TV Rants And Raves 2.1.11: You Say Goodbye, And I Say Hello
Posted by Ben Piper on 02.01.2012
Rants and Raves about Kiefer Sutherland's new series Touch, the premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance, the mediocrity of NBC's The Firm, plus a fond goodbye to Chuck and more!
Banner courtesy of Velcronius
Welcome back once again to TV Rants and Raves, I am your host, Ben Piper. Bunch of stuff to talk about and so little time, so let's stop yammering on and get right to it then, shall we?
TV Rants and Raves
Wait, you're not Jack Bauer: Fox debuted its latest new series Touch this past Wednesday night, despite the fact it doesn't start to air regularly until March 19th. Seeing as all the shows I usually watch during that timeframe were repeats, I decided to tune in and check it out.
Kiefer Sutherland stars as Martin Bohm, a 9/11 widower overwhelmed and struggling to care for his autistic mute son Jake. Having given up a prominent career as a hot-shot journalist to ensure more time devoted to his son, he now works as an airport baggage handler. The problem is as his now 11 year old son grows older, he's starting to become unmanageable, sneaking out of the special schools he's been enrolled in and climbing really tall radio towers for some unknowable reason. As a result of these repeated instances, child services gets involved, and a well-meaning social worker strongly suggests that perhaps it would be best for everyone if the son is placed in a full time care facility.
But Jake's affinity for numbers surprisingly bears unexpected fruit the night before he is to begin a two week trial period at said facility. Martin takes this as a sign that his son is attempting to communicate with him somehow, but the social worker pretty much dismisses this as wishful thinking.
However, Martin remains unsure. So after an internet search he find's Danny Glover's ‘expert/professor/exposition' character, that explains that his son has a truly remarkable gift; he has the ability to see all the patterns in the universe, to see past what most people would deem randomness or just plain dumb luck to the interconnectivity between us all as human beings and how all of our lives somehow intersect. Jake's strange fascination with seemingly random series of numbers is in fact his telling his dad the road to take to help others.
At about the same time, Jake first hand demonstrates this ability to the social worker who was at first skeptical, and instantly changes her mind into being a believer.
As this is going on, random subplots taking place all over the world are introduced. A wanna-be lounge singer in Ireland, a baker's son in Iraq, and a business man traveling to the far and mid-east are shown and slowly, each thread is revealed to involve and enhance the other.
There's a rather nifty twist to it all at the end that ties everything together satisfactorily, (even if not entirely believable) that I came away from it thinking ‘you know what? That wasn't half bad'.
Kiefer Sutherland is obviously the anchor of the endeavor, and damn he does some fine work as the beleaguered father that is truly doing his best in the interest of his child, but completely unprepared for all that entails. Here he almost does a complete 180 from our expectations of him, given his previous iconic TV role, while also incorporating elements of that into this new venture. (Cause no one can do running around frantically trying to fix things quite like Sutherland does)
What's weird is that I came away from it with conflicting adjectives to describe it. It's heartfelt and earnest without being cloyingly so, yet emotionally manipulative at the same time. Its scope is refreshingly rich and ambitious, but framing things with a narrative voice-over from the mute kid comes off as a wee bit pretentious.
For myself personally moving forward the X factor in play isn't the high concept, or the actors involved, or even the presentation thus far, because in this first episode I again came away with the knee jerk reaction that I enjoyed it. Hey, yeah. Sure. Why not? Show me more, impress me.
No, my biggest concern is the fact that this is a concoction of Tim Kring. And in case you're not familiar with the name? One word; Heroes.
Yeah, that guy.
Not that you really need me to refresh your memories, as that show was also a very high concept ambitious series that started out great in its first season until it didn't really deliver in that first season finale, and gradually deteriated afterwards until it devolved into a completely unwatchable mess that was finally (and thankfully before it got any worse) cancelled.
