Posts Tagged ‘ ncis:la ’

Setting the scene… or not

I’ve got a request to make of executive producers, or creative directors, or whoever it is that makes these decisions for television – stop putting title sequences on your shows.

That’s not to say I don’t love a good theme song and credits, I really do. But there are a lot of shows out there at the moment that seem to at the last minute before the first episode is delivered for airing realise they never filled the 30second place holder where the titles are supposed to go. An executive producer throws out last minute instructions to pick a random piece of music with no tune, throw together a montage of explosions and characters looking moody “and make sure my name is big”.

In the great days of old title sequences were about setting the scene for your show, give the audience a helping hand picking up what you were trying to say. Remember all those great opening themes and voice-overs you got on things like Star Trek and The Outer Limits? It wasn’t until I thought about it that I realised how amazing the title sequence for M*A*S*H was, it wasn’t a bright chirpy tune to put you in the mood for a comedy, it was sombre and quiet, reinforcing the sadness of the drama behind the comedy. More recently, Firefly did a similar thing, reinforcing the western feel that might have been over-shadowed by the science fiction.

The primary inspiration for this article came from the fact I watched an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, followed by an episode of Blue Bloods and couldn’t help but see that the thing the shows had in common were two absolutely awful title sequences.

Standing alone the title sequences are both awful, loud cliché music, cheesy explosions, melodramatic posing from the actors and unimaginative text. The biggest crime though is how badly they fit with their shows. NCIS will usually jump from a dramatic reveal of a murder or crime straight into loud obnoxious music, Blue Bloods will jump from gritty and modern New York straight into a title sequence from the 80s. Knowing that each title sequence is coming leaves me anxiously hovering over the remote control so that I can fast-forward (god bless Sky+) before the opening chord intrudes on my viewing.

Most shows at the moment thankfully don’t bother with titles at all, taking five seconds for a splash screen and getting on with the show. Grey’s Anatomy used to have credits but rapidly got rid of them. Maybe it’s a bit surprising that Glee, a show all about music and presentation doesn’t have a theme song, but then how could they possibly pick just one song?

Some shows manage to make a surprising impact with even the most minimal splash screens, maybe Lost is the first that really got it right, showing exactly how much can be communicated with just a chord, a font and a fade. Supernatural adopts the same system, just the shows name, a sound and a special effect, but adds a variation by changing the effect and sound each season (and the occasional extra special version – see the collection). Even Brothers & Sisters with its simple sliding text and soothing couple of bars of music sets the correct tone for the show.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t however comment on a few shows that do manage to make title sequences work. For some reason channels like HBO and Showtime really make an effort and put a lot of thought into what they want their titles to say about their shows. The majority of things that would appear on my list of favourite credit sequences past (Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Deadwood, Dead Like Me) and present (Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire) aired on HBO or Showtime in the US. All absolutely beautiful title sequences that really suit their shows. There would be a clip of the Sons of Anarchy intro here… but there doesn’t seem to be a version on YouTube.

Lie to Me – I can’t help but smile every time that woman’s eyes light up

Big Bang Theory – I don’t watch the show (I know I probably should, it’s on my list, I just haven’t got to it yet) but I love the titles!

Fringe – the standard intro is nothing special after a couple of seasons, but this year they’ve done a few alternate versions to fit with their alternate themes, including this genius one for their flashback to the 80s episode.

(Thanks to Smashing Magazine and TV.com for their collection of links.)

2011
03/12
CATEGORY
Articles
How TV works
3 comments

What I’m watching at the moment

I’m pretty much in the depths of scheduling desperation at the moment. Keeping on top of all the stuff coming in each week is about all I can manage, taking an evening out to watch a film can cause catastrophic backlog on the sky+ box. Unfortunately while I’m watching a lot of TV, there’s not much for me to talk about, no new pilots, no season end reviews, I’m just trudging through the middles. So with a lack of anything else to write about, here’s a snapshot of what I’m watching at the moment.

