Yes, yes, I’ve fallen far behind. So here we are playing catch-up.
The pilot for Blind Justice was exactly, beat-for-beat, the pilot that you’d expect a reasonable, commercial producer to make about a newly blind cop. The conflicts, the dubious partner, the troubles at home… all well done, and all exactly to be expected. Perhaps if I had not seen enough shows before, I would be more entertained.
Jake in Progress is being pushed as a male Sex and the City, which might be more impressive if I liked Sex and the City. I like the look of the show, I like that it’s being done with serious intent, I really like that it uses Wendy Malick. There are some clumsinesses (there is a problem with indicating early on what a character is; in the first episode, there was an actor who I assumed was supposed to be an ahtlete for his first minute on screen, and Malick’s boss character first appeared to be a receptionist. So far, I don’t care about the characters or their dilemmas. This is a series I could check in on from time to time, but not something that I have to watch.
WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS FOR PAST EPISODES OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND HILL STREET BLUES. AND HAPPY DAYS, I SUPPOSE. Since the Arrested Development episode of two weeks back (“Mommyboy XXX”), I’ve seen references to the small bit of TV reference that occured when Henry Winkler’s lawyer character jumps over a shark, echoing a Happy Days event which led to a now past-its-prime piece of cultural terminology. However, I have not seen anyone comment on Winkler’s character mentioning running into a judge at a drag bar… which would seem to be a more obscure reference to a cross-dressing judge on Hill Street Blues, played by Arrested Development star Jeffrey Tambor.
The “Goo Goo Gai Pan” episode of The Simpsons which aired a couple weeks back was hitting the mark in a way that the show (still quite watchable) rarely does these days.
And I am really hoping that Heather Locklear gets a reasonably successful series… if only to keep her from showing up on shows that I like. Next victim: Boston Legal.
