BuzzFeed: "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected"

Marvel’s cinematic universe gets a television tie-in as the Joss Whedon-led spinoff — the pilot episode of which ABC screened for critics earlier this week — launches on September 24.

Over at BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected," in which I offer my first impressions of ABC's pilot for Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Agent Coulson lives!

Well, sort of, anyway, if the sensational pilot episode of ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — a bit of a mouthful, not to mention a clutch of extra periods — is any indication. While Marvel’s studio bosses are keeping mum about the truth behind the revelation that Clark Gregg’s Coulson, who was last seen on the receiving end of a vengeful Asgardian god’s pointy stick in The Avengers, firmly under wraps, longtime fans of Marvel Comics can pretty much figure out what’s going on here. (Cough, LMD, cough.)

But that’s really more than okay, because the Agent Coulson plot is just one of several at play within Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., created by Joss Whedon (who directs the pilot episode), Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen. It masterfully blends together the high stakes action, quivering emotion, and deft humor we’ve come to expect from Joss and Co. The latter element is perhaps the most significant, because the show doesn’t live in the shadows all of the time; while there is more than enough death and destruction within the pilot episode, there is also a lot of genuinely funny beats and some snappy banter to satisfy any Whedon fan craving that delicate interplay of serious, soulful, and sarcastic.

However, the pilot for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which revolves around the team’s mission to track down the mystery man played by former Angel mainstay J. August Richards, does feature its share of tough moral dilemmas. Perhaps most wisely, it also depicts the high-flying adventures of this motley group as exciting and bracing. It does, however, skirt the issue of whether a powerful espionage agency — so far above the common man that it floats in the sky aboard a helicarrier — engaged in tracking down unregistered “supers” are truly “the good guys.”

Continue reading at BuzzFeed...

The Daily Beast: "Fall-Winter TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2013–14’s New Shows"

Summer TV got you in the doldrums? See what’s coming up with my and Kevin Fallon’s first impressions of 30-plus broadcast network pilots, from Resurrection and Believe to Ironside and Dads.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my last story for the site (yes, you read that correctly!), entitled, "Fall-Winter TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2013–14’s New Shows," in which Kevin Fallon and I offer our first impressions of 40 or so broadcast network pilots coming to television next season.

Your summer vacation may have involved lounging by the pool or traveling to Europe, but we’ve spent the first few months of hot weather sorting through the broadcast-network pilots for nearly 40 new scripted shows that will likely air next season. (A caveat: the networks have been known to yank a few before they even make it on the air.) We’ve come out the other side more or less unscathed and can now offer our first takes on the dramas and comedies that are headed to the fall and midseason schedules of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and the CW.

Every year the networks present their usual takes on the familiar doctor-lawyer-cop tropes, and this year is no exception. But there are also a few bright spots. Supernatural thrillers Resurrection and Believe are pretty damn engaging. Lottery-winner drama Lucky 7 is surprisingly alluring. And there are quite a few comedies—Brooklyn Nine-Nine, About a Boy, Trophy Wife, and even (surprisingly) CBS’s Mom—that actually make us want to watch another episode or 10.

So what did we think? First, a few more caveats: (1) our opinions should be considered “first impressions” of the pilots that were made available by the broadcast networks and not reviews. (2) All pilots—from music and dialogue to casting, etc.—are subject to change, so what airs next season may be drastically different from what we saw. (3) We reserve the right to change our initial opinions upon seeing final review copies of these pilots—not to mention a few more episodes. (4) Not all the fall and midseason pilots were sent out by the networks: ABC opted not to send out the pilot for its highly anticipated superhero espionage drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or those for Mind Games, Mixology, and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland; NBC didn’t send out Crossbones, Dracula, Undateable, or Chicago PD, to name four; and CBS isn’t letting us see Reckless or Friends With Better Lives just yet, while it picked up Bad Teacher to series after the upfronts. (Quite a few pilots weren’t available to press this year.)

ABC

Back in the Game (Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.)

Log line: A former All-Star softball player, smarting from a recent divorce, moves back in with her curmudgeonly dad and her young son and ends up coaching her son’s misfit Little League team.

Cast: Maggie Lawson, James Caan, Lenora Crichlow, Ben Koldyke, Cooper Roth, Griffin Gluck, J.J. Totah, Kennedy Waite.

Jace Lacob: While watching this, I kept thinking to myself that the grumpy, trigger-happy dad should be played by James Caan. What’s that, you say? The dad IS played by James Caan? Oh. It seems that even Caan tries too hard to play a blue-collar James Caan type called the Cannon, and the results are creaky and stiff. The boozy British mother, played by Lenora Crichlow (Being Human)—and her dynamic with Maggie Lawson’s Terry—is a rare highlight in this otherwise drab, lackluster comedy pilot, in which nearly every single joke fails to connect with the bat.

Kevin Fallon: There are elements here that should work. James Caan should be able to play a curmudgeonly drunk grandpa in his sleep and still get laughs. Writers Mark and Robb Cullen aren’t afraid to tread into slightly politically incorrect and sometimes even weird humor. (A friendship builds between Maggie Lawson’s Terry and another school mom that’s delightfully odd and crass.) Each member of the Bad News Bears of a team Terry ends up coaching has what should be a chuckle-worthy quirk. Yet in spite of all this, nearly every joke grounds out. With few laughs to reward an otherwise talented cast, the series is ultimately a swing and a miss.

Verdict: Strike out.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2012-13’s New Shows"

Will the 2012-13 television season be a success or a snooze? Over at The Daily Beast, Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer our first impressions of 30-plus network pilots—from The Following and Nashville to The Neighbors and Zero Hour (and everything in between)—coming to TV next season.

Head over to The Daily Beast to read my latest feature, "TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2012-13’s New Shows," in which we offer our dueling he said/she said perspectives on all of the available broadcast network pilots.

While some of you may have jetted off on summer vacations in the last few weeks, we’ve spent the first part of the summer wading through pilots for more than 30 new scripted shows that likely will be on the air next TV season. (Sometimes networks change their minds, and, if we’re honest, there are a few shows we’d love to see disappear altogether.)

It was a Herculean feat to make it through the pile of screeners this year—it was not overall the best pilot season—to offer our first takes on the dramas and comedies that are headed to the fall and midseason schedules of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and the CW.

Every year, the networks present their usual takes on the familiar doctor-lawyer-cop tropes, and this year is no exception. But there are also a few bright spots: a fading country music star (played by Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton, y’all!), the crew of a nuclear sub gone rogue, a 1960s cattle rancher turned Vegas sheriff, a romantic comedy-obsessed ob-gyn, a serial killer inducting cult members via social networking, another modern-day Sherlock Holmes, and the beloved Carrie Bradshaw.

So what did we think? First, a few caveats: 1) The opinions below should be considered “first impressions” of the pilots that were made available by the broadcast networks and not reviews. 2) All pilots—from music and dialogue to casting, etc.—are subject to change, so what airs next season may, in fact, be drastically different than what was seen here. 3) We reserve the right to change our initial opinions upon seeing final review copies of these pilots—not to mention a few more episodes. 4) Not all of the midseason pilots were sent out by the networks; some, such as NBC’s Hannibal and Crossbones, to name two, haven’t even been shot yet; CBS again opted not to send out its midseason offerings; while Fox isn’t letting us see The Goodwin Games just yet.

ABC

666 Park Avenue (Sunday at 10 p.m.)

Logline: A young couple moves from the Midwest and takes up residence as the live-in managers of a luxury Manhattan apartment building, where not everything is as it seems.
Cast: Terry O’Quinn, Vanessa Williams, Dave Annabel, Rachael Taylor
He Said: Eh. While the showrunners have source material to pull from (it’s based on a novel by Gabriella Pierce), I wasn’t all that thrilled by where the show is going. O’Quinn makes a better villain when he at least seems—on the surface—to be a good guy, but his Gavin Doran is written so overtly devilish that it doesn’t charm or intrigue. He’s Fantasy Island’s Mr. Rourke but with a short temper and a fondness for contracts. The supernatural elements don’t really scare, but I will say this: it did make me nervous to step on an elevator for a day or so… but didn’t make me want to watch another episode.
She Said: I really enjoyed all the spooky fun of this. It’s genius casting to pair Terry O’Quinn and Vanessa Williams as the married owners of a very mysterious fancy schmancy Manhattan building. So far, O’Quinn isn’t doing anything we didn’t see John Locke (Lost) do and Williams has brought her fabulous diva out for the third time, but they have a delicious spark. David Annabel and Rachael Taylor are also very believable as an in-love couple that moves in and are hired to manage the building. I wouldn’t move in to The Drake, but I’d visit.
Verdict: Sublet.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2011-2012's New Shows"

Will the 2011-12 television season be a winner or another dud?

Over at The Daily Beast, my fellow Daily Beast staffer Maria Elena Fernandez and I offer our first impressions of more than 30 network pilots--from Awake and Ringer to Alcatraz and Work It--coming to TV next season.

You can check out our he said/she said-style thoughts in my latest feature, entitled "TV Preview: Snap Judgments of 2011-2012's New Shows."

Which fall or midseason show are you most excited about? And which are you most dreading? Head to the comments section to discuss, and see whether you agree with our first impression take on more than 30 broadcast network pilots. Did your potential favorite make the must-see list?

The Daily Beast: "The 8 Best Pilot Scripts of 2011"

The network upfronts—when the broadcasters unveil their fall schedules, tout their new programming, and bring out stars to shake hands with advertisers—are the week of May 16, but it’s never too soon to take a look at which shows you might become addicted to next season.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "The 8 Best Pilot Scripts of 2011," in which I pick my favorite scripts--from the period dramas Playboy and Pan Am to the Sarah Michelle Gellar-starring noir thriller Ringer and Kyle Killen's mind-bending drama REM.

