Thu, November 20, 2003

Holy precipitating cancellation, Batman! Have we really already reached November sweeps and I still haven't spilled the dish on all the new fall series? I have brought shame upon my entire family.

Well, the good news is, you haven't missed anything. If you followed my early advice and took a look at Joan of Arcadia and Karen Sisco, then you're fine. In fact, if I had to make a list of the best shows you're likely not watching, it would be Joan, Karen, and CBS's sophomore sitcom Still Standing which airs Monday nights before Raymond.

Anyway, if you're wondering what "those people" are watching, here are some possibilities:

Jake 2.0

(UPN, 9:00 Wednesdays)

Yeah, I said UPN. Jake is about a guy who gains super-powers as a result of an accident in a nanotechnology lab. I could swear I had already written about this, but after a hard-target search of my site I couldn't find it, so here goes. (And how depressing is it that I'm actually writing gems like this on little slips of paper and then losing them? Wah!) Jake is cut with some shattered glass and a bunch of the nanotech robots enter his bloodstream via the wound. Then, he goes home, falls into bed, and undergoes a night of fitful sleep, awaking to discover his new powers and start testing them out in his bedroom, breaking many things. After Spider-Man and Hulk, isn't it time to come up with a new hackneyed sequence for "superhero genesis?" Why does it always require the fitful sleep? Whatever happened to "[Zap!] Oh, hey, whoa! I just acquired some new powers!" It's like the zipping-through- lightning-bolts part of time travel – shouldn't such a thing be instantaneous? Jake 2.0 clearly applies the familiar nap-and-hatch technique because the show thinks we're very, very stupid. For example, every time he uses one of his super powers, we're subjected to his inevitable squinting, followed by a sloppy 3D whoosh-through of whatever power he's using. Especially when he wirelessly interfaces with any electronic item (forget for a moment how impossible this would be no matter what he's got in him); the virtual camera must zip into the electronic thingy, whoosh around inside, and show some animated zaps wherever his magic is influencing the traffic light to change or the security door to open. Uh, yeah. We get it. Aside from these things, the show has a fairly interesting concept. But it fails to make sense a lot of the time, because it's focusing more on teen cuties and action and less on logic. There are better shows to watch with less interesting concepts.

Cold Case

(CBS, 8:00 Sundays)

Bruckheimer TV! You can run but you can't hide! They're televising it! And chances are better than average that it has cops in it! Cold Case tells the story of Lilly Rush, a Philadelphia detective who focuses on unsolved cases from the past. It provides an excuse to have grainy Ektachrome footage of people in 1970s-era dress. It also serves as a flimsy justification for transitions. "Transitions" (those between scenes) are the new way to "brand" your TV drama. (Seriously, I saw a panel on this at the DGA. This is the kind of thing TV producers are thinking about when they should be making great television with all the money networks are throwing at them.) So, as Without a Trace has its ghostly dissolves between a flashback scene and the witness who's recounting it to the agents, or Las Vegas has its bubble-bloop dive through the security monitor and into the casino, Cold Case has its in-scene flashbacks to the character's younger self. While Lilly is interviewing a witness whom we've seen in a grainy flashback clip, we'll get a quick burst of the flashback character standing in front of her. At first, this seemed to be Lilly's "mindscreen." She was visualizing people this way because she was "getting her head" back to the period of the crime. But then we started seeing younger versions of people whom she had never seen in early pictures. How would she know what they looked like then? So, I guess it's there to remind us who everyone is; another show assuming we're very dense. Along with that, each episode ends with a suspect being led away in handcuffs while everybody else from the episode manages to show up and watch. So we get to see each of them flashed back, while a "ghost" of the original victim looks on, also in flashback form. (How would we know what they'd look like today? Other than rotten and gooey?) Which is good if you're recording the show because you can have TiVo stop at 8:52. The rest is just the flashback parade. Cold Case probably feels compelled to amp up the flashbacks because the "past" angle is its "hook," separating it from all the other generic detective shows on the air today. There are so many! And most, like this one, have very little to offer. Lilly doesn't make a lot of sense, and so far none of the supporting characters has been developed. If you want a detective show, watch Without a Trace. It may not be perfect, but it's leagues ahead of Cold Case. And it's still Bruckheimer, so you'll get your RDA!

