The Earl/Lee Show

Jason Lee, the former big-time skateboarder who has been kickin’ it in such big-screen fare as Heartbreakers, Mumford, and the works of Kevin Smith, takes a nice size chunk of the small screen in My Name is Earl, a single-camera (and yes, single-channel!) sitcom. He plays a trashy, minor-scale crook whose life has the chance of improving once he faces his own karma. He must do good things, and he is a man ill-equipped in experience and intellect to reach those goals. And from that conflict, humor arises.

So thematically, this is a struggle for redemption, which has always been ann attractive theme to me. This is a show where we may laugh at the central losers, but we have hope for them. It’s pro human, for hope is what this is all about.

Which would not excuse it if it was not funny, mind you, but it is very funny.

So for those keeping score, we have real first episode wins for this, How I Met Your Mother, and Surface (and that last one gets an asterisk, as I’m not comfortably sure that it leads to an actual good series.)

Surf Ace!

The new SF thriller series Surface did not blow its budget on recognizable cast, but they sure spent money on production value. Most of it would not look out of place on a major theatrical release.

There are signs of a new, powerful species appearing in Earth’s oceans. Various people who are aware of this are drawing together. Really, with a bit more detail, that’s the plot of the first episode. It’s all done with style. The dialogue is smooth. When the characters converge, will it be interesting? Will the larger story really be worthwhile? Hard to say from this point, but this is well worth checking out and trying for a few episodes.

(There’s a portion where military folks are surprised that an civilian evolutionary biologist is sent to investigate the scene of a mysterious occurence. Yes, that might be a little weird, but it would’ve been even odder had a intelligent design scientist been sent to the scene. “Why yes, this is obviously G-d’s work. Yup, it’s got His fingerprints all over it!”)

Doogie Lawyer

I have a special interest in shows about folks who went through an accelerated education. I received my own BA and entered the workforce at 18. So when I see something like Just Legal coming up, it gets my attention.

This is a show about an 18 year old lawyer who cannot find anyone willing to work with him except a once-great lawyer turned drunken ambulance chaser. Don Johnson actually fits the older lawyer role quite well, but it is beyond his ability, beyond anyone’s ability, to rise above the heinous script. What could be a light drama about a young man finding his way is treated with the worst sort of maudlin, manipulative seriousness as the older lawyer Learns A Lesson and Begins To Care Again because of the young one. The revelation of this turn around is in the most hideous example of “closing argument that has nothing to do with the case and everything to do with the lawyer’s private life and which inexplicably wins the case” that I’ve seen, and that’s saying something. Every lick of the music announces that they are making something Emotionally Moving here. It’s a careless contraption of false, hokey pointlessness. (And I’m not a legal expert by any means, but I’m rather dubious about SPOILER WARNING a judge convicting someone of a crime with which she had not been charged and which the defense had not had an opportunity to argue.)

Amy Aquino (the mom from Brooklyn Bridge) plays a judge again here, a role she’s filled on The Practice and Judging Amy as well, and I think perhaps one or two others. Her IMDb listing shows a string of detectives, lawyers, doctors, and even a rabbi. But for those of you keeping track of such things: yes, she was on Freaks and Geeks.

One to watch

The sitcoms I’ve reviewed so far from last night both had strong casts, workable concepts, and potential that may yet be fulfilled.

In contrast, How I Met Your Mother had a strong cast, workable concept, and was firing on all cylinders from the get-go. This is a romance comedy set in present day, told as flashbacks from the future, about a single young man who realizes he is ready for marriage.

Like the rest of the night’s shows, the lead is someone relatively unknown to me, but he acquits himself well as a charming guy who could stand to visit the wizard for some confidence. His supporting cast of friends is far better known, and they do a wonderful job. Neil “Doogie” Patrick “Howser” Harris plays the lecherous wingman in the blunt, intelligent, master-of-the-world delivery that has served him well in recent years. Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel exude sheer likable enthusiasm in their role as the couple-friends, bringing the light of romance into it. And Cobie Smulders (I love paying attention to credits just to see names that I would never invent) exudes charm and beauty as the object of our lead’s affection… and the lead somehow manages to avoid making that attraction seem unearned. Unlike so many shows and movie where the pretty girl falls for the goofy guy despite all apparent unlikelihood, this works here.

Look, I’m better at explaining why something doesn’t work than why something does. Something works because it works. This works. This is my first “yes, watch this!” review of the season. I hope it won’t be my last, but at the very least, here it is.

Is there a non-doctor in the house?

They seem to be tossing some quality-laden casts at shows this year. Threshold, Kitchen Confidential, How I Met Your Mother… and here’s Out of Practice, a show that has Henry Winkler (who gave what looked to be a goodbye performance on Arrested Development tonight), Stockard Channing, Paula Marshall (oh, they do so have to DVDize Cupid at some point). And then there’s the brief appearance by Jennifer Tilly, which is interesting on a couple of levels. One is that Kelsey “Frasier” Grammer directed this episode, and Tilly played Frasier’s girlfriend twice… once on Cheers, once on Frasier, different girlfriends. The other is that the character is specified in the script as 32 years old and enhanced by plastic surgery… and while I don’t know whether the quite attractive Ms. Tilly has been surgically enhanced, I do know that she’s 47.