Bedlam (Sky Living, Mondays) –Sky’s attempt to offer an alternative to Being Human, with a supernatural ghosty drama type thing. It’s awful. Particularly hateful is the lead female character, Kate, who is an absolute bitch of a blond trendy 20something who the rest of the cast don’t slap about the head for some reason that escapes me. Will Young is kind of adorable, but the rest of the cast is completely bland and the plots simultaneously over the top and boring. I gave it two episodes, but I don’t think I’ll be watching the third.

Glee (E4, Mondays) – I’m also enjoying Glee recently, although I have no idea why. The characterisation is all over the place, just about every relationship is lacking in chemistry, plots are painfully ‘issue of the week’ and I want to gaffer tape Rachel’s mouth shut every time she appears. However, there’s been some really fun music choices, the Rocky Horror Picture Show episode was kind of inspired, Kurt breaks my heart every week and for all the fact that most of it is rubbish, it really makes me smile.

Blue Bloods (Tuesdays, Sky Atlantic) – There are two remarkable things about this otherwise mediocre show. The first is that the writing is often utterly terrible, plot is delivered in scenery chewing monologues with all the subtlety of breeze blocks, “it’s a shame mom is dead and my brother was killed on duty, I’d really like to talk to them about my conflicted feelings” isn’t far off the quality of dialogue here. The other remarkable thing however is Tom Selleck. Every time he is on screen he brightens the place up, managing to somehow have credible relationships with his concrete inspired offspring and navigate his way through the awfulness in a way that makes me come back for more each week.

Bones (Sky Living, Wednesdays) – Bones herself seems to have regressed this season, becoming even less aware of how normal people behave, more annoying than ever. But despite the best efforts of the central character, I still enjoy the show a lot. It comes up with an interesting gimmick each week (the body in chocolate was particularly grim) and Booth and the supporting cast (including the entertaining, rotating interns) are extremely watch-able.

Grey’s Anatomy (Sky Living, Wednesdays) – I’m loving this season. I pounce on every episode as soon as it arrives and I can find a safe time to watch it – there cannot be any possibility of interruption or distraction, it just has to be me and my show. Everything just seems to be working, there’s not too much whining, there’s no duds in the character collection, the relationships are all interesting and going somewhere and the dialogue is as sharp as it’s ever been. Love it.

Mad Dogs (Sky1, Thursdays) – the first episode was definitely the high point with the careful pacing and gradual creepiness now replaced with a random chaotic collection of violence and shouting. The actors make it enjoyable, but I’m glad it’s only four episodes long and finishes this week.

The Good Wife (More4, Thursdays) – I am SOOOOOO over Kalinda. I mean seriously? Are we supposed to be sympathetic, because frankly I’m beginning to think she’s had some kind of psychotic break. I also don’t really understand why Diane and Will have suddenly taken against each other, I loved them in the first season, friendly and constructive while still keeping a few cards to themselves, now they’re acting like paranoid conspiracy nuts, did I miss something? I’m also pretty bored of the political campaigning – has there even been mention of the actual political issues at all it seems to be all about threats and manipulation? So overall, I’m struggling a bit with The Good Wife at the moment.

CSI (Thursdays, Five USA) – There have been a few interesting bits this season, but nothing spectacular. The emotional and personal stuff has been laid on a bit thick, issues coming and going like sledgehammers. The show could really use some younger characters to come in and challenge the status quo a bit, it’s at risk of turning into Midsummer Murders.

Brothers & Sisters (Thursdays, More4) –This isn’t an amazing show, but it continues to be comfortable. It’s full of melodrama, cheese and sappiness. The cast has thinned down a bit having lost Robert, Holly and Rebecca which I think actually improves the show and I don’t miss any of them. The small time shift also makes things a bit more interesting, but at its heart this is a hot chocolate and duvet show.

The Big C (Thursdays, More4) – It’s billed as a comedy, and it *is* funny, but all the humour comes from the “you’ve got to laugh or you’ll cry” school of thought. It’s not an easy show to watch, but it is extremely good with a spectacular performance from Laura Linney.

