I may not believe in Christmas or Jeebus or any of that.

But, man, Darlene Love on Letterman on Christmas Eve? Always 10/10.

Gets me choked up every time.

2006 

2005 

2004

2003 

2000

1995 

That writers' strike may keep this from us this year truly breaks my heart.

Matt's given us reviews of both Kitchen Nightmares (the UK version of which I enjoyed very much, and which also starred Gordon Ramsay) and Moonlight, the vampire detective series airing on CBS.

//

Kitchen Nightmares

(FOX, Wednesday, 8,00)

Kitchen Nightmares is a fantastic program.  If you are not watching it, and I know that you aren't, I am a little upset with out.  Here is the premise:  A chef with a temper goes into restaurants that are going very poorly and he fixes the restaurant by changing the menu, revamping the facilities, and verbally beating the staff into submission.  There is always one person in the restaurant that is particularly useless or crazy.  At some point, this person flies off the handle and does something ridiculous, crazy, or ridiculous and crazy. 

The restaurants generally get fixed up and have some level of success.  This may seem repetative and formulaic, but I really don't care.  You always come back for more and hang through the commercial breaks to see that horrible thing will happen next.  Gordon Ramsay is a dynamic personality and I demand you worship him.  You sodding slapper.

Kitchen Nightmares: FOX, Weds, 8,00. A

//

Moonlight

(CBS, Friday, 8,00)

Moonlight is a program that is about a Vampire that is a private detective. He is primarily employed by a richer vampire friend of his that is trying to keep the secret of vampires from getting out to the general public. There is a twist however, this vampire isn’t evil as most of them are; he is a good guy. He tries to protect civilians as well as the vampire secret. In other words, nothing about this show is new. The good guy vampire thing is common, as I am sure you know. The vampire community protecting their secret from the outside world is also not a new idea…at all. In fact, there is a whole book series and video games centered around this particular idea as well.

The show also features a poorly executed self narration scheme that makes me feel dumber for having listened to it. In this first episode, a plot twist is featured where it turns out the hero knew the primary reporter that just happens to follow the cases that the Vampire P.I. when she was a child. In fact, he saved her life from another vampire when she was a child. Now, the thing of this is that you, or at least I, was able to deduce this about 5 minutes into the show.

So, my final grade on this show really hinged on “is the plot of this show (a vampire detective) enough to raise the show's grade above a D?” No. No it is not. For a regular TV show, it is not even close. If the show were on at the same in the era of The Pretender-Walker Texas Ranger-The Profiler, the show would fit right in on that Saturday line up. However, as that is not the case, the show is a D. I cannot give the show an F because it could be worse, but it is so very weak.

Moonlight: CBS, Fri, 8,00. D 

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If Matt had a blog, I'd link to it here, but it seems he does not, so let him know what you think in the comments. 

Three episodes is about what it takes to determine just what level of fantastic or horrible a TV show will be. And so I present to you this season's third episode updates and final/near final grades. (The original reviews are linked in the show titles.)

Life

(NBC, Wednesday, 9,00)

I gave up on watching procedurals a few years ago. After watching every CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Bones, Medium and... I feel like there was another one. Anyway, after watched every episode of each one of these shows for an entire season (a total of appx. 154 episodes worth), I was simply done with procedurals. I didn't ever need to see another one, and it would seem that whenever I would take on a new one in the fall, or catch an episode of one of these previous shows out of the blue for whatever reason, it would be tremendously satisfying at first. I mean, that's why these shows are so popular: there's tremendous narrative closure at the end of episode. And that narrative closure comes in form of justice being served. And that's just... narcotic, in a lot of ways.

But after just a little while, the format gets stale: there's no variety, there's no push, there's no real interest: the same thing is going to happen, week after week after week. And so that may be the case with Life, right now. I may still be in the honeymoon period, before putting the bad-guy in jail every goddamn week gets a little old but Life is just really, really good. There's excellent balance between Charlie Crews' readjustment to society and his police work. And the police work seems, thusfar, to be varied and interesting in a way that's uncommon to procedural shows. I just can't explain how good it is. Charlie Crews is wierd, sure, but in a completely germane way. I just love it. It's great.

Final grade: A

// 

Dirty Sexy Money

(ABC, Wednesday, 9,00)

DSM, as I'm going to call it, 'cause I can't type the full title w/o feeling embarrassed that I actually like the program---anyway, the point: DSM is the surprise of the fall season for me. I almost didn't even watch it because of how little I liked Donald Sutherland on Commander in Chief, but I'm glad I did because, damn, it's good and it's funny and a little surprising, week after week. The show still runs aground a little when it attempts more drama, but the humor is great, and germane (until in Big Shots, but we'll come to that) and the drama seems to be improving week after week.

The show's got heart, but not so much heart that it punches you in the face. Peter Krause (and the entire cast, really) seem great, and the writers are doing a good job of spreading the stories around without getting us too hung up on any one subplot. All in all, just excellently conceived and executed. Too bad it's on up against the only other genuinely excellent show of the fall, Life.

Final grade: A-

// 

Chuck

(NBC, Monday, 7,00)

Chuck continues to be funny and engaging. It's going to get annoying soon if none of the continuing plots advance at all. Two episodes worth of dog-paddling after the pilot is OK, three will start to spell disaster. The show feels like it's starting to find the right balance between its characters, and the right level of geekiness/awkwardness of Chuck. I'm curious to see him come out of his shell a little.

Final grade: B-

// 

Big Bang Theory

(CBS, Monday, 7,30)

Still unexpectedly quite funny. Leonard has become the real heart of the show and you've got to love any program where Sara Gilbert shows up. Plus: where do you regularly hear references to the Green Lantern and literate MMORPG jokes? Almost nowhere. (After betraying his raiding party: "I'm a loner and a dark elf and a theif. Don't you people read character descriptions?") Big Bang Theory, it turns out, is pretty great. Best new comedy.

Final grade: A-

// 

Journeyman

(NBC, Monday, 9,00)

Could go either way. I've not watched episode three yet: which is not a good sign as it aired five days ago. At this point, it could go either way. Down would be easy, particularly if this stuff with Livia doesn't start to pay dividends soon. (Where by "soon" I mean "in the episode I've already tivoed.)