The key character is a couples counselor whose marrige falls apart (yes, that’s giving away a bit of the pilot, but the rhythms make that clear that’s going to happen within the first couple minutes.) The wife is set up as one of those harsh, unseen women that we’ve seen in previous sitcoms from some of the same behind-the-camera folk – Vera on Cheers, Maris on Frasier. The rest of the family are doctors of varying kinds, and are in varying degrees meddlesome and self-centered. The family, not the relationship, is the center on which this series turns.

But when you have a five individuals, you have 10 person-to-person relationships there. If you have a good series, each of those relationships is different. Getting that right takes time. There were mostly silly basic sitcom joke laughs in this first episode, and it didn’t add up to much, but again, this is a show with potential. Since it has a good time slot (following Two-and-a-Half Men), it may find the time to reach that potential. I expect to be back for at least a couple more episodes, particularly if they keep showing an underdressed Jennifer Tilly…

Confidential review

Kitchen Confidential is a class act. It’s got a strong cast, well directed, well photographed, and it has serious intent. The pilot wasn’t that funny, mind you, but the base for a good series has been laid.

Set in a new, trendy restaurant with a chef whose previous go-round in the big leagues put him in the fast lane in all the worst ways, it paints the restaurant world as over-the-top and filled with characters. There may be actually too many characters in the restaurant, and folks like Nicholas Brendon of Buffy and John Cho of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle don’t get much use in the pilot.

It’s a single-camera show, and while it deals in excess, it kept an emotional core through this episode. We shall see if it can take this richness and build off of it. Worth checking out, and I’ll try to give it a couple more episodes, despite the overloadd time slot.

Freaks vs. Geeks! Scoobies vs. Each Other!

Tonight is the first night that the new season really comes on hot’n'heavy… in fact, with my TiVo and main VCR at work and with me doing some live viewing, I might still need to check out if I can get the secondary VCR to work!

But it wasn’t until I took a close look at tonight’s schedule that I realized that Kitchen Confidential and How I Met Your Mother, the two shows that each feature one start from Freaks and Geeks and one star from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, are battling in the same time slot. I’ve been hoping to like both of these shows; now that’s just become a complication.

The top star

Just to show that the Internet covers everything, here’s an article on the real star of Veronica Mars: the wig that Kristen Bell wears in flashback scenes!

Awkward Awards

I’m in the midst of watching the Emmy broadcast. They’re run on a delay out here on the West Coast, so if somehow anything truly interesting happened live that got by the seven second delay, we’re still not going to see it.

There are a number of great little bits, but the overall effect is clumsy and awkward. From the “let’s put new words relevant to our awards to an old hit song” opening which may have been by respectable actors but felt more like a high school talent show, through the “Emmy Idol” idiocy of having TV stars sing TV themes and act like it’s a contest (feeling particularly sad for the talented actress Kristen Bell, whose performance was cringe inducing in its unintentional not-ready-for-prime-timedness), and with awkward and generic presentations and acceptances, it feels horribly clumsy. The awkwardly earnest back-pattery of the retired generation of news anchors just ended. And wait, here it comes, another one of the Family Guy interstitials which just serve to remind me that when I thought it was a horribly lackluster and derivative show when I watched the first episode, I was right.

High points:

• The comedy/variety writer nominee filmettes
• The winner who lost her “thank you” script in her bra
• The Jon Stewart filmed bit which finally let us know how George Bush feels about the band Black Sabbath
• Felicity Huffman’s acceptance speech (even if it sounded as though she thought being kissed in a meadow makes one married)
• When Brad Garrett made a joke about having a baby with Britney, seeing Marcia Cross in the background explaining to Huffman who “Britney” was.
• Hugh Laurie and Zach Braff’s presentation

And did I see tht right? Is Seth Rogen (actor on Freaks and Geeks and 40 Year Old Virgin really a writer on Da Ali G Show?

Both Spader and Shatner win Emmies for playing the same characters they won Emmies for playing last year, but on a different show. Not sure if anyone has won awards for the same character on two different ongoing series before (I’ll put the playing-Eleanor-Roosevelt-in-two-miniseries win into a different category.)

And seeing various awards go to Boston Legal and Arrested Development, both of which had their seasons cut short by several episodes, just reminds us of the disconnect between perceived quality and record popularity.

Threshold

Threshold has a great cast. Charles S. Dutton of Roc, Brent Spiner of Star Trek: The Next Generation Peter Dinklage of Elf and The Station Agent, and especially Carla Gugino of Karen Sisco, Spy Kids, and for those who are more interested in seeing her than her clothing, Sin City.

Much of the good cast is playing bad scientists. Oh, we’re told they’re great scientists, but it took them hours of research to recognize the mandelbrot set, while t audience in my home went “oooh, fractals!” the moment we saw it. They do some experiments with some brown rats, and to make sure they’re doing proper science they use some white rats as control rats. That’s right, they use a different breed as the control group, which might be done by, oh, a scientist that never really learned the point of a control group.

This is a tale of alien invasion, not so much an alien physical invasion but a mental invasion, invading our bodies. It’s a big concept for a story, and it’s not clear whether the series will reflect the scale (and if so, how).

It does have good performances, good production, human moments, but it’s understandably and commonly difficult to show smart people actually exercising their smarts. It stumbles badly enough that it’s clear this is not a “smart” series, more of a silly SF thriller that’s about supposedly smart people.

The question of whether it’s worthwhile will depend on the quality of the conflict, but it will at best be an adventure thrill. It seems unlikely that we will be in awe of the thinking involved.