Pilots Part 3

The Crazy Ones (Thu., CBS, 8:00 CT)
For better or worse, this show is Robin Williams at his most Robin Williamsy.  I'd argue for worse, because his fast-paced rambling isn't remarkably funny and it's certainly a little old by now.  Also, in the first episode already, there's blatant product placement with a story revolving around McDonald's and a "big" guest appearance from Kelly Clarkson that is almost entirely pointless and unfunny.  (Does even the concept of Kelly Clarkson wanting to sing a sex song in a McDonald's commercial song sound funny at all to you?)

Williams is Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar is competent.  The supporting players are pretty broad humor-wise.  There's Zachary who apparently sleeps with a lot of girls.  Then there's the clueless assistant who flashed the McDonald's execs and allowed Williams to smell her hair to motivate him.  Yeah, to say the least, they are thinly veiled characters.

If shallow characters, obvious product placement, and a guest star appearance whose only purpose is to showcase her vocal ability and to collect a paycheck appeal to you, then this is the show for you.  Apparently, 15 million people watched this premiere - I don't think it really looked good in commercials either - which is immensely depressing to me.

Verdict - Unless you're a huge Robin Williams fan - of his comedy specifically - I'd avoid it.

Back in the Game (Wed., ABC, 7:30 pm)
To my complete surprise, I liked this pilot - with some serious reservations.  It's the kind of pilot where I inexplicably liked it yet I know that there's basically no way that the show will be any good.  There are big red warning signs that are surmounted past in this one episode thanks to... sheer luck?  I don't know.

Maggie Lawson is charming as a single mother, recently divorced and forced to live with her alcoholic, uncaring father.  James Caan plays him, which is depressing, but also probably why I liked it.  Unfortunately, he plays an asshole who doesn't appear to have any redeeming qualities - he DID watch every one of his daughter's baseball games - but that's just about the only good thing about him.

The side characters is where the show really shows why it won't continue being a decent show.  The fathers (or villains) are caricatures - there's not even an attempt to show them as human beings.  They are delusional sexists who make fun of little kids.  The kids who are on the "bad" baseball team - they are also caricatures - outrageously unrealistic one-note kids.

Verdict: I liked the three leads, but really the show's portrayal of anyone else is so mind-numbingly bad that there's no way this will be a good show.

The Millers (Thu., CBS, 7:30 pm)
Arrested Development, Running Wilde, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Up All Night: What do they all have in common?  It's a cancelled Will Arnett sitcom.  He's like cancer to a sitcom's chances.  This show has a good shot, because it follows the The Big Bang Theory, but it's also probably the worst of his five shows.  (I've only not seen Up All Night)

The cast is magnificent.  I'm not kidding when I say I liked everybody who was prominently featured.  The aforementioned Arnett, Margo Martindale (The Americans), Beau Bridges, J.B. Smoove, Jayma Mays, and Nelson Franklin (unknown, but I loved him on New Girl) were in the pilot.  Unfortunately, more jokes than not miss and for some reason, the laugh track hasn't died yet.

The premise is that Arnett's character got divorced, he keeps it from his parents (does this happen?) for three months, and then when his parents find out he's divorced, they split up themselves.  Because they only stayed together to not set a bad example or something.  The actors did the best they could, but the material is just not there.  I may watch to see if they are maximize their cast, but I am skeptical.

Verdict: Unless you're really looking for a new show or love Will Arnett and want him to succeed, this show can easily be skipped.

Updated Thoughts on New Shows
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The second episode and some digging on the people involved with this show have made me come to an unfortunate realization.    The second episode was merely serviceable.  That's fine except for the fact that I kind of want to watch shows that qualify as better than "serviceable" given the options I have.  Hell, I'd rather re-watch Friday Night Lights or Buffy than watch a serviceable show for the first time.

I'm not quite giving up on this show, but I need to shorten my leash with shows like this.  I have a limited amount of time and if I watched every mediocre show, I'd be losing the opportunity to watch shows like Deadwood or The Sopranos.  I'll give it a few more episodes.

