The fall preview issue of TV Guide hit the stands this week, and
I have to tell you,
previewing new shows for a middle of the road publication must
be frustrating as
hell for the yahoo who has to do it, or yahoos, I’m not
really sure, because nobody is
actually credited here. But the job’s really got to suck
because let’s face it, the
lowest common denominator rule has to be in force here big time.
And it shows in
the reviews. The Star, on the other hand has let their TV guy,
Rob Salem, actually
speak his mind, and what you end up with a real dichodemy of opinion.
I suppose
that might be good for the high school debate team, but it’s
hell on wheels for
anyone who just wants to figure out what is and what’s not
worth watching.
Anyway, the new fall season got underway official this evening
with the Canadian
debut of the already successful FX series Nip/Tuck. I don’t
know how many more
new shows will make it to air before it’s time to send out
this volume, but I’ll try to
nail down as many as possible.
NIP/TUCK (2 XL SPUDS) SUNDAY NIGHTS
CTV aired the 90 minute pilot episode of this FX produced series
(FX is a cable
network in the US), which stars Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon and
Joely Richardson.
THE NUTSHELL: Dylan and Julian are two plastic
surgeons who run a very successful albeit morally questionable
practice in Miami. Julian is a womanizer whose extra curricular
activities include hustling and seducing insecure women and then
converting them into clients. Dylan is the surgical genius who
delivers on the
promises made by his partner. Joely is the wife of Dylan who is
feeling a bit
neglected out there on the high priced home front. WHAT’S
IT LIKE: Well, for one
thing it’s pretty damn graphic so if you don’t like
to see people getting cut up and
stitched back together, or having the fat sucked out of their
bodies, or in the opening
few minutes, an ass augmentation, well then switch over to Six
Feet Under. But, I
guarantee you that you will be missing a dramatic program that’s
every bit as well
written, provocative and interesting as either Six Feet Under
or The Sopranos in its
own way. In the pilot, Dylan has an attack of consciousness after
he has to turn down a not so well to do Hispanic woman whose son
was badly burned in a car accident. And Julien unwittingly agrees
to give an Argentinean child molester a new face. This all makes
for pretty high drama liberally laced with black comedy which
is
intelligently and powerfully delivered by everybody involved.
This is top notch
sophisticated TV entertainment. Don’t let anybody tell you
any different. But like
most of the top notch things in life, it’s very much an
acquired taste. FEARLESS
FORECAST: This show is already a hit in the US and into
its second season of
production. I’m assuming CTV bought the entire first season
and will air it, even if
the Wife and I are the only people watching it. I do have to navigate
the Wife through
the gorier parts, but overall she agrees with me that Nip/Tuck
is a real gem.
1-800 MISSING (NO SPUD 4U)
THE NUTSHELL: Cute high school girl gets hit
by lightning, then suddenly finds that
she’s a psychic and can locate missing persons. The FBI
buys her hokum and
assigns her to a skeptical agent. They bond. The become platonic
girlfriends. Pour a
little more sugar on it and you’re ralphing up that burrito
you never should have had
for lunch. FEARLESS FORECAST: This show doesn’t
belong on network television.
This show doesn’t even belong in a high school film student’s
debut reel. It’s
pathetically bad. Everything looks flat The story feels forced
and contrived. The
acting is unconvincing.. Yadda Yadda. Four weeks, then it’ll
turn up missing itself.
WHOOPI (ONE SPUD)
THE NUTSHELL: Whoopi ‘s character used
to be a big singing star back in the day.
Now she owns a small hotel in NYC. She’s got a fat Persian
handyman who wants to
be a concierge but is way too rude for that gig. She’s got
a brother who’s an out of
work lawyer. He’s got a white girfriend who thinks she’s
black. And so it goes. Sadly,
Whoopi sucks pretty bad as a comic actress and kind of always
has. FEARLESS
FORECAST: This show doesn’t have a lot going for
it. But Whoopi’s got clout and if
the writing improves, it may survive the season, just not at Spud
Central.
