Betrayal

Something magical happens when two people have chemistry. There’s an instant connection, an electric charge in the air. When you see it, you know it, but you can’t describe it. It’s just some ephemeral quality between two people. It’s a wonderful sight but there was absolutely none of it in Betrayal.

The show is about Sara Hanley, the wife of a prosecuting attorney, who begins an affair with Jack McAllister, the in-house counsel for a sinister Chicago crime family. And while both Hannah Ware and Stuart Townsend (playing the star-crossed couple) are decent enough actors, they have so little chemistry that even their sex is remarkably un-sexy. And it’s a shame because this pilot was sturdy enough in its construction. The plot moved a lovely pace, never rushing through anything, letting you really feel the weight of the characters’ decisions. Cromwell is always fantastic and I love watching him ham it up as the patriarch of this crime family. The directing was confident and well-thought out. The tone was soft and hypnotic, gently lulling you into the first steps of forbidden love. And Hannah Ware has a face that was made for the camera.

Eventually, as the story progresses, we meet T.J. Karsten, the possibly mentally disabled son of the crime boss, who winds up the prime suspect in the murder of his own uncle (though we don’t know why he is the prime suspect, yet). The pilot sets up a season-long murder mystery, and all the pieces are in place for it to be an interesting one, with a good deal of soapy twists on the way to its conclusion. The only problem is that the whole show revolves around Townsend and Ware, who have all the blistering sexual tension of two neighboring glaciers. And once you pull out that center peg, the whole show falls apart.

It doesn’t help that this show runs in the same block as Revenge, ABC’s current flagship prime-time soap, because the show really suffers from the comparison. While Revenge constantly jacks up its campiness, driving the show into new uncharted strangeness, Betrayal comes across as sedate and piddling. Who’s to say where this show will go, but without anything resembling a spark between its romantic leads, I can’t see any reason to watch it play out.

Masters of Sex

It’s good to see Showtime finally take advantage of its status as the home of extraneous boobs. My problem with almost every Showtime pilot over the last three years has simply been the need to throw in sex where none was needed, just to remind you which network you were watching. But Masters of Sex is not decorated with sex. It is sex.

The show revolves around the revolutionary studies on human sexuality run by William Masters and Virginia Johnson that began in 1956. William Masters is played by Michael Sheen, who brings a sort of steely performance reserved only for actors who you know could be chewing up the scenery if they wanted to. Masters has problems conceiving with his wife, a bloated ego, and a very serious obsession with the science of sex. So, he teams up with Virginia Johnson, played by Lizzy Caplan. Caplan does most of the heavy lifting in this pilot, her plot being the most dynamic. In this episode, Johnson struggles in her sexual relationship with a coworker, Ethan (Nicholas D’Agosto). Johnson has a very modern approach to casual sex, while Ethan, not surprisingly, doesn’t. This conflict, paired with the conflict between the very emotionally restrained Masters and his wife gives us an hour of drama about sex. Instead of just putting boobs on the wrapping paper, the present itself is a dick in a box.

But it’s not the sex, but what the show is saying about sex that makes the show interesing. The characters are in pain and their relationships are sinking, due, in large part, to sex. While the characters are espousing that sex shouldn’t be steeped in shame, and people should be open about these types of things, you can see that they, themselves are not immune to that same shame and self-doubt. And serving as the popped cherry on this delightful sundae is a scene in the end where two anonymous subjects have sex, connected to EKGs, in a sterile doctor’s office, while Masters and Johnson watch. The show puts us in the room, watching these two total strangers develop attraction and then screw. It’s refreshingly charming and simple. In fact it’s the most beautiful sex scene – of many – in the whole episode. And it takes place in a lab.

At the end of the day, there’s a lot of sex on television, and yet, there’s very little honest discourse about sex. In many ways, this show is a trail blazer, just like Masters, looking at sex for what it is, instead of how it can amuse/shock/disgust the audience. I, for one, am glad we are over our Puritan phobias. Maybe we’ll eventually see a dick on television. And I mean a literal dick, not Don Draper. 

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I'm surprised that the Whedon Camp seem to be the only people pulling this off, but if you're going to do live action super heroes on TV, humor is the key. Anyone remember The Cape? Even Arrow, which is enjoying some slightly well deserved success, is always battling with its own silliness. Not on SHIELD. On SHIELD they love their own silliness. They outright say it in this pilot: "It means someone really wanted our initials to spell SHIELD."