// 

Cavemen

(ABC, Tuesday, 7,00)

Cavemen is mindbendingly bad. The only jokes that are cave-man related are simply easy racial jokes that have been repurposed. And the show is not all that funny. I laughed once during episode two. And I'm an easy laugh. ...so.... Yeah. Don't watch it. It's as bad, or worse, than you thought it would be.

Final grade: F

// 

Reaper

(The CW, Tuesday, 8,00)

Reaper is also no good. Not Cavemen bad, but simply not very good. I can't get over how meandering the plot feels each and every week. There's no forward momentum, either in the single episode plots or in the multi-episode arc. And it's just so... lame. From beginnning to end. Just... lame. Teevee.net has a relatively good takedown. I encourage you to read it.

Final grade: D

// 

Kid Nation

(CBS, Wednesday, 7,00)

I'll admit, I've not actually watched Kid Nation since episode two, but I hear that they've made the beauty queen cry. Which makes me so very happy. Never, I think, has a nation been so united in wanting to see a little kid get her comeuppance to such a degree. Which kind of makes me happy, because boy does/did she deserve it. I said it before and I'll say it again, it's as though the show isn't very good but still somehow very, very important.

Final grade: C?

// 

Pushing Daisies

(ABC, Wednesday, 7,00)

Pushing Daisies is interesting, but it's only aired two episodes so far. I need more information before issuing a final judgment. But you should watch it: it's certainly interesting. And Chuck is a total babe.

// 

Back to You

(FOX, Wednesday, 7,30)

Back to you is, quite simply horrible. I called it right in my first review. There is nothing either a) inventive or b) interesting about this program. And Grammar and Heaton as people who are just shitty to each other? No thanks.

Final grade: D

// 

Bionic Woman

(NBC, Wednesday, 8,00)

Bionic Woman is shaping up into quite the little series. Sure, it's dumb, but it's not dumb in an insulting way, it's dumb in an "it's genuinely geeked to be doing some really kind of hacky stuff" way. So, the long and short of it is: it could still go either way. It will never be a great series. This is not Lost or Grey's or really any show that's worth watching every week, but with a good mix of weekly-story and continuing story, it could be the kind of thing that you watch whenever you feel like it.

It's definitely not the kind of show you're going to fall in love with, but it's a good way to kill an hour. It's exciting, there's fighting, yet it doesn't seem to be shaping up to be the same thing week in and week out: a bonus that can never be underestimated. Sarah Corvus' humanity and the dastardlyness--intentional or not--from the elder Anthros is quite interesting. As long as Isaiah Washington's complete inability to act doesn't overwhelm the other reasonably non-shitty things that are going on, the show should shake out to be OK.

Final grade: C

// 

Private Practice

(ABC, Wednesday, 8,00)

I've not watched in since the pilot and don't plan to. There's just no way it can be not horrible. It's just not the show for me.

// 

Cane

(CBS, Tuesday, 9,00)

Cane is terrible. Do not watch it.

Final grade: F

// 

Carpoolers

(ABC, Tuesday, 7,30)

I'll admit, I've not watch episode two. Yet. I'm going to go ahead an bet that it's as bad as the first one was, though.

Final grade: D

// 

Big Shots

(ABC, Thursday, 9,00)

I stand by my assesment that Big Shots is Desperate Housewives for men. It's so very... kitschy? Campy? Horrible? Well, it's like DH, but with none of the dramatic elements. It's just... not good. It seems so very... crassly concieved and execute. Which is a shame, because the cast is great. But watching rich guys be dicks? Not particularly fun. And it's not actually "funny" which is a shame, because it's trying so very, very hard. Which makes it less likeable. Play hard to get, comedy on TV. Learn from Dirty Sexy Money.

Final grade: D

// 

Shows yet to premiere: Samantha Who? (ABC, Monday, 8,30) and Viva Laughlin (CBS, Sunday, 8,00). Should be interesting. I'll let you know once they air.

Oh, and Matt's gonna file a review of Moonlight here sometime soon. 

Carpoolers

(ABC, Tuesday, 7,30)

Carpoolers matches well with Cavemen in the fact that they are both terrible and both entirely about dude and both about annoying dudes at that. Fred Goss is kind of funny, but Jerry O'Connell is at his Tom Cats worst here. Or his Sorority Boys worst. Your choice.

The writing is lackluster and unfocused. The funniest joke involves someone getting hit with a car. But when you can't make that same person getting hit by a car a second time funny? You're really out of your depth.

Carpoolers: ABC Tues, 7,30. D.

// 

Pushing Daisies

(ABC, Wednesday, 7,00)

Pushing Daisies is a strange, strange program. If you liked the look and sensibility of Amelie, or, I hear, Big Fish, you will like the strange sensibility of Pushing Daisies. The setup: Ned has an amazing power. Ned can bring people back to life. If he touches them, the come back from the dead, just as if nothing had ever happened to them. Well, not exactly just. But they are able to walk and talk and interact and such. After a minute of this, though, someone else must die to take their place. But that's OK, because if Ned touches the first dead person again, they die; this time for good. He's been using this power, with a private investigator, to solve murders and get the rewards. Ned is a piemaker.

Where the story really starts rolling is the fact that when Ned was young, he loved a girl named Chuck. Chuck moved away, and was eventually killed. And there was a reward, so Ned brought her back. And kept her back because he loves her.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep this short and all this whimsy is starting to grate on me. So, if you don't like whimsy, don't watch. For the love of god, don't watch. Because that's most of what the show is: whimsy. And the heart-rending sadness that though Chuck and Ned both are beginning to suspect that they love each other, they can never touch, or she will die.

How this show goes for more than seven or twelve episodes, I have no idea. The look is intense, and I appreciate the differentness of the premise, but if every episode is as twee as the first, I'm going to put my fist through the TV.

And I love my TV.

So here's hoping they aren't.

Pushing Daisies. ABC, Weds, 7,00. B. 

(ABC, Tuesday, 7,00) 

I really, really would like to say more about Cavemen, but three lines is really all it needs:

Cavemen is so very bad, just as we knew it would be.

Once you figure out that this is just a show about race relations--where "caveman" = "black man" and "white people" = "stupid people"--it loses any interest it might once have held.

I mean, seriously: that's the only source of jokes that aren't lame relationship jokes, so...

Cavemen: ABC, Tuesday, 7,00. F. 

