Kimputer's Weblog

A new series on the UPN, and hence the title “The new Buffy” has been born. This show however, leans more towards Alias, with the title role (played by new comer Kristen Bell) having similar facial features, and also featuring in the series are undercover props, accents, and other spy techniques. There’s even a main mystery story arch threaded throughout the whole season. Character design is also similar, with the strange daughter/father relationship and a missing mother. So basically, with the CIA/Rambaldi subjects replaced by high school subjects, it’s a junior version of Alias. After 5 episodes, there’s reasonable depth, and the entertainment value is just above ordinary. If they keep improving, it might be a keeper, but reaching Alias’ level of quality takes a whole lot more.

With a fair start, what I feared would happen, happened. With no personal stories to go on, all the cases start to look alike. During later episodes, the same lines get repeated multiple times. If you’re only a quarter into a series season, and you can already predict the dialogue before it’s said, something is terrible wrong. Forget the high production value, forget the good actors, and forget the future. To use a medical term, this series, is a goner.

On its third year stint, they’re still able to keep it interesting, something I feared they couldn’t keep up. But injecting the series with some fresh energy (the addition of two formidable actors, Scott Wolf and Anne Heche), still keeps this show above average. Drama is still there, and so are the laughs. In favor of the new scenery though, some characters will be dropped, but for now, it’s still so far, so good.

When J.J. Abrams creates a new series, you can usually expect two things. One is of course the simplistic intro theme (Alias, for instance, was totally Flash based, while this is a 5 second 4 letter 3DSMax scene). The second is excellent writing, usually able to stretch story lines across a whole season. And again, he shows it with this simple group of people lost on uninhabited (or is it ?) island, after being thrown off course, which means the chance of rescue seems nigh. What ensues are multifacetted written episodes, mixing drama with mystery, cutting between character interaction and flashbacks, executed by a very able cast (starring drama veterans Matthew Fox, Terry O’Quinn, and a whole bunch of new comers). With only 13 episodes stacked, and good ratings, a full season order is probably on its way. With the power of Abrams behind this series (and hence longevity, proven in series like Alias), I wouldn’t mind a few more years on this creepy island.

What looked like a promising start, turns out to be another copy of CSI:Miami. The pilot revealed workaholic Gary Sinise, with some personal drama haunting him. 2 Episodes further down the road, we only know he’s overworked. The other characters don’t fare well either, they’re just talking objects with enlighting dialogue about the case files. It follows the same CSI routines of its two bigger brothers, but the lack of fun and personal drama (albeit pretty low on the original CSI series) make it looks like it’s Miami’s twin. This means I’ll probably give this show a few more shots, but it’s definitely off the high anticipation list. Which leaves the only one suprise this franchise still has to offer. How many more The Who songs can be turned into a catchy theme with only minimal editing ?

So you have movie producers (Mel Gibson/Bruce Davey) teaming up with soapies (Aaron Spelling/E. Duke Vincent) and a dash of drama (Ken Topolsky, who learned his trade when producing for Party of Five) mixed together. What do you get ? High production value with halfbaked substance. A nice shell of a half filled egg.
It’s another single mom with two children series, where the boy gets to be a batboy for the New York Empires, a fictive major league baseball club. We see a bit of family drama, school stuff, and of course lotsa baseball.
But I see mediocrity from a mile away, try to imagine when I saw this show just 2 feet away from my LCD screen. The acting is mediocre. The characters are stereotypes with a hollow echo to emphasise that. The dialogue is simple and predictable. The story line has perfect S turns everywhere. It’s like a scriptbook template with the correct words replaced to match this show. Sure the show has a bigger budget than most can ever hope to receive, but everyone is on auto-pilot, the writers and the actors, including Dean Cain and Christopher Lloyd.
Luckily, this series has no future for export (nowhere in the world can it be sold, only in the States is baseball a major sport), so hopefully, a well deserved demotion to the minor league (i.e. cancellation, though CBS probably needs the demo this show is targeting to break away from the “old” network status) will follow soon.

