of 9-11, and I'm the guy who has fucking flashbacks to news footage every time someone starts playing "Pompeii" by Bastille.
And good God, they have all the nuance of a Mack truck running you over and backing up a few times.
"Oh, he's an Alt-right guy."
"You mean he's a Nazi in a suit."
.... Yeah.
Oh, and you know exactly how deviant this "Nazi" is? He made an argument against a synagogue saying "I wanted a hospice on the site. New York City already has more Synagogues than Israel, we need more hospices."
Yeah, that was his evil moment.
The FBI agents leave that very interview and go "Yeah, he's our bad guy."
Wait, what? I'm sorry, I just got whiplash. While the actor did his best to make his dialogue sound as creepy as possible, he came off as ... creepy. Not guilty. And while I have no problem with cops playing hunches or gut feelings, that requires that the actors convince me that the characters even have internal organs. It's hard to have gut feelings when your insides are made of sawdust.
The acting.
To be fair, in episode two, they bring in Sela Ward, who is so charming and charismatic, you can't help but like her. And Jeremy Sisto is an old hand at acting, and a Law and Order veteran who is used to making Dick Wolf dialogue sound like it could be spoken by an actual human being.
But both of these great actors may have a combined five minutes of screen time per episode. They can only do so much with utter shit.
Meanwhile, the two diversity hires who are our main leads can't act their way out of a paper bag. In fact, I'm certain that they were only hired because one is a woman (I suppose she's a woman, there are days I wonder) and the other is .... lightly tanned?
Missy Peregrym (her actual name, apparently) is the Chloe Bennet of the show -- you know, even though she's so poorly written and acted, someone decided that she is the star of the show, despite their being more qualified actors and better written characters.
Then again, I didn't understand her appeal in Rookie Blue, which was another supposed cop show that has less to do with police work than episodes of The Office. She is dull and lifeless in both shows
Hell, look at the photo of her holding a shotgun before a raid. Stern resolve? Or grim realization that she will never be allowed to act ever again? (To be fair, I don't think she's allowed to smile in anything she's in. The only photos of her smiling on screen at IMDB were from episodes of Hawaii 5-0, and that's called "I get paid to film in Hawaii! Fuck ya!")
Help. We're in a Dick Wolf production.
We have forgotten out to emote.
The less said about Missy's partner, a cardboard character who's only characteristic is that he MAY be Muslim (hinted at in episode two) the better. He is an even WORSE actor than Missy.
You know why? HE'S FORGETTABLE.
Hell, he is so forgettable that I had to look up his character name -- Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan. So, again, I guess he's supposed to be a Muslim lead character.
I say "guess" because during episode two, with Jihadi terrorists, he seemed to have no emotional involvement. I'm sorry, if Irish Catholics from the IRA blew up anything in New York, I would be pissed off and ready to string them up by their ankles so casual passerbys could use them for pinatas.
This guy? If there was a change in his inflection over the course of the episode, I either didn't notice, or forgot exactly minutes after I saw it.
At least this actor, Zeeko Zaki, has a really good reason for a lousy perfomance-- his acting credits (on IMDB) are sparse. He's been on film for a whole six years. What's Peregrym's excuse?
And the thing that pisses me off about this? This show is jammed between two NCIS series, so the bleed over is probably going to guarantee that this show keeps going.
Rating? 1/10. It only gets a 1 for Sisto and Ward.
Objects in TV shows are
uglier than they appear in PR ads
Since we are now in the era of everything being rebooted -- Hawaii 5-0, Magnum PI, Roseanne, MacGyver, S.W.A.T. -- someone thought it would be a good idea to bring back Murphy Brown.
Seriously, who thought this would be a good idea?
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Murphy Brown centered around a TV broadcast reporter and her band of misfits.
Only now .... I don't know, I may not remember the original TV show that well. Was Murphy Brown originally a sadistic, narcissistic, mean-spirited little sociopath?
Because if so, this show is right on target.
Watching this show is ... odd.
The scripts are very "WE'RE ANTI-TRUMP!!!! RAH RAH RAH."
No, literally, even in character, on the show, they deliberately state that they're "bringing the band back together" because Trump is eeeevvviiillll, and resist, et al.
The execution, however, is very much the audience laughing at the characters, rather than with them.
Anyway, let's address some specific points to prove that I've actually seen this train wreck.
Premise, Murphy Brown is an old, aging, decrepit reporter from the days where people believed TV reporters on Network news. When Trump is elected, she decides to bring back all of her old henchmen to FIGHT THE POWER, only via their own TV program on CNN.
Meanwhile, Brown's son is also a TV reporter, on the competing "Wolf" network. I wonder what they're ripping off. His show is basically interviewing people in diners across the country asking people if they regret voting for Trump yet.
The "plots," as much as they are, have involved a live, on-air war with Trump via tweets, and "taking Sarah Huckabee Sanders to task." The latter one is even dumber than they sound, because during the episode, we are asked to believe that the White House isn't guarded, and there's no security monitoring the side gate.
Yes, really.