(ABC, Thursday, 9,00)

I'll admit: before the season started, before I had seen one new show, before I had even read all the one-lines from the upfronts, I had already decided that Big Shots was going to be my favorite new show. I mean, what could you not like about a show staring Dylan McDermot (The Practice), Christopher Titus (Titus, stand-up comic), Michael Vartan (Alias), and Joshua Malina (Sports Night, The West Wing). With a cast like that, how could you go wrong, I thought.

But just like I was wrong when I prejudged Dirty Sexy Money, I was wrong when I predjudged Big Shots. I'm sorry to inform, it's not very good. All three men are CEOs of nig corporations, dealing with all of the problems that being super-rich and power entails. So, to hit them quickly:

McDermott has a daughter who's snotty who he's trying to get to know better and a problem with a magazine profile and a tranny hooker.

Titus has a wife that's a shrew. A terrible, terrible shrew.

Malina's got a nice wife, but he's cheating on her with a bimbo. He feels bad because the bimbo is done, but when he tries to end it, before he can, the bimbo decides to go to the wife as pose as an interior designer that he hired.

Vartan genuinely gets the short end of the stick: his wife was cheating on him. With his boss. The boss that was going to fire him. The first thing that goes right for Vartan is the fact that he finds this out at the boss' funeral. And then he gets picked to be CEO on the basis of a nice speech that he gives because of that. ("You can hire someone with a sterling resume, who's never failed at anything they've tried. But you'd be bettr served hiring someone who's lost something. Because he'll make damn sure it never happens again.")

So we feel bad for Vartan. Not so bad for Malina. Or McDermott. The guys seems pretty genuinely slimy, if generally well-intentioned. Titus, despite his shrew-wife hating, seems pretty solid. And Vartan seems like a good guy, but still. The show's got no... life, no anima. Nothing to make it go. No heart, for lack of a better word. It feels like a calculated Desperate Housewives ripoff aimed at men, and because of that, it's got less camp than DH did (but just about every show does, to be fair).

That said, this probably makes it a pretty good match for Grey's Anatomy, which it follows: pretty people doing silly things, but nice and light to fill the 9,00 hour after the melodramatic soup of Grey's.

Big Shots. ABC, Thursday, 9,00. C. 

I almost didn't watch SNL last night, but I tivoed it to watch this morning while getting ready.

And I'm damn glad I did, because the digital short this week turned out to be hilarious.

Spine-rendingly hilarious.

The central conciet: Andy Samberg falls in love with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, of course, sings him a song.

Fred Armisen gets bearded up to play Ahmadinejad. Startlingly similar, just like "a very hairy Jake Gyllenhall."

Adam Levine of Maroon 5 guests. 

Trust me, just check it out: Iran So Far.
  

(CBS, Wednesday, 9,00)

Dirty, Sexy, Money--a ridiculous, ridiculous title, just so you know--turned out to be hilarious. Quite hilarious, indeed. And not in a "man, that show was so ridiculous I had to laugh" way, like the title may suggest, but in a genuinely funny way.

So, here's the scoop: Nick George (played by Peter Krause of Sports Night and Six Feet Under) is the son of Devlin George, who worked as the lawyer for the Darling family for many, many years. Because the Darlings are super, super rich and kind of screwed up (and because he was having an affair with the mother, Letitia, as we find out in the episode) Devlin sort of half-abandoned Nick on a regular basis, causing much angst. In the present day, Devlin has just died and Nick is offered his father's old position, despite being estranged from (and hated by some of) the family.

So, why does Nick take the job, despite having a family of his own he doesn't want to abandon? Well, the 10 million dollars a year for a private foundation in the name of his father in addition to his hourly certainly helped. As did Nick's secure knowledge that he's not his father and can appropriately balance his home and work, even though working as the Darling family lawyer is a bit of an omnibus position.

The first episode consists in Nick putting out fires all over the city as each Darling has problems. The oldest Darling child, attorney general of NY and about to become senator, has problems with his tranny lover. The next oldest is a girl that Nick deflowered and is still in love with him and is getting married to her fourth stupid, shitty husband, who she knows is stupid and shitty. The next oldest is an Episcopal priest who has illegitimate children and a mail-order Korean wife--and HATES Nick, just like he HATED Nick's father, and is a tremendous asshole. Next you've got Juliet, who's a generic Paris Hilton type but with a conscience. She hates that daddy buys her roles in plays and wants to make it on her own. And the youngest darling is a party-ridden trustafarian scoundrel, who provides some very good opportunities for hilarious rich-person problems: "Dad must hate me; I can't even win a yacht in a poker game without screwing up." Trust me, that's funny.

And the show's funny throughout. When Nick's leading this youngest darling out of the local police station, they're mobbed by cable news reporters, asking increasingly dumb questions, culminating in "Where you planning on harvesting their organs?" Now, I know I've not told you about the context, but why in the world would he be planning on harvesting their organs? And Nick, just like me, reacts in this way, turning to the cable-news reporter--as we've all wished to do on occasion--and saying, baffled: "That's a stupid question. Why in the world would you ask that? You know what? That's it, no more questions."

While I don't like Donald Sutherland (his scenery chewing was obscene in Commander in Cheif), and the Baldwin that plays the future-senator kind of creeps me out in how much he sounds like Alec, you've got to love Peter Krause (even though I dislike his current hair-cut). And though the show misfires when it tries to be more dramatic, there's more than enough good comedy to balance that out. I mean, how can you top a fancy lawyer chasing down and tackling an Episcopal priest and pulling on his ear in an effort to get him to take a statement back?

You can't, so don't try. Just watch Dirty, Sexy, Money, despite that terrible, terrible title.

Dirty, Sexy, Money: ABC, Wednesday, 9,00. A. 

Reviews I've done of new shows:

Chuck: B

Bionic Woman: B-

Life: A

Journeyman: C

Back to You: D

Gossip Girl: Abstained

Kid Nation: C-

Big Bang Theory: C-

Cane: F

Reaper: TBD

Private Practice: B 

(ABC, Wednesday, 8,00)

So, while technically not a pilot, tonight's Private Practice was a premiere, so I'm going to review it.

