TV We've Just Watched discussion
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2012 TV Talk
This one looks very interesting. If we're still getting NBC (their local affiliate is having a dispute with my cable provider), I may try it.
None of the shows I'm interested in start until February.The new ones that interest me are Smash, GCB, and Touch.
I'm going to predict that the first new show to be cancelled will be Work It.
Celebrity wife swap...a gimmick so tasteless that I have to check it out!
Stacy, What's GCB?I want to try Alcatraz and Touch.
From what I've read, Touch's premiere date is scheduled for March 19, 2012, with a preview on January 25, 2012.
Jackie, GCB stands for Good Christian Belles. I think it is supposed to be similar to Desperate Housewives.
Yeah, did Bosom Buddies really need to be remade? I think not.
Totally agree about BB's remake.GCB looks like it could be fun. Based on the book Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin. It's the 'bitches' part that got my attention, lol I'm glad I looked it up.
The series follows Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb), former "Queen Bitch" in high school, a recently divorced single mother of two children who returns to Dallas where she grew up. She meets her former school friends, who she used to mock: Carlene Cockburn (Kristin Chenoweth), Good Christian's Dallas and GCB "Queen", who was beautiful in high school and is now full-figured, insecure and does the bulk of Carlene's bidding - Sharon Peacham (Jennifer Aspen), queen of the gossip and glamorous Heather Cruz (Marisol Nichols) and Cricket Caruth-Reilly (Miriam Shor), hot powerful real estate agent in Dallas whose husband Blake (Mark Deklin) is gay.[5] Amanda resides with her children and her fifty something mother Gigi Stopper (Annie Potts), who still acts like a twenty something.
It's got a March 4th premiere date on ABC.
GCB is supposed to be REALLY good and so is Smash. They are both getting rave reviews from the critics!
This looks really good too:Awake (NBC)
When it's on: Sometime in March
Who's in it: Jason Isaacs, Steve Harris, Wilmer Valderrama, Laura Allen, Dylan Minnette, B.D. Wong, Cherry Jones
What it's about: A police detective gets in a car accident and wakes up to two different realities: one where his wife didn't survive the accident, and one where his son didn't survive the accident.
Why we're excited about it: This mind-bender comes from Kyle Killen, the creator of Lone Star, who loves to play with dual universes. It also happens to be the best pilot of the season. The only reason it isn't number one on this list is that NBC still hasn't scheduled it and there were reportedly problems with the production of its later episodes.
THE SHOW | Fox’s Alcatraz (two-hour premiere airs Monday, Jan. 16 at 8/7c, before series settles into its Mondays-at-9 time slot)THE COMPETITION | CBS’ sitcombo of Two and a Half Men/Mike & Molly, the second hours of NBC’s The Voice and ABC’s The Bachelor, The CW’s Hart of Dixie.
THE CAST | Sarah Jones (Sons of Anarchy), Jorge Garcia (Lost), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Parminder Nagra (ER), Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) and others.
THE SET-UP | Jones plays Rebecca Madsen, a San Francisco PD detective who, while investigating the murder of a onetime Alcatraz warden, discovers that the killer had been an inmate at “the Rock” — and that said suspect, Jack Sylvane, reportedly died decades earlier (!) but didn’t, and he hasn’t aged a day since 1963 (!!). Madsen enlists Alcatraz expert Dr. Diego Soto (Garcia) to delve further into the mystery, only to bump up against two federal agents, Emerson Hauser (Neill) and Dr. Lucy Banerjee (Nagra), who eventually disclose that Sylvane’s inexplicable return is likely the first of many Alcatraz “homecomings.”
THE GOOD | Not surprisingly, given executive producer J.J. Abrams’ imprimatur, the premise is innately interesting — that the 300+ inmates supposedly transferred off Alcatraz when it shut down (as well as guards on duty at the time) in fact vanished from the island prison, and now are returning, un-aged, to tend to “unfinished business” as well as execute random crimes ordered by… well, we don’t know who. Neill does enigmatic eyebrow-arching and stern stare-downs like few others, and it’s good to see TV’s erstwhile Hurley play someone so learned. Tweaks made since the original one-hour pilot have fleshed out Jones’ character some and given her a slightly stronger (if clunky) personal tie to the larger mythology. As Sylvane, Jeffrey Pierce (The Nine) is befuddled by his “rebirth” yet also effectively stone-cold, and this is a procedural that could live or die on the casting of its Fugitive of the Week. The flashbacks show a nice attention to detail.