The third episode is a #MeToo episode, about how Brown was hit on by her professor about 50 some odd years ago. Which, I'm sorry, is problematic with the characters, the timeline, and all human rationality. Why? You'd have to make me believe that this self-centered little twit wouldn't have gone back and beaten this fellow with a baseball bat decades ago, especially after discovering that he had gotten old and frail. Because she's the sort of person who would beat an old man with a baseball bat.
Anyway, the only interesting part of this show is about Brown's relationship with her son. Sadly, that takes up about 5 minutes of every episode, because everyone else is so wrapped up in themselves.
For example, the White House Press pool episode started off with her son announcing that he's going to be in the press pool. He's going to get a question asked on his first day! .... So Brown then decides to infiltrate the White House (because she's been banned since dinosaurs walked the Earth) and makes a fuss, demands everyone walks out with her, and essentially ruins her son's first day on the job because it was all about her.
Charming, isn't it?
Anyway, Murphy Brown is unsurprising. It's cruel. It's mean spirited. It sneers at anyone who disagrees with the characters or the writers. It's filled with right wing caricatures and straw men, and the scripts are literally political talking points.
Worst of all, it's not funny. Unless your idea of a good time is watching a cranky, spiteful old hag claim she's perfect and awesome, and falling down on her face over and over again.
The difference between me and Murphy Brown ... I'm not a sadistic sociopath. So no, it's not funny.
New Amsterdam the show is about a hospital of the same name. It's a rebranded Bellevue, the state run hospital in New York, made famous mostly by locking in felonious nutcases.
In the case of this series, it is based on Dr. Eric Manheimer's memoir Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital. Since he's been the Medical Director of Bellevue Hospital for over 13 years, I can only wonder how much of what is on screen is what happened in real life, what Manheimer WANTED to happen in real life, and how much is just television.
The premise, so far, is, from IMDB,
Dr. Max Goodwin is brilliant, charming -- and the new medical director at America's oldest public hospital. While he's set on tearing down the bureaucracy to provide exceptional care, the doctors and staff are not so sure. They've heard this before, and no one else has delivered on those promises. Not taking no for an answer, Max disrupts the status quo and proves he will stop at nothing to breathe new life into this understaffed, underfunded and underappreciated hospital -- the only one in the world capable of treating Ebola patients, prisoners from Rikers Island and the president of the United States all under one roof -- and return it to the glory that put it on the map. Inspired by Bellevue in New York City.
Step one is to remove all of the buzzwords from that BS write up. What's actually happening is "hospital brings in new guy, new guy takes a sword to the Gordian knot of red tape."
To be honest, this show is a lot better than the marketing and ads make it out to be. I figured it would be all about evils of medicare, "the gubment," et al. Nope. It's actually all about fighting the bureaucracy of what happens when you get the government involved in medical care. I don't know if the writers realize this, but that's what every episode seems to be about.
Hell, half of the episodes thus far focus on personal attention to detail by doctors to patients. You know, treating a patient like a person. Which is more than Doctor House ever did. They have managed to largely avoid the effect of making it Wagon Train to the ER, which seemed to be what most medical shows are centered around. This isn't a heavy focus on patients from our point of view, but it balances doctors with personal lives and problems, patients with medical issues, and doctors interacting with their patients as though both the doctors and the patients are people. Right now, this show has done a more realistic job of making Doctors humans with foibles, as opposed to House, where the point seemed to be all about making foibles with medical degrees instead of human beings. (Seriously, did every character deliberately slip into degeneracy, or was it just my imagination?)
Mercifully, this show also avoids turning into a medical soap opera.
This is a cute trick, considering that "the new guy" has cancer in episode one, with a pregnant wife, and they're going through a seperation....
And again, still not a soap opera.
Right now, the show is leaning fairly heavily on three characters
"Max Goodwin," aka new guy, played by Blacklist favorite Ryan Eggold (so popular, they gave him his own series for when Blacklist was off the air, a bribe, I suspect, to keep him on the show a little longer). Eggold is a talented and solid actor, and I would like him to have even more of a career than he has already. He carries off the role of "eager new guy" in a way that isn't obnoxious or cliche. It's strangely refreshing. Heck, the character of Goodwin is so well written, even in the first episode they hit him with a moment where, nope, Goodwin isn't perfect either, and the character bounces right back with "I'm wrong, so what can I do for you and the patient?"
"Dr. Helen Sharpe" is played by Freema Agyeman, of Doctor Who fame. Yes, she's playing yet another doctor. The fun thing with this character is that Sharpe is the chief oncologist who has spent the better part of the last few years trying to be Doctor Phil. Basically, she's a media doctor who has spent so long away from actual patients, she has to be retrained to interact with real people.
Kapoor / Fromme -- These are two doctors, but they've been so intertwined, they're fairly inseparable. Thus far, they each have a fairly solid subplot in neuro / psychology. The most interesting thing here is that every issue brought up are real issues, and solved in a realistic manner. I know this because I know a lot of people with problems both neural and psychological. Issues span from over-prescription of psychoactive medications to simple and straightforward "Yeah, foster care is messed up."
Overall, it's entertaining. Though not exactly groundbreaking. It's a much better version of previously executed concepts.
Let's call it a 7/10.
Though for entertainment value, I will tell you right now that the sequel to Hell Spawn, Death Cult, actually takes place in Bellevue. So order a copy of Hell Spawn and be up and ready to read Death Cult when it comes out.