The premise is: Secret government branch in charge of managing superheroes makes a super secret team in charge of finding superhero related threats neutralizing them. The team is comprised of rookies, nerdy lab folk, a mysterious bad ass, and all led by that guy who didn't die in The Avengers (or did he?). Colson (Clark Gregg) is back and he has a voice that was made to speak Whedon dialogue. He's sharp and a little dry. Like Giles without the British. Clark Cregg has also had a good bit of time (four movies, not counting cameos) to get his character down, so he does make the other cast members (the young pretty ones) seem a little amateurish. Although, it's not his fault, the characters are all a bit poorly drawn. But, the best way to keep audiences watching while a show finds its footing is to put all your chips on one, excellent character, and that's what he is. So we'll love him until we find something to like in baby-boy secret agent or cute-hacker-girl stereotype.

But even with its flaws, it's hard not to like what this show is trying to do. It's connecting a film franchise with comic book tie-ins while also building its own separate, but related, world to operate in. And the show doesn't waste any time giving you the details of the films it's cleverly dancing around. The Marvel franchise is so incredibly popular, that they can build a pilot around the events of a film, without ever telling you what happened in that film. They just assume you know. It's refreshing to watch a show that isn't constantly checking to see if I'm keeping up.

For the Avengers fans out there, I'd say that if you really liked the conversations between Romanov and Hawk Eye, you'll like this. For Whedon fans, just imagine Dollhouse without the ethical ambiguity (and thankfully without Eliza Dushku). Or Angel without the brooding and lots of money (so, fifth season Angel). But to be honest, all of these comparisons don't really do the show justice. Obviously the history matters, especially with someone of Joss Whedon's cult status, but this isn't a show about history. This is a show about possibilities. This is a show that promises to give us something we really haven't seen before. And I can't wait to see it deliver.

Trophy Wife

Watching shows like Trophy Wife, I find myself wondering why all family comedies aren't terrific. It seems like such a simple formula. Start with terrific actors, Malin Akerman, Bradley Whitford, Marcia Gay Harden, add cute kids (who are basically a dime a dozen, so that shouldn't be too hard). Add unusual, but vaguely functional family set up. In this case, Malin Akerman plays the third wife opposite Bradley Whiteford, who's previous wives still have a strong hold on his life due to the three kids. Throw in an A plot wacky situation, B plot wacky situation, and C plot wacky situation, then throw everyone together in a final scene in which all is revealed, and then forgiven (sort of). This is how literally every single Modern Family episode runs, like clockwork (like a terrifying steam-punk Emmy-winning machine).

Now, I understand that finding terrific actors is harder than it sounds and Whitford is one of the all time greatest ensemble actors in the field, but so is Allison Janney, and Mom wound up about as funny and likable as a genital wart. So, I find myself looking back at other family comedies and wondering why they aren't all at least as good as Trophy Wife, which emerged fully formed, cracking with wit, explosively funny, and with just enough heart to feel like it's amounting to something. Maybe it's the laugh track on Mom that ruined it, or the mean streak, or just the sets, everything looking sterile and stage-like. 

Of course, I'm oversimplifying. Great pain went into writing and directing this pilot from TV veterans. And they probably labored over the jokes, over the timing, over how the drama would mesh with the humor. It's not easy business, comedy, but they made it look easy. 

I think part of my enthusiasm for this show is from how stripped down it feels. Gone is the laugh track, the multi-cam. Gone is the faux-documentary feel of Modern Family, or Parks and Rec. There's no gimmick. No whip cuts or staccato flashbacks like 30 Rock. This show isn't jumping on any other show's style, or even drawing that much attention to its own. They're just doing family comedy, with talented comedians and a pretty straight forward style. Sometimes it may be a bit too straightforward (the voice over was not my favorite), but there's something to be said for a show that wants you to be entertained and little else.

The Blacklist

Watching this show, I thought back on an old Monty Python character. He was a general played by Graham Chapman and he would occasionally appear in the middle of a comedy sketch, deeming it too silly, and forcing it to end. While this character was originally just an easy way for Monty Python to get out of sketches they had no way of ending, he also served as a force of constant self reflection, the nagging mother within us all that's saying, "I'm sorry but this is just no good at all." The reason I bring up the "Too Silly" general is because if he were working the modern TV drama circuit, he'd be pulling overtime just to keep up.