THE… COULD-BE-BETTER | Forster, as Rebecca’s Uncle Ray (a former Alcatraz guard), brings weight to his blink-and-you-missed-’em scenes; hopefully he’ll get pulled deeper into the story. Nagra is similarly underused in the pilot. Jones’ character has big shoes to fill — namely, those of Dana Scully and Olivia Dunham — as a female agent immersed in otherworldly spookery, and at first blush she didn’t blow me away with her skills. And for the life of me, whereas Abrams’ Lost from Day 1 triggered numerous knee-jerk speculations (Hell, Heaven, human Petri dish…), I can’t fathom what could ultimately be revealed as at the heart of the Alcatraz inhabitants’ “disappearing/time-jumping/reappearing” act — and that makes me nervous. In other words, Lost had me compelled to find out more; Alcatraz left me merely curious-ish. If this island’s a cork, I fold.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE | Compared to Abrams’ other 2011-12 TV season offering, CBS’ Person of Interest (which also happens to star a Lost alum), Alcatraz is obviously trippier and thus should be noisier on the midseason landscape. That said, the decision to slot it behind the aging House and opposite one of TV’s most watched programs — a place where Fox’s Lie to Me and Lone Star, as well as other far-out fare like NBC’s The Event, all failed to seize big numbers — had to be a tricky one. The road here could be Rock-y
I'll probably be watching this one. When does GCB start? What network? I love Kristen Chenoweth (a good Oklahoma girl, BTW) and have ever since she was Galinda in Wicked.
I believe Jackie said January 4th on ABC.
When it comes to midseason buzz, NBC’s Smash is playing to a metaphorical full house. Yet amidst the early kudos and great anticipation the musical drama has been met with, questions abound. Here is what the series’ creators and cast had to say during their Television Critics Association press tour panel about this look at the making of a Broadway musical based on Marilyn Monroe.HOW REALISTIC IS THE RAPID-ISH PROGRESS OF MARILYN: THE MUSICAL? | When the pilot opens, the songwriting team played by Debra Messing (Will & Grace) and Christian Borle (Legally Blonde: The Musical) is about to take a year off when a starry eyed assistant lobs out the idea of a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. By the end of Episode 2, auditions and callbacks have been held, the lead role has seemingly be cast, and Marilyn: The Musical‘s backer (played by Anjelica Huston) is already talking out-of-town tryouts. A bit fast, no? Glossing over the months it takes to pen a show’s book “was a strategic decision,” admits series creator and Broadway vet Theresa Rebeck. “It was important for us to get to the workshop more quickly, so you could see the community [of Marilyn's actors and creatives] coming together.” But once Marilyn reaches that point, things “will proceed at a pace that is not as speedy,” Rebeck says.
AND HOW REALISTIC IS THE BACKSTAGE BACKSTABBING AND SUCH? | Smash‘s wealth of Broadway-bred executive producers “keeps it very authentic,” reports Megan Hilty, who starred in Broadway’s 9 to 5: The Musical and here vies with American Idol alumna Katharine McPhee for Marilyn‘s titular role. “The drama that goes on behind the curtain is way more interesting than what goes on on the stage.” (She let slip zero salacious details, drat.) Adds EP Marc Shaiman, a lyricist whose credits include Broadway’s Hairspray, “Everyone is really committed to make it the way it really is.”
IF NOT MARILYN MONROE, WHAT WAS THE MUSICAL-WITHIN-THE-SHOW ALMOST ABOUT? | Rebeck says that Shaiman and his songwriting partner/fellow Smash EP Scott Wittman proposed a stage adaptation of a movie, while she herself was partial to an original piece involving “feathers and sword fights. Somehow between these two poles we wound up with Marilyn.”
WHAT BRINGS OSCAR WINNER ANJELICA HUSTON TO A SERIES REGULAR TV ROLE? | Huston, who plays a veteran producer who has her own reasons for backing Marilyn, explains simply, “It’s beautifully written, it’s a fantastic cast of actors, a phenomenal team of people behind-the-scenes…. I’d be a fool not to participate.”
