TV Review: Ringer

It seems that every pilot season a couple of shows come down the pike that have similar set-ups. This season, it seems that all the pilots got together and paired off ahead of time, making sure that not only will the show be compared to all the other new shows in a general way, but that they'd be ridiculed in a one-to-one comparison with their doppelganger. Or should I say dead ringer...

To be fair, I honestly don't think the brass behind the CW's new show Ringer or the creative team behind ABC Family's new series The Lying Game had any idea of the other's existence. Indeed, the similarities are more basic than overwhelming, but the conceits are similar enough that each suffers in its own way by comparison.

Ringer stars Sarah Michelle Geller in her return to television, having been conspicuously inconspicuous since Buffy went off the air ages ago. The series revolves around identical twin sisters Bridget and Siobahn, both of whom apparently have a lot more to worry about than some unfortunate split-screening. In a nutshell, Bridget is a screw-up on the run who, after Siobahn seemingly kills herself, assumes her sister's identity in order to evade capture and live the good life. All is not well in the house of Siobahn, however, and Bridget soon realizes that her sister's marriage is a sham, she's having an affair with her friend's husband, and most importantly, that she seems to be in more peril than Bridget ever was. On the surface, the show has more than a little in common with The Lying Game, whose switcheroo also involves sham relationships, torrid affairs, and a heroine hiding from the law, but in terms of tone and ongoing narrative, I think the two shows will separate themselves from one another quickly and thoroughly.

While that sounds like a good thing for the viewers themselves, I think it may cause problems for Ringer in terms of viewership overall. Among other things. I don't want to get too far off on a tangent, but it's impossible to talk about Ringer without talking about the CW as a network and it's rivalry with ABC Family. Okay, rivalry is a bit of a stretch, but when it all boils down, both networks have the same key demographic (younger females), but against all of the CW's expectations, ABC Family is coming out the clear winner. In theory, the CW counts as a network and is available to more homes and should garner higher ratings. In reality, however, ABC Family does far better than the CW in a number of regards, not just in terms of ratings (which, when weighted against the fact that ABC Family is cable, is pretty substantial). This all matters because Ringer appears to be a bit off-brand for the CW, focusing on older characters in an off-puttingly heavy-handed, joyless way, which I don't think will appeal to their key demographic the way that The Lying Game has. Ringer was initially pitched to CBS, but they, quite rightly, passed on it. I actually think in terms of branding it would have fit in at CBS a bit better than the CW (in terms of tone alone, I can see Ringer pairing with CBS' line-up better), but at the end of the day, the pilot simply wasn't very strong and I'm not surprised in the least that it ended up on the red-headed step child of the major networks.

I wanted to love this pilot. I really did. My love for the Whedonverse knows no bounds, and true Buffy fans have been pulling for SMG to make her triumphant return for years. I don't think Ringer marks said return... To be fair, I didn't hate the pilot, but I certainly didn't love it either. How much of that has to do with my love for Buffy is up for debate. My friend Annie, who has no such unyielding devotion hated the pilot. I honestly don't know how I would have found it were I in similar shoes, but I know that Buffy had a lot to do with what enjoyment I felt. Oddly, she also had a lot to do with my major issues with the show.

The base conceit depends on viewers suspending their disbelief to the point of believing that Bridget and Siobahn are two different people, not just Sarah Michelle Geller with slightly different hair and clothes. Much like The Lying Game, the production uses camera tricks and overtly convenient set-ups to try to convince viewers that there are actually two people involved. The difference with Ringer is that the star of the show is an actual star. Being unfamiliar with the lead actress in The Lying Game, it was honestly pretty easy to suspend my disbelief and buy into the gambit that she's really two people. With Buffy? I just didn't buy it. I know her too well and have watched her for too many years to casually and immediately believe that she's two people. I think I could have grown to this point over time, but in its pilot episode, Ringer simply didn't earn it. It didn't establish these two women in a way that I felt like I truly knew either of them, so to see Bridget take over Siobahn's life was neither jarring nor suspenseful. I honestly didn't care if Bridget fooled people. I didn't care that she might be exposed, and didn't feel tense and nervous at the threat that she might make a mistake. In short, I wasn't invested enough in either sister to care that they were both in mortal danger. I'm no executive, but when "mortal danger" is met with "meh" by the viewing audience, you're in trouble. Maybe it's just me, but I really didn't feel the gravity of the situation they were in.