With that said, make no mistake, this is not a Joss Whedon show.  Last week's pilot was co-written by Whedon and directed by him, but post-pilot, he's basically not involved.  This show is like a lesser imitator of Whedon.  Almost everyone involved has extensive experience working on Whedon shows.  The co-creators with Whedon - Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon - worked with Whedon on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and Dollhouse.  No offense to those two projects, but Buffy, Angel, and Firefly are all significantly better  (Given what I've heard about Dollhouse at least.)

Then, the only other writer involved in the four episodes available on IMDB are to Jeffrey Bell, who wrote on Angel and was the head writer for a time.*  But he was the head writer on Season 4, which was the worst season behind Season 1.  This show is kind of seemingly like Whedon at his worst.  Whedon at his worst is mediocre.  All I'm saying is this show has the tag of a Whedon show, but it's actually a Whedon knock-off.

*Knowing the behind-the scenes for Angel's fourth season makes sense of why that show lost its way for a little.  Whedon was pretty busy with two other shows.  Talented writer Tim Minear wrote just one episode in that season and David Greenwalt - co-creator - left the show after the third season.  The man who was supposed to become head writer left due to creative differences.  That's a whole lot of change.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
They seemed to have built strongly off the pilot with pretty good episodes.  Most importantly, the characters are people I want to hang out with on a weekly basis and it has its fair share of laughs.  It isn't a great comedy yet, but it is just oozing with potential.  The first three episodes have earned enough goodwill for me that I will watch the rest of the season barring an immense drop in quality.  If and when it ever reaches that potential, I'll make sure to be there to see it.

The Blacklist
I think my original plan was to watch more than just the pilot, but I have absolutely no desire to watch any more episodes when it came time to pull the trigger.  Sleepy Hollow provides me with my improbably stupid show, but does it ten times better.

Trophy Wife
The second episode was pleasant with some mild laughs.  I really like Malin Akerman in this role and all of the characters are likable and smart.  Bradley Whitford plays the sort of cool, relaxed dad that I wish I had.  I'm going to continue watching and hope it hits its stride soon.

Playlist
1. The Keepers - Santigold
2. Soapbox - Cyne
3. No Way Down - The Shins
4. The Way - Fastball
5. Get By - Talib Kweli

Pilots - Part 1

I watched four pilots in the past two days.  My mission is to accurately describe, give my opinion on, and tell you what I think of these shows in just three paragraphs (and one verdict).  The reason I chose Mom was because of its cast, The Blacklist because of James Spader, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Joss Whedon, and lastly, Trophy Wife, also for its cast.

Mom (Mon., CBS, 8:30 CT)

This show has a live studio audience that laughs when jokes aren't funny, cheers when a popular guest star appears on screen, and literally "Awwwws" when something cute happens.  This show should work better, but it has the stain of a Chuck Lorre sitcom on it.

If you want to see talent wasted by poor writing, despicable human beings, and unrelatable characters, this is the show for you.  Anna Faris plays the titular character, a recovering alcoholic mother who hates her own mother, Allison Janney.  Faris is the only character who doesn't seem like a terrible person, excluding the kids because they don't really count.

Anyway, French Stewart appears as a somewhat funny Chef who would by no means be employed in real life due to health codes.  There's Nathan Corddry, who plays Faris' manager and lover.  He's also married.  But it's cool because his wife is bitch.  But he can't divorce her because her dad owns the restaurant.  This is the kind of stuff the show comes up with.  Anyway, this is one of those shows where the audience will wonder why Faris chooses to put up with her mother's shit and for this episode at least, the answer is that her daughter improbably wants her mother - who she hates - to talk to her grandmother - who is all of the worst qualities of her mother magnified.

Verdict: This is likes Dads, but inoffensive and slightly funnier.  Don't watch.  Much better comedies exist.

