Grid Effect

Welcome back to the wheel wagon, hope everyone had a decent weekend, aside from being sick throughout it was pretty decent for us. We saw OSU beat Michigan for the fourth straight year and for the sixth time in seven years, and in the process kept them in the national title hunt (which, in the interest of objectivity, if OSU makes the national title game after being idle for two weeks, that is just the height of inequity, and the BCS needs to be banished, in fact, just the notion that it could happen should lead to the banishment of this post season format). That alone made our weekend, and seeing the tears stream down the faces of UM fans over a game they had nothing to do with, just made it all the more satisfying. Yes, nothing like a bit of schaudenfreude to really make a weekend worthwhile.

Anyhow, back on topic…

You may have remembered from last week, that we decided to change the format here on Mondays in lieu of any good series’ to discuss. So, this is the inaugural Monday where we try to adhere to a “traditional” blog format, in which we have multiple succinct posts, as opposed to one (or on a busy day, two) extended posts. So, with that in mind…

It appears that Dirty Sexy Money was dirty and sexy enough to be extended for a full first season. This might seem premature, since they aren’t even close to a resolution on the writer’s strike, but if the series is showing that much promise commercially, we’re not terribly surprised that ABC would want to lock it in. After all, Michael Wilbon endorses the series. Then again, he heavily endorses Boston Legal, which is mediocre and formulaic at best, and is also on ABC… Wait! Wilbon is employed by ESPN…Disney owns ESPN…Disney owns ABC…Well, you have to at least give them points for subtlety.

Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s important.

We said awhile back that we would watch and review the series for a few episodes, and make a determination as to whether or not we wanted to recap the series regularly. Well, we’re going to level with you: that never happened. We watched about twenty minutes of the second episode, and it had this glossy, generic, “ripped from the headlines” predictability about it. It wasn’t terrible, just not for this site.

We can understand it getting a guaranteed full season though. Star studded cast, heavily marketed, great lead-ins. But we’re almost certain Donald Sutherland’s character will be dead by season’s end, and we’re haunted by how much better this show could be if not confined to the limitations of ABC and the FCC. In other words: We might watch the series if it was on a cable network.

Still, congrats to DSM, and if the back end of your pilot season airs before 2009, then all the more power to you. We’ll probably just be caught up in watching fifth season Wire episodes for the tenth time before we get around to catching any of your work. Sorry.

Unfortunately, much like Journeyman, we are opting to pass on the NBC pilot Life. Not that the series looked any better or worse than the following two, we just couldn’t squeeze in a 10-20 minute viewing of it at lunch, and with all the television on tonight, we’re not going to be able to make it up. At least it was in consideration unlike last night’s fourth series premiere, Private Practice.

This seems like as good of a time as any to note that we’re not reviewing any pilots from tonight. As of now, we chronicle the developments of five different series on this website:
Mad Men
Survivor
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
The Office
Curb Your Enthusiasm

Four of which (specifically, the first four) are on Thursday nights. The spacing is awful, but with American Idol yet to kick off their new season, every network is trying to grab some ratings before the infamous talent show hoards them all.

Onto the pilots…

First off, Dirty Sexy Money (DSP). The basic premise is a lawyer, Nick (Peter Krause) is struggling establish an identity divergent from that of his father, and not prioritize work over family. He promises to never work for the family he ultimately will end up working for, The Darlings, headed by Donald Sutherland (Patrick). Apparently they’re all money grubbing, power hungry sycophants. They are composed of some woman named Julia who is the Paris Hilton of the group, with Jeremy as the burnt out Robert Downey, dramatic approximation of Lucille Bluth and a priest whom we would assume to be the most noble, but is actually brattier than the rest of the pack. They’re like a cross between the Trumps and the Baldwins.

Guest starring Peter Bogdonavich, has someone named Seth Gabel, who I’m sure has some relation to me because 99.99% of people with the same pronunciation spell it “Gable”. Christ, even Firefox’s spell check recognizes the latter. Anyways, the only other recognizable face is uninteresting blond who was replaced by Rex Lee from the first season of Entourage, Samarie Armstrong.

There were some things I found incredibly pretentious about this series. Namely, hammering home what a great guy Nick the lawyer is. His annoying ex-girlfriend is still regretting whatever mistakes they made four husbands ago. Donald Sutherland figuratively performs oral on him explaining how his own children don’t measure up to our selfless hero. Essentially, the efficacy of his nobleness was ruined by the presentation. He’s supposed to be like a flawless Don Draper, which doesn’t rest well with me. Because, well, he’s a lawyer.

But, with all that said, the series, on a whole, looks solid. It takes a lot for me to look beyond my disdain for ABC’s typical prime time decisions to say that. Hence why I’m refusing to even acknowledge the lead in to this, Private Practice. I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep watching it or not, let me finish the rest of the pilot and I’ll fill y’all in next weekend.

Next up, NBC’s Bionic Women, Essentially, its like Heroes with more government intervention and instead of a smorgasbord of superheroes, there is emphasis on just one. And wow, this is opening up a little too much like Cane for my taste, with a swat team running in on a blond women leaning over a dead man, as they run past several other men she presumably murdered. She says, “tell me you love me”, he shoots her when she lunges at him, he stands over her body and says “I love you” as he puts a bullet in her eyes…

Then it fast forwards three year to a brunette version of the same woman who looks and awful lot like Neve Campbell. She has a kid, and a boyfriend who wants to get married because apparently she is pregnant with a second child, and convinced this poor bastard its actually his.

Anyhow, they get into a car accident discussing the kids names, that isn’t shot anywhere near as well those Volkswagen commercials. And, as a result of said accident, she’s going to turn into the womanimal we saw to open the series. Oh, the guy who killed the last woman from three years beforehand is sitting in on a conference meeting and wants to kill this woman, whose boyfriend is in on the meeting and is obviously opposed.

Alright, I’m fast forwarding through all of this, because its quite obvious where this is heading, the woman is being held against her will and is livid about it, eventually she’s going to realize her “powers” or whatever, then decide to use them for good, while contemplating using them for evil, or, as some hippies might call it, self-interest. It’s the moral ambiguity NBC dramas are usually famous for, just executed horrendously.

The last scene ends with her and some hot blond fighting in the rain, both are terrible actresses. The blond, especially, or maybe its the writing, which is bloody awful. They actually have this exchange:

Brunette (looking concerned): What do you want?
Blond (looking antagonistic, confident and an attempt is made at menacing): Jogging partner, maybe.

See, there isn’t much anyone can do with this, and everything precluding and following this is just as insufferable. But I will say it seems like the writers and cast deserve each other on this one. It’s a bad thing when we’re pining for the storytelling of Dirty Sexy Money, but we are. Essentially, its like Heroes with more government intervention and instead of a smorgasbord of superheroes, there is emphasis on just one.