What shows are you rooting for? Which will make the cut as the networks unveil their fall schedules in the coming weeks? Head to the comments section to discuss...

The Daily Beast: "8 Crazy Scenes from David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman"

I've been vocal on Twitter about my confusion about why David E. Kelley was given the right to develop DC Comics' 70-year-strong "Wonder Woman" into a pilot script, which was initially passed on and then given an eleventh hour reprieve by NBC, which ordered it to pilot.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "8 Crazy Scenes from David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman," in which I sort through Kelley's first draft pilot script to Wonder Woman and choose the most head-scratching, ridiculous, or just plain awful moments therein.

Is this a take on Wonder Woman/Diana that you're excited to see? Or has Kelley gotten the character completely wrong? Head to the comments section to discuss.

ABC's No Ordinary Family is Painfully Ordinary

ABC's superhero dramedy No Ordinary Family might be all the more frustrating because it has the potential to be something fun and irreverent, but instead is tonally inconsistent and plays too heavily with the sentimental and saccharine. To borrow some superhero parlance, rather than leaping tall buildings in a single bound, it thuds to earth with a sonic boom.

Creators Greg Berlanti and Jon Harmon Feldman want to have it both ways: he wants a superhero spectacle that borrows liberally from the success and charm of Pixar's The Incredibles but he also wants to tackle familial issues as well. When the Powells crash their plane into a remote section of the Amazon, they're granted extraordinary powers that separate them from mere mortals. Which would be enough of a suspension of disbelief but the powers they receive just happen to coincide with their particular cross to bear in life.

Father and husband Jim (Michael Chiklis), a police sketch artist by trade, has lost his spark and masculine edge: he's granted super-strength and nigh invulnerability, a bald-headed Hulk who can leap great distances. His wife, Stephanie (Julie Benz) is a harried scientist who is pulled in too many directions at once: she's gifted with super-speed! Kay Panabaker's Daphne can't understand her boyfriend or boys in general; she's the typical closed-off teenage girl, so of course she receives telepathy! And son JJ (Jimmy Bennett) is academically unmotivated, so he becomes a super-genius!

It's all a bit too neat and tidy as the Powells receive the very things that enable them to become better people, as Jim begins to moonlight as a steel-skinned vigilante, thanks to some assistance from his BFF George St. Cloud (Romany Malco); Stephanie is able to speed down a freeway and make a meeting on time. Daphne learns the truth about her boyfriend and JJ finally shines in the classroom.

But by solving their interior conflicts, the deus ex machina doesn't leave the series much room to grow either. It's also a bit head-scratching that the Powells would receive their newfound powers by landing in a remote section of the Amazon River and then return home to cross paths with other super-powered personae. It's a bit too coincidental and a final act reveal does nothing to ameliorate the strain of incredulity. Despite its efforts not to be Heroes 2.0, that's exactly what it began to feel like by the end of the hour, albeit a Heroes that focuses on more on hearth and home rather than, um, Sylar.

And, as mentioned earlier, there's a odd tonal inconsistency to the proceedings. In the pilot, the show tries to be cutesy, scary, and cozy in rapid-fire succession. While it wears its family entertainment badge of honor on its sleeve, it doesn't quite jibe with some of the violence that Jim encounters when he comes face to face with--SPOILER!--a teleporting thief with a penchant for firearms.

While No Ordinary Family could develop into a family-centric guilty pleasure in the 8 pm timeslot, it has a hell of a long road to reach that aim. Personally, I'd rather pop in my DVD of The Incredibles while they attempt to get there.

No Ordinary Family launches tonight at 8 pm ET/PT on ABC.

Con Men and Tricksters: Thoughts on FOX's Lone Star and NBC's The Event

In a television series where so many ideas seem to be inferior iterations on programs we've already seen, it's refreshing to come across a series that attempts to do something original.

FOX's con man drama Lone Star, which launches tonight, is just that series. While I don't think the Kyle Killen-series is perfect--there are quite a few flaws that jump out during the pilot episode--it has the potential to develop into something intriguing. That is, if viewers give it a chance.

The series revolves around Bob Allen (James Wolk), a roguish con man who has ingratiated his way into two women's hearts. There's the mark: Cat (Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki), the wealthy daughter of an oil tycoon (Jon Voight), who Bob used to infiltrate the company. And then in the small Texas town of Midland, there's Lindsey (Eloise Mumford), his earnest girlfriend for whom he enjoys mowing the lawn. (No, that's not a euphemism.)

But Bob has broken the cardinal rule for con men: he's fallen for his own lies. His relationships with Cat and Lindsey are based on genuine emotion and he discovers--much to the anger of his grifter father John (David Keith)--that he can't walk away from either of them when the critical time arrives.

What follows is a unique mash-up of Dallas and Big Love, albeit without the religious discussions of the Principle of plurality, a drama that questions whether our hearts can hold love for more than one person and whether it's our actions or our emotions that determine just who we are.

Despite the rave reviews that Wolk seems to be receiving, my main issue with Lone Star is the casting of Wolk as it's difficult to buy him as Bob/Robert, a dual role requiring him to tap into something innately charismatic and wholly charming, something he lacks the full maturity to pull off. It's not so much his baby face that's distracting here; it's the fact that Bob and Robert don't seem all that different other than the uniforms of their station and Wolk lacks enough of a magnetic lure to make me forget this fact.

There's also some groaners amid the somewhat stilted dialogue. I'm hoping that subsequent episodes offer a more naturalistic ear as several lines seemed designed to offer as much exposition as humanly possible. While that's often the downfall of several pilot episodes, it's also something that can hopefully be corrected in the future. Given the ambitious scope of its plot, the dialogue and chemistry between the actors needs to be top notch if the network can pull it off in the long-term.

However, I'm intrigued enough to at least check out a second episode of Lone Star and seeing the executive producers--Party of Five's Amy Lippman and Chris Keyser, here serving as showrunners--did at least assuage some of my concerns about the long-term viability of this project. Additionally, the producers have lined up some fantastic recurring stars for the first season, including Andie MacDowell, Chad Faust, and Rosa Blasi.

At its heart, there's a compelling and unusual premise for an ongoing serialized drama, one that I sparked to when I read the pilot script back in the spring. I'm hoping that the producers can deliver on the promise of my initial reaction and transform Lone Star into a quirky and offbeat soap.

Faced with the choice of what to watch at 9 pm on Mondays, I'd certainly rather choose Lone Star over NBC's offering, The Event, yet another attempt to cash in on the success that was Lost without understanding just what made Lost work, particularly in the early days.

The short answer to that: characters. While Lost's pilot episode may have offered monstrous noises in the jungle, polar bears, and mysterious French messages emanating from a radio tower, it also revolved deeply around the plight of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815, three-dimensional and nuanced characters. While these assembled passengers may have been strangers--both to each other and to us--the question of how they would survive the days to come gave the pilot a jolt of energy and a real emotional resonance.

Not so with The Event, an expensively produced but brain-dead production whose idea of challenging drama is to present events jumbled up in a non-linear fashion. Once untangled, nothing has much weight nor much excitement. The attempt to create momentum out of such chaotic structuring falls flat on its face because the characters are so entirely paper-thin. They're not even ciphers per se, but rather lifeless mannequins enacting a tedious play where the rules--and the overall premise--are shrouded in so much "mystery" that characters continually speak in half-whispers about events and ideas that the audience is kept in the dark about.

The promotional campaign tries to play up this aura of dread and uncertainty, offering storylines that "are not the Event." The pilot itself juggles a series of plots--a presidential assassination, a plane hijacking, the disappearance of a twenty-something--that are at first seemingly unrelated but which--quelle surprise!--are revealed to be in some way interconnected.

As for what that is, it's not revealed in the pilot episode, which is essentially forty-plus minutes of lead up to a major reveal at the end of the pilot that more or less reveals the true genre of the show you've been watching. But in structuring the episode in just that way, the producers have burned a lot of good will. If you can't win people over with a hugely expensive high-concept pilot, what chances are there of them coming back the following week to learn the truth about what they've just been watching?

The Event's producers claim that they've learned from the mistakes of Lost and will offer answers throughout the season to the show's central mysteries... which is more or less what the producers of ABC's failed FlashForward last season said as well. What both fail to realize is that it wasn't just the questions and answers that kept Lost's devoted viewers coming back for more. And if The Event has any hope of remaining on the air, it had better put the focus less on tricking the audience with slight of hand and deft illusion and more with some relatable and realistic characters.

I, on the other hand, won't be sticking around to find out.

Lone Star premieres tonight at 9 pm ET/PT on FOX. The Event premieres in the same time slot on NBC.

Lethal Weapon of Mass Destruction: An Advance Review of the CW's Nikita

The only way that you could have missed the provocative and eye-catching ads for the CW's Nikita, premiering night, is if you are perhaps visually-impaired. The red-hued promotional campaign, featuring series lead Maggie Q (Live Free or Die Hard) have been ubiquitous of late, popping up on mall food court tables, billboards, and bus sides for months now.

The wait, however, is over now. Tonight brings the series premiere of Nikita, the latest in a line of adaptations of Luc Besson's landmark 1990 film La Femme Nikita, which starred Anne Parillaud as the titular character, a government-trained assassin from, uh, humble origins who finds herself transformed into a cold-blooded killer. The film was then adapted into Bridget Fonda vehicle Point of No Return before being resurrected as the Peta Wilson-led USA action series La Femme Nikita and going on to influence ABC's Alias... and now it's been revamped again as CW's high-flying action-thriller Nikita, which seems to take some of its cues from Alias.