WHAT ABOUT THAT ADOPTION SUBPLOT…? | While some critics are pointing to a B-story in which Messing’s character struggles to adopt a baby from China as a wah-wah-wahhh spot in an otherwise lively production, the Emmy-winning actress says that personal touch “was one of the things that was most exciting to me when I read the pilot.” With her enthusiasm for Smash as a whole showing on her face, she raved, “The amount of fun I’m having … is so ridiculously off the charts, it’s crazy.”
DOES EVERYONE FEEL THE PRESSURE TO GIVE STRUGGLING NBC, YOU KNOW, A SMASH HIT? | Christian Borle (Legally Blonde: The Musical), who plays Messing’s partner, says that because of its midseason berth, Smash has an inventory of several strong episodes under its belt — “It feels nice to have done so much already.” Rebeck, meanwhile, shrugs off any onus, saying, “Our task is to make great television. The rest of the story is up to other forces.”
WHAT’S THE SEASON 2 PLAN? | Rebeck says that Smash‘s 15-episode first season will “take Marilyn to an out-of-town tryout, her first really public presentation.” Season 2 would ultimately follow the production to Broadway and raise the question, “How does Marilyn fare in New York?”
DID WE READ SOMETHING ABOUT SMASH‘S MARILYN BECOMING AN ACTUAL BROADWAY MUSICAL…? | Rebeck waved off that recent reportage, saying, “What we are aiming to do right now is write a great television show. [That] is enough of a challenge for all of us.”
WHEN AND WHERE CAN I BUY THE SHOW’S COVER SONGS? | McPhee’s and Hilty’s covers of contemporary tunes will be made available every Monday, on iTunes. (Not coincidentally, Smash airs Mondays at 10/9c, premiering Feb. 6.)
CAN WE PUT THE GLEE COMPARISONS BEHIND US ONCE AND FOR ALL? | EP Craig Zadan notes — as will anyone upon seeing the actual pilot — that aside from featuring performance numbers, the two shows have precious little in common. But seeing as the Fox hit did warm up Cop Rock- and Viva Laughlin-averse TV viewers to a series that blends drama and music, he says, “We feel grateful to Glee for opening that door.”
Rare is the television show that defies simple summation, but Fox’s Touch may be one of them.On the surface, the drama (previewing Jan. 25, before officially bowing March 19) stars 24 vet Kiefer Sutherland as Martin Bohm, a widowed dad who struggles to communicate with his son Jake, an 11-year-old who lives with severe autism.
So difficult is it for Martin to get through to Jake – who is mute and won’t let anyone, his father included, touch him – that it calls into question whether the state should intervene. And just as they do, Jake’s inexplicable obsession with the number 318, in this instance, begins to manifest itself in strange ways, involving several people around the globe.
For example, Martin’s altercation with a man (Lost‘s Titus Welliver) who is using a payphone that he himself needs to be on at 3:18 pm ultimately leads to the stranger saving kids from a crashed school bus that was numbered 318. Another thread to that story shows how a British man’s lost cell phone touches on a young boy in Iraq as well as a wannabe singer in Ireland.
The pacing of the Touch pilot is unhurried — in fact, for a stretch there many will wonder where it’s all possibly leading. But as the disparate pieces of narrative weave together and build to a payoff, the show strikes a chord of “global unity” that hasn’t been seen since, say, Heroes – not surprising since Tim Kring, the man who sired that superheroes saga, created Touch.
Explaining the project’s inspirational tone, Sutherland says he and Kring “both felt very strongly that one of the things missing from television — and I feel from films, as well — is being unabashedly emotional.”
Touch raises questions about how Jake latched onto 318 and saw patterns involving the number that no naked eye could have. And while that might seem to point toward the show having an ongoing mythology, that is not the case.
“Some characters will be woven over [multi-episode] arcs,” says Sutherland, “but Tim and I both learned – he from Heroes and me from 24 — that there is great value in a procedural drama. So every week there will be a set of circumstances set about by Jake that will put Martin in a situation to deal with someone new, and that situation will be resolved. There will be a beginning, a middle and an end, in theory, to every episode.”
Sutherland admits that at first he “really didn’t want to” take on Touch for his return to TV. But thanks to nudging by some people close to him, he revisited the project and saw both a “really beautiful” father/son relationship as well as a trait shared by Martin and one Jack Bauer.
“What I was drawn to [with] Jack Bauer was that he was never going to win,” says his portrayer. “He would have small victories, but overall it was impossible to win.” Martin, similarly, “is never going to win” as a father because he can’t communicate with his son the way he’d like to. “There’s something wonderful about trying to find hope in someone who is just never going to completely win.”
