Posts Tagged ‘Desperate Housewives’

Review: Hellcats

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

That’s Some Peppy Goth.

2009 saw Glee burst onto the scene with mix of tongue in cheek humour, big musical numbers and a cast of entertaining and memorable characters; it was without a doubt the breakout hit of the year and in 2010 Hellcats looks at another aspect of American school life that is alien to us in the UK, the cheerleaders. There are some things about this show that peaked my interest, the series was created by Kevin Murphy who has been head  writer on Desperate Housewives as well as penning musical spoof Reefer Madness . So was this show going to be this year’s Glee or this year’s The Beautiful Life.

The story opens with rock chick Marti who loses her college scholarship and has to find a way to cover the costs of her law degree. When she first sees the cheerleaders, she mocks, but holds some reverence for the athleticism involved especially when one of the lead flyers takes a hard fall.  Luckily for Marti, cheerleaders get a full scholarship and with the flyer down there is a new opening.  Having already got into an argument with the head cheerleader her chances at the auditions look slim until she throws out the set choreography and does her own rock thing that not only impresses the coach but the head cheerleader as well. Everyone is happy except for the girl she replaces who disses her by calling her a “tumbler” before inviting her alcoholic mum along to an important cheerleading qualifying contest.

Hellcats is based on the book Cheer!: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders by journalist Kate Torgovnick; Glee for cheerleading it is not (although the CW does site the big dance numbers as reason for picking up the show) and if you have seen Bring It On this really doesn’t add anything fresh. The show itself even references the quint essential cheerleading movie when Marti prepares for her audition by watching the DVD. Personally both in story and style the show reminded me of The Beautiful Life, a girl from the outside enters a competitive new world and has to move in with a bunch of ambitious back stabbing beauties and try retain her sense of identity.

The characters are tired stereotypes we have seen over and over again;  nothing in the story is surprising, from the auditions to the importance of the team cheerleading to victory.  Villains are villains for the sake of the story with no real reason behind why they act the way do, while the romances which are yet to blossom are painfully obvious. The script is tired and the acting at points painful to watch. Devoid of surprises it is left up to the glitter to entertain, this comes in the form of sexy cheerleaders  (both male and female) and impressive and well choreographed dance numbers.

For some reason Smallville’s Tom Welling is very much involved in this project, he apparently feels that cheerleading has not been fully exploited on TV.  He maybe right here. We have come to learn from almost every other teen series that cheerleaders are all bitchy sluts, but with the story focused on them and a source material that throws up the real drama behind the scenes, this could be an interesting series. However the audience is not the same as Friday Night Lights and so that rich source material stands a good chance of getting sidelined for the usual relationship drama and backstabbing storylines.

This show is out the gate early, (the real onslaught of pilots doesn’t happen for two weeks) and this grace period may allow it to pick up and hold an audience that will keep it from cancellation, right now I don’t think it will get a full season order and will probably wrap up after its first 13 episodes.

Created / Written by: Kevin Murphy
Directed by: Allan Arkush
Starring: Alyson Michalka, Gail O’Grady, Ashley Tisdale, Heather Hemmens, Robbie Jones, Matt Barr
Date premièred: 8th September 2010
UK Details: TBA

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Review: Cougar Town

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Sitting down to watch the much hyped Cougar Town I was surprised by its 22 minute run time, I had been expecting something more akin to Desperate Housewives, but since Eastwick seems to have gone that route, the single camera sitcom format is perfect. Created by Bill Lawrence the man behind Spin City and Scrubs, it stars Courtney Cox (Friends and Dirt) the show is certainly packing some veteran talent, even relative new comer Dan Byrd (Aliens in America) delivers a confident performance.

Newly divorced realtor Jules (Courtney Cox) is suddenly aware of her age, her sagging  body and prospect that she is doomed to spend the rest of her life a single mum. Although she thinks she has a close and kooky relationship with her son Travis (Dan Byrd), she is unaware of how she embarrasses him. Her younger friend Laurie (Busy Phillips) wants to get her out of the house and so she ends up in bar and later back her place to enjoy the benefits of sex with younger guy. A new world has opened up and for the first time in a long time she feels alive and unfortunately for her 17 year old son this is something he is going to have to get use to.

This is one busy pilot, almost as if it was written for an hour slot and boiled down, scenes struggle to last longer than the annoying guitar music that segways over each cut. At such break neck speed it is hard to keep track with all the characters, and rather than well formed B and C stories we get one big over complicated A story. What makes this frustrating is there is a lot of really good moments, characters and ideas here, we just are not given the time to enjoy them.  Hopefully as the series continues the pace will slow down so we catch our breath and enjoy the show.

We have become very use to seeing older guys with younger girls, but the Cougar movement is certainly challenging those expectations.  We have seen it in Desperate Housewives, joked about it on SNL, sighed at Accidentally on Purpose, but Cougar Town despite its title, might be the first to really examine the plight of the single middle aged woman.  The term Cougar is almost a misnomer here, Jules is just woman who has opened her eyes to the possibilities before her, she might even have the power to re-brand the Cougar as something exciting rather than scary. However, there is one bug, Courtney Cox still looks kinda hot, she still has a great body and all those other shallow things we look for, the idea that she is over the hill just is not realistic so it is hard to make an emotional connection to her dilemma when many women that age (and younger) would kill to look that good.

This is a fairly solid first outing for Bill Lawrence’s new show, scrubs had run its course (however, it is being rebooted later this year as Scrubs: Interns), so it must be good to for him to sink his teeth into something new.  The characters are all interesting to watch, although Courtney Cox’s new character doesn’t feel like she has too many differences to her most famous role as Monica, while Christa Miller is playing nearly exactly the same character as she did on scrubs. This isn’t bad thing, the actors are very comfortable in these shoes and revel in the performance. The comedy is more mature than we have seen from Bill in the past due to the sexual nature of the story.  This doesn’t feel like Scrubs or Spin City dumped in Florida, it stands confident in its own shoes.