Private Practice follows Addison Montgomery as she adjusts to life at a new practice: a private practice in LA where she'll see one patient a day, has no staff and no operating room. Quite a change from Seattle Grace Hospital. She works with a bevy of other middle-aged doctors, all of whom have problems of one kind of another. There's the shrink who has her own mental problems, the divorced couple who still work together because the practice needs both of them (he's famous), there's the pediatritian/sex-addict and Tim Daly, an alternative medicine specialist.

If you wanted Grey's Anatomy II: Anatomy Harder, this is not the program for you. Which is to say that it's not a show about pretty young doctors doing exciting things and sleeping with inappropriate authority figures or pretty young people. What it is, instead, is a show about middle aged people trying to get it right while helping their patients out. If that sounds lame, I agree. If that doesn't sound lame to you? Well, you're wrong, but go ahead and watch the show; you'll probably like it.

So, yeah, there were plenty of times that the writing was flat or obvious or the plot dealt with something dumb and I almost turned it off, because what do I care who gets the dead guys sperm? Yeah, and that whole subplot is about the divorced woman learning that she just ought to be nice to her ex-husband, but what do I care about either of them? It's not an emotionally charged situation for me and the show doesn't build it into one. The two characters in this case are placeholders--we should care because they're nice people (or whatever) and it's always sad to se a marriage dissolve into mutual antagony. Except that I don't think that's true and so I don't really give a crap.

So that's one plot, the sperm thing. Then there's Addison's plot, involving her performing, as she later puts it, "crazy MacGuyver surgery" which didn't seem all that crazy or MacGuyverish, particularly as there was no doubt that she was going to do it and she was going to pull it off. So, no drama.

So there's also a subplot about how the boss-lady didn't tell any of the other doctors that she was hiring Addison, which, while it led to the other docs having a nice conversation in the break room, didn't really pay off, because, I mean, seriously? Were they going to vote to reject her? Again, no drama.

And then, despite my best efforts, there was a plot that did, actually, affect me. It involved the psychiatrist dealing with a patient that had degenerated into counting behavior at a local store. Not only did she have to keep the manager from calling the cops, she also had to figure out what went wrong in the woman's head in order to set it off, so she could help her work through it.

And damn if what set the woman off didn't get me to crying. And I fucking hate that, because, alright, I cry at TV sometimes and movie trailers sometimes and books sometimes and so it's not that I'm pissed about crying. I hate that this show that I didn't really like managed to bust into me like that with this fucking three minute segment in an otherwise not-worthwhile program.

But, if you can make me cry, you get a B. That's how this works. I don't recommend Private Practice (unless, like I said, you like the idea of middle aged doctors trying to get it right w/r/t their lives while saving patients) but I've got to give it a B, because damn did that scene work on me, even if the rest was pretty crappy. (Except Kate Walsh, who's always great.)

Private Practice. ABC, Wednesday, 8,00. B. 

Cane

(CBS, Tues, 9,00)

Cane was bad. Very back. Movie-of-the-week bad.

Matt asked if it was, as some reviews have said, racist in addition to being terrible.

The answer is: kind of. But more than likely the percieved racism is just a side-effect of the shittiness of the show. So, the characters are inarticulate and over-the-top. It's certainly not hard-racism; I don't think anyone in the process said: "They're Cuban, so let's make sure they're inarticulate and over-the-top." And it doesn't seem like soft racism, either: "Oh, I guess that's the way I wrote them because I guess that's how I think latinos are."

(Should "Latinos" be capitalized? And, consequently, when I break it apart, as I like to do, into "The Tinos" do both (or either?) of those need to be capitalized, too?)

Mostly the it's-kind-of-there-if-you're-looking racism comes from the fact that that show is poorly put together in nearly every aspect. (And the best way to describe how that is is that it looks and feels like a movie-of-the-week. To summarize: there is no redeeming feature to this show: not Jimmy Smits and certainly not Hector Elizondo, and definitely, certainly not Luis from Suddenly Susan.) So, at most, 1/3 actual racism, 2/3 crappy writing/acting/production.

Cane: CBS, Tues, 9,00. F.

// 

Reaper

(The CW, Tuesday, 8,00)

Sam had his soul sold to the devil before he was even born. His parents, in return for a cure for Sam's father's terminal illness, sold the soul of their firstborn. "Fine," they thought, "we'll just not have kids." Through some trickery, the devil ends up making sure they do, and so now, on his 21st birthday, Sam must go to work for the devil returning escaped souls to hell. To do so he's gifted with telekenesis and a bad-ass dirt-devil to capture said souls.

Reaper's pilot was slow. So very slow. But then again, I knew the setup before I started watching and the Devil didn't show up until 20 minutes in. Even so, sloooooow. And the production values seemed weirdly low. Maybe because the local CW broadcast it in standard-def, maybe because the CW didn't want to throw movie-quality money at a pilot, I don't know.

And my tivo cut off the last 20 minutes b/c America's Next Top Model ran long or something. But the show was generally flat and, did I mention slow? But given that it's from Kevin Smith and given that I think the premise has some merit, I'm going to hold off reviewing it for now. But I am going to suggest that you watch the pilot when it re-airs on Thursday, or the new episode next Tuesday (if you're not watching House) and let me know what you think. Where it fails, where it succeeds, why it does either. It's an interesting enough premise to merit your time at least once, I think.

Reaper. The CW, Tuesday, 8,00. TBD. 

Kid Nation

(CBS, Wed, 7,00)

There are times when Kid Nation is the dumbest show on TV, because, I'll say it, kids are dumb. And reality TV is dumb. So add the two together and... viola! So, while watching the first episode, there were moments I didn't want to watch. But there are also times that you can see that it's important.

The basic idea: 40 kids are taken to a pioneer-era ghost-town in New Mexico and told to establish a functioning society on their own, where "establish a functioning society on their own" = "do the things the producers tell them to do, listen (or not listen) to their pre-chosen leaders and work in roles assigned to them by one of the tasks." So, more or less, not so much "establish" as "work within our predefined ideas."

Which, if you were excited at the general possibility that Kid Nation seemed to have to begin with, completely guts the interestingness of the premise.

It is still interesting, though, to watch how kids react in a vacuum. A brace of 14 year old boys uses the town's chalk to mark up the town with pro-their-team slogans and to see the looks of shock and violation on the faces of some of the other kids was astounding. I mean: who got hurt by it? Also: it's fucking chalk. Get some water. Problem solved. But these kids were so morally outraged, it was a real window into what kids think and that they think it for no particular reason.

