Last year during the short American Thanksgiving week, I supplemented the post by watching some pilots for shows I hadn't seen. I think I'll continue that this week and make it an annual tradition.
Survivor: South Pacific
Recap this week.
Up All Night
Jason Lee doing the Will Arnett voice was great because it reminded me of the classic Arnett vs. Baldwin "talking like this" contest on the first season of 30 Rock. But the rest of the episode was kind of forgettable, and the revised opening credits are stupid; they were relevant last week because they contained shots of scenes from that episode, but to continue using it in every episode that isn't that one makes no sense to me. In particular, the shot of Chris playing hockey might give the impression to newcomers that he is a professional hockey player, or even that he plays hockey regularly, when so far it has been specific only to that one episode.
Suburgatory
The only funny part of this episode was Ryan's description of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because still referring to Jim Carrey as "Ace Ventura" nearly 20 years after the fact is even funnier than continuing to call Mark Wahlberg "Marky Mark". This show's situational humour tends to be pretty bland, the best example in this episode being Lisa's nakedness. I felt like they could have done more to make that funny, but apparently the writers felt that Lisa being naked was funny enough on its own. It also feels like they want to keep having parties in order to shoehorn Dalia's relevance to the plot into each episode. She's still a useless character; all she did this week was yell at the dog, which was another missed opportunity for jokes because instead of some sort of funny one-liners, the writers chose to go with the likes of, "Oh my god, shut up, I hate you!" To be fair, that's probably about as creative as a character like Dalia could come up with, but still, it only proves how little she adds to the show.
The Wire (Pilot Episode)
Normally I would have walked right by this show, as crime shows don't really interest me, but it seems to be widely regarded as one of the best TV series ever made, so I decided to give it a shot. My reason for shunning crime procedurals is because they tend to be formulaic, cookie-cutter, case-of-the-week type deals and that doesn't appeal to me. Being an HBO series and not a mass market network show, The Wire is different. It doesn't need to use action or murder mysteries to garner attention; in fact, it's more about the legal, bureaucratic aspect of police work, but it's not a courtroom drama, either. More of a legal thriller, only it ingeniously lets the viewer figure out why it's thrilling instead of laying it out on screen. It's not for dumb people - it's intelligent and can be dense and hard to follow if you're not concentrating (as Michael Scott once said, "Been watching The Wire recently. I don't understand a word of it.") - and it's probably also not for people who bore easily, because this whole pilot episode was mostly just a lot of talking. But I was interested in the story of Detective McNulty (Dominic West) creating a hiccup in his department when he informs a judge that a drug kingpin may have gotten as many as 10 murders overturned in court by intimidating witnesses and working the system. And it was cool to see Lance Reddick and Idris Elba in the cast, because they have intense screen presences. There was no actual "wire" used in the first episode, but there was talk of using one, and according to Wikipedia it appears that every season has a different setting. Consider me intrigued.
Deadwood (Pilot Episode)
I think Deadwood is mostly famous for its cursing (and the only word used as commonly as the f-word is "cocksucker"), but I came into it looking for some badass characters plotting against each other. There's a little bit of that, but it turns out most of the profanity is not even used in anger, it's just indicative of the crude, daily speech patterns in a town with no laws. I'm not sure yet if I like it enough to want to watch three seasons of it, but it does have a large number of familiar faces in it, and I've always had a soft spot for ensemble casts, so I might watch more at some point.
Boss (Pilot Episode)
Boss is a new series this season, one I probably would've never heard of if Alan Sepinwall hadn't reviewed it on his Hitfix blog. Right at the top of the pilot, we find out Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer) is coming down with a disease that is like a horrible mix of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Then we find out he's the mayor of Chicago. The kind of mayor who is all smiles and jokes and friendly gestures in front of the cameras, but a tyrannical douchebag when there's no reporters around. Grammer was a natural choice for the role, as he has that deep, authoritative voice that can be kind of scary when he wants it to be, and even though he might be more famous for comedy, he is the kind of actor able to pull off that emotional weight when necessary. Anyway, Kane hides his newly discovered condition from as many people as possible, including his own wife and daughter, though he makes some miniscule efforts to reconnect with them after they've grown distant. As I'm going through Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Weeds, I'm realizing I find it interesting when a character has a huge secret he or she is trying to hide, so I really, really enjoyed this pilot. I'm looking forward to more, but I think I'll be waiting a while for a DVD/Blu-ray release. Hopefully not too long, though: the season one finale airs in about two weeks.
Hero of the Week: Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) from Deadwood, for rescuing a survivor after Indians killed her family, and because he was born in the same town as me (Etobicoke). Represent, cocksucker!
Douchebag of the Week: Tom Kane from Boss. Boy do I love watching him, but what a dick.
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