In other words, there's no trust on this end. While this first hour was enjoyable, I simply have no faith in the showrunner not to eventually run it off the rails like his previous effort. But that's just me. I hope I'm wrong.
Pretty Soft: When NBC announced plans for a sequel TV series to Tom Cruise's early nineties box office hit The Firm I used it as a question for a Fact or Fiction column. The respondents pretty much both answered the same; "Why?" When the show was set to debut about a month and a half ago, I did so again and got pretty much the same response from a different pair of staffers. This level of complete apathy towards the new series shouldn't come as any surprise. Last week I wrote about Prime Suspect and how while it had struggled in the ratings at least it was still capable of being a very entertaining show. In the same timeslot, The Firm has been getting its ass kicked even worse.
The show picks up ten years after the events of the movie (and yes I know it was a John Grisham book before that, but don't get me off track) as attorney Mitch McDeere (now played by Josh Lucas) and his extended family have emerged from witness protection to take their lives and identities back and start over. The reason behind this is for the big mob boss that eventually got taken down as a result of said events has died, so is no longer a threat looming over their heads, safe to pop back up, right?
So McDeere, his wife and young daughter, his convict turned P.I. brother and his girlfriend who now works as Mitch's secretary start up an independent firm of their own in D.C., only to find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Sure, they have a handful of clients to work for, and some potentially big money cases on their docket, but with a lack of resources and manpower to support them, things look bleak.
So when a colleague who's a partner at a high profile firm offers him a chance to jump on board with his company to the benefit of them both, Mitch is reticent to say the least, given past experiences. Finally he gives in if he's allowed to keep his own offices and personnel and that he only works ‘in affiliation' with this big law firm rather than being sucked up into its corporate entity. They agree so all's good, right?
Yeah, not so much.
First off, that mob boss I spoke about has a son that's taken over the family business and is kinda pissed off about his whole dad going to jail thing, and is looking for revenge in a big way. Not to mention that as part of being a struggling lawyer starting over McDeere got assigned a case as a public defender that the large firm he has now taken up with is not so interested in his services per se, as much as the fact that there are things in that case that were to ever come to light, basically all the execs would wind up in jail.
So, new mob boss out for blood, and also back in bed with another corrupt law firm looking to keep him under their thumb, and if they can't, bad accidents are sure to happen to everyone in his family.
Okay, all of that, taken as a whole, completely stretches every single fiber of plausibility to the nth degree. Because really, either Mitch McDeere is the unluckiest lawyer in the history of the world, or he's a complete f**king moron. And considering that it's been ten years since the movie in terms of the TV show, the character isn't presented nearly as naïve as he was in the movie, he's world weary, perhaps a bit worn down, but he's a smart capable (and perhaps overly idealistic) lawyer in this timeframe.
So in other words, we are asked to suspend our disbelief far enough to embrace the notion that he's just the unluckiest lawyer ever and he in no way, shape or form could have seen any and all of this batshit crazy circumstance crashing back down upon him yet again.
Un, yeah, but no.
But on top of all that, the show frames the start and end of each episode with the fact that the firm he is now working with is closing in on him, and he's running through the streets of D.C. while being chased by bad guys sent after him to silence him forever. And in each successive episode, these bumpers at the start and finish get padded by thirty seconds each of new footage of what happens next.
And what happens in between is just a pure case of the week kind of thing where someone is on trial that he must defend, and shall do earnestly and honestly to the best of his ability and so on and so forth. Again, stuff that is done elsewhere in TV much more convincingly in its own right.
Decent cast in place (with Molly Parker as the wife, Callum Keith Rennie and Juliette Lewis as the brother and his girlfriend/Mitch's receptionist as well as Tricia Helfer as the main villainess) but this show is a complete over the top mess from the word go.
This show is not long for the world, trust me. The sagging ratings play that notion out. I just can't help but to feel that I would rather be watching more new episodes of Prime Suspect than this completely overblown yet at the same time undercooked tripe.
