Ben and Kate: Surprise Hit

Creator(s): Dana Fox

Network/Writer(s): FOX/Dana Fox

Director: Jake Kasdan

Actors: Dakota Johnson, Nat Faxon, Lucy Punch, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Echo Kellum 

Tagline/Summary: His sister. Her daughter. Who's raising who?

***

[NOTE: This review may contain spoilers, so please watch the show before reading, or don't.]

Sitcoms always work better when there is a set unit. "Seinfeld" had Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer; "Friends" had the six leads; and "How I Met Your Mother" has had the same group since the pilot. Usually the smaller the group the better because it's easier to develop characters if each is given significant screen time. "Friends" used the trick of always writing scenes that involved at least three of the character. The more focused the sitcom the better.

"Ben and Kate's" number is three: siblings Ben (Faxon) and Kate (Johnson) along with her daughter, Maddie (Jones). This trio already has the relateablity needed for a prolonged sitcom. To be fair, the laughs aren't completely there yet, but the pilot laid a lot of ground work required to have a successful show. They have likeable characters, a plausible plot and instant chemistry between the actors.

The pilot is very focused and tight. It centers around showing how completely opposite Ben and Kate are, but instead of telling the audience through dialogue, they show it with each character's story.

Ben has returned to convince a former love to take him back. He hasn't spoken to her in a year, but he's willing to take a risk and crash her wedding. Kate, on the other hand, is very conservative in her decision making, which is why she's waited until the 10th date to have sex with her boyfriend (Ben Foster). It was a well thought out and executed idea to use relationships as the way to show the differences in the siblings.

Even though both fail in their efforts, they grow closer together and we instantly feel the love they have for each other. The writing in this episode was the ultimate example of show vs. tell. Sure, you have to tell some things because you need background, but I was able to learn more about the characters from their actions than the exposition that was spoken. Unfortunately, this isn't always true on television, especially 30-minute shows.

Strong writing is always a good sign for a series. The most encouraging thing is that they haven't fleshed out the supporting characters: Kate's friend BJ (Punch) and Ben's friend Tommy (Kellum). It also bodes well that they didn't exploit Maddie in the first episode. They included just enough cute moment and interesting interaction with Ben to let us understand her and her place in the show. She's going to be a scene-stealer. If there was a negative, it was that show wasn't laugh-a-minute. But, honestly, what series is nowadays.

"Ben and Kate" has the potential to be a subtle, but surprise hit for Fox in the same way "Raising Hope" was a few years ago. The best compliment that can be given at this moment is that the audience cares what happens next. Like I've mentioned in past reviews, the pilot is meant to get the public hooked, but episodes 2 and 3 are what reels them in permanently. And if what was showcased in the series opener continues, there's nothing that should stop "Ben and Kate" from becoming a staple on television.

Rating: 7.5/10

Rewatchability: High

Partners: Will and Grace lite

Creator(s): David Kohan and Max Mutchnick

Network/Writer(s): CBS/David Kohan and Max Mutchnick

Director: James Burrow

Actors: Sophia Bush, David Krumholtz, Brandon Routh, Michael Urie

Tagline/Summary: Two lifelong friends, who are both architects, form a business partnership.

***

[NOTE: This review may contain spoilers, so please watch the show before reading, or don't.]

Once they've had success, writers tend to stay within their comfort zones. There's no incentive to do something new because good money can be made writing the same story over and over again. If you are very good at it, you can make a good living by coming up with a fresh twist on your specialty. But if you basically write the same show again, with only a cosmetic change, you will find that the audience will not be there.

This is the issue for "Partners". The new CBS sitcom was created by the minds behind the ground breaking "Will and Grace", David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. And it very much resembles their last hit. The story revolves around four people living in New York City, including best friends Louis (Urie) and Joe (Krumholtz) who work and live together. Louis is gay, and Joe is straight, so nothing like "Will and Grace". Nope, not at all.