20 seconds into this "Magnum" reboot trailer, I want to commit arson.
37 seconds, my eardrums are bleeding.
38 seconds, I'm ready to throw rocks at the screen
1m: JULIETTE HIGGINS!!!! F YOU GUYS. F YOU UP THE A** WITH A FLAMING HOT POKER YOU F**KIN F**KS
.... So they got the Ferrari, Hawaii, and the dogs right.
Best part of this is the music.
Originally, this was going to be a sequel series, where the lead would be Magnum's daughter. She was the product of a Catholic marriage to the woman he married in Vietnam. The situation was very Casablanca, right down to a Major Strasser. It was an interesting premise that I looked forward to.
Then they apparently decided to scrap it in lieu of a reboot.
This? This is BS. This looks like they're going to take everything from the original, pour in every modern cliche, and hit frappe. The caretaker being a stuffy British gentleman? No, we need Strong Female Cliche #4 variant. Magnum's buddy the helicopter Pilot TC as a small business owner who gets annoyed at Magnum constantly burning fuel, goodwill, and getting his company chopper shot full of holes? Nah, he's just going to be oh so happy to leap in whenever Magnum says jump.
Magnum concerned about the Ferrari? They burn through two in the course of one trailer.
Ugh. I give this show five minutes, if I'm bored enough to try it. I won't be.
Funny thing is that they could have had a "Strong Female Character" / Eurasian minority and check off all of the check boxes, and probably made a more interesting series if they just kept the premise as "daughter of Magnum," but no, they have to rewrite and destroy something perfectly reasonable in the first place.
I'm going to go play the REAL series now. Thank you
FBI (CBS)
Because the world needs Dick Wolf to have another TV show.
This lacks all charisma and energy.... like every other Dick Wolfe show.
And oh, look, more left-wing propaganda, because what the world needs is another f**king white supremacist as a bad guy on television.
Wouldn't it be strange if someone had a communist as a bomber? Or a Black Lives Matter psychopath planning another riot as the bad guy every once in a while?
Goodbye, Dick. You're appropriately named.
The Rookie (ABC)
Oh, look, ABC has decided to once again invest money into Nathan Fillion's plus-10 charisma in order to bring in tons of cash.
This ... may not suck.
Manifest (NBC)
Sigh. This feels like every other stupid gimmick show since Lost aired. Like Fast Forward or something equally moronic.
Not interested. Bye.
New Amsterdamn (NBC)
On the one hand, I really like Ryan Eggold. He stole part parts of The Blacklist, he is a great actor, highly versatile. And Freema from Doctor Who. I would really like them to have employment.
On the other hand, this feels like The Resident. "Let's save the medical system!!!!"
Um, how about we start by REMOVING ALL THE GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS ON HEALTHCARE AND LET HOSPITALS RUN HEALTHCARE LIKE HEALTHCARE??? Another show that blames "Big Hospital as soulless corporation" over government interference is not going to figure it out, and if they pull that crap, I hope it gets cancelled.
I'd rather it not.
Murphy Brown (CBS Reboot)
Apparently, Roseanne is back, and is pro-Trump.
So someone decided that they needed to bring back Roseanne and make it the Anti-Trump. Yes, because that's going to work.
Guys, this show wasn't that funny the first time around. It's going to be less funny this time around.
The commercial isn't even entertaining enough for me to post on my blog. If you want to find it, you can find it on YouTube yourself. Sorry. It's 4 minutes long. I stopped at 81 seconds in. I couldn't tolerate it anymore.
Reverie (NBC)
I like Sarah Shahi from Person of Interest.
I've enjoyed Dennis Haysbert's acting ever since Now and Again.
And that guy from Heroes who was never allowed to be half as interesting as I thought he could be.
This is a summer replacement program, out on May 30th. It may work.
God Friended Me (CBS)
I want to like this premise. I really do. It reminds me of several TV shows I enjoyed, like Joan of Arcadia, and they want to mix it with Bones or Castle.
And it has Joe Morton. I've wanted him to have a real career since Speed in the early 90s.
Ugh. There are so many ways for this to get screwed up. But I'd like it not to suck.
Whiskey Cavalier (ABC)
Oh look, it's that guy from The Unit, and his boss is that other guy who always plays cops. And they're in a spy comedy.
This looks almost charming. Very Mr. and Mrs Smith.
I think this is ABC's to screw up.
The Fix (ABC)
Sigh. This is brought to you by Marcia Clark, the DA who let OJ Simpson get away with murder as she rewrites her own biography.
.... But it's got Robin Tunney from The Mentalist. She was enjoyable on that one. And she doesn't look like she's aged at all.
And it has ... that black guy from Lost and The Mummy Returns. And Scott Wolfe, who was never allowed to have an interesting career.
I never bothered with the OJ trial the first time around. I don't want to have an entire TV show around it.
I like the actors, but I'm tapping out of this one.
The Passage
Well, this is going to end well.
Mad science and what looks like vampires.
And ... I don't think so. I know how The Last of Us ends.
Shows I Don't Care About
These shows lack all charm and interest for me. The Actors are uninteresting, or the premise is uninteresting. And I won't even bother with a ten foot pole. Nor will I inflict them on you.