For all its faults, and believe me, there are a lot of them, The Lying Game has proven more successful. A big part of that is the fact that it started airing several weeks ago and was allowed to be the launchpoint rather than the follow-up. This is why you don't want your show to be super-similar to another show. Even if you might have come out okay against other shows en masse ("Well, you can't really compare Ringer to [insert other show here] because they're just so different..."), when stacked up against its twin sister, one is always the victor. The reason The Lying Game works better (which isn't to say it works completely) is that it embraces the silliness of its concept and rolls with it. Even at its most dire, it doesn't take itself too seriously. It seems to know that its a cheesy soap opera more bent on crazy plot twists than on in-depth character development, and knows how to handle that. Ringer, by contrast, seems to be blithely unaware that it's almost painfully overwrought, dour, and sullenly melodramatic, honestly thinking that it's delivering a gripping, cerebral drama. It is not. It's too earnest to really luxuriate in its concept and too soapy to be earnest.

I think the problems with Ringer are mostly found in the execution. If you're going to have a show be this serious and sobering, you have to earn it. Ringer doled out grave conversations, suicide, and moral and ethical issues left and right, shoving a lot of information and heaviness at viewers, but without establishing a world where I'm hit the way I should be by that kind of thing. The split-screening was nowhere near as successful as they were hoping and the production value just wasn't high enough to convince me that any of this is really happening or that any of it really matters. Far and away the worst offense came at a time when I should have been the most grieved and upset. How do you undercut the tragic suicide of Siobahn? Put her on the fakest fake boat to ever sail the ocean blue(screen), complete with, I assume, random production assistants teetering the boat back and forth and splashing Buffy and Buffy's boat with buckets of water. Don't believe me? Take a look. It honestly felt like how a late night talk show would produce the scene. I half expected a rubber fish to hit one of the Buffys in the face. It was ridiculous to the point of being hilariously bad. This is where execution can kill a show (heh). You can't have a show with forced gravitas when the audience is expecting rubber fish at any moment. A show can easily get around poor production values if they know what they're doing, but as the pilot wore on, it became clearer and clearer than the folks behind Ringer might not. Shows like Buffy and Angel and Doctor Who can get away with bad special effects because they've earned it. They infused enough humor and warmth into their shows and forged characters that the audiences loved enough that all was forgiven. You can overlook just about anything if the show has found its way into viewers' hearts. Hell, with a show you really love, you can watch darling characters working with a bare stage and tin can, if need be. You believe the big moments because you believe in the characters. The set might be terrible, the make-up unconvincing, and even the storyline can be weak or convoluted, but the audience has the characters to hang on to. They've earned such concessions from the viewers, sometimes in only a matter of minutes ( I think about how quickly I fell in love with Nurse Jackie and Damon Salvatore that it's hard to argue for more time). Seriously, for beloved shows to be doing this scene, they could just be sitting in a cardboard box that said "BOAT" on the front and you'd be more than happy to go with it. With a show you don't really care about, the fake boat is all you see. With Ringer, I didn't have beloved characters to latch onto, so the other problems were far more glaring than they should have been.

When it all boils down, I think Ringer just played its hand the wrong way. Instead of relishing its concept and needling viewers with tantalizing intrigue, it came across as oppressively, and unconvincingly, serious. I'm all for a serious drama, but this just didn't work very well. It just seemed to be trying so hard all the time. Hell, it even did that annoying beyond annoying thing where the show starts out in the middle of the action then pulls back to "nine days earlier" or some shit. I hate that ploy 9 times out of 10. For every episode that makes it work (there was an episode of Castle and an episode of CSI that both used this trope at its best), you get a pilot that uses that technique as a crutch, not an asset. The pilot opens on Bridget being attacked by an intruder in an unfinished apartment. At that point, I don't know this character and I don't care about her. What I do know is that in her old role, she should be kicking this guy's ass. I've explained my issues with the "three days earlier" trope in the past (not that I can find the link now or anything), but brass tacks, it almost never works for a pilot. And it didn't work for me here.

