Pilot Season
For anyone who watches Dexter, the first two pre-air eps of the second season are already out.
A number of new shows have gotten out there as well, two of which I watched this morning - Reaper and Californication.
Take Clerks and marry it to Brimstone, and their resulting mildy-retarded child would be Reaper. The premise of the show is: loser guy's parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born, and on his 21st birthday, old Scrotch himself would make his claim. As it turns out, all the devil wants from him is his help; his job is to hunt down escaped souls from hell and send 'em back down via some hell-on-earth portal (the DMV). This is where the Brimstone part comes in. You see, the souls aren't exactly willing, and some have extra special powers, such as the pyromaniac who's made up of lava & flame, so our hero and his buddy (who's a cross between all the obnoxious aspects of Jack Black and that guy from Knocked Up) have to figure out how to subdue him without ending up slacker flambé.
It's not awful, but compared to shows with similar themes, such as Brimstone and Dead Like Me, it doesn't even rate. Brimstone had Peter Horton, and John Glover was a much better Satan. Dead Like Me had fantastic, original characters and excellent writing.
Being cast in Californication must have been a wet dream for David Duchovny, whose love for the misogynistic, slovenly, assholeish, alcoholic writer Charles Bukowski translated into his character, Hank Moody. Who, coincidentally, is a misogynistic, slovenly, assholeish, alcoholic writer. The problem is Duchovny himself. I imagine he's trying to get away from his X-Files typecast, but the same laid-back, monotone (spell that w-o-o-d-e-n) style that worked so well in his stint as Fox Mulder makes him look like a complete twat in this show. He's the most brilliant writer evah (...), he drinks heavily (and?), he desperately hops from women to women to cover up the inner hurt of his troubled soul and the woman who broke his heart(fap, fap, fap), and he dishes the two-fisted smackdown on some some cholo chatting on his cell at the movies, because that's what a Real Guy™ does. (Seriously? Duchovny beating up anybody? HAHAHAHAAHAHA!)
Oddly enough, while skipping though this ep (because, frankly, I can only stand smug, self-aggrandizement in tiny, easily digestible increments), all I could think of was how fantastic an actor Hugh Laurie was. Because House? Asshole. Drug addict. Manipulative, sneaky, brilliant bastard. And, unlike Duchovny's character, still interesting and, at times, likeable.
In the hands of a better actor, or one with more charisma, this might have worked. As it is right now, Hank Moody only comes off as a wannabe broken bad boy. The writing is actually pretty decent, dialogue-wise; some good one-liners, interesting, offbeat conversations, character interactions - all delivered without an ounce of charm.
Much as I'd like to give it a chance, I don't think I could stomach another episode.
It's difficult to appreciate The Sarah Connor Chronicles when the show's title character isn't exactly inspiring, herself. Where's the tough as nails, take no prisoners, will-kick-your fucking-ass mominator Linda Hamilton gave us in T2? This incarnation Sarah spends more time being pensive and getting kicked around, only to be rescued by Summer Glau, who's gone from playing River Tam to Terminator-bot - if only I could tell the difference.
Also? "Come with me if you want to live.".
Bad crib/"homage" of first film made only worse by an inexplicably awful delivery.
Too bad. I was really looking forward to this one.
Pushing Daisies
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php/-1099809303/pushing.daisies.s01e01.preair.dvdrip.xvid-crx.avi
I used to think masturbation meant chewing your food.
Show's looking good so far. It's got the narrative structure and a sense of the absurd reminiscent of Desperate Housewives or Amélie. It's cute, though I'm not sure if I'd watch an entire season if it.
Chuck is another slacker-in-unbelievable-circumstances kind of show. Mildly loser-ish nerd's brain ends up being host to every single gubbinment secret thanks to his (now dead) ex-college roommate and CIA operative. Naturally, the NSA (represented by Adam Jayne! Baldwin) and the CIA (an actress with an ungodly large number of consonants in her name) are keeping watch over him and whatever tumbles out of that space between his ears.
This one's actually not bad - a bit reminiscent of Jake 2.0, except without the super-twinking nanogenes. Outside of having the occasional Clockwork Orange photo-flashbacks upchucked by the database in his head, he's actually your normal, if socially retarded, gamer geek. I'll probably tune into this show, just to see how it develops.