I don't even care enough about these to hate them, nevermind post the trailers. But if you're interested, you can look up.
Grand Hotel (ABC)
Charmed (2018 reboot, CW)
Proven Innocent (FOX)
All American (CW)
Happy Together (CBS)
Burden of Truth (CBC -- PBS Canada)
Funny thing. When I was looking up SWAT for the DVR, I discovered ... the pilot for the original TV show. It opened with cops being ambushed by a gang who just wants to assassinate police officers. Any police officer.
Nothing freaking changes, does it?
While the opening of SWAT 2017 is painfully obvious, you can tell that a LOT of PC BS was left on the cutting room floor. It opens with an utterly unnecessary "shootout where cop shoots a civillian caught in the crossfire," leading to Shemar Moore's Hondo being promoted to team leader, in a PR stunt that's so blatant, the entire SWAT team is questioning it. The solution to the episode, however, was actually interesting -- our killers have been manipulating the public to expect domestic terrorism, political agendas ... and it's all in the service of a bank robbery.
I really wanted Hans Gruber to come out and laugh, saying "Who said we were terrorists?"
Much of this movie tries to take from the 2003 Sam Jackson film with Jeremy Renner and Colin Farrell -- it's why Shermar Moore is Hondo, one of our shooters is a Hispanic woman (who isn't replacing Michelle Rodriequez, honest!), and why Jim Street is regarded as a hothead who doesn't play well with others (which, while threatened in the 1975 version, never really followed through on). The new-guy hothead is a cliche that they're at least trying to ring the changes on, but they're not quite there yet.
Despite the commercials threatening to have SWAT play at community policing, it's not really that bad. In fact, I'm trying to imagine what the point is. Most of the "changes" and "being nicer and gentler" mostly just comes off as being common sense -- sorry, but DEFENDING A WITNESS and treating an obvious civilian as a human being doesn't really come off as anything special. I don't know if they're trying to imply that police just routinely brutalize people for fun, or if they're just suggesting that, hmm, maybe something called SPECIAL WEAPONS AND TACTICS generally don't interact much with the general populace. You know, maybe.
Right now, much of this show is resting on Shermar Moore's charisma. Thankfully, he has plenty. It's okay. It's not stand out. Hell, it's not even NCIS: New Orleans. It's watchable. It's okay. And if I have five minutes, I'll have this on in the background while I do something else. 6/10
I think I'm going to skip the in-depth reviews, and just to straight to the stuff that sucks.
The Good Doctor: An autistic savant wants to become a surgeon. The show jumps straight to the surgical residency, and has totally avoided medical school. Sorry, it's already stretched my credulity to expect that someone who literally doesn't answer anything phrased in the form of a question to have progressed this far in a medical career. Yes, I'm serious about the inability to answer questions. The emotional manipulation evident in the show is ham-handed, ham-fisted, and just plain "shoot me now." It's easy to make a character likable when nearly everyone else is a scumbag, a parasite, or a pathological schumck-- one character steals every idea from the autistic and claims them for his own, one surgeon is a coward who lies to patience as long as they think good things about her, and one of the hospital board is busier trying to play Game of Thrones than running his department. It's blatant emotional manipulation, making everyone a dick. There are only two characters here who are worth the time -- our savant, and Richard Shiff, who plays the president of the hospital, but he's still playing Richard Schiff, really.
And what do you expect from the guys who brought you House? Doctors who are actually interesting and likable? And the flashbacks break the pacing to Hell and gone. Daniel Dae Kim left Hawaii 5-0 to produce this crap? Oy.
Inhumans: I watched the two-hour pilot, and the third episode. They had some interesting moments here and there, but it got lost in the slow, plodding execution of the story. The Inhumans have a base on a moon -- an invisible city, with a city run by those with powers, while the unpowered drudge away in the mines beneath the city... what they're mining, we have no idea. A Game of Thrones hostile takeover ensues, sending four (later five) members of the royal family to Earth.
There are some interesting bits of business, such as the mute Black Bolt communicating largely through faces, and some of the fighting is okay. But really, Ken Leung ran from The Night Shift for this? It is slow, it is ponderous, and when only the bad guys get the best lines, I'm out.
X-Men The Gifted: I'm getting to the point when I hate the X-Bitches. Hugh Jackman carried the movie franchise, and I haven't been interested in the series as a whole since the animated series went off the air in the 90s. The X-Douches are whiny, angsty, and a pain to watch. But I'd try this for Amy Acker. The pilot opens strong, with a mutant being chased by the cops ... for reasons we don't get. It's followed by a strong, intense action piece. It ends with one of the rescue team being chapters, and the scene punctuated with -- wait for it!!!-- and angsty scream of futility. Oh, come on.
This is then follow with Amy Acker and her character's husband in a principle's office, then followed by her managing children at home ... no. Thank you. I'm done. Good bye. They can waste someone else's time. This is a gift that should be returned.
Everything wrong with Wisdom of the Crowd can be summed up in an episode of The Orville called "Majority Rule."
Though for the more politically inclined, perhaps this is better summed up by the realization that the lead, Jeremy Piven, is also one of the producers, a Bernie Sanders supporter, and the setting is San Francisco, hippie capital of the universe.