Unless there's some greater, intrinsic anti-vandalism intuition that I, as a person, am just lacking.

Either way, interesting, if, perhaps, not exactly worth watching.

Kid Nation: CBS, Wednesday, 7,00. C-.

// 

Big Bang Theory

(CBS, Monday, 7,30)

The one-line on Big Bang Theory goes a little like this: SO, this WAITRESS who's really HOT, right? She's really H-O-T-T HOT you know? So she moves in across the hall from these NERDS. I mean they're NERDS, right? No, like, not even, like, nerds. SUPER nerds. And, like, ONE OF THEM, like REALLY thinks she's hot and he, like, thinks he's, like, got a chance with her, you know? And he's a NERD. And she's like SUPER HOT.

Yeah, so that's funny, right? Except that it's not, really. And the thing about this show--the thing about this show!--is that the writing's pretty good. I mean, the nerd stereotypes that 3/4--who am I kidding? 7/8ths--of the jokes are hung on really aren't that imaginative.

But, aside from the nerd-friends, who are really dumb and really poorly constructed and should really be cut from the show, the show's actually kind of funny at times. Worth your 22 minutes at least. Try it out. If you have a high standard for comedy, you probably won't like it. If you like things that, even while dumb, are really kind of funny? Go for it.

Big Bang Theory: CBS, Monday, 7,30. C-. 

(The CW, Wednesday, 8,00)

I'm going to do something I've not done with my new TV reviews before. I'm not going to grade Gossip Girl. Because maybe you'll like it, maybe you'll hate it, maybe you'll find the fascination that adults over 30 or so have with teens behaving badly interesting, like I do, or something else.

One thing I know for sure, though: you're not going to watch it.

Problem is: Gossip Girl's been given the hardest time-slot in network TV, Wednesday night at 8,00. That's the hour when Criminal Minds comes back to CBS (Criminal Minds is a top 20 show, if you didn't know, and pretty compelling), and the other four networks are premiering new shows that are expected to do quite well. NBC's got Bionic Woman, FOX has Gordon Ramsay feature Kitchen Nightmares and ABC's anchoring it's new Wendesday with it's Grey's spin-off Private Practice.

Which means that unless 1) you're in highschool or 2) you really want to fantasize about getting with Blake Lively (who's 20 now, so it's OK if you do, I promise) or 3) you're one of the aforementioned adults obsessed with either a) the terrible--terrible!--and immoral--immoral!--things these teens are 'doing' (let us not forget these are actors playing roles of fictional characters) or b) watching teens do terrible things, in what Slate describes as "status-porn" (an interesting take on the whole, though somewhat off), that you're not going to watch it. You're going to watch one of the other four probably good shows on at this time.

So I can tell you how stylish and surprisingly enthralling the pilot was. But you don't give a crap, honestly. And there's nothing I could say to change that.

If you love the CW, you'll watch. It's better than many. Worse than some. Whatever.

Amy's Robot's got a review round-up. 

(FOX, Wednesday, 7,00)

Back to You stars Kelsey Grammer as a wind-bag of an anchor man, who, after working his way up from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis to Cleveland to Dallas and finally to LA gets canned and must return, all the way back down to the bottom, to Pittsburgh, where his co-anchor (played by the hilariously right-wing Patty Heaton) has been the entire time. Oh, and Fred Willard is the sports guy. I hate Fred Willard but fine, whatever.

Back to You, in short, sucks. Sure, there are moments that are nice. But there's so much of it that's so bad or so derivative. First: the news director's twenty five. You know what? I've seen Murphy Brown. The whole twenty five year old news director was done better then, twenty years ago. And while Ty Burrel is better here than he was as a one-dimensional skirt-chaser on CBS terrible Out of Practice, he's still nothing to write home about. He's still just as ass, looking to get ahead. Which pretty much describes all the characters.

Except maybe Kelsey Grammer's character. Oh, sure, he's the assiest of them all. The stupidest, loudest, most annoying. But, it turns out, the one-night-stand that he had with Patty Heaton's co-anchor the night he left town produced a kid, who's now 10 and Grammer's just learned about. This provided the one moment worth watching in the show, when the kid mouths to her dad (though she doesn't know he's her dad) "take me with you" because she's having a fight with her mom and Grammer just smiles. Warm, touching.

And not at all of a piece with the mostly hackneyed jokes that preceded it. A weird feature of the jokes jumped out at me: there'd often be a joke that was not funny and then a minute or two later, a joke of the same form that was funny, involving the same two characters and referencing the last joke. Which would be great, except for the fact that this second joke doesn't somehow make the first joke of the same form funny. It explains to me why you kept the first, shitty joke in the script, but that doesn't mean that was the right call.

Coming from Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, you'd think--you'd think!--they could've done better, but apparently not. And I've seen enough TV programs where the characters are just mean to each other "humorously." And that's the case here: everyone at the station hates everyone else and that's kind of boring. Well, everyone hates everyone else except for weather-girl Montana Stevens-Herrera, who is a whore and so only hates some people.

Back to You: FOX, Wednesday, 7,00. D.

(NBC, Monday, 9,00) 

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

Journeyman might be OK. Or it might be crap and early canceled. It's too early to tell.

The one-line: Dan takes trips through time to right wrongs and help make the world a better place.

Yeah, so, Quantum Leap meets Touched by an Angel but with no Al or Della Reese.

Except he can interact with his own life in the past, and when he jumps it eats time out of his regular life, causing problems with his own marriage and real life. So that's something new and interesting. And thank crap he's a newspaper reporter rather than a cop.

I dunno, the show seems to do the same thing to traveling through time that Medium did for being a psychic: explore it in a different way than had been done before and really apply itself also to the ramifications for the person's family and personal life while still mainly focusing on righting some wrong.

You know what? The show's well executed, but it's an old gimmick wrapped in a new package. I didn't find any of the stuff focusing on his present day particularly compelling, or how he ended up married to his brother's girlfriend after his fiancee died; I mean, whatever.

That the fiancee (Moon Bloodgood of "Day Break" another show of time-traveling wrong-righting) may be a journeyman like himself?

Now that's intiguing.

Journeyman: NBC, Monday, 9,00. C.

Journeyman premieres Monday, Sept 24th. 

Every fall we offer up a prayer to that greatest of too-early-canceled series, Sports Night, so that it may bring our favorite shows protection during the upcoming TV season.