A number of new shows have gotten out there as well, two of which I watched this morning - Reaper and Californication.
Take Clerks and marry it to Brimstone, and their resulting mildy-retarded child would be Reaper. The premise of the show is: loser guy's parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born, and on his 21st birthday, old Scrotch himself would make his claim. As it turns out, all the devil wants from him is his help; his job is to hunt down escaped souls from hell and send 'em back down via some hell-on-earth portal (the DMV). This is where the Brimstone part comes in. You see, the souls aren't exactly willing, and some have extra special powers, such as the pyromaniac who's made up of lava & flame, so our hero and his buddy (who's a cross between all the obnoxious aspects of Jack Black and that guy from Knocked Up) have to figure out how to subdue him without ending up slacker flambé.
It's not awful, but compared to shows with similar themes, such as Brimstone and Dead Like Me, it doesn't even rate. Brimstone had Peter Horton, and John Glover was a much better Satan. Dead Like Me had fantastic, original characters and excellent writing.
Being cast in Californication must have been a wet dream for David Duchovny, whose love for the misogynistic, slovenly, assholeish, alcoholic writer Charles Bukowski translated into his character, Hank Moody. Who, coincidentally, is a misogynistic, slovenly, assholeish, alcoholic writer. The problem is Duchovny himself. I imagine he's trying to get away from his X-Files typecast, but the same laid-back, monotone (spell that w-o-o-d-e-n) style that worked so well in his stint as Fox Mulder makes him look like a complete twat in this show. He's the most brilliant writer evah (...), he drinks heavily (and?), he desperately hops from women to women to cover up the inner hurt of his troubled soul and the woman who broke his heart(fap, fap, fap), and he dishes the two-fisted smackdown on some some cholo chatting on his cell at the movies, because that's what a Real Guy™ does. (Seriously? Duchovny beating up anybody? HAHAHAHAAHAHA!)
Oddly enough, while skipping though this ep (because, frankly, I can only stand smug, self-aggrandizement in tiny, easily digestible increments), all I could think of was how fantastic an actor Hugh Laurie was. Because House? Asshole. Drug addict. Manipulative, sneaky, brilliant bastard. And, unlike Duchovny's character, still interesting and, at times, likeable.
In the hands of a better actor, or one with more charisma, this might have worked. As it is right now, Hank Moody only comes off as a wannabe broken bad boy. The writing is actually pretty decent, dialogue-wise; some good one-liners, interesting, offbeat conversations, character interactions - all delivered without an ounce of charm.
Much as I'd like to give it a chance, I don't think I could stomach another episode.
It's difficult to appreciate The Sarah Connor Chronicles when the show's title character isn't exactly inspiring, herself. Where's the tough as nails, take no prisoners, will-kick-your fucking-ass mominator Linda Hamilton gave us in T2? This incarnation Sarah spends more time being pensive and getting kicked around, only to be rescued by Summer Glau, who's gone from playing River Tam to Terminator-bot - if only I could tell the difference.
Also? "Come with me if you want to live.".
Bad crib/"homage" of first film made only worse by an inexplicably awful delivery.
Too bad. I was really looking forward to this one.
Pushing Daisies
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php/-1099809303/pushing.daisies.s01e01.preair.dvdrip.xvid-crx.avi
I used to think masturbation meant chewing your food.
Show's looking good so far. It's got the narrative structure and a sense of the absurd reminiscent of Desperate Housewives or Amélie. It's cute, though I'm not sure if I'd watch an entire season if it.
Chuck is another slacker-in-unbelievable-circumstances kind of show. Mildly loser-ish nerd's brain ends up being host to every single gubbinment secret thanks to his (now dead) ex-college roommate and CIA operative. Naturally, the NSA (represented by Adam Jayne! Baldwin) and the CIA (an actress with an ungodly large number of consonants in her name) are keeping watch over him and whatever tumbles out of that space between his ears.
This one's actually not bad - a bit reminiscent of Jake 2.0, except without the super-twinking nanogenes. Outside of having the occasional Clockwork Orange photo-flashbacks upchucked by the database in his head, he's actually your normal, if socially retarded, gamer geek. I'll probably tune into this show, just to see how it develops.