Unlike before, the start of this Nikita-based project isn't a drugged-up Nikita being discovered by Division and trained in the deadly ways of the femme fatale assassin. (That role falls to a new recruit.) Here, Maggie Q's Nikita has already been through the ringer, already been instructed in the womanly ways as well as those of the gun, and has gone rogue. Like Alias' Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), she has learned too well that her employers are not what they appear to be and that they are willing to do everything in their power to keep their grasp on her, including murdering her fiance, who--like Sydney's in Alias--is also named Danny.

The murder of her beloved sends Nikita on a quest of vengeance as she looks for a way to hurt Division as badly as they've hurt her, an eye for an eye, a massive explosion and dozens of casualties for the one that she's lost. However, inside Division, her handlers have found a potential replacement for their lost Nikita in Alex (Lyndsy Fonseca), a troubled girl with a background similar to Nikita's. Caught in an armed robbery gone horribly awry, she is taken by Division and undergoes training to make her a deadly assassin.

Which creates a dual focus for the series to explore, as Alex functions as the audience's entrypoint to the story, a sarcastic and brutal ingenue who finds herself navigating the complex and deadly waters of Division, and Nikita works to take down Division from the outside, turning up when Division's nefarious Percy (Xander Berkeley) least expects it in order to make them pay.

On some levels, the overall conceit reminded me somewhat of Season One of FOX's short-lived Joss Whedon drama series Dollhouse, revolving as it did around an organization that uses people as living weapons that is largely undone by internal and external aggressors. Hell, the trainees--Fonseca's Alex, Ashton Holmes' Thom, and Tiffany Hines' Jaden--wear drab clothes similar to the ones the Actives wore on Dollhouse.

It's also a conceit that makes me wonder just what Season Two of this series would look like. With Nikita on the outside--despite her being the titular character--would the entire series' run focus on her efforts to take down Division and free the other recruits? Will she find a potential ally in the deeply conflicted Division operative Michael (Shane West), with whom she shares some crucial backstory? Just how long can this overarching plot wend its way through the storyline before it becomes difficult to maintain and still have a basis in some semblance of reality?

Which isn't to say that Nikita isn't a fun, if somewhat mindless, diversion, because it is. Maggie Q is a sensational lead and she effortlessly slips into the role of a calculated killer and career strategist, a trained agent bristling against what's been done to her but using those very skills to topple her former keepers.

Maggie Q gets to wear slinky outfits, strut in a bikini in the pilot episode, and use her considerable martial arts background to kick some bad guy ass, engaging in a number of stunts that she did on her own. The action sequences are particularly strong and showcase Maggie's talents in a number of different environments. (I only wish that they had been able to film the pilot script's death-defying leap off of an infinity pool, a wicked visual that demonstrated the extreme risks Nikita is willing to take.)

There's additionally a nice balance between Maggie Q and her co-star Lyndsy Fonseca (as well as a taut chemistry between the former and West), who seems to fulfill the role of a young Nikita in the story: the newbie going through the ropes of training and being tested at every turn by the operatives of the Division, including psychologist Amanda (Melinda Clarke).

A twist at the very end of the series premiere can be easily seen from a mile away, but still sets up an intriguing direction for the first season, albeit one that also makes me reiterate the above questions at the same time. Still, Maggie Q is genuinely a pleasure to watch and there's an energy and boldness that the pilot exhibits that makes it a fun--if dark--alternative on Thursday evenings. Whether it will be able to win an audience that's already gripped by strange goings-on over on FOX with Fringe in the same timeslot remains to be seen.

However, one thing is for certain: this Nikita has some definite potential, as long as it doesn't fall into certain traps along the way, pitfalls that an operative like Nikita herself should have planned for in advance.

Nikita premieres tonight at 9 pm ET/PT on the CW.

Expansion and Contraction: An Advance Review of Syfy's "Stargate Universe"

Confession: I've never watched Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, other than a few episodes here or there.

So it wasn't with any real familiarity with the Stargate, er, universe (other than vague reminiscences of the Kurt Russell/James Spader feature film) that I watched the gloomy three-hour series premiere of Stargate Universe, the newest iteration in the fifteen-year-old franchise which seems hell-bent on being as broadly accessible to the mainstream population as possible.

Taking some visual clues from the darker Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe tells the story of a disparate band of survivors who are thrust through one of the titular gateways and discover themselves trapped on an ancient spaceship on a course to some distant location among the stars. While searching for a way home (said ship is on a one-way course that can't be changed), they must band together to find a way to survive and create a new home for themselves under some remarkable and unexpected circumstances.

If that sounds a bit like the original logline for ABC's Lost, you'd be correct. There's definitely the sense that the series' creators, Robert Cooper and Brad Wright, were looking to imbue this series with the feeling of Lost in space. There's the group of strangers thrust together, several life-threatening situations (they must quickly find a way to fix the air system aboard the Ancient vessel), and a good deal of death straight off the bat. And, yes, it does recall the situation at the very start of Syfy (or Sci Fi as it was known back then) series Battlestar Galactica. Like BSG, Stargate Universe is a series with a dark color palette and a ship that's filled with shadows and sharp angles.

But the similarities really end there. Battlestar Galactica used the genre to make clear political statements about everything from terrorism, genocide, war crimes, identity, gender, sexuality, and the occupation of Iraq, holding up a dark mirror to our own society and offering some gripping metaphors for the issues we face today. The series also featured some memorably flawed and original characters who were immediately recognizable as more than just stereotypical ciphers.

The same, sadly, can't be said for Stargate Universe. Or at least, its opening installments anyway. For the most part, the survivors of the nebulous attack on the Icarus base who find themselves aboard the spaceship are rather one-dimensional. Even after three hours, it's hard to have any real sense of the characters in terms of anything deeper than: hero, hotshot, or hottie. The third hour, which airs on October 9th, attempts to graft a backstory onto the action for Brian J. Smith's Matthew Scott but the result is a bit of a muddled attempt to introduce religion into the mix as well as offer a seemingly divine solution to their current plight. The rest of the characters don't even have the benefit of this ham-fisted backstory; after three hours, I don't yet even have a grasp of their names or purposes, much less any defining characteristics.

Note that I said "for the most part" earlier. Robert Carlyle turns in a gripping performance as the enigmatic Dr. Nicholas Rush, an expert in all things Ancient who seems to have a shadowy agenda that's vastly different than the rest of the group. He's imperious, cutthroat, and seems to stand apart from the fray while calculating just how expendable each of them is. In a series that's attempting to be gritty, he's the one character that lives up to those efforts, a complex puzzle of a man, haunted by his past and willing to make the unpopular choices that no one else dare make.

Meanwhile, David Blue is perfectly cast as computer geek Eli Wallace, a civilian drafted into this mission after he correctly solves an otherworldly mathematical proof that unlocks the stargate's mythic ninth chevron. As Eli, Blue brings some levity to the situation and is clearly set up as the audience's entry point to the action and the franchise as a whole.

But the duo are the notable exceptions rather than the rule on the series. Not helping matters is some flat dialogue and a bizarre decision on the part of the writers to enable the survivors to communicate with Earth by having some out-of-body experiences that allow them to control people back on Earth via some Ancient technology. It's a bit of an easy way out in my opinion and seems there for the sole purpose of allowing some familiar faces in the Stargate franchise to interact with the survivors and shift some of the action out of space and back to the more relatable planet Earth.

Ultimately, Stargate Universe is gloomy without being truly gritty; rather than being hard-hitting, it looks to eject some of the campy, humor-based tone of its predecessors and instead infuse it with some faux seriousness. Fans of the franchise might just lap this up but for someone who's always been a bit wary of the Stargate franchise, I find myself less than captivated with the initial blast-off into space.



Stargate Universe kicks off on Friday evening at 9 pm ET/PT on Syfy.

Future Tense: An Advance Review of ABC's "FlashForward"

Is it the next Lost?

That seems to be the question on many people's minds regarding ABC's new ensemble drama series FlashForward, which launches tomorrow evening and is based on Robert J. Sawyer's novel of the same name. After all, despite the many protestations of the actors and creators of the series that FlashForward isn't at all like Lost, there are some similarities on the surface. A group of disparate and ethnically diverse individuals united by a staggering and life-altering phenomenon? Check. Said phenomenon possibly caused by some sci-fi wackiness? Check. Non-linear storytelling that reveals information about the characters? Check again. Questions about fate versus free will? Youbetcha. Dominic Monaghan and Sonya Walger? Um, yeah.

That said, FlashForward is a different beast than Lost, which wraps its run beginning in January. When it began, Lost was ostensibly about the survivors of a plane crash on a seriously creepy island; while there were whispers of sci-fi elements in the pilot (polar bears, a monster in the jungle), the main throughline was about survival and the formation of a working community out of the chaos of an inciting incident.

FlashForward, on the other hand, tells us right off the bat that we're experiencing something steeped in the heady world of science fiction. In this case, it's the titular flash forward experienced by the entire world population for two minutes and seventeen seconds, a loss of consciousness that leads to the death of millions of people and creates chaos around the globe. When the survivors awake, they slowly realize that they were given a glimpse into their own futures six months down the line. Why six months? That's a mystery for another day, save the fact that the exact moment witnessed by everyone is of huge significance.

Just what caused the worldwide blackout is also being investigated. When the series begins, we see our sprawling cast going about their lives, unaware of what's to come. Those characters include Joseph Fiennes' recovering alcoholic FBI Agent Mark Benford, who with his partner Demetri Noh (John Cho) are on the trail of some terrorists mounting an attack on Los Angeles when The Event occurs. When they come to, the city is in chaos and both men are shaken. Whether there's any correlation between the planned terror attack and the global blackout remains unseen but the woman that they apprehend after the blackout remains a person of interest. Mark, meanwhile, is desperate to make sure his wife, Doctor Olivia Benford (Sonya Walger), and his young daughter Charlie are safe.

