Sometimes I know something about a show when I sit down to watch it and sometimes I know nothing, this was the case with Love Bites and that feeling of not knowing continued through most of the episode.  The script starts with bunch of friends on a Hens night, but before they get too rowdy the bride to be falls asleep and the only one who still wants to go clubbing is the pregnant Annie, her friend Cassie is tired of being upstaged by her friends belly so tells a guy she is a virgin. The story then follows the ramifications of this lie and how Cassie and the guy try to figure out their next move to result in sexual bliss.  At this point I start  to wonder what happened to the bride to be and the pregnant Annie as there are no cutaways from Cassie’s story which comes to close when she admits the lie. The next thing I see is a new character talking about how he and his wife can sleep with a celebrity of their choice if the opportunity arises.  Of course the opportunity does arise and the results are much less funny than that episode of Friends where Ross gets his chance with Isabella Rossellini.  Then the story shifts again and I release that this is not one episode but several little stories on the theme of love, kind of like Creepshow for girls.   Anyway in the last part we return the to the bride to be and discover she just had her first orgasm with the help of a vibrator.

Apparently this was not the format of the show Cindy Chupack had originally intended, it was suppose to me a regular show exploring love and relationships of singletons Annie and Cassie,  but after cast members left for various reasons, a pilot was made and rejected, Cindy left as showrunner, the whole thing was retooled into the format now which finally premièred 8 months late. The show was watch-able, if predictable with no real ongoing drama, it is simple watch out the corner of your eye while you doing something else.  It doesn’t challenge expectations and mostly left me wondering about more interesting characters and stories that were discarded along the way. Instead of giving us rich interesting character development we have a series of C stories, the plots that were not quite interesting or fleshed out enough to carry a full episode.

Officially the show has not been cancelled but viewing figures have been dipping every week and it looks likely that the original 9 episodes made may also be the last.

Created / Written by: Cindy Chupack
Directed by: Marc Buckland
Starring: Becki Newton, Greg Grunberg, Constance Zimmer
Date premièred: 2nd June 2011 (NBC)
UK Details: TBC

The pilot of a superhero drama is hard to review because it is the origin story and more time than usual is spent explaining everything and it is also diabolically predictable.  Vince Faraday is a good cop close to tracking down the identity of super villain Chess, who behind is mask is the CEO Ark Industries a company set on privatising everything aspect of city life, including the police and prisons.  When Faraday finds out the truth he is captured dressed in the mask of Chess and hunted down by the police – who clearly use a shoot now, ask questions later mentality.  Anyway Faraday is caught in and explosion and presumed dead, leaving behind his wife and comicbook loving son. Saved by a hoard of circus freaks he is adopted into their ranks where in matter of days he bests them in circus skills and unable reveal his identity, he becomes The Cape, a masked vigilante who will show his son that there is still good and hope in the world.

If you are wondering what superpower The Cape possesses then you obviously didn’t think hard enough about his name. Yes, his superpower is the ability flick a cape to trip people up, snatch guns from their hands and to look cool.  He is also armed with an arsenal of circus skills like escapology, balance and bare-knuckle fist fighting.  The script moves at breakneck speed and not in a good way, the events drive the story far more than the character’s motivations, with things happening so fast you barely have time think how absurd everything is.  Why is the circus dedicated to robbing banks? Why do they push Faraday into being a crimefighter? Why is good cop Faraday happy to help this circus of bank robbers? Why doesn’t Faraday come clean? – the only evidence they have that he is Chess is that he wore his mask. And on and on.

There is a definite whiff of camp to this show that has more similarities to the 1960s BatmanTV show than Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight , the music is over the top mental and the characters colourful cardboard cutouts. Overall the success of the show will depend on how seriously it takes itself and how seriously you take the show, don’t get me wrong there is nothing fresh here and it is every bit as predictable and formulaic as you think it will be. If you don’t want to think, don’t worry switch off and just laugh at the absurdity.