 In the opening act, we are introduced to the friends through a series of scenes where we are supposed to understand their friendship, but we are left wondering how they are still friends. The pilot mostly focuses on Louis and Joe, and Kohan and Mutchnick try to create the type chemistry between the two male leads that was between Will and Jack. But it fails mainly because Louis feels like a watered-down Jack so the jokes don't work as well.

The heart of the show lies with the other two leads: Ali (Bush) and Wyatt (Routh). Ali is Joe's girlfriend and part of the main conflict of the pilot. Joe can't decide if he wants to propose or not. He tell Louis one thing and does another; hilarity ensues. Wyatt, on the other hand, is the lovable, dim-witted boyfriend of Louis. He's the complete opposite of Louis in every way. I guess they were going for an odd couple thing here.

Bush and Routh show how important casting the actors to play opposite the focus of the show. If the pilot is any indication, 3/4 of the show will be Joe and Louis centered, but without strong performances by Bush and Routh, the series will fail. Luckily, Kohan and Mutchnick have a track record of doing this well. By the end of "Will and Grace", Jack and Karen were as popular or even more popular than the title characters, which I believe will be the case with "Partners".

The worry and big issue with the premise is with the comparison that will surely be made, can it survive as "Will and Grace"-lite? Krumholtz and Bush can easily anchor the show and keep it watchable, but will Urie's Louis bring it down because his character isn't as strong as Jack, or that he's not as good of an actor as Sean Hayes?

With so much going against it, "Partners" needs to find something that separates it from its spiritual predecessor, and Routh's Wyatt could be it. He's a little bit of an air-head now, but give him few strong episodes and people may forget their comparisons.

Rating: 5.5/10

Rewatchability: Moderate

Revolution: Loads of Potential

Creator(s): Eric Kripke


Network/Writer(s): NBC/Eric Kripke

 Director: Jon Favreau

Actors: Billy Burke, Tracy Spiridakos, Zak Orth, David Lyons, Anna Lise Phillips

Tagline: 15 years after the blackout…they will light the way.

***

[NOTE: This review may contain spoilers, so please watch the show before reading, or don't.]

Post-apocalyptic stories are always fascinating to humans because it is natural to wonder how our world will look if we lost all of the technological advantages we take for granted. But there is a fine line between an interesting story and insulting your audience, and "Revolution" walks it as well as a Wallenda.

"Revolution" takes place 15 years after the world has gone dark, and the world has gone back to the dark ages. Our story takes place somewhere outside of Chicago, where villages have formed and the ruling power is a local militia. The population is still struggling with what happened when the world lost all of it's technology  in one quick moment, like a switch was flipped. The only clue we get is that it may have been military induced, and two brother hold the key to the blackout.

Our heroine is Charlotte "Charlie" Matheson (Spiridakos), the daughter one of the aforementioned brothers, and her adventure begins after her father is murdered and brother is kidnapped. In his dying words, her father tell her to find his brother in Chicago. Thus, begins the epic part of the story.

The sets look like they are straight out of the History Channel's "Life After People". Where they did use CG you couldn't tell, and the real exteriors were gorgeous and set the tone. There was just enough left over from the pre-blackout world to make the areas feel familiar and recognizable. This allows the audience to get emotionally invested and buy into the shows premise.

The most natural comparison is CBS' cult classic "Jericho", but this show does post-apocalyptia in a grander, more epic way. This will definitely help it find a wider audience. It also has a less complex story (so far at least), which allows it to not go off the rails like "Jericho". "Revolution" will probably fall some where between ABC's short lived "FlashForward" and NBC's flop from last season, "The Event". But it definitely has the potential to get close the the cult following level of "Lost".

If a show can have an Achilles heel, Tracy Spiridakos could be "Revolution's". As the lead in this series, she needs to be strong and vulnerable at the same time because she is still a teenager, but Spiridakos falls just short of her character's requirements. For now, the blame will be placed on lack of experience, but if she doesn't grow into the role, her and the show could be a one-and-done. The good thing is that they both are bursting with potential and will need to fulfill it quickly if they want to get the proper end to the fiction.

