June 8, 2008

And Then There Was One…

So Lost is done, and so is everything else. I planned this column as a 52-week bonanza of televisual analysis and excitement, but the writers’ strike has finally put a crimp in my master plan. A few summer shows have started, but nothing I intend to watch. Swingtown, a show touting itself as The Ice Storm: The Series (But Sexier)? It piqued my interest for about five minutes when I learned it takes place in suburban Chicago, where I too learned how to swing, but then I dug deeper and discovered this is a shelved cast-off that not even the writers’ strike could get on the air before summer burn-off season.

It exists to air when nobody’s watching, never to be renewed. Does that mean it’s a bad show? Not at all. In fact, considering CBS is the one burning it off, it’s probably a terrific show, well worth watching, challenging and intelligent and the polar opposite of all other CBS programming. But I got similarly burned with last summer’s Traveler (ABC), the best serialized thriller to hit television in a decade (sorry, 24; if you were more consistent, you’d still have my heart).

So what is on the agenda for this summer? I might check out Cleaner, the new Benjamin Bratt vehicle that A&E is calling their first original series. I’m pretty sure they’re forgetting their forgettable series 100 Centre Street, but either way, “might” is the key word of the previous sentence. CBS’s Flashpoint immediately hit my “must-watch” list. What’s that, you say? I’m agreeing to watch a CBS summer burn-off one paragraph after saying I wouldn’t be burned again (and I just now noticed the pun there and apologize)? Flashpoint is different: in an astounding move prompted by the writers’ strike, real networks are testing the water by picking up Canadian programs and airing them; that’s right, even if CBS doesn’t want to keep it around, there’s a good chance that CTV will continue producing it…that is, if all 67 of Canada’s ardent television fans watch it.

I’ll also be covering the returns of old favorites: Mad Men, Burn Notice, Monk, Psych, The Dead Zone… Oh wait, scratch that last one. USA Network, under a sinister shroud of darkness, unceremoniously canceled both The Dead Zone and The 4400 sometime last fall. It’s hard to argue with the decision after The Dead Zone’s marked decline in quality over the past few years, but it had finally started to get good again, it ended on a cliffhanger and…whoops!

Speaking of which, a couple of summer favorites are hovering between life and death in the netherworld known as IFC’s atrocious website. The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman and The Business may or may not come back this summer. The closest thing I could find to news is a random post on IMDb’s always reliable* forums, suggesting the former was a “casualty” of the strike. I don’t know; maybe both shows were delayed because of the strike, but nothing about cancellations or casualties have appeared anywhere else.

I can’t say it’d kill me if The Business was canceled; it’s funny enough, but frequently reaches heights of crassness that get a little tiresome. Also, it faltered a bit in a second season that consisted of little more than genre spoofs inspired by the producers hearing pitches from various writers. Still kinda funny, but very uneven. The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, on the other hand, got even better in its second season (and it was pretty damn good in its first).

Lastly, a couple of cable’s most popular shows, TNT’s The Closer and Saving Grace, return this summer, and I…won’t be watching. I gave a vague, ill-informed assessment of both shows last winter, and I stick by my lack of interest.

At any rate, there will be more thrilling “Idiot Boxing” coverage. It just won’t happen until mid-July, when the shows I like return.

Robin Hood (BBC America) — Allan, the ousted merry man, might just be more interesting on the outs with the gang than he ever was within them. I suppose it makes sense; he’s probably the least familiar of the “merry men” characters, and even at that, they rob him of his defining characteristic (he’s a minstrel, a skill that would have come in handy in this episode). He has neither Little John’s brute strength nor Will Scarlet’s youth; he doesn’t have Much’s neuroses or Djaq’s foreignness. He’s just kinda there, so this is an improvement. I don’t know if it’ll happen or not, but I’d like to see him start informing on the Sheriff now that he’s Gisborne’s #1 crony (apparently).

In the meantime, the A story finds Robin foolishly accepting the word of an old man, a supposed friend of Marian’s father, who turns around and betrays them. On the plus side, it shows that when pushed, Robin will have the balls to take everyone down—in theory, anyway, he killed all the Black Knights. If they hadn’t already known of his ruse, he would have accomplished the task. It was a nice emotional journey, marred only by the treacly subplot involving Marian. I know, I know, but I’m just not into their romance. I can’t help it.

One of the better elements of the episode showed Will’s ingenuity and craftsman competence, as he built a bundle of weapons disguised as musical instruments and got the merry men hired as the musical entertainment in the castle. The clever ploy didn’t amount to as much as it should have, but one hopes we’ll either see this particular ruse reused or get a little more of Will acting as Q to Robin’s James Bond.

* Sarcasm

D. B. Bates is a film critic and television viewer who has often shouted at fictional characters who probably wouldn’t listen to him even if they could hear him and existed in reality. Interested in explaining to D. B. the many ways he got it wrong? E-mail him.

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