The first episode performed very well and I expect in the coming weeks the initial order of 13 episodes to extended for a full 22.

Created and Written by: Bill Lawrence, Kevin Biegel
Directed by: Bill Lawrence
Starring: Courteney Cox, Dan Byrd, Ian Gomez, Brian Van Holt, Josh Hopkins, Christa Miller, Busy Philipps
Date premièred: 23rd September 2009
UK Details: Living 2010

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Review: Eastwick

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

There is no effort to hide it, Eastwick is indeed a TV version of the 1987 Jack Nicholson movie The Witches Of Eastwick, which itself was based on the novel of the same name by John Updike. This is not the first time someone has tried to make The Witches of Eastwick into a TV series, the first attempt was in 1992, a pilot was shot and aired, but NBC failed to be picked up. Things then went quiet for 10 years, but in 2002 FOX tried again, with Marcia Cross who, when the show failed to be picked up, went to on star as Bree in Desperate Housewives. Third time lucky and with a whole new cast, ABC finally picked it up the show for an initial order of 13 episodes. The release of The Widows of Eastwick in 2008 and the stage musical probably helped raise the profile of the source material, making it a slightly more tempting offer for the commissioners.

Like many pilots this is all about set up, we meet the three women, who have very subtle magical powers causing events so slight they are quickly written off as coincidence. Although the three women all live in the same small town and know about each, because of their own preconceptions they have never talked. Roxie (Rebecca Romijn) is an a eccentric artist, Kat (Jaime Ray Newman) a swamped mother and nurse dealing with an alcoholic husband and finally Joanna (Lindsay Price), a shy and insecure reporter for the local paper. Following an event a the fair the three girls come together for drinks and as they start to learn a little more about each other they become fast friends. This gives the ladies a huge boost helping them to find the strength to say what they want from, or how they feel about others. Little do they realise that it is the mysterious dark and handsome stranger named Daryl (Paul Gross) who has just moved into town who is bringing them together and pulling the strings.

Comparisons to Desperate Housewives are immediately obvious, 3 middle aged women trying to juggle their home life, work life and social life in a small, but pleasant town. The mix of magic gives the show a light comic touch, although real issues and real consequences are present, we see two characters hospitalised in the first episode and the fact that that they have placed Kat there too means we are likely to see more. As a pilot most of the time is spent bringing at the characters together, although we see signs of magic none of the characters fully realise what this means or if it is even real. There is no talk of witches and Daryl’s presence in the town and his effect on the women remains a mystery. Of course if you have read the book or seen the film, you know that Daryl will be as likely to split them apart as bring them together. At the end of the pilot it is unclear how much power he has over the women and there is already a level of distrust. If the show is to have any longevity it would be wise to move away from the source material as soon as possible, there is plenty of scope for fun with witches running amuck in small town.

The pilot drew large audience figures for ABC and if subsequent episodes pull in similar figures, the show can no doubt look forward to a full season order of 22 episodes. Check back for updates.

Written by: Maggie Friedman (based on The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike)
Directed by: David Nutter
Starring: Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price, Jaime Ray Newman, Paul Gross
Date premièred: 23rd September 2009
UK Details: The Hallmark Channel – Date TBC

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Review: Accidentally on Purpose

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Like the mass of new hospital based dramas, this year also sees a huge Cougar movement.  This has been brewing for a while in shows such as The New Adventures of Old Christine, Desperate Housewives and a popular sketch on Saturday Night Live, however it is also prevalent in reality with Demi Moore, Madonna and Hale Berry. While Accidentally on Purpose is not the biggest cougar show of the season (that title goes to Cougar Town – reviewed soon), it is the first.

In case you are asking what a cougar is, the Urban Dictionary defines a cougar as “An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man. The cougar can be anyone from an overly surgically altered wind tunnel victim, to an absolute sad and bloated old horn-meister, to a real hottie or milf.” Our hottie in question here is celebrity scientologist Jenna Elfman, who you might remember from Dharma And Greg or not… the show was quite forgettable.

So the show starts with Billie (Jenna) at her work party with her quirky friend Olivia (Ashley Jensen, who you might remember as the quirky friend in Ugly Betty and Ricky Gervais’ quirky friend in Extras), Billie has recently broken up with her boyfriend since he was not going to propose and now 37 she is feeling a little over the hill. Then she gets hit on by young 20 something chef Zach (Jon Foster), they go back to his bachelor pad and make babies on his mattress on the floor.

Now pregnant Billie decides to break off the relationship, but Zach’s dad walked out on him when he was a kid and he doesn’t want the same for his child, so although the relationship is sexually over he now moves in.

There you have it, the pilot sets the scene for Billie and Zach’s worlds of the professional and the young playstation playing bachelor to collide.  This episode is all set up and it is basically an odd couple comedy, beyond that there is nothing which is knock out funny or original, it just is a bog standard easy watching studio sitcom. There must be something bitter sweet for the actresses getting work from this the rise in popularity of the Cougar, on one hand they are getting work, but on the other they have been relegated to being portrayed as over the hill simply on account of their age on paper. In TV terms men at 37 have not yet reached the age where they can be classed as distinguished while women are clawing at the curtains desperate to get their hands on a wedding ring or a penis which ever comes first… no pun intended.

Written by: Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk & Ian Brennan
Directed by: Claudia Lonow
Starring: Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster, Ashley Jensen, Nicolas Wright, Grant Show, Lennon Parham
Date premièred: 21st September 2009
UK Details: TBC

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