January 19, 2009

Re-Premiere Week

Last week saw the return of CBS’s Flashpoint and USA’s Monk and Psych. In all three cases, I griped that the episodes—while good—didn’t feel like premieres. They focused on all the wrong things—special guest stars, poor/minimal use of the full ensemble—and suffered from sloppy plotting (especially in the case of Jules “protecting” the wife on Flashpoint).

So why is it that this week, the episodes of each of these shows felt like premieres? Even Monk, which had not one but two special guest stars (The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford and noted cartoon voice actor Pamela Adlon, most famous for providing the voice of Bobby Hill), still managed to do a great job of highlighting Monk’s foibles, give us a nice Monk-Natalie problem and make better use of Stottlemeyer and Disher than last week. What’s going on here? Who’s scheduling these episodes?

24 (Fox) — So 24’s writers have finally become aware enough of the outside world to understand torture is controversial and have inserted this conflict into the show, but they haven’t become aware enough to realize that, time and again, the science comes down on the side of it being an ineffective method for gathering information? Last Monday’s half of the premiere left me with the cartoonishly misguided message that everybody’s wrong except Jack (and Renee, who instantly adopted Jack’s methodology)—torture works as long as you do it right!

I’m not even annoyed by the torture angle for humane or political reasons. I always think it’s moronic when 24 tries to tackle issues, because they never do a good job, but I don’t care about the writers’ overall stance on torture so much as the fact that, after six seasons, it’s gotten stale. Doesn’t Jack have anything else in his bag of tricks? Don’t the writers of 24? The botched attempt to escape from FBI HQ was one of the better action set-pieces this show has done in awhile, combining the suspense of whatever might lurk around the corner with some well-choreographed shootouts and crazy car stunts.

Let’s talk about the conspiracy for a minute. So, Tony’s working deep cover on behalf of Buchanan and Chloe, a three-person operation with no funding or recognition from the government (and speaking of which, where is Karen Hayes, Bill’s wife?!). What’s their aim? I don’t know. They’ve infiltrated a group of thugs working for the mysterious South Afr—er, Sangalan regime that’s slaughtering people and causing President Creepy Grandma endless anxiety. According to Jack, the FBI is compromised. According to Buchanan, so is the President’s inner circle. I can’t wait for the surprise reveal of the Chief of Staff’s betrayal!

I don’t mean to get sarcastic. I like the show a lot, but I can’t help wondering if all the changes they’ve made (relocating to Washington, disbanding CTU, bringing in yet another First Family, giving Jack a theoretical partner in Renee) won’t get rid of the flaws that made last season such a dud: ridiculous plot twists (Tony’s alive!), obvious villains (the Chief of Staff! The shady FBI boss!), ham-fisted political rhetoric (foreign policy is scary!) and filler (Colm Feore!). I thought the point of having a year off was to regroup, restructure and solve the problems that have plagued this show—tightening everything up and making sure everything is as taut and suspenseful as whatever is happening to Jack. I’m sure First Husband Feore’s subplot will lead somewhere, at some point, but that won’t make up for the fact that it feels like wheel-spinning now.

The Beast (A&E) — I want to call this an interesting start, but I have no clue what happened in the last ten minutes. Every character pops up as part of an FBI conspiracy to take down Patrick Swayze’s über-badass, Charles Barker (a little too close to Barkley for me, I must say), who is apparently as corrupt as they come. Leave it to Neal McDonough lookalike Ellis Dove (Travis Fimmel) to do…something. They left it ambiguous as to whether or not he’ll help Barker or take him down, which is enough to keep me watching. Add to that great performances by Swayze (made all the more impressive by his cancer battle), Fimmel and The Wire’s Larry Gilliard Jr., elaborate and confusing conspiracies, great use of Chicago locations (I certainly hope they don’t ditch it for L.A. like Leverage did) and craziness like shooting RPGs inside de-luxe apartments in the sky… I don’t know how this show will turn out, ultimately, but I’ll keep watching to find out.

Everybody Hates Chris (The CW) — Wow, Everybody Hates Chris came back with a bang. This season, the show has occasionally suffered from servicing too many peripheral characters instead of concentrating on the family. Here, each member of the family got their own great subplots: Chris joins the wrestling team and becomes a hero when he keeps winning by default because no other school has a student in his puny weight class; Drew wants to make it big as a music video producer; Tanya wants to get into Drew’s girl group, then humiliates and undermines him at every turn; and Rochelle wants to diet, which forces everyone else to diet. Even the turning point in Chris’s story, in which his peers reward his success with baked goods, tied into with the overall dieting theme, which I liked—especially because they wisely underplayed the connection. Plus, this was probably the season’s most consistently funny episode. It’s never been anything less than “pretty damn funny,” but sometimes it rises to the cream of the crop.