HAPPY FAMILY (ONE POINT FIVE SPUDS)
THE NUTSHELL: This stars Christine Baranski (Cybill)
and John Laroquette as a
couple of wanna be empty nesters, who’s kids just won’t
go away. FEARLESS
FORECAST: I’m pretty cynical about sitcoms. The
only ones I watch are Seinfeld and Will and Grace. But this one
kind of had something going for it. First of all, it was a lot
stranger than I though it would be. There’s a bit of sophomoric
stupidity that kind
of brings it down a few notches. But overall, I think it deserves
a shot and the
viewing public will probably give it one.
THE CORE (ONE SPUD) (DVD)
Movies like this get written by people who do not have an original
thought in their
heads. People who borrow cliches from every other sci fi disaster
movie ever made,
add a little bit of wacky science then roll it all up in the old
tried and true formula:
Special effects + funky sets + overacting all over the place +
wall to wall Yankee
ingenuity + a heavy dose of US jingoism, (because you never see
the Portuguese
stepping up to save the world in a time of crisis) and you have
what purports to be
the recipe for domestic movie success.
Well sort
of…In the Core, the earth’s core has stopped spinning
and that’s causing all
kinds of crazy shit to happen on the planet’s surface, ‘cause,
like there’s a relationship there, eh. So the ‘earnest
hunky geo-physics’ professor and his French
buddy (Aaron Eckhart, Tcheky Karyo), figure it out and then use
the ‘world famous
snotty celebrity geo-physics god’ (Stanley Tucci) to explain
it to the military. They
then go to the ‘reclusive genius geo-physics maven’,
(Delroy Lindo) who just so
happens to be working on a ship that could travel to the centre
of the earth and the
appropriate wacky science to get them there. Coincidence…I
think not. This is
America where great things are happening all over the place.
The Core is a visually stunning sci fi movie, like Armageddon
(the first film I ever
reviewed for this column, for all you trivia lovin’ spuds)
was before it. But what it
lacks that Armageddon had in spades is characters who are at least
trying to be real,
and a sense of humour. Because, hey, if we can’t laugh at
ourselves when the earth’s core has stopped spinning (which
it turns out the US arm caused in the first place), what’s
the freakin’ point?
Anyway, if you’re willing to believe that good old Yankee
ingenuity can get these
guys up and boring to the core to jump start it in under three
months, that Hilary
Swank, complete with puffy lips and bad haircut is the pilot of
the ship, and that
these guys went down there without a plan-B and managed to come
up with one in
about 80 seconds when plan A got scuttled, then you should have
a pretty good time
with this one. If not, well nobody’s gonna be asking you
if you saw it…like ever.
THE ADVOCATE (TWO SPUDS) (DVD)
I had one of those get a free 7-day movie coupons so I picked
this up one night just
because it had Colin Firth in it. Firth as you all surely know
by now is the Wife’s
principal fantasy guy, so I thought she would like to see him
as a 15th century
Frenchman.
In the Advocate, Firth plays a big city lawyer from Paris who
moves to the
countryside to lawyer among the common people, believing that
life would be
simpler out in the boonies. The town where he settles has a law
that animals must
be tried in the same way as people, which Firth finds absurd,
but has to get used to
when the first case he is assigned involves defending a pig, belonging
to some
gypsies (including one with a great medieval boob job), on a murder
rap.
The Advocate, originally titled Hour Of The Pig, was written and
directed by some
French dude named Leslie Megahey. It has a pretty authentic look
to it, I guess. I
mean who knows what the 15th century really looked like. But it’s
a pretty good satire
when you consider that Firth’s motivation in moving to the
country in the first place
was to leave the Paris bullshit behind and he actually starts
pining for it in the end.
There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of the film admonishing
viewers not to reveal
the ending of this film. I can respect that. It’s actually
pretty cool. Because it was
kind of predicted early in the film by a woman who was accused
of Witchery.
Anyway, that’s all she wrote for this week. See you in a
week or two.
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