This superhero thing has to burn out really quickly, it is destroying cinema and now it’s leaking on TV with it’s unfulling and uncreative storytelling.  Let’s see if I can guess 90% of the plots for the first series.  A new supervillian comes into town and The Cape vanquishes him. Cheque please.

Created / Written by: Tom Wheeler
Directed by: Simon West
Starring: David Lyons, Keith David, Summer Glau, James Frain, Jennifer Ferrin
Date premièred: 9th January 2011
UK Details: TBC

Racist or reality check.

Mumbai Calling is about a call centre manager sent to India in order to manage the jobs that have been outsourced. But enough the 2008 ITV comedy, this is about the fresh ideas that roll around in America’s week of pilots.  Outsourced is a totally different sitcom in that was based on a 2006 movie of the same name.

Todd Dempsy returns to work after a management training course to find all the call centre he was to manage has been closed down and outsourced to India, luckily for Todd his job is safe, just as long as he willing up sticks and move to India.  Arriving in the new country he is given his ragtag gang of Indian call centre employees ready and willing to sell American Novelties to American customers.  Very quickly it becomes evident that the employees need to understand Americans and American excess if they are going to be able to sell the crap (probably made in China) that Americans want to buy.

When trailers for this show started airing there were voices of opposition complaining about the stereotypical nature of Indians and Indian culture shown in the adverts.  Having watched the show I thought the call centre characters were not far from the crazy selection you would expect in any run of the of the mill office sitcom and I kind of think America comes off far worse. America looks like a country on a downward spiral as its manufacturing jobs are sent over seas with many other jobs following in hot pursuit.  All the time American spent money on cheese heads, foam fingers and fake poo, the Indians have been working towards a better country (don’t get me wrong they are long way off but they are moving in the right direction). As America struggles with over 10% unemployment a comedy about the people who have been given those jobs seems very misguided. In one scene man calls wanting to order an “American number 1 cup” and is very angry that he has to call India to get it. Its understandable and I wonder if Americans viewing show get that they are being portrayed as an ignorant, greedy, glutinous mass desperate to throw money away on nonsensical novelties rather than rebuild the infrastructure of their crumbling economy.  Too political?

Ignoring that the show is a bog standard,by the numbers look at office life that fails to live up to the standards set by the show it follows… The Office.  Nothing new here, except a depressing reality check.

Created / Written by:Robert Borden, George Wing, John Jeffcoat
Directed by: Ken Kwapis
Starring: Ben Rappaport, Rizwan Manji, Sacha Dhawan, Rebecca Hazlewood, Parvesh Cheena, Anisha Nagarajan, Diedrich Bader, Pippa Black
Date premièred: 23rd September 2010
UK Details:

So named because I’m running away.

Women who kick ass are all the rage this season, these fast fisted females appear in Nikita, Lost Girl, Hawaii Five-O and of course Chase the new drama from Jerry Bruckheimer. Since the show creator is former Lost writer Jennifer Johnson, there is a chance of avoiding the fanboy wet dream stereotypes that rear their head when any female takes centre stage in an action story. I am not really a fan of police procedural drama, I find they can be repetitive and predictable, the occasional gimmick such as throwing in faux psychic can lighten things up, but even with The Mentalist I find myself waiting for  the three episodes a year that forward the Red John storyline over the nineteen other who done it episodes. So does Chase buck the trend and offer any surprises?

In the pilot episode we are introduced to US Marshall Annie Frost (Kelli Giddish) as she chases down a criminal through picturesque
Texas, after catching him they fight, she takes a few hits and gives her few of her own (including the classic roundhouse kick to the face), before using her smarts to choke him with her belt. Back at the station Annie and her team are given a new recruit Luke Watson (Jesse Metcalfe) and sent off to locate a man who robbed and killed a man leaving his wife and daughter for dead. They study up on his life and contacts which leads to a couple of close escapes before finally catching up to him as he attempts to cross the boarder into Mexico. Annie chases him down in a suitably over the top fashion and arrests him. Basically the episode was longer version of the  opening teaser.