I won't reveal here what each of the characters experience in their flash-forwards (you spoiler-lovers can read about it in my advance review of the pilot script from last year, though there are some changes) but I will say that they all circle around the same exact moment in time: April 29th, 2010 at 10 pm PT. It's due to this fact that Mark and Demetri find themselves assigned to investigate what's being called the Mosaic, a collection of people's memories of future events, corroborated and cross-referenced to find some sort of pattern emerging from the details. Just what or who caused the blackout? For what purpose? And what will happen in six months' time?

Given that the events depicted in the flash-forwards are of incidents that have yet to occur, the series delves head-first into the murky waters of a fate versus free-will discussion. Just because we saw these things happen doesn't mean that they will necessary occur, right? Can we ever fight fate? Or is life pre-determined? Will future events play out as the characters saw them or can they alter the course of destiny? For some, the future holds frustrating twists of fate, but for others, there's the seductive possibility of happiness. Which in a word, leads to some major conflict between those who want the future to happen and those who don't. Hmmm....

The pilot ("No More Good Days"), directed by David S. Goyer (who co-created the series with Brannon Braga and Jessika Borsiczky), introduces us to the main characters we'll be following all season. They include those played by the aforementioned Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, and Sonya Walger, as well as Courtney B. Vance's FBI supervisor Stanford Wedeck, Zachary Knighton's suicidal Dr. Bryce Varley; grieving father Aaron Stark (Brian F. O'Byrne), FBI agent Janice Hawk (Christine Woods), Jack Davenport's mysterious professor Lloyd Simcoe, and babysitter Nicole Kirby (Peyton List). (Dominic Monaghan will join the series a few episodes down the line.)

There are initially some standouts among the cast: John Cho is fantastic as Demetri Noh, Mark's terrified sidekick. Planning a wedding with his fiancée, Demetri is staggered by the implications of what he glimpsed--or didn't--during his blackout and there's a fear and poignancy to his interactions that already make his character a favorite. He also manages to steal the spotlight from lead Joseph Fiennes every time they appear on-screen together. Fiennes isn't bad as Mark Benford, but he seems to lack the emotional gravity and charisma necessary to make his leading man character engaging and interesting. (Just compare his performance to that of Matthew Fox's in the pilot of Lost to see what I mean.) Given the overall strength of the cast, it feels slightly like quibbling to point out Fiennes but I was hoping for more of a smoldering presence than he provides here.

My other complaint is that some of the dialogue is distractingly clunky at times. There's a moment when Christine Woods' Janice actually uses the series' title to describe her experiences during the blackout that made me groan aloud. (Which is no fault of Woods' really; I think she shines here in the few scenes she has in the pilot episode.) I understand that there's a lot of exposition to get through in the opening installment--particularly one that's only an hour rather than a two-hour backdoor--but I still want some sophistication and slickness to the dialogue rather than feel like I'm being hit over the head with the grace of an anvil being dropped from twelve stories up.

That said, I do think that FlashForward displays a hell of a lot of promise, offering a twisty puzzle of a drama that's stuffed with engaging metaphysical mysteries, trippy sci-fi phenomena, and enough overarching mythology to keep Lost fans more than entertained during the long slog until the series returns next year. The producers have been upfront about the fact that they have a five-year plan for the series and will provide answers to some mysteries as the plot ticks along. Despite my lack of confidence in Fiennes as an anchoring lead and some of the pilot's small flaws, I also think that FlashForward is a full head and shoulders above just about every other new drama series this fall.

Just what did you see? Come back on Friday to discuss the pilot episode and what you thought of FlashForward.

The first seventeen minutes of FlashForward's pilot episode are available at Hulu.com or right below:



FlashForward airs tomorrow night at 8 pm ET/PT on ABC.

Honor (and Style) Among Thieves: An Advance Review of USA's "White Collar"

Imagine the high stakes tension of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can crossed with the rapid-fire humor of The Thin Man films and the slick, elegant style of Mad Men.

Still with me? Combine those elements and you begin to approximate the effervescent and engaging new crime drama series White Collar, which launches in October on USA.

Created by Jeff Eastin (Hawaii) and directed by Bronwen Hughes (Burn Notice), White Collar is a cat-and-mouse chase with a twist: the bad guy was caught years ago by the good guy and now assists him in tracking down other nefarious types using his criminal skills, deductive powers, and roguish good looks.

The good guy in this case is FBI Agent Peter Stokes (Tell Me You Love Me's Tim DeKay), a grimly determined G-man assigned to the bureau's white collar crimes division. Which means that he spends his days (and often nights) tracking down art forgers, embezzlers, and con artists with a mix of relish and reluctance, given the quality time he's missing with his beautiful and supportive wife Debbie (What About Brian's Tiffani Thiessen).

As for the bad guy in this equation? It's impish criminal genius Neal Caffrey (Chuck's Matthew Bomer), a man who could charm the skin off a snake... and steal its fangs at the same time. He's so utterly charming that Peter Stokes spent years tracking him down and landing him in a maximum security prison to serve out a four-year sentence.

Which is where we find Caffrey at the start of White Collar's exuberant 90-minute pilot. But Caffrey's not staying put and hatches a plan to escape a Supermax prison... and he pulls this off with without breaking a sweat. (Let's just say that Michael Scofield should take notes.) Caffrey's not looking for freedom but rather his true love, a woman named Kate Moreau who breaks his heart while he's in prison and disappears without a trace. Peter Stokes, pulled off a forgery case, tracks Caffrey down at Kate's flat and it's back to prison for him.

Or is it? Caffrey manages to cut a deal with a highly reluctant Stokes: in exchange for getting him released from prison (his little escape plot landed him an additional four years), he'll be released into Stokes' custody, fitted with an ankle monitor, and he'll bring his criminal expertise to helping Stokes track down the biggest and baddest white collar miscreants, like the enigmatic forger The Dutchman (guest star Mark Sheppard), a man nearly as elusive as Caffrey himself.

And that's where White Collar's story really kicks off, as Caffrey becomes a valuable (if not quite trusted) member of Stokes' crack FBI task force and opts for a cushier life than the one that Stokes arranges for him at a fleabag motel, instead moving into a luxe mansion owned by June (Diahann Carroll), a gorgeous widow whose husband had himself been a stylish felon like Caffrey. Besuited and bedecked in the finest vintage fashion labels (Devore, no less), Caffrey cuts quite a figure. But it's not enough to earn him even a batted eyelash from Stokes' FBI probie Diana (Lost's Marsha Thomason), a gorgeous lesbian agent who Stokes jokes would rather wear Caffrey's fedora than swoon over it.

Despite being inside for four years, Caffrey still has a few tricks up his stylish sleeves and a network of informants, information-gatherers, and criminal experts to turn to when he's gently bending the rules of his release agreement. One such underworld contact is the shadowy and hysterical Mozzie (Sex and the City's Willie Garson), a career criminal with a penchant for banter and intelligence gathering.

While White Collar could be a run of the mill crime drama, it's elevated to new levels by the charisma and chemistry between DeKay and Bomer, who are both so perfectly cast and at ease in their roles that it's easy to fall for their inimical charms. DeKay nails the role of a weary FBI agent whose job it is to stay two steps ahead of the most mercurial individuals while never seeming like a dull stick-in-the-mud or irritatingly lifeless. Bomer effortlessly pulls off Caffrey's charming and debonair ways with a carefree energy and wicked spirit. These two are so brilliant in these roles that it's hard to imagine any other actor playing them with such panache. In their capable hands, Stokes and Caffrey engage in a deliciously mismatched partnership based on mutual distrust, respect, and oneupsmanship.

Kudos too to Thomason for turning what could be a one-dimensional role into a dynamic and memorable character whose sexuality isn't her defining quality but merely one aspect of her overall personality.

The writing in the pilot, courtesy of Jeff Eastin, is whip-smart and there are some great dramatic plants and payoffs as well as sly banter between the two leads and some nice surprises along the way. Director Bronwen Hughes keeps things moving at a brisk pace but also deftly showcases the beauty of the New York skyline and Caffrey's throwback fashioning with a real sense of love and admiration for time gone by. The feeling is something modern but embedded with nostalgia of an era long past; it's fast-paced but never loses sight of Caffrey's devilish nature.

Ultimately, White Collar is a perfect addition to USA's stable of quirky procedural dramas but also pushes the formula into a new direction, infusing the old tropes of criminal investigation with a sense of style, whimsy, and elegant fun. Sy Devore and the Rat Pack that he so chicly clothed would be proud.



White Collar premieres Friday, October 23rd at 10 pm ET/PT on USA.

Exit Planet Dust: An Advance Review of FOX's Gripping Two-Hour Event "Virtuality"

"I'm alive/And I'm alone/And I've never wanted to be either of those." - Chemical Brothers

It's rare that a network ever airs a pilot that it doesn't intend to order to series, much less one that has engendered quite so much support from viewers ahead of its broadcast.

And yet that's just what FOX is doing tonight with the gripping and sensational two-hour pilot for sci-fi drama Virtuality, from creators Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor of Battlestar Galactica fame. (You can find an exclusive interview with Michael Taylor here and a write-up of a press call with Ron Moore here.)

Virtuality, gorgeously directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) is a mind-bending, acid-trip exploration of deepest space and the innermost recesses of the human heart. Deftly combining space-set action with reality television, Virtuality seeks to answer some eternal questions about the nature of reality itself. What is real? What's fantasy? And what happens when we're able to smudge the lines between the two?

The crew of interstellar craft Phaeton is toeing that very line. We meet the motley inhabitants of this metal tube as they approach a major turning point on their ten-year journey to a distant star. Via the reality-show-within-a-show Edge of Never that documents their every move, we're told that their journey of exploration to investigate the possibility of life has become a journey of survival as back on Earth, environmental conditions have deteriorated to the point that the planet will be uninhabitable within a century. This news reaches them just as they arrive at the go/no-go point: the last chance they have to reevaluate their course. Will they turn around and come home? Or, armed with this information, will they continue on a ten-year round-trip journey to Epsilon Eridani and back?