Oh, Sports Night, we acknowledge your great works in your short time: you showed us that comedy could be dramatic, you showed us that laugh tracks sometimes are inappropriate, even for thirty minute shows, you provided valuable exposure to many fine young actors who we have gone on to greatly enjoy, like Felicity Huffman, Peter Krause, Joshua Malina and that girl who played Natalie and then was on one season of Numb3rs. For these and other things we are thankful.

Dear Sports Night, we come in supplication, with open hearts, with understanding that the TV networks are just trying to do their best when they cancel programs, even if those programs are great and underrated. We understand that even should a program be canceled here, in this realm, that all great shows go on to play on the big TV station in the sky.

Though we also understand that sometimes TV networks err in their decision to yank a show, such as when your own life was cut short, or the runs of your close friends Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, and the newly ressurected-if-only-in-movie-form Futurama. May we take Futurama and Family Guy as the guiding light you have provided that shows can return, provided we are loyal and loving enough.

But we also understand, Sports Night, that no matter how much we love, sometimes we cannot save a show and that sometimes, a show's time has come too late, like Gilmore Girls, or too soon like with your brother Studio 60. By this token, may you take Scrubs peacefully before it is too late, though it already may be.

We continue to implore you for more new, good comedy, though we are very thankful that you brought us 30 Rock last season, even though I called it wrong to begin with. And we are thankful still that How I Met Your Mother remains on the air as well as the glorious The Office.

We are concerned about some of the choices for new shows this season, oh Sports Night, like Viva Laughlin, a prime time musical (for some reason) and the show Cane, about, you know, sugar cartels and stuff. May you justly terminate any show that does not reach it's potential, like Dirty Sexy Money surely won't, or that does meet it's potential, but that potential is crap, like Cavemen. May Christina Applegate's new show be good, we plead, though her track record is so bad, she remains lovely and likeable.

And finally, if any show need be taken from us, let it be taken with no unaired episodes in the can.

In the name of the the broadcast netword, syndication and the DVD box set, we come to you praying as we have been taught:
Live from New York, I'm Dan Rydel, here along side Casey McCall, those stories plus...

(NBC, Wednesday, 9,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

Life, to put it shortly, figures to be excellent. And I mean, excellent.

The one-line: quirky cop gets released from prison twelve years after he got sent up the river for a murder he didn't commit and rejoins the force.

And he's not quirky in that he's weird. That may seem like splitting hairs, but he's not "I see dead people" like last year's ill-fated Raines or "I am dead people" like this year's New Amsterdam or the other one from this year where the cop's a vampire or even like Bones' "I'm socially incompetent." No, he's quirky in the way the cop who went to jail for twelve years would be quirky: he's damaged from the beatings he took from both the guards and the other inmates, staying sane only by immersing himself in zen.

Now he's trying to stay in the moment, savoring his new found freedom, not in a "I'm going to eat myself sick on Oreos" way--he's no Jarod from Pretender--but, for example, when we meet him, he's savoring the feel of the sun on his face, filmed in bright, vibrant yellows to contrast with the blue and white of his 10x10 Supermax Pelican Bay cell.

The zen isn't a window-dressing, a throw-away signifier trying to angle at the inner peace he's tried to achieve, but rather an important part of the character. When trying to comfort the mother of a murdered son, he says he could tell her a lot of things, but they would be meaningless. She demands that he tell her something meaningful, then. The moment when he comes up with it is one of the best moments I've seen on TV in a while: deep, full of meaning and arising naturally from who he is, who she is and the situation that they've both somehow come to be in. I won't ruin it: you've got to watch it for yourself.

And there's the more comic-relief type stuff related to his imprisonment: he's obsessed with all different types of fresh fruit. And he's got some millions of dollars from his settlement with the department for his, you know, wrongful imprisonment. He can't understand how the handsfree phone in his new car works. He doesn't know what an IM is, etc. But none of this feels hokey or derived from a "just-for-laughs" angle that would've been fairly easy, given the set of circumstances. Instead it seems to derive naturally from who he is because of what he's gone through. I can't stress that enough: it's all entirely natural feeling, and that's something that, in the age of network notes and targeted demographics and so on and so forth, gets lost a lot, I think, if it was ever there.

The only part of the show that feels forced is the storyline involving his partner (Sarah Shahi, transcendent, and of the good-but-much-maligned Teachers) and her history of drug-use. I don't begrudge that it exists--there's got to be a reason she's paired with him--but having the lieutenant lean on her so early to give her something to dismiss our hero over... a little much. Let it develop a little more naturally, writers, and you'll fix the one weak spot of the show so far.

The interactions between him and her, though, are tremendous and fresh and nuanced. Very well executed. Just like, but to a lesser extent, his interactions with his financial manager (Adam Arkin) and his lawyer (the love interest from The Replacements and the ex-girlfriend from Swingers).

All in all: I must demand that you watch Life. The Pilot's an A+. Hopefully the series will be, too.

Life: NBC, Wednesday, 9,00. A+

Life premieres Wednesday, September 26th. 

(NBC, Wednesday, 8,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

I'll admit it: I've never seen the original Bionic Woman. I know nothing about it except for the following two things: it starred Lindsey Wagner and it was about a woman with mechanical parts. The new series is different in the first respect, the same in the second.

In this version of Bionic Woman, after a horrific accident (which, it turns out, was not so much of an accident) Jamie Sommers (played by hot and apparently British actress Michelle Ryan, who looks a bit like the love child of Liv Tyler and Ione Skye) is given mechanical / nano-mechanical / molecular-machine / "anthrocytes" / something-fancy-sounding-but-ultimately-signifying-nothing limbs and fancy computer implants for her right ear and eye.

These implants are sprung on her by her boyfriend (and her now-miscarried child's father) who works as the surgeon for a biotech company with a menacing sounding name (which I can't, now, remember), which works for the government trying to use these implants to create supersoldiers or aid Iraqi war vets or both, depending on who you believe. But, clearly, it's mostly the supersoldier thing, as these guys are bad-asses.

Working on this project, there's Miguel Ferrer (formerly of Crossing Jordan) as the boss who wants to keep Sommers off the books in case they need to ice her; there's the military training/ninja substitute guy who trains but also works security for/against the subjects. And there's the icy female psychologist, to make sure she doesn't flip out like the last subject (also a woman and who may have had something to do with that  terrible "accident"). The bionic-rival is interesting: she's angular and platinum blonde, in a way that suggests the replicants from Blade Runner and she's bent on killing the surgeon boyfriend.

