The 16x9 report
Jul. 16th, 2008 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysAnother new TV season and the usual assortment of previews and pilots to sort through. A few of the new shows seems worth the time to at least give them a shot. The opinions below based on usually on only one show so far.
Lab Rats is a bunch of scientists and assistants in a biological research lab. It is very silly - in a good way. You can't help but compare it to The IT Crowd. It has that same anarchic view of plot or plausibility. It is all about the delivery of humour derived from stereotypes and one liners. But because its a stereotype I'm sort of part of (as I'm part of the IT crowd stereotype) and because the one-liners are funny then I love it.
Middleman is pretty silly too in a different but equally good way. It is derived from a comic book apparently. I don't know the comic but the type of source material is very evident in the oddly stylised delivery. The Middleman is a sort of superhero but a rather strange one. A stiff proper character with a wisecracking world-wise sidekick apprentice. If you think of the dynamic that was in Due South then you are getting the idea. And how can you not like a show where an episode title is the likes of "Flying Fish Zombification". It is too good - I can't see it lasting but then again the network it's on may serve to keep it going and give it a chance.
True Blood is based on the vampire books by Charlaine Harris. I haven't read them either. High production values (i.e. big budget) and Anna Paquin as the telepathic waitress. It has a cinema kind of feel. Trouble with that is the pilot was so slow moving. I guess the story will develop as the series rolls out but it could have done better in that regard - right now I'm a bit dubious. Perhaps the idea is that the considerable amount of adult content will keep people interested. Me, I'm more interested in seeing if Paquin's attempt at a broad Southern accent can last the distance.
Bonekickers is British and from the description I thought that it looked like it should be pretty good. A bunch of archaeologists unearthing strange stuff that gets some nasty religious types opposing them. However I'm struggling to find anything positive to say about it really - poor story, flat characters and poor delivery. Thing is, I want a fictional Time Team to work. Given the production team and the BBC association, I figure I can give it another chance, but I'm not optimistic.
For Leverage, the description on IMDB pretty much tells it all - "A crew of high-tech crooks attempt to steal from wealthy criminals and corrupt businessmen". Its from a caper story tradition that encompasses the likes of Mission Impossible (the original that is) or oceans 11. If you like this kind of thing, the success or failure comes down to two factors - how clever the capers are and how well the character chemistry works. A bit early to see on the first point, but even the pilot shows a bit too much fuzzy hand waving. On the other hand, the likes of Christian Kane and Gina Bellman look like they may be able to deliver on the chemistry. They will have to big time though to get past the inherent limitations of this type of story.
Finally in this roundup there is Fringe. J.J. Abrams is the big name creative force on this so there is a fair bit of buzz about the show. The word seems to be that people are expecting an X-Files type of show, but the pilot is really just setting up the team to do all that investigating of the unexplained. A lot of money seems to have been put into this show too, but again as with Leverage it comes down to how the characters work and I'm not at all convinced by the bunch here. But then I've never been a big fan of Abrams work - his shows seem interesting at first but I always lose interest. But there are plenty of Lost fans who will disagree - they are the target audience core audience for Fringe.
Lab Rats is a bunch of scientists and assistants in a biological research lab. It is very silly - in a good way. You can't help but compare it to The IT Crowd. It has that same anarchic view of plot or plausibility. It is all about the delivery of humour derived from stereotypes and one liners. But because its a stereotype I'm sort of part of (as I'm part of the IT crowd stereotype) and because the one-liners are funny then I love it.
Middleman is pretty silly too in a different but equally good way. It is derived from a comic book apparently. I don't know the comic but the type of source material is very evident in the oddly stylised delivery. The Middleman is a sort of superhero but a rather strange one. A stiff proper character with a wisecracking world-wise sidekick apprentice. If you think of the dynamic that was in Due South then you are getting the idea. And how can you not like a show where an episode title is the likes of "Flying Fish Zombification". It is too good - I can't see it lasting but then again the network it's on may serve to keep it going and give it a chance.
True Blood is based on the vampire books by Charlaine Harris. I haven't read them either. High production values (i.e. big budget) and Anna Paquin as the telepathic waitress. It has a cinema kind of feel. Trouble with that is the pilot was so slow moving. I guess the story will develop as the series rolls out but it could have done better in that regard - right now I'm a bit dubious. Perhaps the idea is that the considerable amount of adult content will keep people interested. Me, I'm more interested in seeing if Paquin's attempt at a broad Southern accent can last the distance.
Bonekickers is British and from the description I thought that it looked like it should be pretty good. A bunch of archaeologists unearthing strange stuff that gets some nasty religious types opposing them. However I'm struggling to find anything positive to say about it really - poor story, flat characters and poor delivery. Thing is, I want a fictional Time Team to work. Given the production team and the BBC association, I figure I can give it another chance, but I'm not optimistic.
For Leverage, the description on IMDB pretty much tells it all - "A crew of high-tech crooks attempt to steal from wealthy criminals and corrupt businessmen". Its from a caper story tradition that encompasses the likes of Mission Impossible (the original that is) or oceans 11. If you like this kind of thing, the success or failure comes down to two factors - how clever the capers are and how well the character chemistry works. A bit early to see on the first point, but even the pilot shows a bit too much fuzzy hand waving. On the other hand, the likes of Christian Kane and Gina Bellman look like they may be able to deliver on the chemistry. They will have to big time though to get past the inherent limitations of this type of story.
Finally in this roundup there is Fringe. J.J. Abrams is the big name creative force on this so there is a fair bit of buzz about the show. The word seems to be that people are expecting an X-Files type of show, but the pilot is really just setting up the team to do all that investigating of the unexplained. A lot of money seems to have been put into this show too, but again as with Leverage it comes down to how the characters work and I'm not at all convinced by the bunch here. But then I've never been a big fan of Abrams work - his shows seem interesting at first but I always lose interest. But there are plenty of Lost fans who will disagree - they are the target audience core audience for Fringe.
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Date: 2008-07-16 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-16 09:16 pm (UTC)