While Sutherland and David Mazouz (as Jake) are the only series regulars, Touch‘s recurring players at the start include Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Undercovers) as the social worker assigned to assess Jake’s home situation, and Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) as a professor who sees in Jake evidence that autism is not a disability but a heightened ability. [UPDATE: Mbatha-Raw confirms for TVLine that she has since been upgraded to series regular status.]
“The Danny Glover character is interesting,” says Sutherland. “He believes that we have misdiagnosed a group of people that actually are at a much more advanced form of communication, but because we don’t understand it we’ve diagnosed them with what we can best understand.”
That exploration of what autism is and could be was born of the fact that Kring has a son who lives with the condition; as such, he’s taking care to see that Touch‘s fictional aspects are founded in scientific fact.
“Tim feels very responsible to stay true to [autism] in that regard,” says Sutherland, “so we’re not go to be making stuff up to explain stuff. We’re going to deal with the medicine and what doctors know.”
Ironically, this article makes me want to see it less. I thought it would be mystical, or some kind of phenomenon with the boy. I'll try the Jan ep and see what I think then.
I kinda want to watch Smash, just to see if it's any good.
I've heard Smash is going to be phenomenal.....
I agree with you Jackie about Touch... I thought it was something different.
THE SHOW | NBC’s The Firm (two-hour pilot airs Sunday, Jan. 8 at 9/8c; time slot premiere is Thursday, Jan. 12 at 10/9)THE COMPETITION | On Thursdays, it will face CBS’ The Mentalist, ABC’s Private Practice, FX’s Archer (returning Jan. 19) and, I suppose, that MTV show about buffoons from Jersey.
THE CAST | Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer), Molly Parker (Deadwood), Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), Callum Keith Rennie (The Killing) and others
THE SET-UP | Picking up 10 years after the events of the John Grisham novel (and Tom Cruise film), The Firm finds Mitch McDeere anxious to get himself, wife Abby (played by Parker) and their 10-year-old daughter out of the Federal Witness Protection Program now that the Morolto family crime boss whom he put behind bars is dead. Against the feds’ wishes, Mitch starts up a storefront practice with his brother/P.I. Ray (Rennie) and assistant Tammy (Lewis). Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) recurs as the boss of an elite law firm that schemes to add Mitch as a partner.
THE PROS | If you (as I did) glommed onto The Firm back in the day, it’s ostensibly fun to “catch back up” with familiar characters. Lucas is fine as Mitch, though he’s a somewhat random choice to “replace” Tom Cruise. (That said, he brings to the material more gravitas than his predecessor. And my female peers seem to like his very blue eyes.) Rennie steals scenes as Ray, to the point you’ll be lobbying for him to headline his own primetime show someday. For fans of the book, Lewis is more perfect a Tammy than Holly Hunter was. I’m kind of hot-and-cold when it comes to Parker, but here I loved her as Abby.
THE CONS | My goodness, this show asks a lot of the viewer — where to start? For one, the two-hour pilot expects you to track no fewer than three legal cases, leaving you to wonder which one will prove essential to the show’s mythology. (Spoiler: It’s not the one you think!) And the prolonged stretch of time afforded to one case (a young boy accused of stabbing to death a classmate), while obviously there to inform us of Mitch’s value system, is the stuff of textbook law drama; you could be watching literally any legal show. Plot holes are aplenty, including the fact that Mitch keeps his infamous name after coming out of hiding. When an understandably reluctant Mitch is wooed to join Helfer’s tony firm, the hokey compromise they arrive at screams of being a plot device. The McDeere daughter is the latest in a line of TV kids who whine about the show’s central conceit; why can’t everyone be chill like Violet Harmon?
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE | I wanted to be but emerged as not a fan of this TV adaptation, but may give it another episode (perhaps two) to find its footing and further delve into the dark secret Helfer’s firm is hiding. Time slot-wise, The Mentalist will obviously beat up on Mitch good; the only question is how this NBC newbie’s numbers compare to predecessor Prime Suspect.
Shonda Rhimes’ latest drama, Scandal, will premiere Thursday, April 5 at 10/9c, airing after Grey’s Anatomy. Private Practice will then air its four remaining episodes on Tuesdays at 10, following the Dancing With the Stars results show.