Zuckerberg knockoff Jeffrey Tanner (Jeremy Piven) leaves his social media empire in order to hunt down "the real killer" of his daughter, who died over a year before. He's using Sophe, an AI program that uses crowd sourcing to investigate crimes -- presuming that a few million eyes on the same piece of evidence will see more than a few cops working a case.
Think about this a moment, please: the Internet is going to solve crimes. Yeah, really. But don't worry, we have magical filters that will not only filter out political bias, but also internet trolls. This smacks of The Machine from Person of Interest, and making is an app feels like the late lamented APB. Then they layer on political BS, because it's San Francisco, we have a good socialist Brit (played by Harry Potter's Natalia Tena), a lefty Muslim "hacktivist" idiot, another IT guy who I expect to come out of the closet any time now ... because it's San Francisco, no one can be straight.
Of course, we have Tanner's ex, a member of Congress played by Monica Potter. Sorry, but Monica Potter is beautiful. I used to confuse her with Julia Roberts ... many, many moons ago. Here, they make her look kinda ugly, as though she has had heavy plastic surgery. I'm not sure if Potter has had the Mark Hamill face lift, or if she's supposed to look like Nancy Pelosi. She's grating, adds nothing to each episode, but will probably be the key to the year-long conspiracy series arc.
By episode three, we have the politics-heavy episode, where every right-winger is a Nazi. Because we're supposed to believe that San Francisco is a racial powder keg ... and no, they don't discuss Oakland. Because that would be racist, I'm sure.
Episode 4 is the "viral suicide game," which was so message-heavy, it's fake. And in a world where we have crowds gathered underneath a jumper, you're going to have at least one idiot crying "JUMP! JUMP!" So having "the internet" come to the rescue there? No. I call BS.
Their politics is so out of touch, they literally brought out a white militia group from 90s central casting. We won't even go into the lousy "business law" subplot which is a struggle over ...600 lines of code. Which even I know is solved by REWRITING THE CODE.
Despite having an okay start, and Richard T Jones (who deserves a much better series, that will stay on for any length of time) this show is really only for the socialist at heart.
Given that Piven is one of many Hollywood types that is accused of sexual molestation, assault and / or rape, I expect this show to crash, burn, and die in a fire. The show started at a mere 8.83 million viewers, on CBS, a channel that canceled the far superior shows The Mentalist and Unforgettable when they had 9 and 10 million viewers, respectively. The low point for the raitings have been under 7 million.
So even if you like this show, expect this crowd-sourcing fantasy to require crowd-funding to stay alive.
While the pilot is okay, starting at a strong 7/10, it's going to 4/10 and crashing.
Never have I seen two parallel TV shows on at the same time, doing similar things in such a different fashion, down to the extent that they basically had the same exact premise for their pilot episode. They both have stock, cliche characters that are in painful need of development, but while one tries, badly, to develop those characters, the other makes no real attempt to, but is perfectly okay with that.
To begin with, there is SEAL Team, starring David Boreanaz, who is rapidly approaching 50, and he looks it. He is the epitome of "getting too old for this s**t." The former vampire FBI agent is trying very hard to convince us that he is a SEAL door-kicker burnout waiting to happen, but the only believable part is the burnout. Mr. Boreanaz is dangerously close to joining the Tom Cruise club for actors who don't realize that they're too old to be the sexy heartthrob anymore -- and even Tom Cruise has reached the point in his career where his ego acknowledges that taking body shots to the ego is good for him.
The premise of SEAL Team is simple: Boreanaz is a leader of one of the Teams, and he has just lost his best friend before episode 1 begins. His marriage is on the rocks, and his buddy may have left a secret behind. And meanwhile, there's a new recruit going through training, the offspring of "a SEAL who wrote a book" ... so, Richard Marcinko, I guess. The two storylines had diverged after the pilot, and appear to have no chance of intersecting ever again.
Half of every episode seems to be dedicated to the home life of the SEALs: the burnout, the marriage, the newbie getting a college coed into the sack... ie: pure melodrama. The other half is dedicated to some well assembled action pieces.
I think I would rather bring back The Unit.
At the end of the day, it's hard for me to care about any of the characters here. The pilot episode had Michael Rooker as the head of SEAL training. He had less than five minutes for the first episode, and has disappeared. I would have rather had a TV show about him.
Cliche characters out of central casting, poor development, half of each episode is boring melodrama, broken up at the end with some action pieces. If you watch the show, bring your fast forward button, and don't watch it live.
On a good day, 5/10. At most. I recommend finding old episodes of The Unit instead.
Then we have The Brave ... who also have a collection of stock characters. Seriously, these people are so cliche, some of their character names are probably labels that they had in their notes. The Brave is seriously plot heavy, and character light. The most vivid character with the best overall development is the guest du jour, especially in the first few episodes. Everyone else is a collection of personality traits, not people.
You've got the petite female sniper, who wants to be Michelle Rodriquez when she grows up. There's the white bread leader be named Dalton -- I don't know if they wanted to steal from the original or the new MacGyver ... though he's way more tolerable than the more recent version. There's the obligatory skinny Muslim, the spiritual black guy literally named "Preach."