This is indeed everything I hate about this type of show. You know they are getting the guy and as the title suggests it is just a case of chasing him down and arresting him.  There was no clever police skills used (unless you count music knowledge), generally Annie just follows her instincts and is exactly right every time. The only mistake made is by the rookie and this just serves to drag the episode out longer. The bad guy was so over the top bad he didn’t even feel like a real threat, despite all the random people he kills, his soft side seemed tacked on a pointless. At one point he shaves his head, but since the Marshalls are told about this, the act instantly becomes a pretty pointless measure. The clunky dialouge signposts what sort of series arch they have planned, the three lines said by Annie on the subject land with a thud – “My mother died when I was 8″, “I use to cover for my dad too” and “I don’t know if my dad is alive”, then there is the mysterious phone call she receives in the closing seconds. Hmm I wonder what that phone call is about?

Annie as a central character is a little bland, sure she avoids many of the clichés seen in female action stars, but she also lacks the depth and flaws that would make her an interesting character of any sex.

This show is a great example of how high production values don’t equal a good show. Instantly forgettable.

Created / Written by: Jennifer Johnson
Directed by: David Nutter
Starring: Kelli Giddish, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Rose Rollins, Jesse Metcalfe, Sierra Palmer
Date premièred: 20th September 2010
UK Details: Living Early 2011

Many questions and no sign of answers.

Ever since 24 introduced the series long plot line with a constantly unravelling story writers have tried to recreate the formula, Lost was the first to thrust mystery up front and centre and garnered a huge following which climaxed in disappointing finale that failed to answer many of the viewers’ questions. Because of Lost’s lack of answers and uncertain direction viewers became very uncertain about committing to a show that posed more questions than answers. Threshold , Flashback and Day Break fell victim to audience apathy resulting in diminishing ratings and cancellation. With Lost finally over, The Event hopes to take its spot.

A new president learns of a hidden military detention centre in Alaska and moves to close it, however others in government warn against the release of the prisoners. The president’s determination to put things right against the wishes of his advisors leads to the kidnapping of a pilot’s daughter. As the show reaches a climax the pilot aims a plane at presidents retreat, presumably to get his daughter released, in the final moment The Event (or An Event) happens and all the past talk of mystery suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

As I said originally, audiences are very wary about shows like this that offer more questions than answers and in this pilot we get nothing but questions.  Sometimes it can be really infuriating when characters manage talk around important subjects just to keep the audience in the dark.  The episode is liberal in it’s use of flashbacks and flash forwards, it is a trick,  keeping the plot moving at break neck speed so as not to linger around long enough to answer any questions. Because there is so little solid information given in the pilot  there is little to write here, sure we are introduced to an ensemble cast of characters, but we don’t stick around long enough to really get to know any of them. We get a sense of their outer desires, but don’t don’t any sense of their flaws that they need to correct.

Some parts are a little ridiculous like the agent who tries to chase down the plane suspecting a terrorist on board, apparently it is quite easy just to drive out onto the runway.  This however is no where near as crazy as later in the episode when the same agent is still chasing after plane even as it is flying towards its destination. I am guessing questions surrounding this supersonic car will never be answered.

The Event is living on borrowed time, the second episode has to provide some solid answers or it will start to haemorrhage viewers very quickly. This seems like a show that would have benefited from a double length pilot episode, it worked well for Lost and new series of 24.

Created / Written by: Nick Wauters
Directed by: Jeffrey Reiner
Starring: Jason Ritter, Sarah Roemer, Laura Innes, Ian Anthony Dale, Scott Patterson, Clifton Collins, Jr., Taylor Cole, Lisa Vidal, Bill Smitrovich, Željko Ivanek, Blair Underwood
Date premièred: 20th September 2010
UK Details: October 2010 – Channel 4

Disclaimer upfront, I have never got into courtroom dramas, maybe because paperwork and research is dull TV so if it is included it is over the top, but this is often substituted for emboldened and passionate oral arguments in the courtroom. For me I like to see the courtroom reserved for special occasions, not a weekly event and I am sure the vast a majority of trials are pretty open and shut cases which only seem fresh to jurors.  Last year The Good Wife received positive attention, proving that Law and Order is not the only legal drama people were willing to invest in.