Rating: 7.5/10

Rewatchability: Moderately High

The Mob Doctor: Familiar, but different

Creator(s): Josh Berman and Rob Wright

Network/Writer(s): FOX/Josh Berman and Rob Wright

Director: Michael Dinner

Actors: Jordana Spiro, William Forsythe, Zach Gilford, Zeljiko Ivanek, Michael Rapaport

Tagline/Summary: A young thoracic surgeon becomes indebted to the South Chicago mafia and is forced to moonlight as a mob doctor, while also working full time at Chicago's most prominent hospital.

***

[NOTE: This review may contain spoilers, so please watch the show before reading, or don't.]

When creating a show from a genre that is usually restrictive and easy to fall into stereotypes, it is difficult for a writer to create a strong character without it feeling recycled. And when this show is centered around organized crime, comparisons are always unfairly made to the "Godfather", and more recently the "Sopranos", but "The Mob Doctor" finds a way to introduce a tough character -- female, no less -- while not forgetting her human element.

Jordana Spiro plays Dr. Grace Devlin, a highly-skilled young surgeon who was raised in the gritty Southside in Chicago. Her character's twist, which is also the hook of the show, is that she's currently working off her brother's debt to Chicago mob boss Paul Moretti (Rapaport) by preforming medical procedures on his goons. Grace appears to have everything under control until the FBI's star witness against former boss, Constantine Alexander (Forsythe), shows up at her hospital in need of heart surgery. And in the one predictiable element of the pilot (it was mentioned in the trailer), Moretti tells her to kill him.

From this point forward, Grace's nuances are almost perfectly laid out, and terrifically performed by Spiro. In the 44 minute pilot, Grace is shown to have a deep attachment to her patients, influence over certain co-workers, and the confidence in risk taking. The last point is emphasized by the way she cares for her first patient and why she's picked to perform the surgery on the Government witness. And will most likely lead to some tough situations later on.

The episode's writing provides most of this information through natural conversations, and show not tell moments. The only element not shown, or at the least blurted out in a line of dialogue is: Why's she given the latitude to do what she wants even though she's apparently only a resident? This is probably explained more in the book which the show is based on ("Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor" by Rob Felber), but it was the one thing I kept thinking about.

After removing that one flaw, everything else is pretty solid. Spiro, who I fell in love with on "My Boys", looks like a good choice for the conflicted doctor, and it was nice to see Zach Gilford again -- he plays Grace's boyfriend Dr. Brett Robinson. I'm sort of partial to ex-"Friday Night Lights" cast members, and was disappointed by his role in "Off the Map" so its good that Saracen is still getting work. Every show needs a good villain, and Forsythe fills this role to perfection.

The Mob Doctor passes the biggest test I have with pilots: Do I understand the concept of the show by the end of the episode? This is critical because you can have the best actors in the world and the greatest directed episode, but if your audience doesn't understand the conflicts and how they may come up in the future, then most people -- myself included -- will lose interest quickly. Obviously, I'm not saying you need to spell out every single plot point for season 1 in the first 60 minutes, but give me enough to get hooked.

If you do this, does it mean your show will be great? No. My two favorite examples are "The Black Donnellys" and "Life Unexpected". Both pilots passed with flying colors and rank in my top-10 of all-time, but they quickly fell off a cliff. As always, Episodes 2 and 3 are the most important, you need to completely hook your audience or your ratings will drop, which is why most early cancellation happen within the first 4-to-5 episodes; expand the world, develop the characters and stay consistent in your storytelling.

After going in skeptical, "The Mob Doctor" showed the elequence needed to maintained the balance between the craziness of organized crime plots and character development, which is essential for a series to be successful. For inspiration, the show's creative team only needs to look at another Fox show, "Fringe", to see what this balance look like.

Rating: 7/10

Rewatchability: Moderately High

My night with Jesse, Piers and Eddie

Sometimes you get invited to something that you have only a fleeting interest in doing. Most of the time, you say, 'yes,' just for the story, and the story turns out to be boring. You've felt like you wasted a night, and regret every single moment. Well, I was offered one of these situations Sunday night.

