Lessons from Summer Burn-Off Theatre

At this time a year ago, "Knights of Prosperity" (then called "Let's Rob...") and "The Nine" were two of the most-anticipated new shows on any network. Now they're teaming up for ABC's microscopically-rated summer Wednesday lineup, and watching the two combined hours of both shows last night reminded me a little of their initial promise and a lot about why they both failed. Spoilers ho...

After Mick Jagger -- far and away the funniest part of the show -- refused to appear in any episodes past the pilot, "Knights of Prosperity" creators Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman spun their wheels for seven episodes before having Eugene and the Knights move on to a new celebrity target. In the last episode to air before cancellation, they briefly considered Kelly Ripa, but then Eugene fell in love with her and they turned their attentions to Ray Romano, who in the show's universe is in town starring in an off-Broadway show where he plays a heroin addict.

Now, Romano's a good choice: he's funny, he's available, and he's friendly enough with Burnett and Beckerman due to the Letterman connection (Rob and Jon were writer/producers on "Late Show," Worldwide Pants produced "Everybody Loves Raymond") that he's not likely to bail before they're done with him. And, like Mick before him, Ray proceeds to steal the show out from under the main characters, whether he's overacting in his play (which is so cheesey that its title is included in the dialogue) or whining at length about the burdens of celebrity.

(From what little I know about Romano, this doesn't seem like a stretch; the "Raymond" writers once described Ray Barone as being exactly like Ray Romano, only saner and nicer, and they weren't being sarcastic.)

But the fact that at least two of the celebrity targets (maybe three; I missed the Ripa episode) so easily upstage the regulars isn't a good thing, and it's one of several reasons -- along with the name, the premise, the timeslot and America's near-total mistrust of new comedies -- that the show failed. All of the Knights have their funny moments -- Kevin Michael Richardson as Rockefeller was a great "find" (in that most of his resume consisted of voice acting before this), and I hope to see more of him in the future -- but none of them, with the possible exception of Eugene, exist as anything but the broadest of stereotypes, there to do their schtick and drop whatever pop culture-themed punchline Beckerman and Burnett thought up at the time. A little of that goes a very long way, and if Jagger and Romano weren't written any more deeply, at least we had our prior knowledge of each to fill in the blanks.

The first of last night's episodes suggests that the creators were aware of this, as the script was devoted to humanizing Louis the intern by introducing his rich bastard father. (Played by one of my favorite Hey It's That Guy!s, James "If Cromwell's not available, I'm your man!" Rebhorn.) And, again, I laughed from time to time -- a rarity these days for network comedies -- but I'm not in any way surprised that the show didn't work.

As I mentioned when I wrote about "The Kill Point" the other day, it became obvious quickly that "The Nine" had a flawed concept from the start. The bank hostage stuff was inherently going to be more exciting and interesting than anything happening to the characters in the aftermath, and yet the flashbacks themselves had two basic problems: 1)There's no suspense about any of the broad strokes (how/when the siege ends, who lives, etc.), so all that's left to fill in are the smaller details like how Scott Wolf betrayed his girlfriend or why Kim Raver's hair got butchered; and 2)Even the filling in of said details was never going to live up to however we imagined it in our heads when the pilot had that amazing time-jump from the start of the siege to the end.

Last week's episode took place almost entirely in the bank and suffered from the no-suspense problem as it tried to create false jeopardy around Wolf's character, while last night's episode was largely about the survivors' present-day problems. The notion that they're all being watched because one of them was in on the robbery doesn't thrill me -- it's one or two steps removed from a silly "Prison Break"-style conspiracy theory -- and yet I suppose it's more dramatic than most of the episodes that aired back in the fall. Interesting isolated moments here and there, but this is one of the most dramatic pilot-to-series quality drop-offs I've ever seen.

Anybody play nostalgic masochist like me and watch either one? What did you think? Click here to read the full post

The one word you still can't say on television

Brief, belated spoilers for, in order, "30 Rock," "Knights of Propserity," "My Name Is Earl," "Scrubs" and "Survivor" coming right up...