I'm kinda glad there's so many uninteresting new shows....gives me more reading time.Imdb has this about Scandal: When you get into trouble there's only one person to call, Olivia Price. Olivia is a professional 'fixer' who makes problems go away before anyone even knows they exist. For the moneyed, the powerful and even the President, Olivia is a legend in her field. Her spectacular success is mostly due to her unbreakable rule of always trust your gut. No matter how careful you are, when you do damage control for a living, you're bound to cause some damage to your own life. She and her crew eat, sleep, live and breathe crisis. Each week, as the team races against the clock to defuse intriguing new problems before they become full-blown disasters, they also have to deal with their own personal issues. They may call themselves 'gladiators in suits', but little by little, Olivia and her crew begin to reveal the chinks in their armor.
Again, uninterested.
The cast and creator of ABC’s midseason dramedy GCB took the stage at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour on Tuesday, and immediately used the opportunity to dispel any misconceptions that this new primetime sudser (which premieres Sunday, March 4 at 10/9c) is the second coming of that other female-centric soap, Desperate Housewives.“If we have the run that Desperate Housewives had, the angels have sung!” GCB‘s leading lady Leslie Bibb said, excitedly. “That would be amazing! But really where [the two shows are] similar is that we’re both stories about a group of women. So, if you’re expecting Desperate Housewives, I don’t know if we’re very much like that.”
Showrunner Robert Harling echoed Bibbs sentiments, stating, “To be compared to a show that’s one of the biggest hits in television, that’s maintained its point of view… yeah, I would love to eventually be compared to that. But right now, if you just look at the two shows, the fabulous thing about Desperate Housewives is that it’s universal and the dynamic could be happening everywhere. And the fabulous thing about what these [GCB] actors do is create a world that is very specific.
“Our world can only take place in Texas, and only in Dallas, and only in a specific part of Dallas,” he added.
To Harling’s credit, Bibb claimed to have never seen “a show like this on television. Robert’s done something really special here.”
While GCB is attempting to veer away from the Housewives comparisons, there is one show cast member Annie Potts isn’t afraid to emulate. “If you like Designing Women, you’re gonna love this,” the former Designing Woman said.
I'm still iffy on this one. I have it on my calendar to give it a try. I took Touch off the calendar.
I'm still going to try Touch because I love Keifer Sutherland and I think GCB will be good. It will fill my Desperate Housewives hole :)
The River ABC boss says the series is influenced by X-FILES and that each episode will be a mini horror movie
More of Scandal from the creator:Fans of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, take heed: Shonda Rhimes says her new ABC series won't be more of the same.
"It's not a procedural, it's not romance-y, there is no MerDer," Rhimes told reporters Tuesday during ABC's winter TV previews, comparing her upcoming drama, Scandal, instead to a British miniseries "full of intrigue."
In the show (premiering Thursday, April 25 at 10/9c), Kerry Washington plays a "professional fixer" who formerly worked at the White House and is looking for a new start in opening her own crisis management firm. The character is based on real-life consultant Judy Smith, whose career has included handling aspects of the Iran Contra investigation, the Los Angeles riots and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Rhimes said that because of the confidential nature of Smith's work, the show's stories will be merely inspired by her famous clients. Smith, who serves as a co-executive producer on the show, provides her expert opinion. "I'll call [Judy] up and say, 'What if I have this conservative soldier who's secretly gay and he's getting the congressional medal of honor?' Rhimes said. "She's been a fascinating and amazing resource for us."
The Grey's boss added she is neither relieved nor worried about tackling a series that doesn't revolve around, as one reporter put it, people with stethoscopes. "This is just a different story," Rhimes said, adding that the through line in her shows is "strong women and flawed people."
Scandal is so tense and un-soap operatic that not only do the characters not have time for love, but they speak at a breakneck pace — an element that drew some comparisons to Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing. "That was about me not wanting the actors lingering in the moments," Rhimes said. "It's a world where everyone's incredibly busy... the pace really serves the story."
Jackie, does Scandal sound better now? ;)
I loved Designing Women, so GCB sounds really good to me!
Holli wrote: "THE SHOW | Fox’s Alcatraz (two-hour premiere airs Monday, Jan. 16 at 8/7c, before series settles into its Mondays-at-9 time slot)"I've been intrigued by the previews of this one, but is that move to 9pm eastern or central? 'Cause 9pm central is Castle, and we can't be missing that. ;)
Heather, The series will air on Monday evenings, premiering with a 2-hour episode at 8:00 ET, before assuming its regular timeslot at 9:00 ET starting January 23, 2012. As per wikipedia.