NCIS (FX, Fridays) – only just returned so the only episode I’ve seen is the resolution to the big mid-season cliff-hanger which I really didn’t care about in the slightest. Despite the fact that the ratings are through the roof on this in the US, I’m losing interest as characters continue to behave erratically and the plots get less and less engaging.

Criminal Minds (Sky1, Fridays) – I always enjoy Criminal Minds, it’s not spectacular, but each week the mysteries are interesting, the action suitably dramatic and the characters and their relationships rewarding for the long term viewer. I do miss JJ horribly, but am enjoying Garcia’s increased role and appreciate that the new agent brings a bit of energy to the show. A solid performer.

CSI:New York (Saturdays, Channel 5) – The disappearance of Stella and her replacement by Sela Ward was a bit spontaneous, but gave the show a bit of excitement. But it didn’t really last and it’s settled back into a bit of rut. It’s ok to watch while cooking or ironing, but that’s not exactly high praise.

Outcasts – (BBC1 Sundays) – it’s a bit n&*f really, I have some really very serious doubts the writers have any idea about the timelines, the history of the colony or where they’re going with the mystery. BUT if treated as mindless entertainment, it’s actually moderately enjoyable.

NCIS: LA (Sky1, Sundays) – the sister series however I’m enjoying more and more. The plots are still pretty dull, but the characters and dialogue have a spark to them that the original series seems to have lost. The ensemble is working well together having lost Nate and what’s-his-face who were pretty dull and replaced them with quirkier and more interesting Nell and Deeks.

Top Gear (BBC2, Sundays) – Falling to the bottom of my watch list, I find myself fast forwarding more and more of each episode. When they’re spontaneous, I still love them, but too much is scripted and obviously faked.

Supernatural (“spring/summer”, Sky Living) – when a show takes on the apocalypse and the devil, it’s a big question where to go next, but the tighter focus on the more personal issues was a good choice. There’s still a great mix of angst, action, drama and a bucket load of humour (it’s been a long time since I laughed at anything as hard as I laughed at Dean and the fairy).

2011
03/03
CATEGORY
10-11 Season
Lists
Leave a comment

2009-2010 – New Shows

Not including the comedies, I’ve watched 27 pilots this year, I’m discounting the sitcoms, ‘cos I’ve finally come to the realisation that I just don’t like them. Of those 27 I ended up watching the whole season of eight of those shows and partially watching another two of them before giving up. There are seven shows that I might pick up at some point and that leaves eleven that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Twelve of the shows have been cancelled, most of the ones I wasn’t going to bother with and a few of the ones I did.

Watched Might Watch Not Gonna Watch
Defying Gravity The Gates The Beautiful Life: TBL
Glee The Good Guys The Deep End
FlashForward Justified Eastwick
The Good Wife Life Unexpected The Forgotten
NCIS: Los Angeles Parenthood Happy Town
Stargate Universe The Vampire Diaries Human Target
Trauma Mercy
White Collar Miami Medical
Past Life
Caprica Three Rivers
V Treme

The Good
The successes this year have been quite spectacular, Glee and The Good Wife have both been critical and popular success. Both are refreshing and enjoyable, the difference being that The Good Wife is really rather good, and Glee is really rather terrible. NCIS: LA meanwhile has been a big hit ratings-wise and is pretty entertaining. It delivered exactly what it promised as a cash in on a successful franchise and, for me, outshone its older sibling.

Stargate Universe has been a big success for sci-fi channel, managing to breathe new life into the 16 year old Stargate franchise without pissing off the old fans. I was critical of the pilot, but actually mostly impressed by the series as a whole and am looking forward to next season. White Collar was enjoyable, well written, with some great characters and has been a success for the relatively small channel it’s shown on. I enjoyed watching it, but it’s not quite remarkable enough to have spurred me to start watching the second season yet.