A new show on the WB. While we’ve come to know what kinda of drama series they’ve been churning out over the years, this one is definitely a surprise. From the same Berlanti/Liddell/Taylor team that brought us Everwood, comes this quite ingenious idea of showing two brothers (and a very determined mother) in present day, of which one will become the future President. Interspersed are interview sections from the year 2046, talking about a multitude of subjects concerning the President, and how he got there. While the outline is seems far fetched, the present day showings seem more grounded, hence enhancing the drama. How the dialogue and complicated character interaction evolve, makes Everwood look like a superficial drama. Also helping, is of course the outstanding acting of Christine Lahti’s mother character (Chicago Hope), and relatively newcomers Matt Long and Logan Lerman (The Butterfly Effect) as brothers. As a small family, it alsmost packs the same punch as a fellow bigger family first season series in trouble, Party of Five. But the higher educational topics (the mother is a college professor) combined with the political flash forwards, while making it all the more interesting, don’t bode well on the teen focused network, and I fear a slow death for a great series on its maiden voyage.

The very first (unaired) pilot didn’t look too bright, when of course, you missed the other five crazy characters you’ve grown accustomed to. Then the aired pilot switched the wonderful (albeit somewhat stiff) Ashley Scott for the totally unknown Andrea Anders (budget reasons ?) with her fake-ish smile. While the story was pretty streamlined, it didn’t have the same impact as a random Friends episode. The second episode, luckily, showed improvement, with more punchy dialogue and faster cutting packing more jokes per time-packet. With only 4 character though, they will never get the 30+ million viewers back, but for now, they’re at least on the way to grab at least half of them.

Another new NBC show, it’s a very CSI-like show, but only on the medical field. Every week an elite team of the NIH (National Institute for Health) tries to uncover a medical mystery of a strange case. Right now, it seems there’s enough room to insert some personal drama and main character interaction in every episodes main stories, which is a good sign. Casting seems to be top notch too, with Neal McDonough heading the team, with the right amount of intensity, while Kelli Williams (The Practice) plays the ever sympathetic female lead. Christopher Gorham is getting typecasted as a inexperienced newbie though, but he had half a season of the cancelled Jake 2.0 series to prepare for this role.

NBC beats the networks this year, premiering 2 new shows as early as possible.

The first is Hawaii, a pretty standard cop show, with some pretty good actors (Michael Biehn, ER’s Sharif Atkins). Too bad they don’t have any challenges to face. The stories are pretty straightforward, including a fixed story outline for every episode, like any other cop show. The characters are pretty non-descript. Nothing special after 3 episodes, meaning no depth, no exploration, and thus, holding no future. Not for me at least. Definitely a bye to this series.

Second up is Dreamworks Animated Studios big assignment. Taking Siegfried and Roy’s concept to the 3D animated fantasy world, we see how the animals live behind the show (walking and talking like humans, living in houses and such), while taking a few potshots at themselves. Refreshing in some ways, but not laugh out loud funny (like Dreamworks’ Shrek, for instance). There seems to be a tight story line for every episodes, but somehow, it doesn’t feel special enough.

Never having the opportunity to review this wonderful show (catching up on Belgian TV), I was tired of waiting, so I “acquired” the whole third season, which I tried to watch in one weekend. (Didn’t make it, short of a few more hours)
As season 1 and 2 have proven already, for a serialized series, this is one tough lady to beat. Every single episode is a piece of the bigger puzzle, filled with intrigue and new plot turns. Creator/writer J.J. Abrams probably has the whole series laid out before it starts, and it’s a pain having to wait every week to reveal a bit more of the mystery.
With its intensity, very like 24, it’s gripping, but the advantages Alias has, are better character interaction, and more focused storylines smeared over several whole seasons. Hence, main characters and their archenemies have more depth, and their personal agenda’s are revealed slowly. It also gives meticulous details enough time to work its way to the bigger picture. With such high quality writing, it’s hard to single out a season as best, but the feeling tends to go to this latest season. It seems dramatically more intense, and the guest stars are a blast.
To describe what I’ve gone through this weekend, it was hot. Very hot. Add to that the exciting episodes, I had to spend all of my time in my underwear. Watching it makes you sweat naturally, so you can imagine if the weather doesn’t work with you, it’s gonna be hard. Furthermore, this series induces adrenaline shots throughout every episode, a heart rate going through the roof (plainly measurable by watching the neck), nervous ticks, nailbiting, and all that, without oxygen, as it’s easy to forget breathing while watching this show. That’s not all, with all the double agents running around, and spies spying on spies, in the end, you’ll have embraced paranoia to the fullest. But hey, a bit of extra awareness never killed anyone, right ?
Yeah, I say, bring it on, I’m ready for season 4 (premieres January 2005 for an uninterupted run till season’s finale).

