trinityofone (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trinityofone) wrote2006-07-20 05:33 pm
trinityofone) wrote2006-07-20 05:33 pm
By request: Fall TV report, Part I
Okay, I suppose I should start by saying that I generally think that pilots are not very good. For shows I really love, even: they tend to be stiff, packing too much exposition; they haven’t really found themselves yet. So everything I say in here has to be taken with the general knowledge that pilotitis exists, and further, that I know it exists. But I can only judge based on what I’ve seen, and what I’ve seen is pilots.
So far, these pilots:
Heroes
I am not enthusiastic about this one, to be honest. Almost nothing happened, and while I appreciate and very much like taking the time for character development, I don’t think we needed scene after scene to tell us the same exact things, over and over. Indian Guy has daddy issues! Guy from Gilmore Girls has brother issues! Japanese Guy (who was Franklyn in Scrubs, BTW, and was my favorite part of this so far) is a ginormous dork! Thank you, I got it the first twelve times you told me.
Also—and here’s something I don’t normally say—I was really bothered by the female characters in this. The first one we’re introduced to, Niki, is a woman who strips for a living and is having problems with loan sharks; think Vivica A. Fox in Independence Day, except paler, both in complexion and force of personality. We meet her as she’s slowly pulling off her top for the benefit of a video camera. The other main female character is also introduced as she’s being filmed, and while I get that this is a transitioning device meant to link them together, I immediately flashed back to my freshman film course and all that talk about the “male gaze” and the objectification of women. At the time, I thought it was mostly pretty stupid, but I really felt what Linda Williams et. al. were getting at, watching this show. The two main female characters are a stripper and a cheerleader. The men are academics, nurses, politicians, artists… This pisses me off.
But you know, I’d be willing to let it slide (for NOW) if something interesting actually happened. Maybe eventually it will. But not in hour one. And I’m still waiting for Greg Grunberg to show up.
Also, guys? The everyone-is-connected-in-some-vague-way thing is so VERY Lost. Thanks.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
You don’t know how much I really, REALLY want to like this show. Matthew Perry was my favorite part of Friends, Bradley Whitford was my favorite part of The West Wing, and I had to spend a large portion of my day yesterday staring at large, high res photos of the two of them gazing at each other lovingly. So I WANT to like it. And I know that Aaron Sorkin is capable of delivering the goods.
But the pilot was limp, man. It showed signs of classic pilotitis: waaaaaaaay too much exposition, and just general slowness and stiffness. And yet, I still don’t feel that I have a very good idea who anyone is. All of the characters felt really flat to me. Bradley Whitford has some sort of drug problem, and Matthew Perry has foot-in-mouth problems; Amanda Peet is too good to be true (and is really rather creepy, IMO), Steven Weber is a dick, and Sarah Paulson (who, if she’s likewise creeping you out by being really, really familiar looking, was briefly in Serenity, as well as The Other Sister with—score!—Joe Flanigan) is like a BIG Christian, omg. But these are just labels; I got no sense—at all—of who these people are. I didn’t even really sense why Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford like each other, aside from, you know, why wouldn’t they like each other? But if they’re supposed to be best buds and work partners who touch each other’s necks in an ALARMINGLY non-heterosexual manner, can we get a little sense of their history, please?
And yeah, I know. It’s just the pilot. But it felt so slow. Where was that Sorkin snap?
Unlike Heroes, however, which I still haven’t made up my mind about, this I am definitely giving another shot come fall. It’s Perry! Whitford! Sorkin! How can I not?
Ugly Betty
ABC can’t seem to decide whether this show is called Betty the Ugly or Ugly Betty, but the latest release says Ugly Betty so I’m switching back to that. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The publicity materials are just awful: lots of photos of America Ferrera, who is gorgeous if not of the typical anorexic Hollywood body type (her first film was Real Women Have Curves), wearing bad glasses and bad clothes and huge braces, while her hair of course is perfect and more lustrous than mine has ever been, EVER. I feared the She’s All That (which we’re all going to pretend I didn’t actually see) gimmick of a beautiful girl who nobody knows is beautiful because she wears glasses! And overalls! And her hair’s in a ponytail! And then omg gasp, she really IS pretty, after all!