The Bad
I don’t really mean the bad shows here (that’s saved for the ugly section) more the things that didn’t work.

I was disappointed at the cancellations of Trauma and Defying Gravity, both of which I thought were well made, different, interesting and never really given a chance. Meanwhile V and Caprica I gave multiple chances and eventually gave up on (for reasons I explained in more detail over here).

There’s a number of other shows in my ‘might watch at some point’ list where I liked the pilots a lot, but just didn’t quite have sufficient enthusiasm to keep watching. A few didn’t quite have enough spark (Life Unexpected and Parenthood), a couple I just didn’t quite get along with (Justified and The Good Guys) and a couple were too cheesy even for me (The Gates and Vampire Diaries). Human Target is a tolerable addition to the genre of ‘cheesy, mindless, disposable action’, but I tend to satisfy my cravings for that through movies where the actors are better looking.

The other show I’m going to put in the ‘bad’ category is Treme. I just didn’t get on with it. I didn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t know who anyone was, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I didn’t particularly like the music and generally found the whole thing a bit depressing. But the reason that I’m putting it in the ‘bad’ category, not the ‘ugly’ is because I think I’m probably missing something, I think it’s entirely probable the show is wonderful and that I just don’t get it. My loss, but life’s too short for me to watch something I didn’t like.

The ugly
There’s been some pretty public and miserable showings (FlashForward, I’m looking at you). The number of cancelled shows, some of which had big names, big budgets and big promotion behind them is a bit shameful. I feel quite smug about the fact that almost all the shows that I decided not to watch have been cancelled.

The biggest genre of casualties were the procedurals, Medical shows Miami Medical and Three Rivers only made it to 13 episodes, Mercy and Trauma at least it saw out the season, but neither was renewed. Legal show The Deep End couldn’t compare to it’s much more mature sibling The Good Wife and crime procedurals The Forgotten and Past Lives were doomed from the start with a terrible title and terrible premise respectively.

The other cancellations weren’t really any big surprise to anyone I don’t think. Happy Town suffered from trying too hard to be Twin Peaks and being dumped into the unforgiving summer schedules. I didn’t mind the pilot, but it was obvious from the start it wasn’t going to see out its storyline, so why bother watching at all, and yes, I do realise that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve no idea what went wrong with Eastwick, but I wasn’t particularly enthused about the pilot, and I guess no one else was either. The Beautiful Life: TBL meanwhile had so many things wrong with it, the mystery is how it ever got on the screen to start with.

What about next year?
Everyone is looking for the next CSI, the next Grey’s Anatomy and the next Lost, and marketing departments aren’t doing the shows any favours by trying to push the similarities. After this year where everyone was trying to copy the recent smash hits, the networks seem to have just gone back to the people who created those hits in the first place and asked them “please could we have some more”. Next season has a new medical series from Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy), a new police drama from Shawn Ryan (The Shield), a new legal thing from David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, The Practice) and spin-offs in the shape of Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour and Law & Order: Los Angeles. It seems everyone’s playing it safe and sticking with what, and who, they know.

Of course the holy grail isn’t to emulate, but to innovate – to come up with the new foundation of a franchise, or something so wildly different it breaks genres. It could be that a period where TV is going through massive changes in the way it’s watched, distributed and paid for and everyone is looking at their accountants nervously isn’t the best time to take a chance, but maybe with the unbelievable success of Glee, network executives will be a little bit more willing to take a chance. The line between genius and rubbish is pretty thin and I’m looking forward to seeing things on both sides of the line when pilots start up again in just a few weeks.

2010
09/03
CATEGORY
09-10 Season
Leave a comment

NCIS: Los Angeles – Season 1

A screenshot from the truly terrible opening credit sequence. The music sounds even worse than this looks.

At some point during the year, when faced with an episode of NCIS and an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, I switched from watching NCIS first, to eagerly jumping to Los Angeles. I’d initially suffered from my usual scepticism where it comes to spin-offs, but NCIS:LA quickly revealed itself to have an excellent understanding of what made NCIS popular in the first place, at the same time as its parent show started plummeting towards an ignoble end.

