Anywho, Sunday may be the dumping ground for 80% of the shows I watch in the summer, but it's not the only night. A lot of new shows have come down the pike lately and I've simply been too busy or lazy to review them here.
As such, here's the short, short version (which, let's face it, is the model you've all been wishing to hell I'd stick to in the first place). These reviews might not be the most timely, but at least it means I've had a few weeks to weed out the winners and losers. I'm going to skimp on details and descriptions because presumably, everyone is at least familiar with these shows by now in basic terms.
SUITS
I'm actually really enjoying this one so far. The pilot was solid and engaging and episode two was even better than the first. It's a legal show about an experienced lawyer who takes on a genius as his ward, basically, to form a super-duo legal team. That makes it sound awful, but it really
wasn't. I wouldn't say it's appointment TV for me yet, but it could certainly get there. It's not quite as procedural as I suspected it would be, so that's a coup, and the characters are interesting enough to keep me coming back. In a strange twist for me, I'm really enjoying Gabriel Macht as slick, wealthy, masculine attorney Harvey. Not generally the kind of character I gravitate toward, but he has a very straight-forward, no-nonsense swagger that I find really appealing. He's a smooth operator who knows how to get what he wants, but he's not a dick about it. The claws come out when necessary, but even then, he's very calm and collected about it. His foil and plot generator Mike is extremely likable in spite of his eidetic memory. It has become par for the course for procedurals to employ a super-genius who can process knowledge faster than anyone else and recall facts with near preternatural speed and accuracy, so on the surface, I was leaning toward a groan at this particular MacGuffin, but Suits does it in a creative and non-annoying way. Mike is brilliant, to be sure, but he's also a pot-smoking train wreck who is the first to admit that he doesn't know the first thing about being a lawyer. He screws up, he gets played, he makes a fool of himself. He's not some omniscient, infallible demi-god like Patrick Jane who knows everything, can do no wrong, and never needs any help from anyone. The pair of them have great chemistry together (as is required by the brass at USA, last I checked), and they make for a charming pair. The main problem with the show so far is that they don't quite know what to do with the supporting cast yet. At this point, there's a weasel-y bad guy and three women, all of whom pop up when needed, then slink back into the shadows until one of the leads needs something. The lovely, Whedon-fabulous Gina Torres seems particularly wasted so far. The few minutes she has on screen are excellent, but so far, she just hasn't had a whole lot to do. Hopefully, after the show establishes its universe more fully and fine-tunes the dynamic between the leads, there will be more time and attention paid to the supporting cast. Until then, the two leads have enough charisma to keep me coming back. It's a legal show, but it dips its does outside the mold often enough to keep me engaged.Show Grade (thus far): B+
NECESSARY ROUGHNESS
On the other side of the USA spectrum, we have Necessary Roughness which equates to Unnecessary Programming. I like Callie Thorne quite a lot, but not here. She plays a psychologist who helps athletes overcome their emotional problems in order to be better players. That makes it sound almost as awful as it was. I barely made it through
the pilot, peeps. Aside from the base concept leaving much to be desired, Thorne's character is almost universally unlikable, as are all the other characters on the show. The only bright spot is Scott Cohen (who played Max Medina on Gilmore Girls, for those of you playing the home game) who is always delightful. He has rather unfortunately gotten sucked into a truly terrible show, however, so when I saw him on screen, it was a brief moment of happy followed by a sad grumble for his career. With most USA shows, I'm happy to give them a few episodes to grow on me, but this one? Not a chance. I ended up fast-forwarding through parts of the pilot and even then, it felt like it was about 3 hours long. Painfully boring, annoying, and overall lame, I will not be giving this sucker another shot. I knew I was in for trouble when I learned that Marc Blucas was on board. Even worse? He's not even the most unlikable person on the show. Yikes. Let's just say, when picking Whedonverse alums, Suits did a masterful job and Necessary Roughness must have been pretty drunk at the time. Zoe vs. Riley? We have a winner, and it ain't Buffy's military boytoy who someone managed to suck the life out of every scene he was ever in. Seriously, why were they wasting time killing vampires when there were pernicious Rileys running around boring people death? Priorities, people. (Speaking of the bottom of the barrel, why yes, yes that is Eggs from True Blood.)Show Grade (thus far): F
FALLING SKIES
Over on TNT, Dr. Carter has made his return to television as Tom, a history professor and father of three who is trying to survive an Independence Day-ish invasion from aliens who have killed 90% of humanity and enslaved a lot of the rest. He and a band of resistance fighters are trying to save the planet, but are struggling hardcore. The pilot was a two-hour event and let me just say, it's a good thing they tacked on the second hour because the