Well, the bad glasses, the bad clothes, and the seriously painful-looking braces are all present in the show, but it’s less bad when Ferrera is moving around and being a real person under them. And, I don’t know, the show is just fun. It’s based on a Columbian telenovela, and it’s kept a lot of the feel of one: everything’s a bit over the top, and there’s possibly a faked death and other wackiness. And. AND. I am a big sucker for the type of character who’s played in Ugly Betty by Eric Mabius (who was also in Eyes, which starred my cousin Tim Daly, who was also in Wings with Steven Weber [see Studio 60, above] and who has his own show coming out this fall, The Nine, and omg, the whole fall schedule is like a spinning vortex of Cousin Timmy!). Mabius plays Daniel Meade, the playboy son of a magazine magnet, and Betty’s new boss. And you just know that even though Daniel’s currently screwing models left and right, he is going to be charmed by Betty, and she’s going to help him be a better person, and they’re going to have a lot of awkward-surprised sexual tension, and when it’s done well, I LOVE that kind of story. I can’t imagine why. *awkwardly pushes own bad glasses up nose*
So anyway, this could be promising. It’s on Fridays at eight, though, so if SG-1 does get pushed back down, Betty may get the axe from my personal schedule. (Oh, man. I can’t believe I haven’t actually made a chart yet! Must get on that.)
Vanished
The only reason I care about this at all is that it has Gale Harold in it. I wants me some network telly Brian Kinney. And network telly apparently makes Brian Kinney an FBI agent named Graham. Graham has angst because he was involved in a hostage negotiation where a little kid got exploded and had his guts splattered all overBrian’s Graham’s shirt. Graham, however, doesn’t handle this by doing an interpretive dance with a scarf; instead he won’t talk to his priest and he’s kind of cranky with several people, including Ming-Na, who’s cute, and Rebecca Gayheart, who annoys me for no logical reason. But then, she’s supposed to be annoying in this show, so points there.
Anyway, the point is, some senator’s wife has gone missing—you could say she’s…VANISHED!—and it’s Graham’s job to track her down, along with Ming-Na and some other people who weren’t very memorable. Whatever. I have to admit that this really isn’t my kind of show. I may watch it again, just for the pretty (and Gale Harold is very, very pretty), but not if Mimi Leder doesn’t back away from the zoom, MY GOD MIMI, WE GET THAT THE CAMERA CAN MAKE ALL KINDS OF CRAZY MOTIONS AND GET REALLY REALLY CLOSE TO PEOPLE’S LIPS BUT STOP IT NOW BEFORE YOU DAMAGE SOMETHING, LIKE MY NECK. Yeesh.
Anyway, feel free to ask me any questions, and I’ll try to answer as best I can. Tonight I’m going to watch The Nine for Cousin Timmy, and probably some other things. Stay tuned!
So far, these pilots:
Heroes
I am not enthusiastic about this one, to be honest. Almost nothing happened, and while I appreciate and very much like taking the time for character development, I don’t think we needed scene after scene to tell us the same exact things, over and over. Indian Guy has daddy issues! Guy from Gilmore Girls has brother issues! Japanese Guy (who was Franklyn in Scrubs, BTW, and was my favorite part of this so far) is a ginormous dork! Thank you, I got it the first twelve times you told me.
Also—and here’s something I don’t normally say—I was really bothered by the female characters in this. The first one we’re introduced to, Niki, is a woman who strips for a living and is having problems with loan sharks; think Vivica A. Fox in Independence Day, except paler, both in complexion and force of personality. We meet her as she’s slowly pulling off her top for the benefit of a video camera. The other main female character is also introduced as she’s being filmed, and while I get that this is a transitioning device meant to link them together, I immediately flashed back to my freshman film course and all that talk about the “male gaze” and the objectification of women. At the time, I thought it was mostly pretty stupid, but I really felt what Linda Williams et. al. were getting at, watching this show. The two main female characters are a stripper and a cheerleader. The men are academics, nurses, politicians, artists… This pisses me off.
But you know, I’d be willing to let it slide (for NOW) if something interesting actually happened. Maybe eventually it will. But not in hour one. And I’m still waiting for Greg Grunberg to show up.
Also, guys? The everyone-is-connected-in-some-vague-way thing is so VERY Lost. Thanks.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
You don’t know how much I really, REALLY want to like this show. Matthew Perry was my favorite part of Friends, Bradley Whitford was my favorite part of The West Wing, and I had to spend a large portion of my day yesterday staring at large, high res photos of the two of them gazing at each other lovingly. So I WANT to like it. And I know that Aaron Sorkin is capable of delivering the goods.