The day to day plots of the two shows are much of a muchness – a little less science in LA and a little more undercover, but basically running around shooting and interrogating people. The Navy angle in LA is usually even more forced than in the original flavour with a series of unfortunate seamen getting caught up in domestic dramas, gang squabbles and occasional terrorist kerfuffles. They’re all pretty daft and to be honest, I rarely paid them enough attention to grasp more than the basics of the stories.

Where LA succeeds and Original failed this year however was in the character department. Original flavour bounced all over the place, seemingly inducing schizophrenia in all of its characters and just hoping the viewer wouldn’t notice the inconsistencies. LA meanwhile gave its characters a much smoother time of it, allowing them the time to evolve naturally and actually have some time to react to events.

Chris O’Donnell (Callen) and LL Cool J (Sam) make a brilliant partnership, one of the best on screen at the moment. In my Fringe review I commented that great partnerships are about contrast, seemingly opposite characters actually complementing each other. These guys do that perfectly. Sam is the patient, quieter, more restrained ex-Navy Seal, while Callen the outgoing, risk taking, undercover expert with the mysterious past. They challenge but respect each other and have a really fun, bantering relationship.

I complained in the pilot about the lack of a strong leader character, and while I wouldn’t say they resolved the problem, they did make it more interesting. Hetty (Linda Hunt) is a really original character, office manager to a bunch of agents who just won’t behave. She’s tiny and not exactly a spring chicken (think Edna in The Incredibles) but also pretty handy when it comes to picking out brands of rocket launchers. Hetty doesn’t mother people at all, but she’s definitely the grown up voice of the group, happily manipulating them so that they learn a lesson. She and Callen lead the team together, her from an operations, administrative and political point of view, while he is the team leader in the field. She manipulates him, and he knows it; he listens to her advice, and she doesn’t take advantage. I’m still not really sure of who’s in charge, but the relationship is a fascinating one to watch.

The other members of the team were less stand-out, but perfectly adequate as supporting bodies. Surfer kid tech-whiz was a bit one-dimensional and the female agent was generally just treated as a token female agent, although her occasional sparks of personality hinted at something more interesting. The psychiatrist was poorly used, in too many cases he behaved like a child, showing a painful inexperience and over-enthusiasm when it came to getting involved in the law enforcement side of things. That might have been ok if it were balanced with some other skills, but he rarely was useful in any way, so just seemed a bit of a waste of space. The other junior agent was so utterly unremarkable, that when he left mid-season, I barely noticed.

I enjoyed NCIS:LA in the way I used to enjoy NCIS, harmless fun with good dialogue and fast paced plots; raised above being merely ‘entertaining’ by having some really great characters. If anything, NCIS:LA is partly responsible for my disappointment at NCIS, the season in LA was bright and fun and smooth, the season in NCIS was old and clunky and erratic. The newbie is definitely showing its older colleague up.

2010
07/14
CATEGORY
09-10 Season
Crime Procedural
2 comments

To spin-off or not to spin-off

You’ve got a massively popular television show that everyone’s talking about and everyone’s watching, but how can you do more? You can’t just increase the number of episodes, seasons in the US are already over 20 episodes long and there just aren’t enough days in the year for casts and crews to double that. So the obvious solution is to create a spin-off, possibly even a whole franchise. You’re almost guaranteed to carry across a sizeable chunk of your audience*, half your marketing has already been done for you and the money should just role in.

But how do you do it? You’ve got to create something similar enough it’s familiar, but distinct enough that it’s not cannibalising your original show. You have to look at your show and work out what makes it popular then see if you can translate that to another show. What’s the Thing that carries from one to the next, what is it about your ‘universe’ that makes it worthy of another entry?

If you’re making a science fiction show, that’s a fairly straightforward literal question. Can you just move to somewhere else in the universe you’ve created and tell another story? Maybe look at a different period of that universe’s history (Battlestar/Caprica) or a different location (Stargate, Star Trek). You can keep the complexities of how your universe works and still make it entirely new.

