Tuesday, August 19, 2014
ON A LEASH: With new shows coming soon to our TV screens, and some previews already available (A to Z has two really likable leads, but needs more funny and a reality check about lawyer life--"she's a big firm lawyer, but only does pro bono!"), it's time to ask not just what we're looking forward to, but what are you giving a long leash to. Yes, I'm already in for a full season of How To Get Away With Murder, the show custom-built for this blog to love (law students! conspiracies! Philadelphia! Viola Davis! Our Friend Shonda!), but the show that I'm probably giving the longest leash to is Selfie. Yes, the premise (a social media Pygmalion) seems a bit trite, but my goodwill for Karen Gillan, John Cho, and creator Emily Kapnek (late of Suburgatory and Parks and Rec) means I'll be patient despite a pilot that's drawing (at best) mixed reviews means I'm in for a while. (Though the leash would be even longer if Gillan got to speak in her native accent.)
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I'm looking forward to Mulaney, despite the fact that A.) the pilot is apparently lackluster, and B.) it's been dumped on Sunday night by FOX. Maverick scheduling experiment or mistreatment of a previous executive's development slate, who knows.
ReplyDeleteBy all accounts, Gotham really shouldn't work, but I've loved Ben McKenzie's previous work as a cop (Southland), and Jim Gordon has always been one of the richer characters in Batman's mythos, so I'm intrigued.
Marry Me has some appealing actors (Casey Wilson, Ken Marino) and David Caspe (creator of Happy Endings) at the helm. Semi-high concept romantic comedies seem to be a thing the past few development slates, but I'm pretty confident they can make it work. If they can't, Caspe already steered one sem-high concept rom-com into one of the funniest hangout sitcoms of the past decade.
I think my longest leash is for Flash, for obvious reasons. Next would be Gotham, for Donal Logue reasons. Intruders starts Saturday and a John Simms crazy-town show goes a long way with me.
ReplyDeleteThen, my short leash list:
Blackish
Constantine
Cristela
On my "How Bad Can It Be?!? That Bad?!?" list:
Stalker
Scorpion (finally, the waitress role Katherine McPhee has shown she's under-qualified for!)
At least based on what MaskedScheduler is saying on Twitter, Fox isn't dumping Mulaney--they really believe in it/him as having potential of being the next Seinfeld. And Fox Sunday has historically been quite strong among young men, though will be interesting to see if non-Seth MacFarlane programming can hold it.
ReplyDeleteMarry Me just has a MURDEROUS timeslot--against SHIELD/Agent Carter, NCIS: Bakula, New Girl, and Supernatural.
Medium leash to:
ReplyDeleteHow To Get Away With Murder
Fresh Off the Boat
Black-ish
Marry Me (which is reminding me that I never watched Happy Endings and I should - looks like it's on Hulu)
Short leash to Selfie - the description has not sounded appealing to me, but I have similar goodwill to all the folks Matt mentioned. I may wait a few episodes and then watch several, since it may get better with time. Definitely agree that Gillan's not using her own accent is a negative.
Since Laura Benanti will be on Nashville, I'll start watching it again (love Connie Britton but plots last season got too annoying for me).
My son will be watching Gotham, and I'll watch with him some of the time, don't know if he's give it a long leash, though (maybe more of an issue with comedies than dramas, since comedy pilots don't tend to be great and then the good ones improve).
I'm still behind on my summer backlog despite my best intentions, so many of these new fall shows will sit on the TiVo while I await the hive mind consensus. Hoping to sample Mulaney, A to Z, Marry Me, Selfie, Gotham, Flash (though I don't watch Arrow), Gracepoint (with Broadchurch to be streamed at some point, preferably beforehand), HTGAWM, and Black-ish. Also intrigued by the upcoming Houdini miniseries with Adrien Brody on History.
ReplyDeleteTVGuide.com calls him "Doctor Who's John Simm," as if the US version of "Life on Mars" Back-to-the-Futured the far superior BBC version out of existence.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, more people in the US have probably seen him as the Master than as Sam Tyler.
ReplyDeleteHate that I can't comment here more than to say that I personally think Joseph is wrong re: the quality of our shows :), but very excited to see what you guys think when everything premieres. (I've seen all the pilots and certainly have thoughts.)
ReplyDeleteWatch Broadchurch regardless (and, I'd say, first) - it's fantastic. Just top-notch in all areas.
ReplyDeleteWill do. And having now seen the pilots of A to Z and Selfie on Hulu, I'm inclined to give both a good-sized leash - A to Z because it's pretty charming as is, and Selfie more for the last 5 or so minutes of the pilot (and what it might become from episode 2 forward) than for anything that came before.
ReplyDeleteI will give a long leash to Lin-Manuel Miranda's new show on Pivot, Freestyle Love Supreme (starts in October). "An improvised musical comedy mixing improvised stage shows with real world sketches." Yes please.
ReplyDeleteWhen does Galavant start? That probably gets a long leash too.
Casey Wilson's presence and all the Happy Endings connections assure I'll be sticking with Marry Me.
ReplyDeleteI just watched A to Z and I will definitely give it a long leash. Enjoyable, good leads with good chemistry, and I could see it doing very well (as good comedies tend to improve after the pilot, once they're done doing the set-up). Andrew's annoying friend was the worst part of the show for me, but since that's such a sitcom trope, he probably isn't going anywhere (but maybe will get better). And when Andrew started talking about believing in "the one," that was too Ted Mosbyish (my husband called it How I Met Your Lawyer), but it set up the immediate joke well.
ReplyDeleteI don't have Pivot - I'm very annoyed about that because about 5 dozen critics have written reviews that indicate that I would love Please Like Me, and I can't watch it.
ReplyDeleteI saw FLS live a few weeks ago at Joe's Pub. Spectacular. Best improv (not just hip-hop improv, but ALL improv) show I have ever seen.
ReplyDelete