first hour was unbearably boring. Good lord I was bored! It was basically spent watching random groups of people walking from place to place. The few moments of action fell pretty flat as well. Indeed, the only character whose fate I worried about was the alien. I'm guessing that's not what TNT had in mind. I took a few days off and then finally dove into the second half of the pilot and was very pleased to find that it was considerably better than the first half. A lot more exciting and a lot less cheesy, the second half managed to set up a situation that got me invested to a certain extent. The following episode was even better, although the show still has a lot of problems. First and foremost, I still don't really care about any of these characters. They've done a very poor job establishing these people in a way that makes the audience really invest and when you don't care about the characters, you don't care if they get incinerated by aliens. Having seen a few episodes, I'm finally starting to care and subsequently, I'm finally getting into the narrative as a whole. There are some pretty silly elements, but overall, the production value is solid and they've done a serviceable job setting up this new reality. I'm not exactly chomping at the bit week to week, but in terms of concept, Falling Skies has done a far better job than its predecessors in making this storyline work. I can see where they're headed and why. They have a lot of work to do before I'm really invested, but I can see some real potential down the road. I'm getting more and more into as the show Goes on and I'm hopeful that at some point, it'll be appointment TV. The addition of Steven Weber has already done wonders for the dynamic of the show, so with any luck, that trend will continue.Show Grade (thus far): C+
SWITCHED AT BIRTH
Not that I really expected more from ABC Family, but Switched at Birth is unbelievably painful to watch. It's kind of like a car accident that you can't look away from, but a really self-righteous, preachy car accident. To describe the show would take ages because they've thrown every possible plot device into one show, then added the deaf community.
Long story short, it's the tale of two girls, switched at birth, one of whom grew up as a rich girl from a snooty family and the other grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and who went deaf at the age of three. I endured a few episodes just out of morbid curiosity, but it's just too awful to bear. When the show isn't going on and on about how stupid and narrow-minded the hearing world is when it comes to deaf people, it's exposing class warfare in the most ridiculous of was (seriously, some of the things they have these characters say and do are utterly laughable--I spend the better part of every episode thinking to myself, "Oh my god, that would never happen!"). At the forefront, we have two teenage girls, neither of whom are particularly endearing. The wealthy hearing girl is played by that actress who played Luke's daughter on Gilmore Girls (for those of you still playing the home game) and suffice it to say, she's just as likable now as she was then, if not less so (assuming that's possible). The deaf girl isn't as bad, but that doesn't mean she's all that good either. In short, this show is just one heavy-handed plot device after another, none of which ever really seem to make much sense. I keep telling myself that this show is aimed at tweens and that I shouldn't hold it to a high standard, but then I realize that it's not the standards that are the problem. It's the show. There are more than a few shows out there aimed at younger audiences that are good. This is not one of them. If you're looking at it strictly through the lens of a teen soap, it gets the job done with heaping dollops of ham-fisted drama and forced love triangles, but I need more from a show.Show Grade (thus far): D-
THE NINE LIVES OF CHLOE KING
Also coming down the line from ABC Family, this show is pretty bad, but I'm actually kind of enjoying it on a guilty pleasure level. My brother and I affectionately call it "Cat Girl" and it's completely ridiculous, but it rounds the corner into so bad it's good territory.
The concept is absurd, what with the main girl being from an ancient line of cat people, and they take themselves way too seriously, but it reminds me just enough of other shows that I'm enjoying it in spite of myself. It has a definite Buffy vibe (although without any of the Buffy execution) and it doesn't hold back. It's like it knows that it's ridiculous, but is willing to go with it. For all the bad writing and fundamental problems, the young actors are actually pretty good and the concept, laughable as it may be, fits into my fantasy wheelhouse pretty well. Maybe it's just when stacked up against Switched at Birth that I find it charming in any way shape or form, but this one has turned into my guilty pleasure of the summer. Yes, it's awful, but yes, I keep watching it (if for nothing else than the hilariously bad, low-budget special effects). On the plus side, the show has one of the very few mother-daughter relationships on TV that doesn't make me cringe and the characters genuinely seem to care about each other. Chloe has her scoobies, and her school life, her watchers, and an ancient race of baddies out to get her and that's just Buffy enough that I'm charmed. If only it had Joss Whedon at the helm, I'm sure I'd be in love. As is, it lacks the wit and edge of a Whedonverse production, but for a low commitment flight of fancy, I'm enjoying it well enough. I wouldn't recommend this show to others and I'm embarrassed to admit I'm keeping up with it myself, but if you're looking for an unintentionally funny farce about cat people, look no further.Show Grade (thus far): C-
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