If your ‘universe’ isn’t quite as obvious, the best idea is to break your show down into its primary and secondary defining characteristics – then change the secondary ones. So the primary concept of CSI was that it was about solving crime using forensics. The secondaries might be that it’s set in Las Vegas, with a graveyard shift, with a team led by a scientist. Right, so that means your spin-off is still about solving forensics, but set in a different city, with a day shift and a different style team lead. Welcome to Miami and Horatio Cane. It’s about changing the context without changing the concept. I think Law and Order follows a similar pattern (I don’t actually watch any of them) at its core is the idea of following a crime through the whole legal process, from investigation to the courts, from there you can change the type of crime investigated, or the location, or the type of investigators, while not losing sight of the core idea.

If your show is a little less about what it does and more about how it does it – the writing or storytelling style for example, maybe you literally pick up a character and spin them out somewhere else. This is a popular choice for sitcoms (Cheers/Frasier, Friends/Joey), often with the spinoff launching after the initial series finishes and the character is no longer needed in the parent show. But it has also worked for other types of show, Shonda Rhimes spun off Grey’s Anatomy by having a character head for California. By taking one of the (sorry) older characters from Grey’s, Rhimes has created a more mature show in Private Practice that doesn’t directly compete with the original, but is still familiar in the way it tells stories. The tricky thing is finding a character that’s interesting enough to carry the audience with them, and an actor that’s ready to move from being a supporting player, to being a lead.

But maybe this is all putting too much thought into it. Do you really need to have that strong a relationship between the series? Technically NCIS is a spin-off from JAG, but beyond the fact that they’re both set in side departments of the Navy, do they really have anything in common? Maybe the very fact that NCIS is massively more successful than JAG (it’s currently the number 1 rated show of the year, the best JAG ever did was 15th) shows they’re not that closely related. This year NCIS spawned a further spin-off set in LA, while still nominally in the same department, the new show has a very different approach to investigation, it’s fixed in one city instead of being national and focuses more on a buddy partnership (with some big name actors) than a full team. I think in many ways the show would have been stronger if it had been independent and not continually had to force the navy stuff into the stories.

One thing that NCIS:LA did gain from being a spin-off was that they launched the show with a ‘backdoor pilot’ i.e. they snuck the new show into an episode of the current one. It’s all very friendly, your favourite characters introduce the new team – “hey, it’s alright, you’ll like these guys, you can trust them”. It’s also a way to run a massive focus group on your new show, did the audience like it, do they like the characters? There’s still plenty of time to pull the whole thing, or tweak the cast before you launch the series proper in a few months. NCIS:LA learnt that a couple of characters didn’t work and swapped them out.

If you can get this right, there is so much to gain. If your spin-off runs in parallel you can block out a whole chunk of the schedule and each show helps the other. You can bump your ratings at any time by doing crossover episodes with characters from one show appearing in the other, CSI recently sent a character on a grand tour of the series and that managed to get even ME to watch Miami! But when there’s a lot to gain from getting it right, there’s also a lot to lose if you get it wrong. A bad entry into a franchise can taint the whole thing (Enterprise, I’m looking at you!). Trying to overlap shows can mean that you just dilute the quality of your original offering – if you have to come up with twice as many different navy related crimes to investigate each week, sooner or later you’re going to run out of ideas.
And that leads me on to my thoughts on the Criminal Minds spin-off… but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that.

* I spent half hour looking at ratings, comparing the first season of the spin-off against the season of its parent that aired at the same time. The selection I looked at was pretty narrow, and self-lmited to successful spinoffs, but ranged from 60ish percent up to 110% (CSI/CSI:Miami = 63%, Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice = 73%, Law & Order/L&O: SVU = 75%, NCIS/NCIS:LA = 81%, Buffy/Angel = 104%, JAG /NCIS =110%). Sadly I failed to easily find ratings data on Doctor Who/Torchwood, Star Trek, Stargate or Hercules/Xena.