But the pilot was limp, man. It showed signs of classic pilotitis: waaaaaaaay too much exposition, and just general slowness and stiffness. And yet, I still don’t feel that I have a very good idea who anyone is. All of the characters felt really flat to me. Bradley Whitford has some sort of drug problem, and Matthew Perry has foot-in-mouth problems; Amanda Peet is too good to be true (and is really rather creepy, IMO), Steven Weber is a dick, and Sarah Paulson (who, if she’s likewise creeping you out by being really, really familiar looking, was briefly in Serenity, as well as The Other Sister with—score!—Joe Flanigan) is like a BIG Christian, omg. But these are just labels; I got no sense—at all—of who these people are. I didn’t even really sense why Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford like each other, aside from, you know, why wouldn’t they like each other? But if they’re supposed to be best buds and work partners who touch each other’s necks in an ALARMINGLY non-heterosexual manner, can we get a little sense of their history, please?
And yeah, I know. It’s just the pilot. But it felt so slow. Where was that Sorkin snap?
Unlike Heroes, however, which I still haven’t made up my mind about, this I am definitely giving another shot come fall. It’s Perry! Whitford! Sorkin! How can I not?
Ugly Betty
ABC can’t seem to decide whether this show is called Betty the Ugly or Ugly Betty, but the latest release says Ugly Betty so I’m switching back to that. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The publicity materials are just awful: lots of photos of America Ferrera, who is gorgeous if not of the typical anorexic Hollywood body type (her first film was Real Women Have Curves), wearing bad glasses and bad clothes and huge braces, while her hair of course is perfect and more lustrous than mine has ever been, EVER. I feared the She’s All That (which we’re all going to pretend I didn’t actually see) gimmick of a beautiful girl who nobody knows is beautiful because she wears glasses! And overalls! And her hair’s in a ponytail! And then omg gasp, she really IS pretty, after all!
Well, the bad glasses, the bad clothes, and the seriously painful-looking braces are all present in the show, but it’s less bad when Ferrera is moving around and being a real person under them. And, I don’t know, the show is just fun. It’s based on a Columbian telenovela, and it’s kept a lot of the feel of one: everything’s a bit over the top, and there’s possibly a faked death and other wackiness. And. AND. I am a big sucker for the type of character who’s played in Ugly Betty by Eric Mabius (who was also in Eyes, which starred my cousin Tim Daly, who was also in Wings with Steven Weber [see Studio 60, above] and who has his own show coming out this fall, The Nine, and omg, the whole fall schedule is like a spinning vortex of Cousin Timmy!). Mabius plays Daniel Meade, the playboy son of a magazine magnet, and Betty’s new boss. And you just know that even though Daniel’s currently screwing models left and right, he is going to be charmed by Betty, and she’s going to help him be a better person, and they’re going to have a lot of awkward-surprised sexual tension, and when it’s done well, I LOVE that kind of story. I can’t imagine why. *awkwardly pushes own bad glasses up nose*
So anyway, this could be promising. It’s on Fridays at eight, though, so if SG-1 does get pushed back down, Betty may get the axe from my personal schedule. (Oh, man. I can’t believe I haven’t actually made a chart yet! Must get on that.)
Vanished
The only reason I care about this at all is that it has Gale Harold in it. I wants me some network telly Brian Kinney. And network telly apparently makes Brian Kinney an FBI agent named Graham. Graham has angst because he was involved in a hostage negotiation where a little kid got exploded and had his guts splattered all over
Anyway, the point is, some senator’s wife has gone missing—you could say she’s…VANISHED!—and it’s Graham’s job to track her down, along with Ming-Na and some other people who weren’t very memorable. Whatever. I have to admit that this really isn’t my kind of show. I may watch it again, just for the pretty (and Gale Harold is very, very pretty), but not if Mimi Leder doesn’t back away from the zoom, MY GOD MIMI, WE GET THAT THE CAMERA CAN MAKE ALL KINDS OF CRAZY MOTIONS AND GET REALLY REALLY CLOSE TO PEOPLE’S LIPS BUT STOP IT NOW BEFORE YOU DAMAGE SOMETHING, LIKE MY NECK. Yeesh.
Anyway, feel free to ask me any questions, and I’ll try to answer as best I can. Tonight I’m going to watch The Nine for Cousin Timmy, and probably some other things. Stay tuned!
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And the connections thing..wait until you see 6 degrees from JJ Abrams..guess what it's about. *smile*
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And yeah, I know. It’s just the pilot. But it felt so slow. Where was that Sorkin snap?
Hmmm.. maybe 'cause he hasn't been writing for TV (as far as I know..) for almost 3 years. Need to get back into the swing of things and such.
When the hell was Studio 60 even on? I meant to watch it, cause I love me Sorkin but i'm woefully behind on my TV watching.
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P.S. Gale Harold is on a new show? Hubba hubba! What channel was Vanished on and at what time?!
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Oh, well, hey! That works for me because it means I didn't miss nothin'.