Outlaw sees Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smitts) as a right wing supreme court justice who enjoys a drink and a flutter, he is portrayed as both a right wing zealot and the swing vote on the supreme court. It is left up to him to decided whether a man on death row for killing a police officer deserves his case to be heard by the supreme court. Being placed there by the right he is pushed in the direction of not hearing the case, but the death of his father who was an advocate for the little man gives Garza a crisis of conscience and he allows the case to be heard before quitting the court to help defend the man. Garza brings along his clerks who are the usual mix of over the top conflicting personalities we get in these types of dramas (see House, NCIS and The Mentalist), they pretty much take on the task of finding evidence to clear the man’s name before Garza presents his case to the supreme court, the case is not only one but the real killer identified and arrested based on the testimony of one surprise witness. A dark shadow of his gambling debts hang over him as he looks towards a future of fighting cases for the little man.

First of all we have ludicrous premise of a supreme court justice quitting to become a defence lawyer, he goes from the most right wing judge on the court to the an ultra lefty wanting to fight for gay rights and cop killers.  this sudden change of heart comes from him watching a video of his liberal dad. But it gets crazier, he then joins a law firm, names his salary, gets to pick his team and his cases and ends up fights for the man he has granted a retrial to.  This show feels like it was created by a madlib.

Garza is a insert job with a insert vice, he quits to become a insert new job. This really is level of thought that has gone into this premise.  The annoying thing is Jimmy Smitts is a great actor, he has done some fantastic work, his presence alone raises this show up 5 notches to give it 5 notches.  One of the big problems is that Garza takes a huge personal leap at the top of the show, so we don’t care about anything else, we don’t care about the man he is defending, we don’t care about his eclectic yet loyal team and we don’t care about Garza for he has seen the light. The hint of his gambling debts just feels tacked on to add story, but since he has just quit a $250,000 per year job to be a lawyer with the super a high salary I’m guessing he isn’t going have to too many issues paying that money back. There are just no surprises in this show, you know he is going to save this man from death row from the outset, therefore there is no drama.

After the first episode NBC have shifted it to Friday’s in their schedule, it probably won’t be long before it vanishes altogether.

Created / Written by: John Eisendrath
Directed by: Terry George
Starring: Jimmy Smits, David Ramsey, Ellen Woglom, Carly Pope, Jesse Bradford
Date premièred: 15th September 2010
UK Details: TBA

The story opens when single mother Janet is in the park with her daughter, distracted by issues relating to her ex-husband her daughter goes missing.  Panicked Janet looks for her before being kidnapped herself.  She wakes up in a hotel, quickly she finds she is not the only one kidnapped.  There is a stereotypical soldier, stereotypical party girl, the man who doesn’t want t talk about his past, the man who owns a car dealership, a woman with medical knowledge. Together they start exploring outside the hotel where they find themselves in a ghost town.  Two of them decide to leave, but when reaching the end of the road they pass out.  Panicked the remaining members hide until Chinese restaurant opens up, failing to get answers from the staff about why they have kidnapped they settle down to dinner. At the end of the meal they open fortune cookies which I assume will mean more later on in the series.  After a tough day with no questions answered the group return to the hotel, because what else is there to do.

When I first heard about this series I thought it was going to be like the excellent low budget movie Cube , an interesting study on character and how the individual’s unique skills benefit the group. This is not however where Persons Unknown is heading.