2010
04/14
CATEGORY
How TV works
3 comments

New Season So Far

I’ve reviewed 21 pilots this season and I am declaring myself done. If I were to be a completionist about things, there’s still two pilots I haven’t reviewed: The Cleveland Show which I’m choosing to exempt because it’s an animation and the reimagining of Melrose Place which I just don’t think I can bring myself to dedicate 45 minutes of my life to. There are also a few shows which may debut later in the season, the most notable of which is the reimagining of V which I’m quite excited by, but doesn’t appear until November.

I’ve gotta say, I’m not hugely impressed with this year’s selection. These things tend to come in waves and this is clearly not a poster year for television. For example 2004 was a good year – it saw the arrival of Battlestar Galactica, Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars, CSI:NY, Boston Legal, House and Lost – that’s a pretty good haul!

Even though there’s only a couple of direct spin offs on the roster this year, the vast majority of the shows that are obvious attempts to cash in on something already successful. The Beautiful Life tried and failed to be the new Gossip Girl, Mercy is Grey’s Anatomy with nurses, Eastwick is Desperate Housewives with magic and FlashForward is enthusiastically selling itself as the new Lost to anyone that will listen. The Vampire Diaries is a TV show for Twilight fans, Glee owes a lot to High School Musical and Defying Gravity is actually a remake of a BBC documentary!

The problem is that for each of those you’ve got an obvious problem. If I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, it’s unlikely I’m going to watch the new version. If I AM already loving and watching Grey’s Anatomy why would I also want to watch a cheap copycat? You’re setting yourself the difficult challenge of being so much better than the original that people don’t care you’re not original. The best thing FlashForward could say about itself is not “if you liked Lost, you’ll like us”, it’s “if you liked the idea of Lost, but gave up on it, come watch us because we learnt from Lost’s mistakes”. It’s not such a catchy slogan, but it might just work.

What that means is that no show is really going to stand out because of what it’s doing creatively. What does stand out is quality writing, acting and directing. The Good Wife is far and away the best pilot of the year, not because there was anything particularly original about the story, but because the writing and acting were a step above everything else out there.

So on the flip side, there were lots of potentially good shows let who’s pilots turned me right off because they just weren’t polished enough. Stargate Universe was the key example of this, I desperately wanted to like it but found myself continually frustrated in my attempts by lazy writing. NCIS: LA has some great characters, and the actors are making it watchable while the writers don’t seem to even be trying. Both these shows are lucky because their pedigrees mean they can get away with slow or bumpy starts, but I’d hoped for a bit more from each.

The pilots for Glee and FlashForward both got the job done, in that I’m still watching the shows a few episodes down the line. Both have a lot of hype and noise about them and I sorta like both of them, but I’m not exactly a raving fan of either and it wouldn’t take much for me to lose interest. I think FlashForward I’ll stick with because if it does get great I don’t want to have to admit that I missed it. Glee I suspect I’ll probably watch in chunks when I’m feeling down – a little quirky goes a long way and I’m continually frustrated by the bad dubbing.

There are a couple of shows that are bubbling away. When I reviewed Trauma I loved half of it and hated the other half, but after a couple of weeks for some reason I can’t get it out of my head so have got a few more episodes to watch. I guess the pilot did what it needed to. On the flip side I really wanted to love Eastwick, but hated the pilot, I’ll keep an eye on the reviews and potentially pick it up later if the news is good. Likewise if by mid-season Mercy, Three Rivers or The Forgotten are getting decent reviews I might have another look, none of them were bad really, just utterly unremarkable.

One of the things I’ve learnt about myself is that I just don’t get sitcoms. I watch television in a very pro-active kind of way, I sit down to watch specific shows which I’ve sought out and none of the new season’s comedies inspired me to do that, despite the fact that other reviewers I respect say that they’re pretty good. Community and The Middle were the only two that I actually enjoyed watching and at best I might tivo/pvr/sky+ or pick up a dvd box set on special offer. Most of the others made me want to punch people.