Sometimes, I think I have a perpetual shortage of available free time. Why ? Because I just scheduled my TV night like this:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 15-07-2004
The Ali G Show – 201 (HBO’s season premiere)
Everwood (yes, this is one of the few that’s really on TV, through the old fashioned cable, convenience wise, saving internet bandwidth)
The Grid – 101 (new limited series from TNT, starring Dylan McDermott and Julianna Margulies)
The Dead Zone – 306
The 4400 – 102 (new series from the USA Network)

I’d better watch out not to sprout new roots and become permanently attached as a couch potato plant.

High quality science fiction is becoming rare these days. And that’s why when one series spawns another, I’m there to witness it, hoping it’s something good. Stargate: SG1 I gave up on many years ago. With these crossover episodes, I remember why. The character are just as stiff as 8 years ago. No development, no depth. Storywise, they’re even more amazing than before. Amazingly stupendous, that is. The writers are clearly writing them in their sleep. Story turns are everywhere, just simple solutions to get out of the holes they dug earlier themselves. With so many jumps from here to there, there’s not really any room for dialogue that actually feels like a dialogue.
So enter a spin-off. Atlantis is clearly from the same makers, as it’s cliche-ridden, with yet another simple and highly predictable storyline. Again, no time for sensible dialogue, and hence, no sense of depth. Drama isn’t an issue here either, and luckily, the actors don’t have an awful lot of acting to do. In dire situations, a frown is enough, and the writers whisk them away, out of harm’s way.
This all makes Stargate one of the most generic shows on air, able to stay exactly the same after all those years, holding the same future for Atlantis, playing it safe. Too bad though the writers don’t know if you don’t have anything to lose, you don’t have anything to gain.

TNT’s rendition of Stephen King’s novel marks another black spot on his slate, even though it may not even be his fault. After the strangely boring Kingdom Hospital TV series was cancelled deservedly and quickly, this TV movie deserves a few yawns as well. A result from the combination of Warner Brother’s TV department and second rate director Mikael Salomon, they’ve efficiently killed the notion that Stephen King writes scary stuff. Add to that they brought the worst out of actors like Rob Lowe, Donald Sutherland and James Cromwell, and you wish a stake had gone through the project before it saw the light. This is one of the most boring vampire movie to this date, and screenwriter Peter Filardi has to take some blame for that. Watching the dialogue unfold, be it read by an accomplished actor or a junkyard robot, it would have been evenly excruciating. I can only hope the Screenwriter’s Guild revoked his membership.3+.

Fox’s new courtroom drama with a twist. This time, we’ll see the case develop from the jury’s point of view. With the steady characters being the lawyers on both sides, the judge, and a few officers of the court, such as the bailliff and stuff.
Starting each episode, you’ll receive a quick flash of the case, which will later be discussed in more detail when the jurors start bickering in the deliberation room. Their arguments are there only to serve to move the story forward. While most jurors do get a few basic character traits to work with, it’s just feels a bit contrived. The judge himself is a stiff one too. Played by series creator/executive producer/director Barry Levinson (Oscar winner for directing Rainman), it clearly tells us acting classes wouldn’t really hurt the series.
The rest of the main characters serve their jobs without too much depth.
With this all, it’s easy to see where this will be heading. Another easy to swallow episodic series. While it shows a new perspective, it’s not as engaging as a “normal” courtroom drama like The Practice, purely on writing alone. My prediction is, a few more episodes, and then it’s Jury Dismissed (if it’s not cancelled, it’s me not watching it anymore).