Glen here...
...with a two reports on the forthcoming onslaught of Fall TV programming.
The first report is a breakdown of some of the higher-profile Fall fare. This report comes from THE MILD MANNERED REPORTER:
The Mild Mannered Reporter wrote:
** Secret Agent Man: New, hip spy show starring that Mandylor guy (not the one from Martial Law, the OTHER one) as a spy named Monk (with a black partner and a sexy co-agent played by Dina Meyer from Starship Troopers).
Extremely slick, elegant in the Men in Black vein. Funny and irreverent. I'd say it looks like a winner, but then again - Spy Games and Fortune Hunter were slick, elegant and funny too.
** Angel: Extremely dark and brooding, very tough to program in countries that have problems with violence on TV (think England or Germany).
** Time of Your Life: Jennifer Love Hewitts spin-off from Party of Five is the most overcooked show of the year.
Melodramatic in the worst possible way, and Hewitt comes off as whiny and lame. The concept is also way too similar to Felicity. Will be recut, probably (if not reshot).
** Manchester Prep: The series version of the Sarah Michelle Gellar movie Cruel Intentions.
The pilot recounts the movie, and even though the lead actress does not repeat the "I'll fuck your brains out" line that made sure male SMG fans got some sleepless nights, it IS pretty kinky and nasty.
Very well produced, with a high gloss look. But at the end of the day: not enough meat to go the distance.
** Stark Raving Mad: Neil Patrick Harris works for a book publishing company and has to get a horror novelist back to work. Watch this sitcom sink - fast!
** Action: Wow, this is one rude sitcom about a Hollywood producer (Jay Mohr). Interesting tidbit: the script for the pilot asked for a cameo by Kurt Russel. I thought: Gee, they'll never get him to do it. Well, they didn't. But they got Keanu Reeves!
** Good versus Evil: It doesn't happen often that shows get booed at the LA screenings. This low budget Brimstone ripoff starring Clayton Rohner managed to irritate almost every single viewer.
Avoid at all cost (suck on this Glen ;-))
((Glen sighs...))
** Roswell High: frankly, I didn't like it.
The pilot has no action, no drive, no real atmosphere. The leads look like doppelgangers of good teen ctors, but not like the real thing.
The concept is weak (a girl in Roswell discovers that some of her teen pals are actually aliens stranded on Earth), and producer Jonathan Frakes gives a really ego-boosting, lame cameo.
** Now and Again: John Goodman faqlls in front of a subway train (great sequence) and is resurrected as Eric Close (Dark Skies), to fight for the government.
This has more depth and sarcasm than one would expect from a CBS show, and Dennis Haysbert is great. But the sci-fi elements are sparse, and in the end it's just "The Six Million Dollar Man meets John Frankenheimer's Seconds.
** Special Unit 2: Secret organisation hunts monsters and demons.
While it sounds like Buffy meets the The X-Files, it's more accurately described as NYPD Blue meets Ghostbusters. Pretty cool, and Michael Landes (the "real" Jimmy Olsen from Lois & Clark) is good.
The monsters look hokey, though. Could be a sleeper hit.
** New Universal shows replacing Hercules: Three half-hours are in the works, and only Amazon High was shown in parts. It's very funny, about a bubbly teenage girl sent back to Xena-esque times.
She alternates between the two timelines, getting a lot of stuff mixed up (imagine barbarian behavior in American highschools).
The second show is Jack of all Trades, about a travelling adventurer in the 18th century. A pirate action show, could turn out cool.
No real info on Cleopatra 2055, the third show, though...
Glen again...
Next up is RAVING LUNATIC's review of Harsh Realm ( a show which was reviewed by me earlier in the week.
Raving Lunatic wrote:
Hi Glen,
I've just seen Chris Carter's new pilot and thought you'd probably like a review.
HARSH REALM deals with a soldier (Scott Bairstow) who is sent on one last mission: to win a virtual reality game by setting a new high score - or so he's told, because when he gets there, he starts to realize that this virtual world is controlled by an evil dictator called Santiago (Terry O'Quinn). He has taken over the game and the military are trying to get this world back by sending a soldier to kill him.
Bairstow is not the first though, as he finds out when he meets a disillusioned veteran (D.B. Sweeney) who after some discussion agrees to help him kill Santiago. But, as you might have guessed, this is not so easy...
So much about the plot. And now on to the part where I tell you wether I liked it or not:
I loved it.
It's dark, it's gritty, but it's not as hopelessly depressing as MILLENNIUM (a flawed show that I still enjoyed very much). For a pilot it has surprisngly few effects shots, but I would actually count that fact on the plus side as it doesn't distract you from the story (Carter's telling and which in itself is quite fascinating).
This virtual world, we are told (by the voice of Gillian Anderson in an uncredited cameo), is just like ours with every human being recreated, though they might not have the same personality as in ours. That makes for some interesting confrontations, especially with Bairstow's fiancee who's married to somebody else in this world and even though Bairstow's character knows this, he's still unable to cope with the situation.
Talking about Bairstow, he's the one aspect of the show I'm not happy with. His character fails to grip you and I thought several times how much better this would be if Carter had stayed with Nic Lea who originally was supposed to play the part. Bairstow's simply not able to relate that feeling of loneliness and frustration that should govern his character. Instead he is often reduced to pointing his gun at someone whenever he doesn't seem to know what to do next.
Although this is obviuosly the writer's fault, I couldn't stop thinking that maybe if Bairstow's acting had been less wooden, you wouldn't have noticed this fact so much. On the other hand D.B. Sweeny is excellent as the ex-soldier trying to survive in this strange world. I never pictured him as the tough guy, but he's surprisingly convincing. The same goes for Terry O'Quinn as menacing dictator Santiago, who's not one of your run of the mill, acting over the top evil geniuses but a threatening, power hungry killer with a hardly noticable streak of insanity.
A nice touch is just another uncredited cameo, this time by Lance Henriksen as the general who sends Bairstow on his mission. Guess that means we can expect to see him in later episodes.
All in all HARSH REALM is a very good show with a lot of potential that could still easily go wrong, if it concentrates too much on Bairstow's hunt for Santiago. Instead I hope it will spend some time to show us more about the virtual world and to explore the different characters.
Well, we'll see...