In his play "No Exit," Jean-Paul Sartre posited that hell is other people. Imagine then the hell of being trapped on a space ship with just eleven other people for a decade. Fortunately, the crew of the Phaeton has an escape route of sorts, their virtual reality modules which allow them to step outside the mundane drudgery of their existence and experience, well, anything that they can dream up. Some choose to use this for extreme sports, some for relaxation, others as war games, but some discover that they can use these modules to explore their innermost dreams and fears.

Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) uses his module to play Civil War-era war games. That is, when he's not conducting a virtual affair with microbiologist Rika Goddard (Sienna Guillory), who just happens to be married to the reality show producer/psych officer Dr. Roger Fallon (James D'Arcy). Pilot Sue Parsons (Clea Duvall) escapes the darkness of space for the surf or a bike ride down the side of tree-lined mountain road. Wheelchair-bound second-in-command Dr. Jimmy Johnson uses it to experience ice-climbing and, well, walking. Meek computer scientist Billie Kashmiri (Kerry Bishe) is a rock star/Alias-style superspy. Others still use it as means to come to terms with some hard truths, such as Dr. Jules Braun (Erik Jensen) and Alice Thibadeau (Joy Bryant); the modules offer them the facade of being able to change their circumstances, to erase the past and start again, to achieve the things that life prevented them from holding on to.

But all is not well in outer space.

Besides that one of their number--crew physician Dr. Adin Meyer (Omar Metwally)--has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, there's paranoia brewing among the crew that the information they are being fed from mission control may not be totally true. And there are other pressing issues, such as that affecting their precious virtual reality modules. What appears at first to be a computer glitch is wrecking havoc on their virtual lives, introducing a seemingly autonomous and free-willed character (Jimmi Simpson) into these fictional worlds. Even more troubling is that this green-eyed man seems hell-bent on killing them all, going so far as to rape one them during a virtual session.

What follows is both a taut thriller and a philosophical potboiler as the crew debates whether or not to shut down the virtual modules and whether what happens in these fictional realities qualifies as "real." It's a canny means for Moore and Taylor to explore the fragile definitions we have for reality and each of the characters has a motivation for either wanting to believe or not that their virtual lives are just as real as the ones they experience in the so-called waking world.

The questions that Virtuality asks are ones that affect each and every one of us, who filter our perceptions of the reality of our own world through the prism of the endless streams of cable news networks, so-called reality television series, and our own fallibility. Is shooting someone in a video game actually murder? If you sleep with someone other than your spouse in a dream, has an affair been consummated? The answer is that our realities are so malleable that it's hard to separate physical truth from emotional truth.

These would be merely intriguing themes if they weren't brought to life so skillfully by Virtuality's superlative cast, from Coster-Waldau's epiphany-receiving Commander Pike, D'Arcy's arrogant Roger Fallon, and Duvall's embitted Sue Parsons (who herself conceals a secret to unlocking her brusque demeanor) to supporting characters like Jose Pablo Cantillo and Gene Harber's sparring gay couple Manny and Val and Nelson Lee and Joy Bryant's romantic couple Kenji Yamamoto and Alice Thibadeau. Each member of the cast gets an opportunity to shine brightly in the two-hour pilot and a slew of compelling subplots emerges for each of them.

The jaw-dropping and beautiful direction, by Peter Berg, also has to be commended. There's an awe-inducing scene, in which the crew of the Phaeton engages in a slingshot maneuver, that's set to the Chemical Brothers' haunting song "Alive Alone" (featuring vocals by Beth Orton) that needs to be seen to be believed. It rivals--if not tops-- many of the most cinematic sequences in today's feature films and imbues the action with an innate humanity and passion. (Confession: I watched it five times as I was so completely sucked into the beauty of the scene.)

True, Virtuality isn't flawless. There are some niggling points that stick out when watching the pilot, such as why Roger Fallon, the psych officer on an interstellar crew, would also be a producer of a reality television show with a stake in the series' profitability in lieu of a producer who didn't also have to care for the psychological well-being of the crew of a multi-billion dollar mission for survival. Additionally, it still bothers me why the argument between the crew was whether the VR modules needed to be shut down completely or left the way they are (even with murder and rape occurring against the users' will), rather than someone--like computer genius Billie--also exploring a possible on-site software fix in the meantime.

But these are minor complaints when faced with the sheer pleasure of watching something truly innovative and unique unfold on screen. Virtuality's two-hour pilot gives us a glimpse into a series that might have been. What we see through the looking glass then is a gripping series that's not afraid to ask hard questions, to play with our perceptions, and to challenge its characters--and its audience--to take a leap of faith.

The final five minutes or so set up what looked to be a darkly compelling journey of self-discovery and darkly spellbinding drama. Even if this groundbreaking series doesn't continue past this airing, the trip down the rabbit hole--no matter how brief--is definitely worth it. So do yourself a favor and plug into the riveting Virtuality tonight.



Virtuality airs tonight at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of FOX's "Sons of Tucson"

I really wanted to like FOX's comedy series Sons of Tucson.

After all, I loved the pilot script for Sons of Tucson, written by Tommy Dewey and Greg Bratman, which I found to be really witty and fun and had the same sort of enthusiasm and madcap action as the early episodes of FOX's own Malcolm in the Middle.

For those of you not in the know, Sons of Tucson, which will launch on FOX in midseason, is about sadsack hustler Ron Buffkin (Reaper's Tyler Labine), who works at a local sporting goods store (and I use the term "works" extremely loosely) and lives out of his car. In the course of a day filled with his usual small-time grifts and general shrugging off of both determination and honesty, he comes across Robby (How I Met Your Mother's Davis Cleveland), Gary (Doubt's Frank Dolce), and Brandon (Entourage's Troy Gentile). The Gunderson boys have turned up in Tucson after their banker father was imprisoned for stock fraud and given a sentence of twenty years. Rather than end up in foster care, they've opted to move into one of his safe houses and, flush with cash, trick the authorities into thinking that they have parental supervision.

Which is where Ron comes in. The boys--short fuse Robby, street-smart Gary, and thick-as-two-short-planks Brandon--want Ron to pose as their father in order to enroll them in the local school. Ron meanwhile needs some kids to pose as his children in order to convince his elderly grandmother that some valuable military figurines would be in good hands... so he can sell them off and use the proceeds to get a menacing money-lender off his back.

So what went wrong? For one, the completed pilot diverged strongly from the script draft that I read, opting for middle-of-the-road obvious physical humor rather than the droll wittiness that was inherent in the original script. A subplot about a loan shark (Jake Busey) whom Ron owes money to--and who keeps him and the boys hostage at Ron's grandmother's house--was so over the top and unfunny (and went on for so long) that it nearly hijacked the entire episode.

Additionally, I couldn't shake the feeling that instead of Ron being some sort of hustler mastermind, the people around him were just plain stupid, a situation that gets really old, really fast. A sob story about the boys' mother drowning during Hurricane Katrina seems not only in poor taste but also doesn't make any sense whatsoever. (Which could be the point, but really this shtick will turn sour quickly.) Given that Katrina happened years ago, how is this really an excuse as to why the kids don't have any school transcripts or records?

Likewise, Ron meets hyperactive troublemaker Robby's hot teacher Maggie Morales (Saints and Sinners' Natalie Martinez) at the sporting goods store early on in the episode and spins a web of deceit where he tells customers that his brother's family was hacked to bits in a freak chainsaw accident in the Pacific Northwest and he has to jump on a plane. Maggie recognizes him at the private school later but seems to have amnesia about Ron's whole cock-and-bull story about his family. Nor does she wonder how a man with an ill-fitting suit and a job at a sporting goods store is affording to sent three kids to private school without tuition assistance.

It would be one thing if Ron were so quick-witted and charismatic that his lies simply slid off of the minds of his con victims but, as I said earlier, the result just makes the people around him--whether it's his grandmother, Maggie, or the school principal--just seem really naive, gullible, or just plain stupid. And that's a problem. Yes, Ron is a class-A loser but I was hoping that he'd also come across as an unfocused criminal genius who's not rich because he hasn't applied his grifting skills appropriately.

Ultimately, Sons of Tucson tries so hard to be clever and quirky that it fails to be winsome. The series should aim for sly smarts rather than cartoonish absurdity. If the writers could learn anything from Labine's Ron, it's that they shouldn't have to push the con quite so hard.



Sons of Tucson will debut in midseason on FOX.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of CW's "The Beautiful Life"

Imagine a series that features some very beautiful people indulging in some very dubious behavior in Manhattan. Picturing Gossip Girl? Guess again.

The Beautiful Life, launching this fall on the CW, does approximate the decadence and excess of that other drama series but it takes place in the demimonde of the modeling world rather than in the privileged corridors of power on the Upper East Side... and it does so with a flair and distinctive filmic style all its own, creating a darkly frothy series about the downside of famous faces and fast-made fortunes.

Written by Adam Giaudrone (Swingtown) and executive produced by Mike Kelley (Swingtown), Carol Barbee (Jericho), and Ashton Kutcher, The Beautiful Life follows the personal and professional lives of some of New York's modeling elite as they head out to go-sees, walk the runway, issue catty remarks, and crowd together (among other things) in an underlighted New York apartment building with a picturesque view of the Brooklyn bridge.

I had an opportunity to watch the pilot presentation for The Beautiful Life and was struck by how much more gritty and compelling it was than I had anticipated. It also balances a soapy plot about superhot models with a cutting look at what really goes on behind the catwalk. It certainly doesn't hurt to have Zak Posen himself turn up playing himself to lend the proceedings some authenticity.