A very strong "30 Rock" this week, particularly the montage of Liz the runt-y boss and Pete hitting her up for cash for the strip club. This was also one of the few times I liked a subplot where Tracy was relatively sane, and not just because they brought in Rip Torn as some kind of GE/NBC/Universal/KMart bigwig. Liz being a rare female boss in an agressively male profession and Tracy being a has-been who's oblivious to being a has-been are both good comedy fodder, and they haven't exhausted either one yet.

The "Knights of Prosperity" guys appear to have written a series finale without even realizing it. In case you didn't see the episode, the guys saved Esperanza from her evil Colombian drug lord ex-boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale, and is he too young and/or well-known to qualify for Hey It's That Guy! status?) by trading him all of their intel and resources on Mick Jagger's apartment in exchange for her freedom. On paper, it allows them to work around Mick's lack of interest in coming back, but I also think it gives ABC an excuse to pull the plug, immediately, because the ratings have been awful, losing huge chunks of the lead-in from "George Lopez" -- "George Lopez" -- every week. Considering the struggles of "In Case of Emergency" and ABC's belief that the best lead-in for "Lost" is "Lost," I wouldn't be stunned to see "Lopez" and "According to Jim" airing from 8 to 9 as soon as this week.

After a few back-to-formula episodes, "My Name Is Earl" presents another treat for Bad Earl fans like me, with an entire episode of Bad Earl's greatest hits. My favorite: the montage of Earl making fat jokes about pregnant Joy, as there was a level of glee to Jason Lee's delivery that reminded me of Banky and/or Brodie.

I'm really not feeling "Scrubs" at the moment, unfortunately. This episode didn't have any jarringly bad decisions like Kim faking a miscarriage, but it just feels like the writers are forcing the wackiness. And at the same time, the show's been so hardcore wacky for a while that the emotional moments don't work. J.D.'s realization that he needs to grow up and stop leaning on his friends to solve every problem should have been an important milestone for the character, but he's become such a cartoon in the last year and a half that I don't expect the development to stick. For most of last season, the more ridiculous tone was fine because the show was so funny; lately, I'm not laughing very much, and that hurts everything.

Also not feeling "Survivor" yet. Still too many contestants, and they're no longer even trying to be subtle about who's going to Tribal Council, as it felt like we spent about 30 seconds at the fancy camp. I think my problem with the feast-or-famine twist is that it hasn't been earned. In "Pearl Islands," Sandra's team had such a kick-ass camp because she did an amazing job of bartering in town, while the opponents ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, foreshadowing how badly they would do in most challenges. In "Palau," Tom's team won an amazing camp little by little through pure challenge dominance. Here, one team won a relatively tight Immunity Challenge, and now they get to live high on the hog at least until the next twist? Meh. Aside from Earl and the snakes coming to an understanding, the entire hour was flat.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

What's Alan watching on a long delay?

Weekend catch-up post, with comments on, in order, "Grey's Anatomy," "The O.C.," "30 Rock," "The Knights of Prosperity" and "House" coming up just as soon as I get dressed for my pylon-lifting class at the gym...

Back when ABC did a "Grey's Anatomy" press conference shortly before the Super Bowl bomb two-parter, we weren't allowed to see the episode in advance (part of Shonda's quest to stamp out all spoilers), so all we had to go on was a vague trailer that looked an awful lot like an ad for one of those Very Special "ER" sweeps episodes where a tank crashes into the emergency room while the Symbionese Liberation Army holds Peter Benton hostage and forces Carter to perform elective surgery on their leader. Somebody asked Shonda whether she was comfortable with her show entering territory so close to "ER," and she flashed her usual Cheshire grin and said that, while the stakes were higher, it would still clearly be an episode of "Grey's," with the focus on the emotional journey of her characters more than on pyrotechnics.

She was true to her word then, and she's been largely true to her word on the sweeps disaster episodes since, but this week's episode felt exactly like something "ER" would do, with one exception: "ER" would have done it better. Whatever morbid problems that show has suffered in its decline phase, they still produce the hell out of all those plane crashes and train crashes and kielbasa stand crashes, to the point where even if I hate every single character remaining on the show, I still get excited when stuff starts blowing up real good. "Walk on Water" felt like it was trying to quicken my blood in that way, but it never got there. Even Alex's rescue of the crush injury woman (and bravo to the makeup department for their work on her) came and went too quickly.