Oh, and the surgeon boyfriend's name is Anthros, hence the name of the parts inside her, ("anthrocytes") because they were, of course, invented by his father. Who was in jail for some reason. Who got sprung, for some reason, by the guy controlling the bionic rival.

There's definitely moments when the whole things feels like an overblown episode of "The Outer Limits," particularly when they cut to military-training guy driving a speed boat for some reason, or the cheesy visual effects when our hero is escaping by running forty odd miles an hour through the forest. And the guy who plays the boyfriend is a massively shitty actor. Just terrible. And his role's terribly written. When he got shot, I was happy. Very happy.

Good stuff? Her having abilities that she's not sure about the extent of / not sure she can control is certainly a bit Bourne-esque, which is interesting. And the fight scene on the rooftop between our bionic woman and her bionic rival was pretty cool. And while the continuing story involving the father and the rival-controlling guy seems pretty dumb so far, her having a bionic rival, a crazy-ass bionic rival, is actually pretty cool. That she takes care of her sister is cool, but that her sister is a convicted computer hacker could turn terrible really quickly.

It's going to take a few weeks (or upwards of half a season) before we find out if this show's going to be either pretty cool or pretty shitty. So far, it's walking the line OK: we'll see how they do when they don't have months and months to prepare the next episode.

Bionic Woman: NBC, Wendesday, 8,00. B-

Bionic Woman premieres Wednesday, September 26th.

(NBC, Monday, 7,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

First up is NBC's pre-Heroes dramedy about the extended-adolescence "Nerd Herd" (c.f. Geek Squad) member Chuck who gets every last bit of national security information beamed into his skull in an email from his college roommate, who had gone on to work for the CIA. You can already see the bones both of comedy and of drama forming, can't you?

Anyway, to flesh those bones out a little more, the email gets tracked to Chuck and a gorgeous CIA agent (Yvonne Strzechowski, a dead, dead ringer for Naimi Watts) and a "cold-school" NSA spook (played by Angel's Adam Baldwin) compete to take him in, her by using her, you know, wiles, and him by using brute force.

This, needless to say, complicates the simple life that Chuck's established for himself, with his best friend Morgan (who's far nerdier and more stunted than Chuck could dream of being), his sister (Sarah Lancaster, of "What About Brian," a doctor again this time. Typecasting much?) and her boyfriend, Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin, thankfully graduated from "Living with Fran").

Throughout the pilot, we see Chuck constantly pulled from his intertia by one thing or another and toward a more grown up, responsibility-filled but rewarding life, writ large, then, in his need to now assist the foxy CIA agent and bad-ass NSA agent to avert all sorts of terrible goings on.

Despite this nearly explicit metaphornication, the show works. The pilot nicely sets up both the episodic and continuing plot-lines. The humor works--the running joke through the episode about the Czech porn-star computer virus ("So beautiful. So deadly.") worked consistently in a variety of contexts, the sign of a good running joke. The production values are insanely high, lots of near flawless looking stunt-work.

And a dramedy not aimed at middle-aged women (c.f. Desperate Housewives, Ally McBeal, etc) is going to be a nice change. So what I'm saying is that I liked it. A lot. But maybe that's cause I'm super-nerdy and mired in my own inertia. Or something.

Chuck: NBC, Monday, 7,00. B

Chuck premieres Monday, September 24th.

Jessi Klein: Possible Companion Shows to "Age of Love"

3) A desirable guy decides what girl he wants to date from a pool of twenty sexy girls.  The twist: they are prostitutes, and he is a serial killer who tortures women in a secret room hidden behind his washer/dryer.  I already have Brooke Burke attached.

Number four is even better. 

Anchorman

Two things about Anchorman stand out in my head, in retrospect:

1) the ten minute potion of the movie, about an hour in where it devolves into violence. Newsteam on Newsteam violence, then Ferell on Applegate violence. Both are hilarious, but nothing is more hilarious than Steve Carell as Brick killing that guy with a trident. Oh, goodness, that's funny.

2) When Will Ferrell is imagining his future life with Christina Applegate, and she's been "polishing your Emmys and cooking dinner nude" all day. She's wearing a type of apron, though. But when she slaps Ferell, you get some side-boob. And it bounces.

I note these two things because these two things because 1) shows you what kind of humor you're getting, throughout, and 2) was awesome. No, really, though, 2) perfectly encapsulates the target audience for the movie. I can't imagine anyone that wasn't excited by bouncing Applegate side-boob would like this movie.

As for me, I give it a 6/10.

A 4 or 5 /10 if it weren't for Steve Carell, though.  

The Loop

The Loop is also not for everyone. The Loop is kind of dumb. But funny.

Sample plots: Sam needs to work on a presentation on his new low-cost airline, but instead participates in a tequila challenge. Sam wants to take a girl on a date that he previously abandoned, but has to fly to China for work. Yep, it's all about a young executive trying to balance work and play. A good time, so says I.

The Loop returns for season two on June 10th on Fox.

5/10.

While I feel like I could kind of cost on the glory of my post about "Heathers" from yesterday, I'm not going to, and I'll tell you why: "Andy Barker, P.I." comes on again tomorrow and you should watch it.

Starring Andy Richter and produced by Conan O'Brien, the tag-line for the show pretty much explains it all: "Andy Barker: accountant by day. P.I. by accident." The setup is that Andy is finally opening his own CPA business, but his office was formerly occupied by a P.I., so he gets a woman in asking him to help locate her husband. And it rolls from there.

The interesting thing about this show is that it's not laugh-a-minute. The jokes--the absurd, Conan-style ones--are thrown in here and there, but a lot of the show is structually dramatic. For example, in the first episode, I wasn't sure if I was missing part of the funnyness because I've never seen "Chinatown," which provided at the very least some of the episode's plot points. It seems entirely possible that each episode could center around a different classic detective movie. But if this is the case, there's no chance for the show to survive, despite the great cast, terrifically absurd moments in the writing and general quality of the program.

Anyway, you should watch tomorrow. On NBC. At 8,30. And report back with what you think. 