As for the models, they are motley bunch of bristly personalities, jaded egos, and killer cheekbones. For the most part, anyway. There's newly crowned It Girl Raina (Last House on the Left's Sara Paxton) who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she gets to wear Posen's showstopper of a dress in his fashion show, ripping the coveted slot away from scandal-laden supermodel Sonja (The OC's Mischa Barton), who's been out of commission in Rio the last six months. (Was it drugs? A vacation? Rehab? I'm not telling.) Despite Sonja's protestations and the jealousy of fellow up-and-comer Marissa Delfina (Secret Diary of a Call Girl's Ashley Madekwe), Raina does make it out there in that dress... and suddenly becomes the talk of the fashion business after wowing the crowds.

Meanwhile, Iowa farm boy Chris Andrews (The Line's Benjamin Hollingsworth), in New York on a family vacation (which his farmer dad says he'll be paying off "for the next three harvests") gets discovered by lecherous agent Simon (Dusan Dukic), who has more on his mind than just modeling when it comes to Chris. Not surprisingly, Chris and Raina get thrown together on several separate occasions and their shared good nature and affability make them fast friends, though there are definite sparks between them, even as Raina conceals some secret from her past.

Yet not is all right in model world. Sonja is determined to claw her way back to the top if she has to, especially as the head of Covet Modeling Agency, Claudia Foster (Friends' Elle Macpherson), seems to regard her as little more than a has-been. But a Versace campaign beckons... that is, if the job doesn't go to Raina. Meanwhile, the rest of the models, including Egan (As the World Turns' Jordan Woolley), Issac (High School Musical's Corbin Bleu), and Kai (Twelve's Nico Tortorella) make life as difficult as possible for newcomer Chris, who winds up making his feelings towards Simon clear enough at the agency's anniversary party.

While there's a certain shakiness to the start (not helped at all by the fact that some of the exposition--especially that surrounding farm boy Chris and his family--is laughably over the top), the pilot presentation quickly finds its feet even as it dazzles with an elegant grittiness that's miles away from the glossiness of Gossip Girl. (Special kudos go out to director Christian Duguay for the backstage scenes at the fashion show, Chris' photo shoot, and Raina's runway moment.)

Anchoring the cast is the remarkable Paxton, who manages to charm with little more than a smile and a tilt of the head. That she manages to come off as sunny and optimistic (though devious in her own way) without seeming Pollyanna-ish is no small feat. And the always delightful Ashley Madekwe (so memorable as Bambi on Secret Diary of a Call Girl's second season) brings an energy and edge to her role as Raina's frenemy Marissa, a girl prone to offering "advice" just cutting enough to make you take a misstep in your Jimmy Choos. I'm hoping that subsequent episodes will give Benjamin Hollingsworth's Chris more to do than glower and reluctantly take his clothes off but here he's affable enough that you buy his fish-out-of-water spiel. (I'm less than sold on Misha Barton, who seems to be channeling a slightly older yet just as spoiled Marissa Cooper here.)

Ultimately, The Beautiful Life is a surprising treat: a rare combination of grittiness and glamour filled with heaps of potential. It's a slick and stylish production that doesn't forget our obsession with pretty faces... or the pettiness that often lurks behind such glittering facades.





The Beautiful Life will air Wednesdays at 9 pm ET/PT this fall on the CW.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of ABC's "The Forgotten"

It's impossible to keep track these days just how many police procedurals there are so it's hardly a surprise that each development season several writers try to crack a new way of doing the familiar cop drama without following the same formula.

This year, that project is ABC's The Forgotten, created by Mark Friedman and executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, which the network will launch this fall. Rather than focus on detectives attempting to solve cases, The Forgotten focuses on a group of amateur crime-fighters who work John and Jane Doe cases after the police have given up on identifying the victim, in order to solve the case, catch the killer, and give the dead back their names.

It's an interesting conceit but The Forgotten doesn't quite follow through on its potential. For one, the motley group of amateurs approaches the crimes in much the same way that the police would. (It's as though they've all been watching episodes of CSI and Cold Case round the clock.) Yes, there are reasons why each of them would join the self-styled Identity Network (some of them groan-inducingly obvious) but the pilot episode never quite gets inside their heads to see what really makes them tick. After all, these are men and women from very different walks of life--including an ex-cop, a wife of a criminal, a sculptor with forensic experience and a record, an office drone, and a telephone company repairman--so why exactly have they chosen to devote their time to this particular endeavor with these particular people?

I have a hard time understanding why we jump into their ongoing investigations with this precise case, the so-called "Highway Jane," a young woman found murdered and faceless in a highway ditch. Yet rather than show us how the Identity Network came together, we are thrown into what seems like a rather standard case for them. The introduction of vandal/artist Tyler Davies (Anthony Carrigan) is, I believe, meant to serve as the audience's entry into this story but Tyler is so aloof and standoffish that he's not really the right Virgil to lead us into the plot. (Tyler would also appear to be some sort of sculptor wunderkind; despite his protestations that he's never sculpted a dead woman before, he manages in a single night to craft a facsimile of her face without breaking a sweat.)

It's worth noting that two of The Forgotten's leads--Rupert Penry-Jones and Reiko Aylesworth--will be recast before the series hits the airwaves. It's a smart move as Penry-Jones and Aylesworth remain doggedly dour throughout the pilot episode, creating a vacuum of downbeat energy. (And I say that being a huge fan of Penry-Jones' run on Spooks, a.k.a. MI-5.) As former cop Alex Donovan and reclusive Linda Manning, Penry-Jones and Aylesworth lack the spark and energy to anchor this series.

We're told (rather than shown) that they both have serious internal demons to battle; Donovan's eleven-year-old daughter went missing and was never found and reclusive Linda's husband was a notorious murderer whose exploits were unknown to her. While both are valid reasons for being a part of the Chicago chapter of the Identity Network, the two characters are so devoid of animation and vitality, that they might as well be ghosts flitting through the action.

The rest of the cast is serviceable, though their characters take a definite back seat to the case at hand. Rochelle Aytes's Detective Russell is Donovan's former partner on the force and she accepts his help solving these cases even as she resents his constant intrusion back into the precinct. Michelle Borth's Candace Butler is a put-upon worker bee who chafes at the office politics at her company, preferring to flip off her co-workers even as she solves crimes during work hours. Bob Stephenson's Walter Bailey is the sort of sad sack blue-collar worker who isn't usually seen in these types of crime-solving series; his expertise is the stakeout, though he doesn't seem all that good at keeping his cover. Still, all of the characters need significantly more depth than they are given here.

I'm not really sure why the Identity Network uses a sculptor (such as Tyler, who's only there to fulfill some community service obligations stemming from his arrest) rather than using some computer-generated facial reconstruction software. Sure, this stuff is expensive but sculpting, while cheap, feels depressingly low-tech in an age of such sophisticated crime-fighting technology such as that used on Bones or any other procedural series. Yes, these are meant to be amateurs rather than the real-deal police but I couldn't shake that comparison the entire time I was watching The Forgotten. Surely, there's someone in the Identity Network that could hook them up with some imaging software?

It's little things like that which irk throughout the pilot episode, compounded with the ham-fisted use of narration, provided here by Highway Jane herself. One has to assume that subsequent episodes would be narrated by that week's deceased and nameless victim. The intended effect is something akin to an aura of "The Lovely Bones," but in actuality the narration is more grating than gratifying. The narration as a whole is overwrought as the tireless Identity Network sleuths seek to reconstruct the deceased's "story," which is then brought to life by the actor playing the John or Jane Doe in flashbacks and corpse shots. It lends the entire affair a dismal note that seems to be carried through the entire piece. Efforts to inject humor fall flat and seem wholly out of place.

These things are all the more obvious because the central mystery--unmasking the killer of Highway Jane--is so blatantly obvious. Anyone who reads even boilerplate detective stories or watches any mystery series will immediately peg the likely suspect in Jane's murder... who sure enough ends up being the culprit at the end. If we're going to care at all about these characters and the victims they investigate, the cases need to be smart, twisty, and provocative but the plot of The Forgotten's initial case is anything but.

All in all, The Forgotten definitely needs some retooling if it has any hopes of attracting an audience. Jettisoning Penry-Jones and Aylesworth is a start but a lot of the problem is the surface-level characterization, the obvious suspect, and the depressingly bleak tone, which will likely keep many away, especially on a Tuesday evening, where the series will compete with legal drama The Good Wife, starring Juliana Margulies. Right now, victory will likely go to The Good Wife while The Forgotten will likely be, well, forgotten.



The Forgotten will air Tuesdays at 10 pm ET/PT this fall on ABC.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of ABC's "The Middle"

My favorite thing about ABC's new comedy series The Middle might just be youngest son Brick, played with unapologetic realness by Atticus Shaffer.

I had the opportunity a few weeks back to watch the full pilot episode of The Middle, which launches on ABC this fall on Wednesday evenings, and was instantly enchanted by Shaffer's adorably awkward Brick, a boy who continually refers to his mother as his "hero" (but not quite for the reasons you might think), who whispers to himself because it makes him feel good, and who embodies all the bizarre quirks and foibles that many of us carried around for a bit in childhood.

Created by Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline of NBC's Lipstick Jungle, The Middle tells the story of the Hecks, a very average middle-class family living in Middle America... or the middle of Indiana to be precise. If I'm being honest I'll say that I've been more or less in love with this winsome script for the past few years; the project itself has been developed several times over and was even shot as a pilot with Ricki Lake two development seasons ago. (The aforementioned Shaffer is the only cast holdover.)