I think a lot of people still feel burnt by Lost, the set up of a big mystery and then the failure to deliver on that promise.  Flash Forward which in many ways was gearing up to take over the sprawling interwoven sci-fi hole left by Lost was cancelled after the first series leaving people with a bizarre cliff-hanger and no answers. Persons Unknown may fall foul to audience apathy as the pilot fails to explain anything, instead just opening more mystery.  The characters never really make any bold choice or learn from their experience, they all follow each other around like a pack of sheep as if individualism and character might get in the way of devices that lead the plot. When Lost first started individual character journey’s was what grabbed the audience the mystery came second.  In Persons Unknown the mystery is right up front and is the only thing people talk about, I don’t care about these characters because the writers have given me nothing.  Sure she has a child who will now be raised by a possibly abusive grandmother, but I have not seen anything of that child to care.  It is a cheat, shorthand tricks for why should feel and urgency for the characters to escape.

Three episodes in and the series is already haemorrhaging viewers at such rate that the full 13 episodes may not broadcast, another reason why viewers may not keep tuning in, they have been down this path before investing in a show only to see it get cancelled.

Created / Written by: Christopher McQuarrie
Directed by: Michael Rymer
Starring: Alan Ruck,  Jason Wiles,  Daisy Betts, Chadwick Boseman, Kate Lang Johnson, Gerald Kyd, Tina Holmes, Sean O’Bryan, Lola Glaudini
Date premièred: 7^th June 2010 (NBC)
UK Details: TBA

Jump forward 20 years and the Buckmans are now the Bravermans and the new head of the house is Six Feet Under star Peter Krause. Originally intended for a September airing it pushed back to the mid-season as actress Maura Tierney was diagnosed with breast cancer, as a result Mercy was brought up in its place. Tiernay went on to leave the series due to her treatment and Lauren Graham took her place.

Parenthood is not so much a spin of off the film, but a re-imagining, both the show and film start off at the same point and at least for the pilot follow a very similar path. The premise is to show 4 siblings as they struggle at various stages of parenthood (the parents of teenagers, toddlers, tweens and the expecting all watched over by the veteran of child rearing), the scope is huge, so how does the show stack up? Well its a bit of mixed bag, the plot follows the film closely minus the huge baby closing. However, by crushing a 2 hour film down 40 minutes you end up with quite an unfocused story with way too many events that conveniently happen over the space of a week.    Adam Braverman (Krause) and the problems with his nervous son which is so prominent in the film is quickly pushed into the background as we instead follow newly divorced mother of two, Sarah (Lauren Graham) as she relocates closer to her family and starts dating again. All the time the patriarch of the family pushes everyone to stand up to conflict while his second son suddenly finds himself engaged to stop his girlfriend impregnating herself with a turkey baster only to find out he fathered another son some years before with a different woman. The final couple have to deal with the effects of the a working mum and child who prefers her dad to do things for her.

So basically there is a shit load going that is only made easy to follow if you have seen the film and know what to expect. They would have been better served to drop some of these subpolts from the pilot and extending them into the series as a whole. Often pilots try to take what will happen in the first series and crush down into the first episode to give people a taste of what they are going to see, but with so many subplots and characters you can struggle to figure out whose story you are suppose to be following.  Overall you have great actors and interesting dynamics, but there was nothing here in the plot or characters to get me excited to see the rest of the series. With other new shows like The Middle and Modern Family covering similar ground this season, Parenthood stands out as being a comic drama rather than a sitcom, although its execution is not as good as the more acclaimed Modern Family.

The series premiere of Parenthood was dedicated to the memory of Nora O’Brien, a Vice President at NBC, who died on the set of Parenthood in April 2009 in Berkeley, California.

Written by: Jason Katims
Directed by: Thomas Schlamme
Starring: Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen, Sam Jaeger
Date premièred: 2nd March2010
UK Details: TBC

Don’t under estimate the nurses, on her way to work Veronica (Taylor Schilling) attends the victim of a car crash after the saving some guys life, she threatened with law suit after his fiancé discovers she is only a nurse and therefore knows nothing. In actual fact Veronica the sexy nurse is an Iraq vet who has seen it all, we don’t know how she ended up back in a New Jersey hospital, but I am sure there is a good reason. New girl Chloe (Michelle Trachtenberg) arrives for her first day and despite being top of her class the slightest whiff of reality freezes her in her tracks. There is the usual office politics and power games between the doctors as Veronica up stages them with her in depth knowledge.  Of course her private life doesn’t run smoothly either, separated from her husband she sneaks off for rendezvous with one of the Doctors and at the end of a busy day the girls all head down to the local bar.