In a comment on my "30 Rock" post, Susan asked my opinion on "The Knights of Prosperity." I meant to review the show after it debuted (or, at the very least before it got cancelled). But have put it off because despite the fact that I like elements of the show and that every show has had a solid laugh or two in it (a very low percentile for an easy-laugher like me), something about it just simply ... simply made me hate it.

Hate it.

With the white hot passion of the nuclear furnace of a million brightly burning suns.

And I've been putting off doing a review until I could figure out what exactly it was that made me so angry with it, because, given its pedigree and style, I should like it. But I couldn't bring myself to watch more than two and a half episodes.

I certainly didn't hate all of it, though much of it could've been better. I liked the fact that this gang had an intern. He serves very much the same function, I felt, as Kenneth on "30 Rock" but without the delightfully blank aplomb Jack McBrayer brings to Kenneth. And I like Maz Jobrani (whose set was excellent, if second best, in the recent Axis-of-Evil Comedy Tour on Comedy Central), but his role as the sex-obsessed Pakistani is really only one note. Same for Rockafeller and Carmen and the relationship between Esperanza and Eugene. And I don't like Lenny Venito, either. And I don't love Donal Logue.

Simply too much between me and the few good things about this show to keep with it. I'm sorry, but apparently I'm part of the problem. The thing that still cracks me up from the series, though? They meet in a Jewish-supplies warehouse.

// 

[Addendum]

italisizy: You ever watch The Knights of Prosperity?

Sir Turley: not even once

italisizy: Don't bother.
I was just hoping to get another opinion before I pan it.

Sir Turley: you can pan according to Jim

italisizy: Yeah, but isn't that like panning racism?
Everybody knows it's not good and you're wrong if you like it.

You know, I do reviews of the pilots of all these TV shows, and I usually append, at the end, "Of course, this is only the pilot. It could go up or down from here." At least, I try to. I didn't so much with my review of "30 Rock" way back in October of last year, declaring "But once they get over the novelty-phase, this show is DOA." (Even my grudging follow up fails to give the show enough credit.)

So, in my time honored tradition, I'm going to man up and say it straight out: I called it wrong.

The show, soon after, picked up steam and by January was delivering funny on par with--but of a different flavor from--"The Office" and "How I Met Your Mother." And this difference, I think, is one of the reasons the show works so well.

Lately, sit-coms have been divided, somewhat artificially, into two camps: traditional and single camera. Traditional sitcoms being shot with three cameras on two or three sets and single camera shows being shot on film on locations more like a drama. The only traditional sitcoms to get numbers are on CBS' Monday night and the traditional sitcom is considered by many to be a moribund form.

And that's fine, whatever. I grew up watching traditional sitcoms and so I'd be sad to see it die out completely, but it'd grown stagnant, so, it needed shaking up. The 'traditional' sitcoms that succeed today aren't throughly traditional (with the exception of "Two and a Half Men" whose extreme popularity baffles me, even in light of it's very-funniness).

So, my contention is this: the 'traditional' vs. 'single camera' dichotomy is a false one. I think that there's something more subtle at work here: comedies are become more sophisticated and branching out in what kind of humor they employ.

Much has been made of the fact that "The Office" employs the humor of embarrassment. That is, you laugh less because what Michael Scott says is funny but because what he says is so ridiculous and he has so little idea that it's ridiculous that it makes you uncomfortable both for him and everyone around him. "How I Met Your Mother" plays very heavily with dramatic structure in order to build and diffuse dramatic irony far differently than sitcoms of the past could. What matters not is that "The Office" is single camera or that "How I Met Your Mother" is shot with three cameras is the sensibility that each brings is fresh.

Traditional and single camera shows fail all the time because they're not fresh. "Out of Practice," a traditional sitcom, if you'll recall, got canned because its tone and sensibility were "Frasier" up and down and left and right. And after 11 (mostly excellent) years of "Frasier," we were a little "Frasier"-ed out. And shows like "Emily's Reasons Why Not," "Help Me Help You" and "Big Day" were all single camera and all derivative (or innovative in the wrong direction) and all very, very canceled as well.

My point is this: 30 Rock brings something new to the table. An unhinged quality not reached even by the most unhinged (and successful) work-place comedy of recent years: "NewsRadio." Where Dave was "the last sane man" dealing with a workplace full of crazies, "30 Rock" abandons the straight-man. Everyone is wrong, everyone is crazy, even those--but, importantly, not particularly those--that seem like they've got it together. Liz Lemon knows that everyone around her is nuts and she's got to hold it together, but how can she do that when she knows that she's not right either? (Her declaration in a recent episode: "Jack gave me free reign! I'm the decider!" crystalizes the tone and wonder of this show).

Anyway, "30 Rock" is tops. It comes back from hiatus Thursday April 5th at 8,00 central on NBC.

Also: "Scrubs" has grown stale. So very stale. So very traditional-sitcom-y even though it's single camera. It's lost what used to make it unique. What carried it through its subpar fifth season: its wackiness. On paper, it's the perfect match for "30 Rock" but as been far weaker than the new show all season. Given that NBC is flip-flopping their time-slots, it would seem they agree.

(FX, Monday, 9,00 or 10,00 depending)

Starring Eddie Izzard as Wayne, "The Riches" tells the story of a family of Irish Travellers--what you might call gypsies--from the American South. Wayne refuses to let his daughter be arranged to marry a fellow he describes as a "chromosomal retard" as she's be set up to do by the new boss, and so he singlehandedly plots the family's break with the larger Traveller community.

This is... a shitty description on my part, I grant you, but I hope you will check out one of the rebroadcasts this week--it's nearly impossible to do justice to this show's fantastic pilot in review-form. Which is good.  

James O. Collins' stirring definition of art ("Art results not when there is nothing that can be added, but when there is nothing that can be taken away.") applies: "The Riches" builds its textured and interdependent house upon itself, creating a hermetic and intensely interesting world out of nothing.

Plus, watching con-men work on TV is always fun.

The texture and tone of the series, too, reminds me of nothing so much as Showtime's "Weeds." Dark, beautifully shot, deliberate but not slow. It's not going for laughs as much as Weeds is, but it also seems to have a more focused vision than that show ever had.

"The Riches" is, to undersell, fantastic, heartfelt, daring, smart, brutal, wonderful and funny TV.

It's the best I've seen in years.

Grade: A+