Wed, September 21, 2011

God damn Ken Tucker. Damn him straight to hell. This is the second year in a row I've let him get into my head and mess up my expectations for the new fall season. Last year, when he put Hawaii Five-O in his "top picks" of the "Entertainment Weekly" fall TV preview, I thought maybe that meant it was going to be a good show, instead of a tired, pat rehash of TV detective tropes with a little bikini eye candy thrown in. And, as much as I love bikini eye candy, the show was preposterously terrible. This time around, with my confidence already shaky about Hank Azaria's Free Agents, I allowed myself to expect less from it after it missed Tucker's "top" "hot" "five" picks. Turns out, the show is really quite good, and shows signs of being excellent, and now I look like a dope who didn't believe in Hank Azaria because I didn't give it more stars in my pre-premiere rating system.

(Also, in case you were wondering whether Tucker had an iota of credibility left, I can tell you – since this column is so long overdue that I've watched shows that are technically "in the future" from its perspective – that another of his "five best new shows", 2 Broke Girls, is an absolute blight on the TV landscape and one of the most offensively awful shows I've seen in years.)

I extend my apologies to Mr. Azaria, who is an underappreciated comedy genius, and I vow to base future show ratings on my own instincts and whims alone – after all, that's what you came for. You can get the moronic whims of critics like Ken Tucker from any number of sources.

Ringer

CW, Tuesdays at 9:00

Whoever directed this first episode is fresh out of film school with a major in Overwrought Visual Metaphors. The premise of the show is that Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a pair of twin sisters (with considerably less skill than Hayley Mills or even Lindsay Lohan, but I think history has taught us to expect relatively little from Gellar when uncoupled from Joss Whedon). During the course of the hour, there are no less than half a dozen lingering shots of Gellar staring at herself in a mirror, clumsily underscoring the seemingly self-evident concept of what an identical twin is. In one hideous (but technically impressive) shot, the Gellars are face to face in a hall of mirrors, with infinite Gellars regressing to the vanishing point on both sides. Even with today's computers, it took a fair amount of effort to achieve this shot, and considering how hacky and ugly it is, it's hard to guess why.

In the show, one of the Gellars is on the run from mafia assassins and ends up assuming the other's identity subsequent to her disappearance during a random boat trip. By the end of the episode, it's clear that the disappearance was planned all along, and that she's been set up by her own sister (who is possibly plotting to assassinate her as a way of faking her own death). If you think I've restated this too confusingly, be glad you didn't watch Ringer. In the middle of this, of course, is the Regarding Henry/Samantha Who? scenario in which our Gellar discovers that her sister was a conniving, adulterous bitch, and goes about trying to improve her moral standing while acting as her surrogate. One assumes they have written more than three episodes, but it's kind of hard to imagine where this is going to go. While trying to unravel her sister's scheme and evade the killers who are chasing after Gellars from both sides of the amnion, is she going to have time to mend fences with the best friend whose husband her sister was sleeping with?

As much as I didn't like Lost by the end of the second season, there's something to be said for parceling out the intrigue a little at a time over the first few shows. Ringer crowds it all into one episode, resulting in a tiring mishmash that leaves plenty of questions, but very little interest in waiting around for the answers. Unless they have an episode where the Sarah Michelle Gellars make out with each other, á la Cruel Intentions, I doubt I'll watch more of this show.

Up All Night

NBC, Wednesdays at 8:00

When Modern Family premieres this week, it will represent a full 75% of the Married... With Children ensemble still working steady jobs in television. That's kind of astonishing, when you think about it.

Regardless, I had high expectations for comedic quality here, based on Will Arnett and Christina Applegate, who collectively are almost never not funny. The premise seemed like a fairly simple one, to me. New parents, struggling to adjust their lives to the responsibilities children bring with them. This was before I found out that Applegate's character works for an Oprah-styled talk show maven played by Maya Rudolph, who is for all intents and purposes a female Tracy Jordan character to exasperate Applegate to her breaking point (while charming her just enough that she doesn't simply quit in a huff). This makes the show less about the simple and universally relatable identity shift from independent, self-centered adult to responsible, child-focused parent, and more about the balancing act between two needy children: one talk-show star and one infant. (Plus a third, if you count Arnett's emotionally immature, video-game-addicted husband.) This wears thin quickly, especially when the comedic story lines quick enough to fit in the remaining space are overused ones like partying late and being too hung over to wake up with your baby in the middle of the night. Arnett and Applegate are pretty funny, but the show suffers from a serious pacing problem: too many of their exchanges are drawn out and sluggish – probably a much more realistic depiction of witty banter than most shows, but still, TV comedy conventions are what they are, and we've grown to expect a certain swiftness in the repartee.

Free Agents

NBC, Wednesdays at 8:30

A swiftness that is present, for example, in Free Agents, which casts Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, The Birdcage) and Kathryn Hahn (The Goods, Step Brothers) as co-workers who have such a close friendship that they find themselves frequently falling into bed together. Azaria, whose character is newly divorced, masterfully pulls off pitiful and depressed without sacrificing charm and likability, and Hahn is considerably more understated than I've seen her in other roles, which is a nice fit for this part. The supporting cast (including Joe Lo Truglio, Al Madrigal, and Anthony Stewart Head) is very entertaining as well, but the difference between the two shows is probably best explained by their creators: Up All Night was created by Emily Spivey of SNL, while Free Agents was adapted for American TV by John Enbom, who co-created and ran Party Down, the most hilarious TV show most people have never heard of.