The Blacklist (NBC, 9:00 CT)
The Blacklist had an interesting, yet troublesome start to begin its series.  The amount of improbabilities that happen in this one episode is a little too high for my liking.  The writing is mostly predictable when it's supposed to be shocking.

James Spader plays Raymond Reddington, a criminal's criminal who willfully lets himself get caught.  It's not hard to figure out why he gets caught.  He wants to spend more time with his daughter, fresh-faced agent Elizabeth Keen.  That's kind of a spoiler, but it's kind of not.  For one, we don't really know if that's true yet.  For another, they telegraphed that she was his daughter so blatantly and obviously that they might as well had a neon sign in the background that pointed to Keen and said "THIS IS REDDINGTON'S DAUGHTER."

Spader obviously steals the show as he elevates the material above what it actually is.  I don't know if this is a good show or not, but I'm guessing Spader will hide how bad it is for a long time before I figure it out.  Or the writers will figure out what they want and just do a better job.  Either way, I'll be watching with a similar type of quick hook I had with The Following last year.  Points in this favor are that it's much better than The Following was.  (I gave up on that show after two episodes so faint praise)

Verdict:Watch it for James Spader; Can't guarantee quality.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (Tue, ABC, 7:00 CT)
The triumvirate of Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen has created a slick show of basically awesome spies.  The pilot was more style than substance as the only fleshed out character was Mike Peterson, an undiscovered superhero.  The rest are introductions, explosions, impossible technology, and a lot of exposition.

Clark Gregg is the marquee name as Agent Coulson.  That feels odd just saying that.  I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he apparently faked his own death to motivate the superheroes in The Avengers.  (Don't worry: That death rang kind of hollow anyway since nobody in the audience likely gave a shit about him).  The next most famous person is Ming-Na Wen, who played Mulan and was a long-running character on ER.  The rest of the characters are relative unknowns and, with the notable exception of Chloe Bennett as Skye, make little impression in the pilot.

Angels fans will appreciate J. August Richards in the pilot as Peterson and Firefly fans will appreciate Ron Glass.  While Whedon's influence on this show will probably be minimal, either his impact was high in the episode or his impact on his fellow creators has been high.  In this episode at least, this was clearly a Joss Whedon show as the dialogue is snappy and original.  Also, he subverts your expectations and I was surprised three times in the pilot.  The pilot shows promise.  Hopefully, they can build off that.

Verdict: Watch the pilot.  Approach the series with a heavy dose of skepticism that Agent Coulson and four actors who could be mistaken as characters on a CW show - I don't mean that as a compliment either.

Trophy Wife (ABC, Tue, 8:30 CT)
Trophy Wife had a fast-moving, character-laden pilot that's kind of a lovely mess.  Bradley Whitford plays Pete, a twice-divorced newly married family man with three smart, manipulative kids.  His new wife, Kate played by Malin Akerman, is much younger than he is.  I hope they explore why they are together in future episodes.

Whitford's first divorce with Diane (Marcia Gay Harden) produced two surprisingly likable and well-acted kids who are NOT mad at their dad for marrying a new mom.  Akerman gets a head start in earning the affection of Hilary, played by newcomer Gianna LePera, in a funny sequence in this episode.  The other kid is played by veteran actor, Ryan Lee, who despite being born in 1996, has appeared in 35 titles according to IMDB.  (Such as Super 8 and This is 40)

Whitford's second divorce with Jackie (Michaela Watkins) produced a lone, adopted Asian kid, Bert.  He cons his babysitter in the the pilot and is the most memorable kid of the three.  The pilot managed to interject everyone of these characters in the plot, which is why it's kind of a mess.  But it's a carefully plotted, well-written mess.

Verdict: Definitely watch - All-Star cast, good writing, and an impossibly endless supply of ideas that could come from this premise.

Playlist
1. "I'll Be Doggone" - Marvin Gaye
2. "Two Princes" - Spin Doctors
3. "Sometimes" - Cam Meekins
4. "Maps" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
5. "Illuminate" - Ab-Soul ft. Kendrick Lamar