Holli, I don't think Shonda Rhimes has watched as many British miniseries as I have because this doesn't sound like one to me; sounds like typical American TV. Americans cannot capture the intensity and brevity of British series. The short seasons are the key to their intensity, as long as they're having regular length seasons, it won't be anything like a British series, mini or otherwise.As far as the story goes, Washington and politics are not my thing, and the set up doesn't catch my interest; I won't be watching.
I'll try it out Jackie and let you know what I think.... I'm not even sure I'll like it!
Thanks, Holli, I'd like to know what you think.
Jackie, watch this clip of Keifer Sutherland talking about Touch. He says it IS more of a mystical show.... it sounds really good to me now!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY44Cs...
I guess we'll see. I'll try the Jan 25th premiere and see how I like it. It sounds like the first ep will be really good.
It really does Jackie! I have high hopes for it anyways....
We finally watched The Firm premiere last night and we both really liked it... so far so good!
Just finished watching Touch and I absolutely loved it. It's based on a belief I've had my whole life so I really identified with it.... Great show. Can't wait for it to start back up again in March.
To start with, as first reported by The Futon Critic, J.J. Abrams’ Alcatraz — which was to finale in mid-March, thanks to a series of doubled-up outings — now will only air back-to-back hours on March 5. Then, starting March 12, it will move to Mondays-at-8, where it will spell House and tee up Kiefer Sutherland’s Touch.Alcatraz will now air its season finale on March 26. House then reclaims its Mondays-at-8 berth on April 2, airing 100-percent originals for the remainder of Season 8.
Similarly, Fox is using some reheated Kitchen Nightmares to rest Fringe for the first three weeks of March, so that the sci-fi series can return March 23 with all-new episodes for the rest of its fourth season.
THE SHOW | ABC’s The River (Tuesdays at 9/8c, premiering Feb. 7 with back-to-back episodes)THE COMPETITION | NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), New Girl and Raising Hope/Breaking In (Fox), The Biggest Loser (NBC) and Ringer (The CW)
THE CAST | Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek), Leslie Hope (24), Paul Blackthorne (Lipstick Jungle), Joe Anderson (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn), Eloise Mumford (Lone Star) and others
THE SET-UP | Created by Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity) and Michael R. Perry (Paranormal Activity 2), this eight-part chiller revolves around a crew of family, friends and other “interested” parties who brave uncharted reaches of the Amazon River in the name of finding Dr. Emmet Cole (Greenwood), a wildlife expert and TV personality who went missing six months prior during an expedition, but whose emergency beacon has suddenly been activated. Hope and Anderson play Cole’s wife and son, Blackthorne the producer of his TV docuseries, and Mumford the daughter of a cameraman who also vanished. Others on board include Shaun Parkes (Strike Back) as a cameraman documenting the search, Thomas Kretschmann (King Kong) as a vaguely defined security expert, and Daniel Zacapa (Resurrection Blvd.) and newcomer Paulina Gaitán as the boat mechanic and his daughter.
THE PROS | The River wants to scare you — more specifically, to unsettle you — and make no mistake, it will. If the promos have you thinking there is just one “thing” preying on the explorers during their journey, you’d be very wrong. Rather, each stop along the way — including an ancient graveyard guarded by super-creepy children’s dolls — seems to boast its own sort of bogeyman or malevolent watchman. Keeping tensions high are the close quarters of the boat scenes, the fuzzy night-vision footage from the vessel’s array of all-seeing cameras, and the show’s tendency to have things get very, very, very quiet… verrry… qui…et… and then SUDDENLY! get very LOUD! and SCREAMY! Greenwood appears regularly via flashbacks and discovered videotapes. Fun fact: Gaitán didn’t speak a lick of English when she took the role and delivers her dialogue almost exclusively in Spanish, which isn’t very helpful when her character is trying to alert the others to freaky stuff about which she seems especially attuned. Episode 3 features an inspired twist that has the crew flying blind, so to speak, and will have you on the edge of your seat. Do characters die every week? No, but only because the poor things don’t get off that easy. If this sort of fare — served up by the creator/director of Paranormal Activity himself — is your cup of tea (as it is mine), fire up your biggest flat screen, pump up the Dolby, turn off all the lights and enjoy the wild ride.