Now the series stars Patricia Heaton (Back to You) as the oft-put-upon Frankie Heck, a suburban wife and mother who tries to keep her kids and husband in line and keep chaos at bay while she works as a (rather unsuccessful) car salesman. Her husband Mike (Scrubs' Neil Flynn) is the manager of a local quarry and approaches the workplace-related injuries with the same lackadaisical manner one might address a child's skinned knee. Eldest son Alex (Frozen River's Charlie McDermott) is a typically sullen teenage boy, one with a penchant for walking around in his boxers and nothing else. Middle child Sue (Eden Sher), meanwhile, doesn't seem to have any noticeable talents but that hasn't stopped her from trying out for a variety of school teams and clubs with painfully expected results. (Her pummel horse jump is a master class in gut-wrenching embarrassment.) And then there's the adorably bizarre Brick whose ticks are endearingly off-putting. ("Sorry...")

They're the type of family who considers quality time eating dinner and begrudgingly catching each other up on their days during the commercial breaks on Dancing with the Stars. In other words, the Hecks are just like a zillion other American families, albeit with some more fully realized neuroses.

If the above sounds a bit like FOX's own family comedy Malcolm in the Middle, you'd be right. Both The Middle and Malcolm in the Middle (which even sound alike) dealt with the everyday messiness of family life with a heightened sense of reality that made our own days seem relatively normal in comparison.

Like the family preserved for eternity on Malcolm in the Middle, the Hecks have a mother struggling to keep things together, a father whose parenting style can be described kindly as laissez-faire, a troubled older son, and a oddball younger son. (Just sub the brainiac Malcolm for a skills-deficient Sue and change the POV from the middle kid to the harried mother and you're set.)

Which doesn't diminish the charms of The Middle at all. As I mentioned before Shaffer absolutely kills as Brick, who springs it on his poor, overworked mother that she will have to create a superhero costume and turn up at his school for a book report... the day before she's meant to be there. (Hint: it's why he kept whispering that Frankie was his "hero.") Frankie, meanwhile, contends with a ghastly driver's license picture that makes her seem haggard (she colors her grey hair with a black magic marker as a result) and a host of problems from each of her kids. Sue lands a spot in show choir... with some added painfulness this time around.

I'm not a huge fan of Patricia Heaton in general, which is a real shame as Frankie Heck is a fantastic female character. Heaton seems nearly manic with her performance and it's jarring at times with the messy sweetness of the overall pilot and I wanted her to calm down a little more from the outset, even if Frankie is a mess internally. Flynn is as fantastically nuanced as ever and the kids are all well-cast.

But the standout performance really is the inimitable Atticus Shaffer, who gives The Middle much of its zing and freshness. Rarely has there been a television kid with such perfect timing (watch the scene where he shills a car for his mother's potential sale) and such oddness in one package.

Ultimately, The Middle is a cute and rather sweet half-hour about the trials and tribulations of the average American family in an age of bad credit, massive unemployment, and energy-sapping technological development. It's also about how even in the most mundane of situations, there's humor, joy, and love to be found in just about every home.



The Middle will air Wednesdays at 8:30 pm ET/PT this fall on ABC.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of CW's "Melrose Place"

If you're like me, you remember watching episodes of the original Melrose Place with a zeal bordering on near obsession.

After all, this was a nighttime soap where anything--and in fact, everything--was possible: from apparent returns from the dead to jaw-dropping plot twists (Kimberly removing that wig, anyone?) to bombs going off right in the namesake apartment building that housed most of the characters.

So I'll say then that expectations were high for the CW's revamp of Melrose Place, which the netlet will launch later this fall. Would the new incarnation of Melrose Place live up not to only one of Los Angeles' most tony streets but also to the original series, which pushed the envelope in terms of over the top plots?

I had the opportunity a few days ago to watch the full pilot episode of Melrose Place, written by former Smallville producers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer and directed by Davis Guggenheim, and sadly I have to say that I was pretty disappointed by what I saw.

Perhaps it was this new series' overly contrived set-up--a dead body discovered floating in the apartment complex's iconic pool that echoes that of Melrose Place spin-off Models Inc. and the death of Melrose's own Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis)--the fact that the producers clearly felt their script couldn't convey the emotions necessary to tell their story that they overloaded the episode with so much music that every thirty second span seemed to be filled with a snippet from yet another song, or the inexplicable return of Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) to the land of the living.

So just what did I think of the new Melrose Place's pilot episode? Let's discuss. (Beware: there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead.)

Viewers of the original Melrose Place have been scratching their heads trying to fathom just how Sydney could be alive and running the apartment complex after she was last seen getting run down... on her wedding day, no less. (No, no one ever accused the original Melrose Place of subtlety.) I will say that the actual chain of events is slightly glossed over but Sydney's seeming resurrection is dealt with head on as we're told that Sydney didn't actually die that day but instead faked her death (for reasons yet untold) with the help of her one-time lover Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro, who reprises his role here).

I'm not quite sure why Sydney wanted out of married life so badly but it seems that she and Michael had elaborately staged her death in order to... Again, I'm not quite sure what Sydney got out of the arrangement or why she would come back now to Los Angeles and move in to the building where she used to live, using her real name, and take over management responsibilities while living in an apartment her tenants have dubbed "the penthouse."

But, just like the first time around, Sydney's second chance at life is fraught with complication. In this case, it's the fact that no sooner do we see Syd again in the flesh, than does she wind up murdered and floating in the swimming pool. Shock, horror!

Everyone in the apartment complex is a suspect but no one seems all that distraught by the fact that their landlord was killed a few feet from them. Certainly, they're not too shaken up that they don't throw a party right next to the spot where Sydney was killed... less than twenty-hour hours after her murder, despite the twenty-somethings' claims that Sydney was a friend. (Also strange: only one of them is actually questioned by the police.)

These twenty-something tenants aren't all that well-developed in the pilot episode and it's pretty unclear just why they considered the bitchy Sydney a friend. (Some poorly constructed flashbacks seek to fill in the blanks about their past encounters with Syd.) They are the sort of upwardly mobile Angelenos that pack the bar nightly at any number of LA hotspots. Bisexual publicist Ella Simms (Supernatural's Katie Cassidy), who is clearly meant to exude the icy/hot bitchiness of the original series' Heather Locklear, shared a contentious relationship with her former mentor Sydney, who was looking to have her evicted, and gives an alibi for the prime suspect. Elswhere, hotshot sous chef Auggie Kirkpatrick (All My Children's Colin Egglesfield) is harboring a certain blood-stained secret about the night Sydney got killed, despite the fact that he owes his career to the murdered woman yet was clearly avoiding her the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, medical student Lauren Yung (Sarah Connor Chronicle's Stephanie Jacobsen) finds herself in a bind when her father can no longer afford to pay her tuition and is propositioned by a patient's son (Without a Trace's Adam Kaufman) to sleep with him for five thousand dollars. Manboy Jonah Miller (Swingtown's Michael Rady) is a wannabe film director who pays the bills by shooting parties; he proposes to his live-in girlfriend Riley Richmond (Cloverfield's Jessica Lucas), an elementary school teacher, but she doesn't immediately jump at the shot at marrying him despite their five blissful years of dating. (Rady's sadsack romantic Jonah is clearly meant to be a substitute for Andrew Shue's wide-eyed Billy Campbell.)

Rounding out the cast is eighteen-year-old Violet Foster (7th Heaven's Ashlee Simpson-Wentz) who has just arrived in Los Angeles and refers to herself rather ominously as a "good girl" even as she swipes a framed photograph of Sydney at her makeshift memorial in the courtyard. (Hmmm, could the flame-haired Violet be Sydney's daughter perhaps?) And then there's the bad boy David Breck (Shark's Shaun Sipos) who happens to be Sydney's on-again-off-again lover, the brooding son of Michael Mancini (Calabro), and... an art thief?!? This latter reveal is a little ludicrous, even for the notoriously over the top Melrose Place, especially as David doesn't seem clever enough to tie his own shoelaces without help, much less pull off high-stakes solo heists.

The original Melrose Place wasn't exactly known as Emmy bait but it had an energy and verve that made it addictive viewing. Here, Slavkin and Swimmer's script seems rather sodden and, as I mentioned previously, the overabundance of music threaded through every single scene makes me question whether these showrunners trust in the audience to know which emotion the dialogue and action are attempting to evince. We get that the proposal scene between Jonah and Riley is meant to be upbeat and romantic without having a pop track blaring in the background, which it does in EVERY scene.

I will give credit to Melrose's actors, who do their best with the mediocre material that they've been given here. In particular, Jacobsen and Rady come off as likable and sympathetic and their characters are given the most shading, even as Rady's Jonah makes an incredibly unbelievable decision to turn down six figures to write a script after he catches a producer making out with his daughter's teenage friend at a party. The original Melrose Place succeeded not because of the earnestness of its first batch of episodes but because, once it found its footing, it pushed its flawed characters to sometimes make the wrong decisions. Here, there's an off-putting cuteness that's totally at odds with the ongoing murder subplot, the art thievery, and the potential prostitution.

To me, this Melrose Place is a pale shadow of the original series, filled with some mightily one-dimensional characters that attempt to recapture the spark of the 1990s version's characters and update the action for a celebrity-obsessed youth culture that watches the channel's own Gossip Girl and 90210. But it tries way too hard to shoehorn in some mawkish sentimentality instead of just having fun with the concept. Furthermore, I'm not really convinced that Swimmer and Slavkin are the right showrunners for this series, based on the tonal inconsistencies of the pilot and the lackluster scripting.

Sure, the original Melrose Place took a bit of time to find its path (aided, of course, by the arrival of Heather Locklear to stir things up among the sleepy cast) but this version seems to be television-by-the-numbers. Yes, Melrose's producers have thrown in a murder, some sex and scandal, and some mystery but there's still something that feels underwhelming and dispiriting about this update and not at all like organic, compelling, and ultimately addictive television. It might be young, but I can't shake the feeling that this Melrose Place already needs a face-lift.



Melrose Place will air Tuesday nights at 9 pm ET/PT this fall on the CW.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of ABC's "The Deep End"

Every once in a while, a pilot comes along that has such a stellar cast that it's heartbreakingly depressing when the pilot itself isn't quite up to snuff.

