Since my favorite of the new crop of shows is on tonight, I thought I'd finish my reviews. Again, this is not a comprehensive list of all the new shows. I usually skip sitcoms, and I don't get any of the premium channels.
Pushing Daisies is one of the supernatural-type shows that works for me--very well. Lee Pace plays Ned, who can bring the dead back with one touch. If he touches the person, or animal or plant, a second time it is dead forever. And if he leaves the touchee alive for more than a minute, something or someone else dies in its place. Ned revives his childhood sweetheart and leaves her alive. Now he can't touch her, but their romance is growing. There are a lot of heavy-hitting actors, many from Broadway, here. The show is color saturated, in every way. Jim Dale provides the narration. I love it, but it doesn't seem to be getting the numbers it may need to survive.
Chuck is just plain fun. A computer geek accidentally downloads all of the country's encrypted secrets into his brain when he opens an email from a former friend. Now he has a beautiful CIA agent and a big, scary NSA agent following him around. The NSA agent is played by Adam Baldwin--Jayne to fans of Firefly. I'd watch it just for him. A great lead-in to Heroes.
Moonlight. Sorry, Whit, but I'm enjoying the vampire show. And I like some of the messing with the usual vampire mythos. Garlic? Tastes great on pizza. Holy water? Makes you wet. And let's face it, Alex O'Loughlin as Mick St. John is hot. David Boreanaz never really did anything for me. But this guy? Oh, yeah. If you've got nothing else to do on a Friday night, why not?
Women's Murder Club is based on a series by James Patterson--which I haven't read, but may check out now. Three 30-something friends--a homicide detective, an assistant DA and a coroner--solve crime and deal with life in San Francisco. They are joined in their 'club' by a young investigative reporter. The nice thing about these 4 urban professional women who are each juggling work and a personal life with varying degrees of success is that not once did they find it necessary to discuss shoes. At least in the pilot.
So that's it for the winners. Sorry, Viva Laughlin. Had you stuck with people singing along with the radio (or just let Hugh Jackman break into song whenever he hits the casino), it might have worked for me. But Melanie Griffith doesn't have the pipes, and the Blondie song came out of nowhere. Oh well.
As with any review, your mileage may vary.
3 comments:
Moonlight - yeah they're playing with conventions, but of the little I watched, the writing just wasn't where it could have been.
While I'm not going to debate the relative merits of respective leads between Moonlight and Angel, I'll totally argue the merits of the respective writers.
I wonder, though, if this may end up one of those shows that gets better as it goes - i.e. once they get the "look! he's a vampire!" stuff out of their systems and start digging deeper than setting their mythology and get into meaty character stuff.
Of course, since I work almost every single Friday, I won't be able to tell any time soon.
If they do that, it could be a great show.
I hope they do, too. And you're right, of course, Ali. The writing doesn't come close to touching Joss. But in the vast wasteland of Friday night television, it's not bad. Now if they'd just find something to replace Ghost Whisperer.
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