THE CONS | The River is extremely plot-driven, so even several episodes in, I can barely tell you who so-and-so is beyond the four leads, especially the brooding “security” type who tends to whisper-mumble his lines — and since at times we’re supposed to be wary of one person’s agenda or another’s, that can be problematic. The stretches between thrills ‘n’ chills can feel repetitive, consisting largely of “We must got back!”/”But no, there’s a new sign Emmet’s alive — ignore the latest crazy [bleep] that almost killed us all and forge on!” The show doesn’t routinely require huge leaps of logic (e.g. unlabeled tapes of Cole’s aren’t magically sifted through for pertinent data), but you may start wondering about the forever-filming cameraman’s battery charges and such. Though most of the weekly twists are cool (e.g. someone has a curious birthmark), there’s one soapy reveal that will make you audibly groan. The aforementioned quiet/LOUD! thing can get annoying in that you’ll be frantically toggling between the up/down volume buttons on your remote.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE | The best thing The River has going for it, outside of its well-utilized Paranormal pedigree, is its freshman season’s eight-episode run, so for the time being there isn’t much concern about whether this journey has legs. It is unlike anything on all of TV right now — this isn’t family-friendly Terra Nova, folks — so it will be interesting to see how many viewers it scares up and then doesn’t scare away.
I had it on my calendar but changed my mind. It if were a straight up drama , this would be for me. As it is, with the faux reality, shaky camera and all, I just can't do it.But I would be interesting to know what you think, Holli, if you're gonna watch it.
The River looks pretty good (not my normal type of show), but I just don't have any room for it in my "repertoire" of shows!
THE SHOW | NBC’s Smash (Mondays at 10/9c, premiering Feb. 6 aka “the night after the Super Bowl,” as Mr. Promo Guy makes clear)
THE COMPETITION | ABC’s Castle, CBS’ Hawaii Five-0 and Syfy’s Lost Girl (which debuts Jan. 16)
THE CAST | Emmy winner Debra Messing (Will & Grace), Academy Award winner Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor), Tony Award nominees Christian Borle and Brian d’Arcy James, Jack Davenport (FlashForward), Katharine McPhee (American Idol), Megan Hilty (9 to 5: The Musical) and others; Peabody Award-winning playwright Theresa Rebeck is the series creator, while Steven Spielberg is an executive producer.
THE SET-UP | Messing and Borle are songwriting partners who, on the verge of a planned break, instead get motivated to develop a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Huston plays a veteran producer who has her own reasons for investing in the project, Davenport is an in-demand yet prickly director, and McPhee and Hilty play Karen and Ivy, the very different actresses (read: green vs. seasoned) vying for the plum lead role.
THE GOOD | For starters, the lead cast is pretty damn perfect, from Messing as an accomplished lyricist juggling this venture with her want to adopt a baby (James plays her husband) to Davenport as a demanding, rakish director/choreographer, to McPhee and Hilty as, respectively, a wannabe Broadway baby and a chorus girl hoping to finally claim the spotlight. (We’re glad we’re not the ones choosing between the two.) The story is set up quickly and compellingly, and the pilot episode alone features multiple crowd-pleasing numbers (as well as a big ol’ cliffhanger). There will be the temptation to liken Smash to Glee – and surely NBC saw a chance to capitalize on the Fox hit’s buzz — but this is decidedly a drama, albeit one punctuated by music that stays with you long after the credits roll.
THE… COULD-BE-BETTER | I’m two episodes in, and thus far no egregiously weak links have jumped out, save for the occasional step in the direction of expected “drama” (e.g. Karen’s beau, played by Raza Jaffrey, is frustrated when she stands him up at an important work dinner; it’s fairly obvious that ownership of the Marilyn idea will come into question). But even an Episode 2 twist in the adoption subplot doesn’t go quite where you think it will.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE | It’s a lot to pin a network’s turn-around on one show, but with this and the yet-to-be-scheduled Awake — both promising, well-pedigreed dramas that have critics buzzing in a good way — NBC has a chance here to restore lustre to its line-up. Between its NYC location shoots (one scene takes place right downstairs from TVLine’s Times Square office), large cast and production numbers, Smash can’t be cheap, so it will be interesting to see how forgiving NBC will be as the freshman fights heavy hitters Castle and Five-0 for eyeballs, with Season 2 of The Voice as its lead-in. But Nielsens aside, this should be the smash hit the Peacock has been looking for.