The Abominable Ken Tucker praised 2 Broke Girls for offering a counterpoint to "new shows whose high concepts leave me wondering what the hell they're going to do for more than two episodes". It's an issue I see with new comedies every season (though, oddly, not many this season), and a problem I'd argue Free Agents is solving with considerably better story and characters. You have an office, you have friends, and you have a will-they/won't-they without most of the tiresome jockeying because they already did, they just keep trying to stop (I suppose this makes it more of a won't-they/will-they). It's not at all difficult to imagine a fourth season episode of this show (whether or not NBC keeps it on the air that long is a much tougher guess). It may not be the perfect comedy, but it has the potential to become something pretty great, and it capitalizes on Hank Azaria's talents better than anything we've seen since Huff.

The Secret Circle

CW, Thursdays at 9:00

It should come as no surprise to you that at least one new CW show is an exploration of teenage melodrama and lonely outsiderhood, including a supernatural element. Like reality TV, this is probably going to continue being a thing until Congress steps in and does something about it. In fact, here's what I wrote about The Vampire Diaries two years ago – nothing has changed:

The CW version of teenagerhood is a homework-free, obligation-free non-stop social engagement revolving around the anguish and tribulation of one self-reliant yet vulnerable heart-faced girl and the hunky dude she pines for.

This time, the girl falls in with a coven of teenaged witches, but they may as well be vampires or werewolves or anything else. The basic story is the same – a small town in the Pacific Northwest with vistas not too different from Vancouver's, in which some high school kids with magic powers are in a battle between good and evil. In this case, "good" is "kind of keeping witchcraft to yourselves" and "evil" is "conjuring a rain storm".

There is a bright spot in Brittany Robertson, who plays our heroine Cassie, the newly orphaned witch who moves to town and is forced to learn about powers she never knew she had. (There's some generational turmoil about lineages of witches, which needn't interest you except that at one point it's said that all of the town's witches have only come from the same families as these kids, but it's also made clear that there are only ever six witches from any generation – any way you slice that, it seems to point to a lot of inbreeding.) Robertson isn't perfect, but she's ahead of the rest of the cast (and most CW teen hotties) in her ability to put forth a confident, fairly authentic performance that leaves aside the bland, automatic delivery of many similar shows. She favors a subtle eyebrow twitch instead of any self-pitying wailing or as-if bitchiness.

Not that that makes a show, mind you. (Mainly, it just makes my job a tiny bit less tedious – watching The Vampire Diaries provided no such silver lining.) Not even the fetching Natasha Henstridge makes it a show. I don't know what it would take to make a show like this worth watching, but I think it would be a great start if they put forth a version of witchcraft that included more than whipping up thunderstorms or making light bulbs go on and off.

Premiering This Week

2 Broke Girls: CBS, Monday at 9:30
The Playboy Club: NBC, Monday at 10:00
New Girl: Fox, Tuesday at 9:00
Unforgettable: CBS, Tuesday at 10:00
Revenge: ABC, Wednesday at 10:00
Charlie's Angels: ABC, Thursday at 8:00
Person of Interest: CBS, Thursday at 9:00
Whitney: NBC, Thursday at 9:30
Prime Suspect: NBC, Thursday at 10:00
A Gifted Man: CBS, Friday at 8:00
Pan Am: ABC, Sunday at 10:00

Returning This Week

How I Met Your Mother: CBS, Monday at 8:00
Castle: ABC, Monday at 10:00
Raising Hope: Fox, Tuesday at 9:30
Body of Proof: ABC, Tuesday at 10:00
Modern Family: ABC, Wednesday at 9:00
Harry's Law: NBC, Wednesday at 9:00
CSI: CBS, Wednesday at 10:00
Community: NBC, Thursday at 8:00
Parks and Recreation: NBC, Thursday at 8:30
The Office: NBC, Thursday at 9:00
The Mentalist: CBS, Thursday at 10:00
The Amazing Race: CBS, Sunday at 8:00
Family Guy: Fox, Sunday at 9:00
The Good Wife: CBS, Sunday at 9:00

Also New This Week

Dancing with the Stars: ABC, Monday at 8:00
The Sing-Off: NBC, Monday at 8:00
Two and a Half Men: CBS, Monday at 9:00
Hawaii Five-O: CBS, Monday at 10:00
The Biggest Loser: NBC, Tuesday at 8:00
Glee: Fox, Tuesday at 8:00
NCIS: CBS, Tuesday at 8:00
NCIS: Los Angeles: CBS, Tuesday at 9:00
The Middle: ABC, Wednesday at 8:00
The X Factor: Fox, Wednesday at 8:00
Criminal Minds: CBS, Wednesday at 9:00
Law & Order: SVU: NBC, Wednesday at 10:00
The Big Bang Theory: CBS, Thursday at 8:00
Grey's Anatomy: ABC, Thursday at 9:00
Kitchen Nightmares: Fox, Friday at 8:00
Nikita: CW, Friday at 8:00
CSI: NY: CBS, Friday at 9:00
Dateline NBC: NBC, Friday at 9:00
Fringe: Fox, Friday at 9:00
Supernatural: CW, Friday at 9:00
Blue Bloods: CBS, Friday at 10:00
Saturday Night Live: NBC, Saturday at 11:30
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: ABC, Sunday at 7:00
The Simpsons: Fox, Sunday at 8:00
The Cleveland Show: Fox, Sunday at 8:30
Boardwalk Empire: HBO, Sunday at 9:00
Desperate Housewives: ABC, Sunday at 9:00
American Dad: Fox, Sunday at 9:30
CSI: Miami: CBS, Sunday at 10:00

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