At this point in the series, one of their most interesting characters is analyst Noah Morgenthau, who has already had an episode where he got to insist that he's "just an analyst, not a field agent." I actually want to see more of that guy than the actual shooters. I could seem him groomed for Scott Murphy at some point down the line.
Overall, the series is a plot in search of personality for the main characters. But the stories themselves are good, some nice witticisms here and there. I don't really hate this show. They want to be military fiction Mission: Impossible, and they sometimes manage it, though the original Mission: Impossible had more charisma from the beginning. I can honestly say that the show is getting better as it goes along. At its worst, 6/10. At its best, maybe 8/10.
After encountering the trailer for the Death Note for Netflix, I looked up the general premise. Then I looked up a video on YouTube.
Then I ended up binging the whole bloody show.
A Shinigami (A Japanese god of Death) named Ryuk is bored. His world is a mess, a disaster. On a lark, for something to do, he takes his death note--a black notebook that will kill anyone whose name is written down in it--and throws it down to Earth, just to see what happens.
Enter Light.
Light Yagami is about to graduate high school. The son of a police officer, he finds the world grim, unchanging, and ... boring.
And then he finds this little black notebook. The Death Note comes with instructions, written in by Ryuk.
Light reads the rules of the death note, and first tests it out on a hostage taker, and then a rapist in progress... and five days later, he has filled the Death Note with hundreds of names. When Ryuk comes to him to elaborate on the death note, Light declares that "I will happily sacrifice my soul to make a better world." But Ryuk explains that, no, the Death Note will not come with selling his soul, but "merely" forfeiting his place in Heaven or Hell. With that bit of new information, Light's mission becomes all about him becoming a god, out to start the creation a new world, free of criminals.
There's little buildup to Light's declaration. It's just that sudden.
But we have a show to start, and all of this is episode 1.
After the first thousand dead criminals, it becomes obvious to all that it is the work of a mass murderer, and he is labeled "Kira" -- killer.
Over time, we see that Light is possibly one of the most evil SOBs I think I've ever seen outside of Sauron. Seriously, there's not one person near him he doesn't manipulate. He drives at least one person to suicide without using the death note. At least one person he spent 30 minutes of screen time with (IE: who knows how much in-story time with) and gets to know them, connect with them, realize what a good and loving person they are ... and then kills them, because there's a possibility that they know something that might expose him. Friends? What's a friend? Allies? An ally is just a tool, a pawn, for his own convenience. Light needs no one. Light cares for no one but himself. Even his family seem to be of value to him only as an extension of Light's own ego, and there are points in the plot where even they seem to be expendable.
At the end of the day, Light is charming and suave, and I have read blood-sucking vampires written by Ringo and Correia that have more humanity than this guy.
But good God, it is hard to tell which of these people are scarier. Light wants to be a god, and reshape the world where only "hardworking good people" exist. Light jumps onto this bandwagon fairly quickly. He goes from killing criminals, to killing cops investigating him, to ultimately deciding with one person "You have defied me, the new god! For that alone, you will die."
Then there's Light's girlfriend, Misa.
Yes, his girlfriend.
On the surface, Misa is every anime blonde cliche made manifest. She is bright, she is perky. She is outgoing ... and she might be more evil than Light is. She possesses her own death note, and is a fan of "Kira." Because that's what every mass murdering serial killer needs -- a groupie.
Bute when Misa gets going, the bodies start dropping all over the place.
While Light, at the very least, makes certain the ascertain guilt or innocence of criminals who drop dead--or cops coming after him directly-- Misa's quite happy to off anyone who even expresses disapproval of "Kira."
While Misa comes off as a ditzy blonde, I don't think there's a single person in this entire series who classifies as stupid. We won't even go into some of the various and sundry oddballs, nut jobs, and seemingly "normal" people who join Light's team. Though it is amusing to have Light deal with girl trouble at some particularly perilous points in the story. It almost gives you hope that he's human. Don't worry, those moments don't last long.
Then we meet L, the detective in charge of hunting Kira.
L is the Holmes brothers, Nero Wolfe, and a stack of eccentricities rolled into one. There is an awful lot of thought put into this character, as well as the various and sundry back and forth between L and Light that would make for a great Columbo episode. Heck, there's even a tennis match here that Alfred Hitchcock would love. The tennis matches here are interesting-- but only one of them is literal. Watching the various and sundry thought processes of L and Light ping ponging back and forth between each other is particularly entertaining.
One of the things that makes Death Note particularly tragic is that, at one point, Light has to give up the death note. Without the notebook, he loses every and all memory of being Kira. During this time, we see that Light is actually not a bad guy. He's particularly bright, and possibly on par with or smarter than L. Like Aquinas put it, the corruption of the best leads to the creation of the worst -- and Light is one of the worst.
And that's before Light starts to truly spiral out of control
The animation is largely smooth and fluid. The artwork is creative and beautiful. The faces are unusually well defined for anime. The music is great and atmospheric, and borrows from Gregorian chant.
Overall, I was surprised at how easily I was sucked into this series. There is little of the hysterics that usually mark anime, and the characters are largely rich, well-developed people, with a host of strengths and foibles. Light is possibly the best murdering psychopath since Hannibal Lecter. And yes, I have read Dexter. Light makes Dexter look almost shallow in comparison, and I enjoyed those books.