My brother-in-law, Eddie, texted me to invited me to go with him to a rare live Piers Morgan Tonight. I was intriguied, but not sold. His next message assured I would go: Jesse Ventura is his guest. You mean, WHITE LIGHTNING!

I was hooked.

For those of you that are unaware, Jesse "The Body" Ventura is a former professional wrestler and Governor of Minnesota, and the widely known voice of conspiracy theorists. He has written seven books, including DemoCRIPS and ReBLOOODlicans, which he was on the show to promote. He's pretty much Eddie's favorite person in the world (sorry Mel, Ava and Ashley), and I was curious to see what he was like on live TV. Fortunately, unlike the situation above, the show and our trek to the studio was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.

Here's the recap:

Our adventure starts at 3:20 on a beautiful Monday afternoon, and we have an hour to get to Trenton for a 4:26 p.m. NJ Transit train to New York, but we were also running into the start of rush hour traffic. After going a bit out of our way, we arrived at the Trenton Transit Center just in time...to hear our train leave. Luckily, there was a local train leaving a few minutes later, but it would get us there a little later than Eddie was hoping.

Once we arrived at Penn Station, the craziness began. For those of you that have rode the New York Subway system before, feel free to laugh at this next part. We rush across the train station to try and catch the 2 train before it leaves at  6:08 p.m. when we get there...you guessed it, we watched it leave. This was not good, because neither of us had rode the NYC subway before and Eddie was a nervous wreck as it was. He figures out that C train leaves in four minutes and he wants to catch that (pauses for laughter). Eventually, we hop on an express to Times Square, get off and look for a local to get to 59th St. This is where we meet our first character of this story.

We'll call him, "Vinny" (not his real name), an MTA work, who is a complete stereotype -- loads of product in his hair, tough guy accent. Eddie approaches "Vinny" and asked if the 1 train will take us to 59th St. "Vinny", who was too busy to help us because he flirting with a woman waiting for the train, says, 'Whuddya think, pal.' The woman he's talking to, who obviously wanted an excuse to stop talking to him, is more helpful and we continue our trek to the Time Warner Center.

We exit the subway at 59th and Columbus Circle. Unfortunately, this is the only time we see New York during our entire trip. After finding the right entrance, we take a few escalators up to waiting area for Piers Morgan Tonight. We are one of the first few people in line. Oh, did I forget to mention that it's currently 6:35 p.m., and the show doesn't start until 9 p.m. Yeah, so that happened.

Since it appeared as if I had plenty of time to eat, I ventured down to the Whole Foods in the basement of the building. Yes, there's a supermarket in the basement. While waiting in line (or on line since I'm in NYC) to pay, I receive a semi-frantic phone call from Eddie. They are taking people to the back. I reluctantly return my delicious looking chicken and fresh mozzarella sandwich, and hurry back upstairs, and find that they're only taking small groups at a time. At this point, the ship has sailed in regards to getting food, so I wait in line with Eddie.

We eventually get checked-in, signed our waivers, picked up our raffle tickets (yep, there was a raffle), and enter the CNN studios. They guides us to the studio in groups of seven. Eddie kept saying it felt like we were going to an interrogation room, and the static gray walls didn't help. We were seated two at a time, and strategically placed in the studio by height and gender. This was my view of the stage:

Pretty good, eh? Well, Eddie was worried about how much air time we'd get because we weren't behind either Ventura or Morgan. Little did he know, we were in the perfect spot. Exhibit A:

At about 8:45 p.m. we got the pre-show instructions, which included shutting off our cell phone. Thus, the reason for the lack of photos during the show. The show itself was pretty interesting. Whether or not you agree with Ventura, the interview is definitely worth the watch. And you'll get to see plenty of shots of my beautiful face. Go to Piers Morgan's Blog, or watch it On Demand.

