Glen here...
...with a look at a new TV series brought to us by Kevin Williamson.
In the past, Williamson has given us such diverse films as Scream, Scream 2,, the forthcoming Scream 3, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and he is also the creator of Dawson's Creek. The one underlying commonality in all of these titles? A focus on America's youth - coming of age in a world of crisis, etc.
What else does Willimason have up his sleeve? Can he break free of the age bracket & target audience with which he has been obsessed of late, and head some new directions? Read the following messages from PODKO and MS. LEONOWENS, and find out!
PODKO wrote:
Okay, last weekend I was flipping through the TV, and on our local (Tuscaloosa, AL) cable companies' own "community info" channel, they were showing "Wasteland" the new fall ABC series.
It was at like 2pm, so I'm thinking it was maybe for a focus group or something. Strange, but true. Anyway, taking into account that I missed the first few missed the minutes here's what I thought.
I know that Kevin Williamson is the Exec Producer, so I had high hopes (hey, I LIKED Dawson's Creek, so sue me). 'Bout twenty minutes into the show I'd pretty much given that hope up. The characters are all just completely unbelievable.
First, the basic plot is that six people who all went to college together are now living in NYC, in HUGE apartments, of course. I can't remember all their specific occupations, except that one is a semi-closeted a gay soap star, one is a web desigener (her page is called "Wasteland") and Rebecca Gayheart is the prissiest homicide detective on the planet.
It was not until I saw a scene where she was actually in the police station, (on the phone with her friends talking about their boyfriends, "Screw the murder victims, my friend needs a date!") that I realised she really was a police woman, before I though it was just a joke I wasn't getting. Plus she does an awful southern accent (character is supposed to be from Kentucky) and being from the South myself, few things bug me more.
So, come fall, I won't be watching.
MS. LEONOWENS wrote:
I just saw the latest TV effort of Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson's Creek?). Yes, ABC is trying to cash in on the disposable income of those not yet 30 (OK, I know... who isn't). Being someone just inches over that demographic, here's my take...
The premise of the show was very interesting - "What if there is a second coming of age in your late 20s?" After all, a lot of us (me included) spent most of our 20s in college and grad school. We're still (or were) supported by our families, we're still cocooned in this sheltered little world... you get the picture. So, by the time we finally break out on our own, we're not 18 anymore. Terrific premise.
That's where the originality ends...
So, lets meet the characters. They're all in their mid-20s and living in NYC. Apparently, they all seemed to go to the same small college somewhere else, and "just ended up there" after graduation. I won't use character names (because I don't remember them) and I won't use actors names (since I couldn't tell the male leads apart - please someone, a little creativity in the hair department?), but you'll get the gist.
Our virginal lead is just that - a virgin. She seemed to be in grad school (my guess is social anthropology) since the premise of the show was expounded as a thesis topic. But, the ((profession of individuals deleted by Glen)) I spoke with seemed really really interested in her virginity. I smell a "will she or won't she" first season cliff-hanger.
We also have the "actor" - he's not struggling (brief relief from that cliche), but he's a closeted gay actor who plays a soap hunk on TV. Imagine the confrontations with past 1-nighters in the "soap hunk calendar"-signing line... (yes, that is a scene). The gradual outing should be excruciating (the audience knows from the pilot). There's some real potential here, but I wonder if ABC will let them pull this one off with grace.
We have his agent - a brash (I can imagine someone pitching her as "brash")-woman-of-the-world-with-a vulnerable-spot. She has an acid tongue, some nice dialogue, but we've been there before. She's the bitch.
We have the musician/social alcoholic/bartender - he serves no other purpose that creating profitable (?) soundtracks and is the ex of our next introduction... Well, on the other hand, he could qualify as the "struggling artiste" cliche we narrowly avoided in the above.
The female cop with a Southern (and its a bad one) accent - all the gentility of the stereotypical white South in a "hardened" female detective.
Granted, the premise for this character is good - looks/sounds can be deceiving. But, using a Scarlet O'Hara accent is not the right Southern accent to tap here. I'll be floored if this particular accent makes it to air.
OK, I'm missing someone... ah, yes, the EX-boyfriend - the slime from the past who slept with everyone in college but our virgin, whom he was dating at the time. Anyone wanna guess where this one is going?
So, there you have them. The entire pilot dealt with setting up the characters (of course), and the premise of the show was completely lost. It looks like the "2nd coming of age" is just an excuse to peer into the personal lives of a bunch of pretty people and listed to occasionally witty dialogue in contrived situations. This is a soap, and nothing more. It should make oodles of money...
