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September 17, 2005
TV : Fall TV Season 2005, part 1
Well, it's that time of the year when I watch the first episodes of a lot of shows, the second episodes of a few shows, the third of even fewer shows, and so on until I reach my small set of "keepers" for the season. While the premier season is still young, I currently have two shows which are still on my "I'm still watching" list.
First the losers:
Prison Break
I'm not sure how you make a series out of it; but the concept is great – a structural engineer who redesigned a prison gets himself sentenced to it as an inmate so he can stage a prison break to rescue his brother who is on death row. He goes into the prison with a "perfect plan" which does not survive contact with reality. Good idea, good drama. I watched two episodes before I punted on it.
The reason I gave up is that I found really didn't care if the prison break was a success or not – all of the characters were so flawed (including the hero and his brother) that I never got invested in the story.
Reunion
This was a long shot going in; but I wanted to give it a try just in case. The idea of each episode being flashbacks from a specific year that led to the events in the present was interesting (kind of like "24" with a longer timeframe). Unfortunately, it turned out to be just another primetime soap. Rich kids, poor kids, boo hoo.
I do believe that we are all the products of the some total of our pasts, and I think there is an opportunity out there for a really cool TV series out there to show that – to show some characters in the present and then show the events in their lives that made them that. "Jack and Bobby" tried to do that; but it didn't quite work. "Reunion" promised it; but didn't deliver. I still hope someone figures out how to make that work.
The War At Home
OK, I'm a sucker for the old "Breaking the fourth wall" gimmick; but if you are going to have your characters talk to the audience, please give them something worthwhile to say.
Now the (temporary) winners:
Bones
This is likely to devolve into just another police procedural drama; but I'm willing to give it a couple more tries because I find the characters interesting. I love the gender role reversal (the woman is a distant, detached, intellectual; and the man is involved, emotional, intuitive). I definitely got the sense from the pilot that these characters have depth and if they can use that to make an interesting show about the people, not just the cases, it might end up a keeper. Although one wonders – just how many cases a year are there that need the services of a forensic anthropologist?
Threshold
Yes Virginia, based on the final scene, I'd say we are definitely on page 42 of the manual (If you have seen the show that will make sense, and I suspect you'll agree).
Very interesting. While not the blow-me-away pilot that Lost gave us last year, this was certainly a pretty wild ride, and I think I like where it is taking us. Among the things I like:
- The characters are very real. They are scared. They are uncertain. They make mistakes. While they are good at what they do, they aren't unrealistically hyper-competent. OK, the linguist on the team needs more depth; but the rest of the characters acted a lot like real people with their credentials would under the circumstances.
- While you have several engineers and scientists as characters, no one pulled any "magic" solutions out of thin air to save the day. The one "invention" was shown as a completely unexpected result methodical trial and error investigation; and when they went to use it, it didn't even do quite what they expected. Again, this is much more what one would expect in reality.
- Likewise the bad guys didn't do anything particularly stupid; and to be fair, the ending makes clear they are very much winning.
My only concern is that the pilot tended to cross the line from drama to horror, and horror doesn't have a good track record on TV.
Posted by Steven at September 17, 2005 08:44 PM