Las Vegas

(NBC, 9:00 Mondays)

James Caan is Ed Deline, a former CIA operative who now heads security at the Montecito resort and casino in Las Vegas in Las Vegas, a show which mixes caper-type intrigue with sexy attitude and ends up with a fairly satisfying product. I enjoy Las Vegas for the card games, but the glitz and glamour have never appealed to me all that much because for someone who operates at my level, it's merely bright lights and costume jewelry. The real glitz and glamour is reserved for high rollers (or, as the Montecito staff refer to them, "whales") – visitors who get "comped" (free accommodations; this show is very educational – there's even a "slang" section on its website) and receive private staffs who cater to their every whim. Las Vegas definitely makes it seem fun to be a whale. And it also makes it seem really fun to work on the security staff. It appears to be very similar to operating the rides at Disneyland – you work anonymously behind the scenes, have control over everything, and get to skip to the front of all the lines. You also get to wear a little earpiece, which is cool, and you can see every corner of the casino on various closed-circuit TV monitors. Also, everything operates 24/7 and moves Vegas-fast, so there's constant activity. The intrigue is provided by the fact that the Montecito is preyed upon by various swindlers on a regular basis, sort of the anti-Ocean's Eleven – the lead character's best friend was murdered in the pilot, but that plot has kind of fizzled out – and Nikki Cox, Molly Sims, Vanessa Marcil, and Marsha Thomason do very good work providing the sexy sizzle. Las Vegas brings new levels of meaning to "inconsequential," and was therefore removed from my list after three episodes, but now it's back, because watching it is like watching Terminator 3 – you know it's pointless and empty, but for the hour it's on it's a lot of fun.

Miss Match

(NBC, 9:00 Fridays)

Originally, Miss Match debuted at 8:00, but it moved to 9:00 after a couple of weeks in order to avoid head-to-head competition with Joan of Arcadia. Go Joan! I wasn't looking forward to Miss Match very much before it aired, so I didn't give it much of a chance, but it really grows on you. It's got a peppy, perky style which goes along with the romance angle without making either one tiresome. The opening title sequence is positively adorable – as well as brilliantly designed – and its custom-written Macy Gray song is very catchy. It's probably the only title sequence this season that I've never fast-forwarded through. (And I usually watch Miss Match in three-hour marathons on weekends!) It's indicative of the show's impressively maintained tone, for which I credit Darren Star. I didn't like Sex and the City a whole lot, but I was able to watch it when others forced me to, and I think the playful, upbeat tone was a big part of that. Alicia Silverstone is well cast – I had lost interest in her work after her first few follow-ups to Clueless were not so great; it turns out that as long as she's playing the Clueless role, she's great! Miss Match is fun to watch, and you know that depression at the end of each episode – when you realize that it's just a fantasy and meeting people in Los Angeles is still brutally difficult? That wears off pretty quickly, too.

Karen Sisco

(ABC, 10:00 Wednesdays)

I really liked Out of Sight and I really liked Jennifer Lopez as Karen Sisco in Out of Sight. Whether you agree or disagree, you can still enjoy Carla Gugino as Karen Sisco in Karen Sisco. She and Robert Forster seamlessly inhabit the characters originated by J.Lo and the inimitable Dennis Farina, and even improve on their father-daughter relationship, which forges one of the show's main threads. I don't have anything against police shows, but with so many going right now, it helps to have something unique to offer. Karen Sisco's adopted Elmore Leonard style and the crackling interplay between Gugino and Forster make it fun to watch. (And it featured a multi-episode guest appearance by Gary Cole which made for a fun double whammy with West Wing in the 9:00 slot. This is truly the Year of the Cole!) Sisco also features something I really admire in a TV drama: hanging up the phone. Miss Match and Las Vegas are also good at this, but Karen Sisco really runs away with it. Karen can bark "Call you later" into her cell phone as she's closing it and her dad totally rolls with it. I suppose it indicates something weak and insecure about my character, but I'm terrible at goodbyes. Especially on the phone. It always takes two or three times around. "Sounds good." "Okay." "Talk to you later." "Bye." At times, it's comically bad, where I have to find something to say "in closing" before I can get there. "Well, if I don't talk to you, have a safe trip." or "I hope you feel better." or "Good luck with that grand jury hearing." I look up to Karen Sisco's ability to fit it all into ten seconds: BRING! "Sisco. Yeah. Got it. Gotta go." CLICK. I wish I could do that.

***

Boomtown has been removed from NBC's website, so I guess its cancellation is more or less official. How sad. My source at the studio said the team was shooting as recently as last week, meaning that either NBC strung them along much more than usual, or the producers are serious about their denial. Anyway, so long to another of TV's better dramas; let's hope for exciting new things from Neal McDonough now that his schedule has some openings.

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