Last time I did this in 2007 I reviewed ten shows, so I’ve doubled my workload this time around. If I do it again I’ll definitely drop the ½ hour sitcoms. I have enjoyed the challenge of writing the reviews, sometimes having to expand “it’s awful” into something a bit more lengthy, and sometimes having to shorten three pages of incoherent gushing down to something that people might actually read. Forcing myself to watch bad things definitely makes me appreciate the good more though. I would never have thought it could be so hard to write good pilots, but what do I know!

Show Title UK Airing Category Cancelled? 1word Review
Accidentally on Purpose E4, 2010 Sitcom   Meh
Bored to Death   Sitcom &nbsp Dull
Brothers   Sitcom   Awful
Community   Sitcom   Smart
Cougar Town   Sitcom Renewed Ugh
Defying Gravity BBC2 Scifi Cancelled Good
Eastwick Hallmark Channel Drama Cancelled Poor
FlashForward Five, Monday Scifi/Crime Procedural Season deal Possible
Glee E4, 2010 Drama/Comedy   Unsumarisable
Hank   Sitcom Cancelled Awful
Mercy   Medical procedural   Uninspiring
Modern Family Starts Thurs 15th Oct, Sky1 Sitcom Renewed Cringe
NCIS: Los Angeles Starts Sky1, 21 Oct Crime procedural Renewed OK
Stargate Universe Sky2, Wednesdays Scifi   Troubled
The Beautiful Life: TBL   Drama Already cancelled Doomed
The Forgotten   Crime procedural   Dull
The Good Wife More4, 2010 Legal Procedural Renewed Superb
The Middle   Sitcom Renewed Good
The Vampire Diaries ITV2, 2010 Drama   Unoriginal
Three Rivers   Medical procedural Cancelled Vanilla
Trauma   Medical procedural   Not sure
2009
10/13
CATEGORY
Pilot Reviews
Leave a comment

Pilot Preview: NCIS: Los Angeles

Like NCIS, but set in LA. Yeah, that pretty much covers it.

(This is the only video I can find and it’s not great – it’s surprisingly hard to find trailers that aren’t region restricted)

One of only two franchise additions this season (the other being Stargate Universe), NCIS:Los Angeles is actually a spin-off of a spin-off. NCIS:LA follows six years of NCIS, which in turn followed eight years of JAG; over 350 episodes pre-date this new series!

And that right there is a problem, what on earth can they do to make this something new? If the three pilot episodes (a two part ‘special’ embedded in last season’s NCIS and the first real episode of the series) are anything to go by, plot wise there’s not much new here. There’s more of a focus on undercover work and cool spy technology, but it will almost certainly follow a similar case of the week format, which will be almost entirely forgettable.

What NCIS:LA does have is an extremely talented and charismatic cast. Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J are the buddy cop duo and they work really well together. O’Donnell’s character is a slightly hyperactive undercover expert, Cool J (Mr J?) is a former navy SEAL who is the calm voice of reason. Both have what could be mysterious pasts, but actually they reveal quite a lot pretty quickly. They’re both interesting independently, and together they’re fascinating. The supporting cast also has a lot of potential with some pretty quirky characters. The only thing missing is a strong leader for the group, sadly they seem to have dropped Louise Lombard’s character who appeared in the NCIS crossover episodes and I thought worked well with the team.

With the names behind this show, I can’t see how it can fail. It’s got the budget, a gorgeous set and the pedigree to guarantee ratings success. There’s nothing new about the stories or concept, but that’s not what I’ve watched six seasons of NCIS for. I watch for the characters and their dialogue, the actors and their chemistry and it seems to me that I’ll enjoy NCIS:Los Angeles for the same reasons.

Links: Official Site, imdb, TV.com

2009
09/25
CATEGORY
Crime Procedural
Pilot Reviews
Leave a comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.