All in all, I recommend it. It's currently on Netflix.
A lot of shows got cancelled this season, and I suspect that they're planning a lot of half-seasons coming up in the fall. Funny thing is that there are several upcoming shows that seem like a lot of shows that were already cancelled. We had high-tech cop shows that are being replaced by ... high-tech cop show. We had two hospital dramas replaced with .... two hospital dramas.
And apparently, some channels are bringing back the summer replacement show.
Let's start this.
Salvation (CBS)
Oh look, I saw this film! Only it was called Deep Impact. Maybe Armageddon. I can't recall if it starred Bruce Willis or Frodo.
And, wait a second ... an Earth killer asteroid is going to take out the world, and we only have 6 months to stop it?
This is only up first because it's coming out this month.
As is the next one...
Midnight, Texas (NBC)
No, I don't know what there are two trailers back to back here, I didn't find one by itself.
Okay, I put this one first because it's coming up first. It's coming out this month, actually. And I must admit, I like Charlaine Harris ... to a point. I think True Blood would have been more interesting without the tons of gratuitous nudity, and if they were closer to the books. I even enjoy Harris' cozy mysteries.
This looks like off the wall strange, and I almost feel like it could be fun. But damn it, I hope they do not have "evil priest #9" as the bad guy. I am really sick of that one.
As long as avoid that, and they don't end up going the X-Men route. The second half kinda starts giving that vibe.
Speaking of X-men...
X-Men The Gifted (FOX)
Sigh ... I'd really like for Amy Acker to have a TV show that lasts a while. Person of Interest was close. And oh, yeah, that young guy from Burn Notice, what's his name. Yeah. I know him. Good to see him get work.
But Bryan Singer? They let Bryan Singer back within a hundred flipping miles of this franchise? Come on, people, haven't we learned our lesson yet? And oh, look, angsty teenage mutant being bullied by the evil normals! That's something we haven't seen since .... the last time I looked at anything X-Men related. Oh, COME ON! The comic books had wars with alien races, wiped out whole solar systems with billions of lives, and they keep coming back to this? The same old tropes. The exact same cliches. Every. Single. Time. Stop it, people. Just stop it.
And oh, look, this time, they managed to have full mutant freak out at a party ... a scene they stole from Stephen King's Carrie. Marking a new low in being completely unoriginal.
Right now, the only thing in this I see that looks even vaguely original is that they're keeping these new mutants together with their original family, and they're going to keep the family together as they go on the run. And, if I hear the trailer correctly, they're going to have a Logan's Run element to it, where the mutant hunter is protecting his own mutant children.
I'm going to use the dreaded phrase "So, if they're smart," what they'll do is focus on the non-mutant adults as they go on the run. Hopefully, the mutant powers of the kids won't be in every single episode as a deus ex machina. I'll try not to hold my breath.
Inhumans (ABC)
Oh look, it's that show that ABC spun off of that other show they'll never cancel, despite them having ratings so far in the toilet that even the CW would cancel them.
Yes, that's right, The Humans, the idea that Marvel used in Agents of Stupid as an X-men knockoff for two seasons. They did it so poorly that it killed the movie they were going to do. That's right, even though the TV shows have little to no connection to the MCU, and is basically glorified fan fiction, Agents of Stupid used the Inhumans so poorly that they tanked the planned movie. That's how bad it was.
And this? What is this? Game of Thrones, Marvel style? I thought that was going to be part of the Black Panther film, but now they're going to do it on the moon. Yes, the moon.
Sigh. You know, I was never a fan of the Inhumans, mostly because I barely knew they existed. But Marvel Studios managed to make an adequate film out of freaking Ant Man, fer crying out loud. So you know that everything Agents of SHIELD did and went "Crap. They sunk the movie before it even began. Can we make it a TV show?"
Sigh. And Ken Leung gave up his character on The Night Shift for this series? Damn it.
Wisdom of the Crowd
This feels like every other TV show I've watched in the past five years. A little bit of the machine from Person of Interest. A little bit of The Mentalist -- man loses family and seeks justice. A little bit of APB.... okay, maybe a lot of that. Oh, yeah, and it's San Francisco, so add some Watch Dogs 2.
Oh, yeah, and the line "Crowd sourcing is sifting through the dirt until you find the gold" .... tell me that isn't a line from Lenny Briscoe on 10 years of Law and Order, on police work in general?
Sigh. I can't tell if the idea if weaponizing the selfie generation is brilliant or terrifying.
But I like Richard T Jones. I'd like this to not suck. I guess we'll see.
The Orville (Fox)
I think this is simply called Galaxy Quest, the TV show. I could be mistaken.
Maybe more like A Ship Called Francis.
Black Lightning (CW)
The CW tends towards the young good looking crowd, so having an older lead is interesting. And trending older is unexpected.
But my God, I hate the costume at the 1:40 mark. It looks tacky, and it looks more like Iron Man than anything else.
I'll have to see what they do with it. I'm expecting them to botch it like they have almost every other show thus far. I mean, they've screwed up The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl. I'm just looking for how much they can screw the pooch on this one.