As a side-note, I do have to mention Julius buying Chris Air Jordans. Was that really a believable development? That’s $150 worth of shoes!

Flashpoint (CBS) — This episode, which came close to the exceptional quality of last summer’s finale, delivered exactly the type of episode that made me love this show: a surprising, twist-filled hostage situation, sympathy on all four sides (the SRU, the hostage, the assailant and even—to a lesser extent—the cheating husband) and excellent utilization of every major character. This, for those wondering, is what a premiere feels like.

I only had one quibble: why did Sarah Scott (Kristin Booth) have to live? I’m not trying to sound callous, but for dramatic purposes, having her die would have made the debate that closed the episode so much more effective. Once in awhile, the team has to look in the mirror and realize what they have to do, and what it costs. They did for a moment, but then everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they found out she was stable and would be fine. Maybe I just like my characters grappling with heady moral and ethical problems, but it felt like they took the easy way out here, when this single incident could have spawned drama that continues to play out over the course of years—affecting the decisions made by the entire team. Am I expecting too much of a CBS procedural?

Leverage (TNT) — Not the strongest episode by any means, but it had some welcome guest turns from Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) and Nicole Sullivan (King of Queens) as a shady Mob couple in the midst of their daughter’s wedding, and Andrew Divoff (Lost) as a sinister Ukrainian looking for a payout. I found the jokes about the underfunded, incompetent FBI amusing, especially the gag in which Eliot sneaks into the FBI field office to steal their surveillance recordings and discovers shelves full of cassette tapes. Although equally cartoonish, it’s still a nice antidote to 24’s all high-tech, all-the-time perspective on the Feds.

However, the idea that this crew could band together as a functional wedding-planning team left me a bit cold. I find it hard to believe that a Mob family—undoubtedly loaded with paranoia—would allow these people to just walk in off the street. The writers didn’t find a clever excuse—or, really, any excuse—for this lapse in believability. I find it harder to believe that this group of criminals could pull off this particular job successfully. I can believe them when their cover involves criminal activities; somehow, here, I didn’t believe any of them, not even Eliot’s spiel about his love of knives leading him to weapons proficiency and kitchen mastery.

Leverage is ridiculous and fun by design; I just wish they spent a little more time making the ridiculousness a little bit plausible. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

Monk (USA) — As I said in the preamble, I loved that this episode—much like the actual season premiere, which found Monk and Natalie trapped by in a house by a murderous Brad Garrett—managed to balance a great Monk-Natalie conflict with semi-glamorous guest stars. The mystery had its flaws (I had a hard time accepting that the bike lock wouldn’t make Whitford curious—I know he’s distracted, but come on!), but it made sense overall. Plus, it made so little sense that it was hard to predict. Putting Monk in that wheelchair could have made him more annoying, but when you add Natalie’s guilt—and Monk’s wholesale abuse—it turned into comedy gold. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? Moving on… I even found Disher’s obsession with a solid-gold bike basket easily as hilarious as his suggestion of The Terminator a year or so ago when everyone named “Julie Teeger” was getting killed. All in all, a very solid episode.

The Office (NBC) — I complained a lot about the Dwight-Angela-Andy triangle. I still think it went on far longer than it needed to, but this week’s episode did an excellent job of resolving it in unexpected but hilarious ways. I’m also sort of glad it ended with Angela left alone. If they hadn’t done such a nice job portraying her hypocrisy, I’d feel a little sympathy; instead, it feels like she just got what she deserved.

I also have to give props to the production design team for attempting to mimic the look of road-salt on the cars. They may not have the money (or inclination) to turn the Scranton Professional Building into a winter wonderland, but the small patches of snow and the salt stains make me more willing to forgive the fact that nobody but Michael had an overcoat. In Scranton. In January.

Psych (USA) — Using two of Lassiter’s most well-known traits—unhealthy obsession with his job and discharging his weapon—to force him in a situation where he needs help from Shawn and Gus? What a fantastic take on the “series regular is accused of murder” plot that has become a trope of cop shows. They did just about everything right here, except falling for the law of economy of characters (i.e., the one character, besides the regulars, who has any kind of screen time turns out to be the culprit). Plus, it was funnier and a bit less gimmicky than most of this season’s episodes.

Supernatural (The CW) — Wow, what a nice return. Supernatural served up one of its creepiest villains ever and had the balls to make her a straight-up, mortal human. They didn’t do the greatest job of tying this to Dean’s guilt about running around Hell torturing souls and enjoying it, but they get an A- for effort. Mainly, though, they just did a fantastic job of making a haunted house story—a subject that’s been done to death—somewhat unique and creepy as hell. Definitely the most twisted, skin-crawling haunted house story since Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves. Well done, Supernatural. Very well done.

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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