I heart me Bradley Whitford. I lost my Josh icon though.. *searches for it*
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On "Heroes": I'm a lot more excited than you are and that's partly because I'm already staking my claim in the fandom (posting to the forums and everything), but also because I think we got a different sense of the characters, particularly the female ones. I think you're right that the camera is meant to link the two, and I also get what you're saying about the male gaze, but sometimes you establish that in order to subvert it. Buffy was a cheerleader and that didn't make her any more of a submissive female character. As long as the characters step out of these roles, I don't see a problem here. Also, let's not forget Simone, the woman whose father is dying. Sure, she hasn't done anything all that interesting yet, but I'm pretty sure she's not a stripper or cheerleader. So there's that.
FYI, they're screening an extended 72-minute pilot at Comic-Con. No time for Greg Grunberg in the one we watched, I guess. But yeah, a definite case of pilotitis, just not enough to make me less excited about the show.
On "Studio 60": Surprisingly dry. I mean, having recently rewatched the pilot for "Sports Night," I realize that Sorkin doesn't always get it right on his first try. With "Sports Night," the humor was all over the place and never actually that funny, there was way too much exposition, and an ending tried and failed to tug at your heartstrings. But as soon as the show got its footing, it was great. So I'm hopeful for "Studio 60," but I don't know. That pilot didn't have a whole lot going for it. Oh well. Let's give it a try and see what happens.
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Meanwhile, given that we are currently airing season 4 of the West Wing over here in Australia (after the national broadcaster took it off one of the commercial stations), I am not holding out much hope for Studio 60 to air here before, oh, 2010 at the earliest. Probably later. On the upside, at least I'll know if it hit its stride by then...
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Hahahahahaha. See, and that's why, even with the potential for a less-than-snappy pilot, I know I will be watching this show.
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Besides, I refuse to belive that the Combined Powers of Whitford, Perry, and Sorkin doesn't permeate the show with awesome.
*lalalalala!*
As for "cousin who was in Eyes," ZOMG, that is so cool! I liked that show, and was even maybe starting to get really attached when it got cancelled. *sporks ABC* I swear, they're almost as bad as FOX.
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who touch each other’s necks in an ALARMINGLY non-heterosexual manner
Yeah, that's all the reason I need. +lol+
And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just the pilot which is kinda meh and not the whole show.
I'm still very much in touch with some people from the Friends-fandom and they all have very low expectations regarding Studio 60. They expect it to suck, just like Joey with Matt LeBlanc did and just like Comeback with Lisa Kudrow did. And I keep telling them, that no, it won't suck. Because it's Sorkins new show and it has Bradley Whitford and it's going to be awesome! And I really really want to be right about it! +g+ ... But the only answer I get is: 'Who is Sorkin?' and 'Do I know this Bradley Whitford-guy?' ... meh!
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However, in more awesome news, your package arrived today! I'ma make myself some tea and then sit down to the enjoyment of new SGA. BLESS YOU.
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And you know what you should do to satisfy your Studio 60 needs? Come to Ameeeeerrricaaaaa! Or something.
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I will be sure to put that down on my visa application. "Reason for emigrating to the States: so that I may harbour lustful thoughts for sexually ambiguous guys on tv shows?" I think it would work!
SG:A will still be showing when I get over there, right? It won't be on one of your weird hiatus things? Because it would be awesome to actually get to see an episode as it actually airs! And with fannish people again! It is very lonely. :/
Also also! I am typing this on McKay! They replaced his logic-board. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, he seems to be working. *pets iBook carefully*
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I am so glad McKay is better...faster...stronger! I hope he works perfectly, from now on and forever after.
I feel really crappy today. I don't know why. Work on that visa application quickly, dammit!
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I am crossing my fingers that McKay stays healthy. I'm still holding my breath every time I turn him on, of course. But omg. *cuddles laptop*
Aww, honey. *hugs* For you, I shall work faster on the writing of the porn!
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*clings to you* I feel distraught for no reason at all. I can't write the silly crack fic I was trying to write or actually, you know, do my job. But porn always helps!
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I am also feeling the lack of creative drive at the moment. I'm staring at the text file and at Photoshop and feeling thoroughly blah.
Oh, and guess what I've discovered since my last comment? I was wondering why the computer was rocking slightly beneath me, even though the table wasn't rocking. When they reassembled the computer, they didn't put the casing back on right. It's not flush, and now I can see back inside it. askksafdh FUCK YOU TOO APPLE.
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Also, next weekend, I might be in a place with free wifi, so I might be able to get 3.03 there. *crosses fingers*
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The only time I've really felt that that gimmick worked was in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the main character actually looks painfully plain until the makeover. *g*