Blood, gore, AND full frontal nudity? Yes, please:Spartacus: Blood And Sand proved to be an unexpected hit for the premium cable outlet Starz a couple of years back. A big part of that success is do to the fact that the showrunners took advantage of the time and setting (this being about rebellious Roman gladiators after all) to make it as an over the top endeavor as possible, heaping on loads of cartoonish gore, softcore porn style sex scenes, and deliciously vulgar dialogue. It proved to be so successful that they quickly decided to bring it back for a second season.
However, the future plans of the series came into serious jeopardy when lead actor Andy Whitfield was forced to bow out after the cancer he had previously battled unexpectedly returned (and ultimately and sadly took his life) forcing Starz to take the stopgap measure of ordering a prequel mini-series while they mulled what to do moving forward. Eventually they recast the lead role with the previously unknown Australian actor Liam McIntyre.
As a result Spartacus: Vengeance takes up two weeks after the fall of the house of Batiatus which took place at the end of season one, finding Spartacus struggling with his new role as leader to the band of gladiators and slaves he led in successful revolt. His thirst for revenge is now tempered and colored with the fact that he now has people to look after and protect. Helping him is his former enemy turned right hand man Crixus and a former house slave turned lover and voice of conscience Mira.
With all of them taking refuge in the sewers beneath the city of Capua while also terrorizing the citizens above causes the Roman Senate to send in Proctor Glaber in to clean up the mess, which is dramatically fitting. After all, he was the one that condemned Spartacus and his now deceased wife into slavery in the first place, and is the man that the main character most wants to see fall beneath his sword.
Also lingering about from the first season is the scheming and manipulative wife of Glaber, the beautiful, immature and duplicitous Ilithyia being brought into the fray against her will, the disgraced former Doctore of the Ludis, Oenomaus (a completely badass Peter Mensah) as well as Lucrecia, (an always game and nude every so often Lucy Lawless) the wife of Batiatus that appeared to be killed at the end of the first season, only to reappear very much alive, and now clearly not quite right in the head.
And that is just what was showed in this first episode as that apparently the devious Asher as well as the main God Of The Arena character Gannicus will also fall back into play at some point. In this first episode, they put the pieces firmly in their places and set the board for all the scheming and double-crossing and blood-letting that's most assuredly to come, given the show's previous track record.
McIntyre does an admirable job thus far stepping into Whitfield's sandals, considering the black cloud that most assuredly must have haunted him as he took on the role. He bears a striking resemblance to his predecessor enough that in passing one could legitimately mistake one for another. How he holds up acting wise remains to be seen, but we've still yet got a whole season to pass judgment on that.
What this new season suffers from thus far most notably is the lack of deliciously fun scenery chewing from John Hannah, whose Batiatus was killed off at the end of the first season. And that's a great big glaring problem, as it was only was the most charismatic and interesting character to watch overall. The void that is left in his wake is quite huge, and thus far, the show doesn't manage to overcome it to the point that it's slightly alarming.
But we shall see moving forward. Some new supporting characters were also introduced in this first hour, so maybe, just maybe, one of them will step up, but I honestly don't seeing that happening. Don't get me wrong, for I do like this show for the fact that it is unapologetically over the top on purpose and still manages to engage and entertain in its own right.
But I just don't see how such a bland vanilla baddie such as Glaber can and ever will equal that of the fantastically bombastic Batiatus.
Thank you for all the fun: When you're an avowed TV geek such as I am, you do your best to watch as much of it as possible to suss out anything that you suspect you may like if given a chance. And every once in a while, if you're lucky, you catch on with a show at the very beginning that gets its hooks in you and never lets you go. That speaks to you on a certain fundamental level so inherently that you find yourself giddy in anticipation when you know that a new episode will be airing later on that night. When truly done right, TV can not only entertain and enrich the viewing audience experiencing it, but it can also supply a certain amount of joy.