SEAL Team (CBS)
Or as John Ringo would say, "Arf! Arf!"
All joking aside, I like David Boreanaz. I thought he was terribly misused on Bones, and I'm happy he has work. Does he bathe in the blood of innocents? Because Buffy was 20 years ago. Isn't he a little old for this s***?
But really? We're going to open with the psychologist scene from the opening of Sherlock?
I'll give them points for not making it look like the married life is completely doomed from episode one, but okay. My only problem is, well, hmm, "Hey, we're going to focus on a SpecOps team as well as their family life?" I think I saw this series already, it was called The Unit, also on CBS, and written by David Mamet.
And I like that the -- I presume -- CIA brunette is not "heartless cur #5."
This feels like a knockoff of a knockoff, but I'll give it a few episodes.
The Brave (NBC)
What? Did we get a run on SpecOps shows this season? Did Hollywood suddenly start reading Baen? Is Richard Marchinko suddenly popular again? How did we end up with two of these shows premiering the same season? Yes, I know, I shouldn't be complaining. But I've been burned by too many of these shows too often. Either they suck, or they get cancelled when they start getting good.
Problem one: "Keep your head on a swivel, anyone could be a hostile"? It's a SpecOps team in the middle of the sandbox, and they felt the need to actually have to say that?
I suppose I should be happy that there's a show that has Middle Eastern bad guys that isn't called 24... and then they inserted the obligatory Islamic team mate. Because PC...
Am I unduly cynical?
S.W.A.T. (CBS)
On the one hand, I really want to like this show. The 2005 film S.W.A.T. was at least entertaining. It wasn't a great film. It was a little unbalanced, plot-wise. But hey, it a least had the original TV theme. Even this trailer uses the theme.
And I like Shemar Moore. I really do. I liked him on Criminal Minds. He was smooth, and charismatic.
But, by God, a S.W.A.T. team doing community relations? What? Really? Did I miss a memo? I thought that if a S.W.A.T. team wasn't training to kick ass, take names, break things and kill people, they were actually kicking ass, taking names, breaking things and killing people.
Sigh. This is going to be Social Justice, Black Lives Matter, "Hands Up Don't Shoot" agit-prop, isn't it? Isn't it? Sigh. Damn it.
And, oh, by the way, how many cliches can they cram into the first episode? 1) The black cop from the bad neighborhood. 2) Community policing, "we need to treat them like family." 3) The #2 replaces the old commander because of a mistake. At least two or three others.
On the other hand, one of the people attached to this project is Justin Lin, who is a veteran of Star Trek: Beyond and the Fast and Furious films. This is not a name I expect to be attached to soft and squishy, PC BS franchises.
So, which will win out? The action? The cliches? The potential for PC BS? I suspect the truth will be somewhere in between.
The Alienist (TNT)
Based off of the Caleb Carr novel of the same name, this is basically Criminal Minds, 1890s.
Only darker. Yes. This is going to be really flipping dark.
Also, Dakota Fanning is an adult now. I'm not entirely certain if she's grown up well, or just strangely.
Deception (ABC)
A magician joining with cops to solve crimes? Uh huh.
Remember when I mentioned The Mentalist earlier? Yeah. Check that. How's this for a Mentalist rip-off. Okay, yeah, it's almost more of a knock off of FX -- the films or the TV show, pick one. With a dynamic that feels very much like Castle... then again, everyone wanted to be Castle for a while, it's the only way to have a police procedural feel more like Diagnosis Murder or Murder, She Wrote while still having an official police presence make it feel a little legit.
The positive spin on this is that they seem to be bringing in the magicians bit as a way of slipping in elements of Mission Impossible as well. We'll see how it goes.
The Resident (Fox)
I can't tell what this show wants to be. Is it evil doctor show? Is it rogue doctor show? Does this want to be House, MASH, or Saint Elsewhere?
Sigh. And it has Emily van Camp (Revenge, The Winter Soldier), and I really want her to have a career.
I like how Pure Genius dies, and we get not one, but two medical shows the very next season. The second one being...
The Good Doctor (ABC)
Yeah. This one actually is from the people who brought you House. And, oh, look, we're going for the wounded healer bit. Again. Because that's the only thing these people seem to know how to do. Then again, House lasted at least three years past its expiration date, so I can't see how they'd be discouraged from doing the exact same thing all over again.
But hey, it's got Hill Harper from CSI: NY, and Toby from The West Wing. So nice that they found work.
On the one hand ... autism savant surgeon? Doogie Howser anyone? Where's Neil Patrick Harris?
On the other hand: Difficulty in communicating. Unable to relate to people... "Does it sound like I'm describing a surgeon?" Um ... yes. I thought those were qualifications.
But I can't get a read on this show from the trailer. Do they want to be a medical drama, or one of those heartfelt, touchy feely shows? Because if it's the latter, I won't be getting through the first episode before wanting to hurt myself or others.
Losers
Heiroglyph -- Egyptian vampires? John Rhys Davies? Images from Assassin's Creed? No. Thanks, but no thanks. Next.
9JKL .... look it up if you must. But Good got, what did Mark Feuerstein and Elliot Gould do to deserve this?
For the People: It's a Shonda Rhimes thing. Kill it with fire.