Comparisons to Nurse Jackie are immediately obvious; our lead character is a nurse, with a wealth of experience that surpasses the doctors. She rebels against authority for the good of the patient and carries out an affair with one of the doctors. Fair enough, it is understandable why a show would pick such a professionally moral character, with slight amoral private life.  Then we turn to the other nurses, we have the new girl Chloe who has a love for colourful scrubs, we switch to nurse Jackie where we have the new girl Zoey… who has a love for colourful scrubs. Then we have the shaven headed ethnic gay nurse, sure, Mercy has the Hispanic Angel, while Nurse Jackie has the middle eastern Mo-mo. This is not to say that Mercy has stolen these ideas and characters, it is just one of those horrible coincidences that must have made series creator Liz Heldens’ head burst. On the plus side not everyone has Showtime, so for majority of the audience these characters will feel at least somewhat fresh and original.

In conclusion this is just another medical drama that fails to throw anything new into the mix.  Nurse Jackie felt more real even though the situations were more exaggerated.  When you look at 46 year Edie Falco you think there is someone who has seen it all, but young newcomer Taylor Schilling would more easily pass as an intern than an experienced nurse. The nurses work hard and they play hard, if you like medical drama, this will probably float your boat, if you want more out of hour of TV you probably aren’t watching this anyway.

Created and Written by: Liz Heldens
Directed by: Adam Bernstein
Starring: Taylor Schilling, Jaime Lee Kirchner, Michelle Trachtenberg, James Tupper, Diego Klattenhoff, James LeGros, Delroy Lindo, Kate Mulgrew, Guillermo Díaz
Date premièred: 23rd September 2009
UK Details: TBC

While the show stars E!’s “The Soup” host Joel McHale, British audiences will be more likely to gravitate towards former SNL player and star of countless 80s comedies Chevy Chase who plays an aging student. So Community is set in an American Community college and focuses specifically the mix bag of students in attendance, in the pilot we see how they all come together to create a mini community of their own.

So the plot goes like this Jeff (Joel McHale), a disbarred lawyer has to return to college since a degree from Columbia does count if it was from the country and came as an e-mail attachment.  But, this fast talking, say anything to get everything guy has other things on his mind, so he asks a tutor and old friends for all the test answers so he can avoid studying in lessons and instead study the hot blonde chick in Spanish class.  He sets up a study group to get to know her better and is soon joined by an uninvited mix bag group of students, including the high school sports star who failed to get a scholarship, middle aged divorcee, the old guy looking for a way to fill his days and the asperges kid who is able to deliver on the nose exposition at an amazing rate. “hey, this is like the Breakfast Club, I’m sure we all have an issue balled up in side that would make us cry if we talked about it.” See they are three dimensional! Obviously this all goes very wrong and everyone starts fighting, but Jeff uses his lawyer speak to smooth everything over.  Of course when they find out he is a fraud and knows very little Spanish all that work is undone, more so when he checks his package of answer sheets to find they are all blank.  Realising he now has to study he returns to the group where they will face their future at community college together.

Just because this is a better than average pilot, it doesn’t mean it is good.  It is easy watching, predictable and safe.  The casting is a by the number check box, old, young, man, woman, black, white, Middle Eastern, straight, gay (well not gay yet, but I give it till episode 2). Although Chevy Chase is in the mix, in the pilot he is very much a background character, getting an odd one liner, but not really affecting the plot. Not as funny as 30 Rock, but not as crappy and Surviving Suburbia, I expect this series to run for more than one season.

Written by: Dan Harmon
Directed by: Anthony Russo
Starring: Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, John Oliver, Donald Glover
Date premièred: 11 August 2009 (on Facebook), 17^th September 2009 (on NBC)
UK Details: None available.