While there are shows that I watch and enjoy and look forward to, there are few that I truly love and filled me with that sense of geek-out joy. Lost was one of these, so much so that I found myself wanting to write about it, which is why you're now all reading this. I was lucky and fortunate that the good people at the head of 411mania thought I was a decent enough writer that I was allowed to share my joy over that show over the course of its final four seasons with anyone willing to listen.
The day that final show aired, I was depressed all leading up to it, knowing that it would be the end of something that I was invested in and loved so much. And when it was over, I readily put it behind me, knowing that I would never have to go through all that again.
Well, not so fast.
While I didn't have the lingering doom-and-gloom depression weighing me down all day like I did back then, after all, with Chuck facing impending doom on the cancellation front for the past few years continually, I was quite pleased with the final notion that after five seasons the show would be ending on its own terms. The fact that it managed to somehow last for so long to be given the opportunity to do so, was a truly gratifying notion in its own right.
But then? It also meant goodbye. Goodbye to all the rich characters I've been introduced to and fell in love with, not to mention the show itself. This original, nothing else like it on the airwaves mish-mash of comedy, action, romance, spy escapades, a small dose of actual drama sprinkled in here and there and an unabashed love of all things nerdy, tied together with a whole helluva lot of heart.
And then there was the last pesky thing; would they stick the landing?
Usually writing these individual segments for this column I state the facts as I see them from my own perspective and then comment on them, explaining why and how I like a show and how it works as I see it and wish to keep watching it as a result or why I don't and plan on staying away afterwards. This does not work for me in this instance.
Nope. This is an unwavering and heartfelt love letter to a show that I am truly going to miss.
But before that, some awesome bullet points…
*** Morgan playing with the invisibility cloak with great joy.
*** Casey to Chuck: "I'm not going to lose you both." Ah, we all love you too, you big galoot.
*** Ellie continually being the big sister we all want to have. While she crashed the car to protect Chuck from Sarah, she also did it to protect her sister in law that she loves from herself and what she was about to do.
*** Zach Levi playing his heart on his sleeve trying to bring Sarah's forgotten memories back to her in their dream house before she proceeds to kick the shit out of him and his allowing her to do so without fighting back. Oh, wait, there's something in my eye. Dammit.
*** Casey caring enough to take the time to give Sarah the disc in hopes of jogging her memories.
*** Nerd-Herders to the rescue!
*** All the first season call-backs, complete with Chuck completely messing things up at the last second when he isn't willing to pull the trigger to take a life.
*** Morgan not only standing up to Casey as an equal and a friend and calling bullshit. Also, Casey listening and hearing the message.
*** Linda Hamilton's cameo, and Captain Awesome shielding his child's eyes from her wielding a gun and admonishing her for it.
*** Jeffster to the rescue once again! Who knew?
*** "If you ever want to save the world again, you know where I am" she states with a genuine affectionate smile in parting.
*** He grunts one last time, and then does the most genuine and unexpected thing he can before leaving. "That's the one thing Russians do well, is give good hugs." Well earned, that moment. Shit, I've got something in my eye again.
*** Big Mike being the only one still being completely clueless.
*** Happy endings for everyone!
*** The endless montages!
*** "Kiss me, Chuck".
So in case you were wondering? They managed to stick the landing.
Thank you to Chris Fedak and Josh Shwartz for not only creating the show, but running with it and consistently delivering until the end. Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, Joshua Gomez, Adam Baldwin, Ryan McPartlin, Sarah Lancaster, Vik Sahay, Scott Krinsky, Mark Christopher Lawrence as well as the rest of the extended cast and crew, not to mention the who's who of outstanding guest stars that played a part over the life of it all.
It was a good run. It was a great show. And I'm thankful to be able to express my gratitude in some small way to those that took part.
The Buy More is now closed. But will remain further open in our hearts.