This development season that pilot would be ABC's The Deep End (formerly known as The Associates... and before that Untitled Dave Hemingson Legal Dramedy), which has gathered together some fantastically diverse talent as Matt Long (Jack & Bobby), Tina Majorino (Big Love), Ben Lawson (Neighbours), Norbert Leo Butz (Dan in Real Life), Leah Pipes (Life is Wild), Billy Zane (Samantha Who?), Sherri Saum (In Treatment), Rachelle Lefevre (Twilight, Swingtown), and Clancy Brown (Carnivale).

The Deep End, from writer/executive producer Dave Hemingson (Kitchen Confidential), follows the personal and professional goings on of a group of ambitious young law associates and their demanding bosses at a cutthroat Los Angeles law firm. The series, from 20th Century Fox Television, was originally developed as a dramedy and previously shot a pilot last development season before jettisoning most of its cast and reformatting as a straight drama, albeit with some soapy Grey's Anatomy-style antics. (I could make some coy joke about lawyers jumping into each others legal briefs here, but I just won't do it.)

We're introduced to the four new associates at Sterling Law, one of Los Angeles' most prestigious law firms: there's Dylan Hewitt (Long), a do-gooder from a blue collar background who turns up ten days late (more on that in a bit), ambitious Midwesterner Addy Fisher (Majorino), womanizing Aussie Liam Priory (Lawson), and rich girl Beth Bancroft (Pipes). All are thrown into the deep end at Sterling. (Hell, one of them is literally thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool at one point, just to hit you over the head with the metaphor.)

They've all been recruited by the quixotic (and hilariously savage) Rowdy Kaiser (Butz), a man just as likely to help you out of a jam as he is to skin you alive, and they find themselves quickly trying to keep up with the demands and foibles of the firm's partners: the ruthless and Machiavellian Cliff Huddle (Zane) who is referred to not-so-lovingly around the office as "the Prince of Darkness," his icy wife Susan Oppenheim (Saum), and the uber-intimidating founding partner Hart Sterling (Brown).

There are a slew of cases for each of the new associates to tackle and, naturally, complications ensue at every turn. After attending a client's bris with Susan, Liam is mistakenly believed to be Jewish by a would-be Israeli client (Big Love's Noa Tisby) until she discovers that he may have misled her a little when things turn physical. Politics could derail Dylan's pro-bono custody case when Cliff takes an interest in the case and sides with the opposing party, a wealthy woman who carried her grandchild in her womb. (Don't ask, really.)

Elsewhere, Addy finds herself arrested when she is pulled in multiple directions by several of the partners and struggles to file a brief at the courthouse in time, while Beth, working on a transfer of power at a major corporation, realizes that the outbound CEO isn't in full control of his faculties, believing her to be his long-dead daughter.

But that's nothing compared to the Grey's Anatomy-style bed-hopping. Dylan swiftly falls for winsome paralegal Katie (Lefevre), herself torn between Dylan's good guy qualities and her ongoing affair with the very married Cliff. Liam hooks up with the Israeli client and beds one of the firm's secretaries. And it turns out there's a sexual history between Liam and Beth that continues to flare up every time there's stress.

All of which could lead to a frothy nighttime soap but there's a decided lack of sense of humor here. Everything is played so straight, without any real fun that it's hard to root for the characters or care about their off-hours pursuits.

In fact, the only actor that seems to be having any real fun with The Deep End at all is Norbert Leo Butz, who imbues Rowdy with a dangerous, mercurial edge. This unpredictable side to his character makes Rowdy a hell of a lot of fun but he seems trapped in another series altogether, one that's more in line with creator Dave Hemingson's original vision for the series, which had a decidedly more humorous bend.

The rest of the actors seem to sadly be sleepwalking through their roles a little bit and none of the characters are all that three-dimensional. If we're going to be spending any extended time with these associates and partners, they had better be quirky and memorable, but instead they come off as slightly stale cliches we've seen on numerous other legal series.

Given that ABC won't be launching The Deep End until midseason, I hope they can take the time to fine-tune the tone of the series and inject more humor and fun to this. It could be a legal dramedy akin to the early years of FOX's Ally McBeal and boasts one of the finest ensemble casts this development season. But as it stands now, I didn't think The Deep End was all too deep, really.



The Deep End launches next year on ABC.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of FOX's "Human Target"

I really wanted to like FOX's new procedural drama Human Target, which launches on the network next year, but found myself wondering about what the series could have been rather than what it actually is.

Based on a DC comic by Len Wein and Carmen Infantino (and later redeveloped into a Vertigo title by Peter Milligan), Human Target tells the story of Christopher Chance (Fringe's Mark Valley), a man who protects those in danger by becoming a literal human shield, a moving target capable of drawing the fire of those out to imperil his well-paying clients.

Chance is assisted in these high-stakes missions by his best friend and business manager Winston (Pushing Daisies' Chi McBride) and a tech-savvy nutcase named Guerrero (Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley) whose allegiances seem as fluid as quicksilver. But rather than just watch his clients from afar, Chance forces his way into their lives, posing as someone who has access to their every move.

In the pilot episode, written by Jon Steinberg (Jericho) and directed by Simon West (Keen Eddie), we glimpse three such cases involving an array of clients. We're introduced to Chance, in fact, during a hostage situation at a bank where an irate and recently fired employee, Hollis (Desperate Housewives' Mark Moses), is threatening to kill his boss Ken Lydecker and detonate a bomb, killing everyone inside. Chance manages to free Lydecker (and switches places with him in the process), manages to disarm Hollis and shoot him, but doesn't manage to prevent him from detonating the plastic explosive on his vest. It's an explosion that kills Hollis and injures Chance in the process.

Rather than follow the advice of the gruff but well-meaning Winston and recuperate from his injuries, Chance accepts another assignment: to protect an engineer named Stephanie Dobbs (Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer) who is working on California's first bullet train, a train whose upcoming maiden voyage has seemed to coincide with an attempt on her life. Despite Winston's misgivings about Chance's state of mind, Chance agrees to become her human target, posing as her Japanese interpreter on the train's test run in order to unmask her would-be killer.

It's an assignment that brings them back in touch with the shady operative Guerrero (Haley), a man of dubious moral certainty who seems to be working both sides of the equation, providing security here, possibly flexing his knuckles there. Guerrero is one scary guy and Winston is uneasy about partnering with him on the Dobbs case but they have need of Guerrero's particular skill set.

What follows is a pretty straightforward procedural action-thriller, as Chance attempts to keep Stephanie safe from a number of potential murder attempts even as the clock in running out before the state-of-the-art bullet train will derail at 220 mph, thanks to some cost-cutting that Stephanie uncovered during the construction phase. There's a nice sense of frisson between Helfer's icy Stephanie and Valley's Chance but there's little time for any real emotional connection between them, given the nature of the series' episodic formula.

Likewise, it's hard to shake the feeling that there's no real emotional stakes here for the cooly-detached Chance whatsoever. The original pilot script indicated why Chance seems to have a what Winston calls a "death wish" (hint: it involved a missing woman) but without any real information in the shot pilot about just what happened to Chance, Winston's concerns come off as more than a little puzzling, given that we don't really see any indication that Chance is acting out of the ordinary or might be acting with less than his normal professionalism.

Valley, McBride, and Haley are all well-cast in their respective roles but aren't given much to do with any real depth of character. The guest cast, which includes Culp, Helfer, and Danny Glover (who, rather shockingly, turns up in the final scene as a new client) are all fantastic but also seem to be going through the motions of the plot without much nuance in their guest roles. Everything in Human Target, in fact, is very much operating on the surface level and there's a decided dearth of emotional stakes as well as a shocking lack of humor, a real shame given that each of the three leads excels at deadpan humor.

FOX has made a cottage industry of late out of procedural dramas and Human Target does work best as the sort of procedural series one might have found in the 1980s, meaning that it feels a little dated and somewhat creaky. Human Target attempts to be a fun thrill-ride but there's no real hook here, due to the shallowness of the characters and the feeling that we know Chance will not only survive his assignments but nicely wrap up each case by the end of the hour.

But rather than suggest that the producers graft on a serialized plot, I'd instead urge them to deepen Chance's character and give the audience a reason for being invested in his particular situation. The pilot episode doesn't offer us an origin story for Chance and his cohorts, nor does it tell us why the story is picking up at this precise moment in time, which is a major misstep. Stories like this usually benefit from starting at the beginning (seeing Chance and Winston work together for the first time, for example) or by showing us these characters at a precise moment of change and upheaval in their lives.

We're told that Chance has a "death wish," but we don't really see why this is the case, which (as mentioned before) was at least touched on in the pilot script. If Chance is changing his M.O., taking unnecessary risks, and placing himself in danger needlessly, the writers had better show us why he's doing so, what his motivations are, and what's changed in his outlook. It's a disservice to the viewer, to the character, and to the series as a whole to do otherwise.

Human Target could be an action-packed adrenaline thrill-ride but it comes across as a little cold and stiff, thanks to the lack of humor here. Chance and Winston should be quick-witted verbal sparring partners, tossing off colorful quips with the speed of a semi-automatic, but instead they seem more like a bickering old couple. The series needs to be slicker, smarter, and craftier. The identity of the killer in the main assignment this week was painfully obvious to anyone who has ever watched a single television mystery, from CSI to Agatha Christie's Poirot, or read any detective novel. These cases need to keep the audience guessing and keep the action and tension high at all times, even as lightening the mood with some badinage.

Ultimately, unless Human Target can find the fun and funny in Chance's life both on and off assignment (and keep the mysteries of the week engaging, twisty, and surprising), there's no real hook here to keep viewers coming back week after week, making this series a likely target for termination.



Human Target launches in early 2010 on FOX.