After the show, we exited on 8th Ave. and to our surprise, Ventura was standing outside surrounded by fans and his friend, Richard Belzer. Of course, you know what happened next...

I'm pretty sure this is now Eddie's cell phone wallpaper. Anyway, we began our trip home, which went a little smoother than our arrival. Well, this time we did have help from fellow audience members, who were headed in the same direction. We stopped for food (FINALLY!), and boarded our final train of the night. And Eddie's last nervous moment, which passed when the employee on the train reassured him that we were indeed on the right train.

What started out as last minute idea, turned into one of the most fun and educational nights I've had in a while. I learned a little about the NYC subway system and Eddie met one of his heroes. All in all, our trip to Gotham was a success.

Precipitous Declines

As I was flipping through the movie channels last night in a feign attempt to not go to sleep, I randomly found the movie "Freaky Friday". You know, that mother-daughter body-switching movie that is just soooo hilarious. No, I'm not speaking of the awful 1995 made-for-TV adaptation or even the original 1976 Disney version starring Jodie Foster (yep, that Jodie Foster), this one features this good-looking, red-headed actress named Lindsey Lohan (yep, that Lindsey Lohan). This was during her "Mean Girls" hey-day. *swoon*

What is forgotten (I'm guilty of this as well) about Lindsey is that she was a pretty decent actress. Not Oscar-worthy, but better than most of the teen idol slop that is out there today. It was a weird viewing experience because I found myself wishing that I would be able to see a new film from this gorgeous actress, in the same way I dream that I was alive when Humphrey Bogart was making films. I was longing for her like she was dead, and that made me sad.

Now, I know this topic has probably been discussed a million times, but it's something I thought about last night: Has there ever been an actress/actor who has fallen further, faster out of popularity than Lohan? I, mean, short of killing their ex-wife and her friend.

The first one that comes to mind for me is Robert Downey Jr., but I don't know if he was at Lohan's mainstream popularity when he went off the rails. Obviously, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Downey Jr.'s was as fast as Lohan's. Maybe the Coreys? Yeah, the Coreys are a better example.

Stories like Lohan, Downey Jr.'s and the Coreys are interesting because it shows both sides of fame: The ability to make lots of money and the ability to allegedly blow it all on...well, blow. Here's to the hope that Lohan has a comeback like Downey Jr.'s, and doesn't become a reality TV whore like the Coreys. But I honestly wonder if an actor can feasibly make a complete comeback anymore, especially with Google and social media never letting the public forget their past.

Also, if you can think of any other examples, I'd love to hear them.

Apologies and an Update

Hello, everyone!

I apologize for my absence from the blog, but fear not, I have not abandoned you. Truth be told, I was a little burnt out from my attempt to do 365 Days of Netflix Instant. After 87 days of watching movies ranging from Oscar-worthy to "Little Hercules", I felt the enjoyment of the project slowly fade away. But for narrative purposes, I blame "Sleeping Beauty" (not the Disney cartoon), so don't watch "Sleeping Beauty", trust me on this.

During my time away, I've seen an uptick in my writing and survived another rental season (hopefully my last). So the past few months have not been a waste. I also have a few upcoming projects that I can't really talk about right now, but will let you know as soon as everything is finalized.

In terms of this blog, my plan is to write short entries, so that my time is more balanced between this, my writing and any other projects that I may be involved in. It may not be daily, but I hope to update three to four times a week. For those that enjoyed the podcast, it is on hiatus until I can set a schedule with Melanie or rework a whole new format.

Over the next month or so, I will be posting reviews and thoughts on this season's new TV pilots. A few I've already seen, but I will wait until they air to post my thoughts. And for those that have, I will be posting shortly. I'm most excited for "Nashville" (better than you think), "Revolution" and "Last Resort". As with most years, there will also be a few surprise shows that weren't on my radar (I'm looking at you "Ben and Kate").

I appreciate those who have continued checking the blog over the summer, and hope that my new format will be entertaining and allow me to keep my sanity. Or not, which would end up being more entertaining for you.

Also, don't watch "Sleeping Beauty".