Strange Thoughts
When you get up in the morning and are half-asleep as you're taking a piss, make sure the baggy T-Shirt you're wearing doesn't get in the way. #Whoops
Anytime that VH1 Classic's Metal Mania plays Poison or the like I sit back and think "Really?" Of course, this is coming from someone that thinks "Hair Metal" should be reclassified as "lame safe corporate music made by completely untalented poseurs".
Oscar nominations this year are the same as they have ever been. Safe choices we all saw coming, a few surprises, and a shitload of egregious snubs.
Something that you don't see every day (at least in my town); A cop car with lights flashing engaged in a slow speed chase with a runaway pony, down one of the bigger streets. (Don't worry, the pony was apprehended unharmed albeit a little freaked out) Seriously, I pulled the car over when I saw the flashing lights approaching only to find myself thinking "okay, that really just happened."
There was once a family that lived across the street that were mildly, okay trying to be PC here, "touched". The older of age daughter had her starry-eyed sights set on me but again, it wasn't ever going to happen just out of pure freakin' common sense on my part. She used to manufacture ‘emergencies' that required me to rush over to solve things so I could be ‘her hero'. I went along with this for a couple of weeks just to be polite before I finally got fed up and called bullshit. (Seriously, simply change the goddamned batteries in the freakin' clock, you don't need me for this!) The scarier notion was the fact that her even more ‘touched' beastly mother took it as a matter of pride that she somehow managed to steal all of her daughter's boyfriends away from her. Yeesh. *shudders*
If Beef is "what's for dinner", and pork is "The other white meat", what does that make chicken? Color me curious.
Wow, I've overused quotation marks this week, haven't I?
One of my best buddies Wyatt attended the NAMM show a couple of weeks back. As a result he got autographs and took pictures with a lot of prominent musicians and genuine rock stars. Why do I bring this up? He got me personalized autographed pics from Michael Wilton (Queesnryche), Frank Bello (Anthrax), and Chris Jericho. NICE! Even better, the fact that he framed each of them for me.
Who Tweeted What?
simonpegg Simon Pegg: I sat next to Liam Nesson at the Dawn Treader premier in London and when the film was finished I was 78% better at fighting swarthy goons.
sutterink kurt sutter: when people call SOA brilliant and me a genius i know it's all bullshit. however, when they call SOA bullshit and me a hack, i believe them.
JuddApatow Judd Apatow: Anyone who thinks it is okay for individuals to make five million dollar contributions to candidates deserves the government they get.
ConanOBrien Conan O'Brien: According to a new study, talking after having sex is just as important as sex. I'm just glad listening isn't important.
richardroeper Richard Roeper: Pat Sajak admits hosting "Wheel" while drunk. Let's face it, he could probably host "Wheel" while in a coma.
BastardMachine Tim Goodman: Hoping the Smoke Monster also pops up on finale of Desperate Housewives -- and wipes out that whole street.
sepinwall Alan Sepinwall: My toddler's contribution to #goodbyechuck day: Learning to say "Subway!"
alan_tudyk alan tudyk: Ate some questionable Indian food. Now my colon is undergoing ethnic cleansing.
TheStevenWeber Steven Weber: I'd rather have a box full of junk mail than male junk.
JimGaffigan Jim Gaffigan: I'm not watching the SAG Awards. It just seems like a bunch of actors giving awards to other actors.
AndieBeaven Andie Beaven: Interesting emails today. Do I want an unpaid role in an adult film? Frankly I would rather shit in my hand and clap
alyankovic Al Yankovic: Sorry, but I still can't get over it. Unobtanium??? #NeverFallInLoveWithYourFirstDraft
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The Non TV Segment Of The Week
Old school Anthrax.
New school Anthrax.
Devil Horns in the air with me, people. Buy "Worship Music". Now if I can only convince the local rock radio station to start playing it rather than lame overrated shit such as Korn…
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And with that, I'm outta. Your obvious apathy shall be noted in the comments section henceforth.