We all know that we're living in the golden age of television, because people keep saying we're living in the golden age of television. Which means that dramas that aren't pushing the limit somehow have no chance of becoming hits. It was just a few years ago that all you needed to do was produce a show that was exceptionally well made. Now, you need to produce a show that is exceptionally bat-shit insane.

And in walks James Spader in a fedora. Welcome to The Blacklist, where the stakes are high, everyone is a spy, no one can be trusted and James Spader is wearing a fedora. The basic premise of the show is that James Spader plays Raymond Reddington (AKA Red, not joking), an ex-military guy who one day up and defected, leaked a bunch of classified information to anyone with money, and became a very successful information broker to the powerful and dangerous. Now, several decades later, he walks into FBI headquarters and wants to hand over every criminal mastermind he's ever worked with, on the condition that he works only with a fresh-faced rookie profiler, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), whom he's never met, and with whom, he has no apparent connection. In the vein of shows like Scandal or Covert Affairs, the show gives a newbe a sweet break, but also implies some sort of sinister reason for doing so. While we're at it, this pilot takes a number of pages out of the playbooks for Scandal, Covert Affairs, and Revenge. In that the concept is so laughably out there (Spader practically twirling his mustache, he's so Villainous, with a capital "V"), yet the dramatic beats emerge intact. There's one scene in particular in which Keen's husband is held prisoner and Boone's performance is exceptionally moving, despite the ludicrous situation. She speaks directly to her husband, totally aware that his life is out of her control. So her priority becomes making sure he's calm. It's a beautiful approach to an old trope.

And then, in the next scene, James Spader is escaping from a hospital with the old, "rope and open window" trick, like, you know, a criminal mastermind. 

The fact of the matter is that shows like Revenge, Scandal and Covert Affairs (and lets just throw in True Blood, Vampire Diaries, and Banshee, just to be safe) can't compete with the quality of of the cable greats. They'll never reach the somber, poetic brilliance of Mad Men or Homeland, or whatever. And they know this. So, instead, they just want to knock your socks off. They throw subtlety out the window and then throw basically everything else out with it. And sometimes, that's nice. Sometimes silly is good. And who better than to run this campy train the James Spader, who says every line like he's teaching English as a second language. Who stares lasciviously at furniture. This man was born for camp, made for silly. Graham Chapman's general would have a stroke just trying to keep up.

Hostages

This show has a really interesting concept ruined by poor plotting and lazy character work. The family of a surgeon, Ellen Sanders (Toni Collette), is held hostage by an ex-hostage negotiator, Duncan Carlisle (Dylan McDermott), until the surgeon kills the President of the United States. This show sits on its concept in the same way a fat clown sits on an Edvard Munch painting. Every opportunity for tension and subtlety is buried under characters that appear to be pulled from completely different shows. Instead of showing how a normal family confronts such terror, we have the son dealing drugs, the dad cheating, and the daughter seeing the standard dangerous boyfriend. But all these character details seem so inconsequential given the fact that men in ski masks are putting guns to their heads. Yet, down the line, I’m sure we’ll see these subplots bubble up and run head to head with the hostage situation in ways that are, best case scenario, wacky.

The show eventually shows us its hand towards the end of the pilot. Ellen Sanders will not be so easily trapped, and she finds ways to fight back. And thus begins the battle of the wits between a brilliant surgeon and her brilliant captor that will take up the rest of season 1. This really does interest me. Of course, then there’s some big conspiracy and the President is actually evil. I’m not opposed to evil presidents and conspiracies on principal. This show could be so good if it went for some semblance of realism, and if it were about nothing more than the interactions between four captors and their four hostages – the family, living out their lives to avoid suspicion, the captors constantly managing the family. But I don’t think the writers have talent (let alone the chutzpah) to pull that off. So, they wave a bunch of standard family crisis tropes and political conspiracy tropes at you and hope you don’t notice they are squandering a goldmine.

Mom

See my review for Dads. Replace all instances of the word “Dad” with “Mom.” Replace all instances of “Seth Green” with “Anna Faris” and “Peter Riegert” with “Allison Janney.” And that's about it.