This review makes the pilot sound unbearably painful to watch, but really, it was just underwhelming. I wanted to love it so much, and just didn't. Maybe my expectations were simply too high. Sarah does as decent a job as she can with weak writing. She can turn on the waterworks like nobody's business, but a gut-wrenching phonecall to her sponsor just isn't all that gut-wrenching when you don't really care about the characters involved. They didn't earn that moment. (In related news, the "they have to earn it" dead horse has officially been beaten.) Bridget's romantic entanglements were hardly as engaging as they should have been and are barely even worth mentioning here. I simply didn't care at this point and I'm not totally sure I want them to in the future.

It's weird. I always say that you have to give a show a few episodes before you can really know if it's worth your time or not. It usually takes a few episodes to really invest in the characters and storylines, so I try not to judge a pilot too harshly on my initial investment alone. But then I think of the pilots that hooked me immediately (Alias, Nurse Jackie, Lone Star) and it's hard to completely dismiss the problems with a show like Ringer. Sure it could grow on me over time the way other shows have, but with this one, I'm a lot less certain than I have been in the past. It's a good cast and most of them made the clunky dialogue work as well as they could, but I there was very little to really invest in. I don't need my characters to be universally likeable (indeed, many of my favorite characters are completely contemptible), but from the pilot alone, I don't feel like I have a bead on anyone. Indeed, Richard Alpert (er, Nestor Carbonell) had the most engaging character and he had one of the smallest roles and random best friend character Gemma was more charming than anyone else on the show. I guess what it really comes down to is that I might not invest in characters right away on a lot of shows, but I want to know more. With Ringer? I'm not so sure.

I'll certainly be giving Ringer a few more episodes to grab me, but I'm not particularly hopeful. While a part of me really did enjoy the ham-fisted melodrama and histrionics (half expecting a 1930's radio announcer to tell me to tune in next time), I'm just not sure Ringer will find its way into my heart. There just wasn't enough balance among the show's elements. All the while I expected the radio announcer, at the same time, the pacing was so slow and the twists so obvious that it hardly merits such a send-up. Perhaps I knew too much about this show going in, but I saw that major twists telegraphed ages prior. The show didn't seem to be able to find a niche and work with it. It's trying to be a sobering drama, a sudsy soap opera, a thriller, and a romance all at once and is suffering as a result. In more capable hands, such a combination is certainly possible, but the writing, production value, and narrative approach here simply weren't strong enough for even the finest of actors to overcome. The pilot had a few nice moments, and some good bones to work with thanks in large part to a talented cast, but those got lost in the shuffle of overly-dramatic narcotics anonymous meeting and the like.

All in all, I'm pretty bummed. This pilot had a lot of things going for it, but didn't follow-through. I'm hoping it turns out to be this season's Vampire Diaries, starting off weak, then picking up steam, but I doubt it. As the pilot for TVD was coming to an end in rather underwhelming fashion, Damon showed up and suddenly I was intrigued. The pilot wasn't great, but I wanted to know more. With Ringer, I feel obligated to know more because of the cast and the promise of Logan Echolls making an appearance, but I'm not chomping at the bit for next week by any stretch. I'm guessing the show will open strong in the ratings department, based on love from the Whedonverse, but unless it really picks up its game and finds its feet, I'm not sure it'll hold up in the long-run. I honestly didn't hate the pilot, in spite of its flaws, but there wasn't a lot to applaud either. It's weird. I watched the whole pilot and wasn't horribly bored or desperate for it to end or anything, seemingly enjoying myself well enough, but at the same time, when I try to express what I liked about it, I can't really come up with much. First and last, I don't really want to get to know Bridget better, and as the main character of the show, that's a problem. We'll see how it goes in the coming weeks, but I'm not sure even my most ardent Whedon allegiance will save this one for me.

Pilot Grade: C-
(seriously, based on this review, you'd think F, but I genuinely didn't hate it, even if I can't come up with much to love about it either--it was just kind of... there)