Now, if the emotinal journey stuff had been more interesting, I could have let the lack of goosebumps slide, but I didn't really care what was happening to any of the regulars this week, with the possible exception of poor Chief Weber. That scene in the elevator where Addison dressed down the male attendings was priceless, and the only part of the hour that actually felt like "Grey's Anatomy."

The third-to-last episode of "The O.C." had me wondering: if the Internet is for porn, then how much of it is for clown porn? After the furries gag a few episodes ago, what's next? A rusty trombone joke? (Oh, wait: that's "The Loop" territory.) This was another fairly aimless episode, with the Seth/Summer plot feeling particularly strange. Summer complains that Seth doesn't feel passionate about anything, when Seth's defining quality is that he feels too passionate about things: comics, sailing, Summer, Asian cinema, video games, comics, emo music, comics, etc. Those may not be worthy enough subjects for the worldly new incarnation of Summer, but the guy does care about things.

"30 Rock" has been on a real high of late, so I suppose it was inevitable they'd put out an a'ight-blah episode right about now. There was some hilarious Jack stuff, notably the sequence of him getting progressively drunk (loved the way it was edited so he would always be holding his new drink in the final shot of the old scene) and he and his ex getting hot and bothered while arguing about their Arby's franchise in Telluride, but the rest of the episode fell flat. Tracy was too sane, Pete's story didn't have an ending, Liz seemed trapped in her own subplot, and outside of Jenna's brilliant Vagina Day monologue, I didn't like her storyline with Frank. Even Kenneth didn't make me laugh (outside of the "16 Candles" shout-out with his underpants, and what's with two shows on at the same time doing "16 Candles" refs?), and he's usually the show's secret weapon.

I've had some requests for "Knights of Prosperity" commentary, and I really wish I could say kinder things about the show, as I'm usually a fan of the comedy stylings of Burnett, Beckerman and Logue. But each episode inevitably fades into background music for me after five minutes or so, and I only feel really compelled to look at the screen whenever Rockefeller is talking. (Kevin Michael Richardson is proof that voice actors don't get enough respect in this business.) The cover version of "Cats in the Cradle" was a nice touch, but it's also typical of the way "Knights" uses pop culture references as its dominant source of punchlines. I don't feel like the characters are clearly established enough for me to laugh at them for their own sake, as opposed to when they're name-checking some heinous '80s movie.

"House" gets back to basics, and I couldn't be more pleased. Loved that he was so insistent on winning the bet with Cuddy that he rolled his chair down a flight of stairs. Foreman's always been my favorite of the three sidekicks (he's House's favorite, too), so I'm glad anytime he's the lead on a case. Raise your hands, anyone who doesn't believe House and his pretty new wheelchair-bound rival will get involved, however briefly and disastrously.

What did everybody else think about any of these? Click here to read the full post

Pilot Watch: ABC leftovers

Thanks to another cold outbreak at the Sepinwall compound, column-writing has been at a minimum this week. Matt handles the lead item of today's All TV, which is a (negative) review of NBC's "Amazing Race"-meets-"Da Vinci Code" rip-off "Treasure Hunters." I handle the back half of the column, including a short review of A&E's "Touch the Top of the World" (biopic of the first blind man to summit Everest) and Dane Cook's "Tourgasm," which I really only liked during the performance snippets.

In the home stretch on the pilots. Preliminary thoughts -- say it with me, these aren't reviews, since too many things can and will change before September -- on "Men in Trees" and "Let's Rob..." after the jump...

"Men in Trees"
Who's In It: Anne Heche, John Amos, Abraham Benrubi, James Tupper, and others
What It's About: "Northern Exposure" by way of the collective filmographies of Meg Ryan, Ashley Judd and Sandra Bullock, with Heche as a relationship guru who discovers her fiance is a cheating louse while on a trip to an Alaskan town where the male/female ratio is 10/1.
Pluses: Heche has dialed down the crazy to acceptable degrees, and judging by Marian's favorable reaction, they handle most of the rom-com tropes fairly well. "Northern Exposure" fans will be very pleased by blatant homages like a sexist macho pilot in the Maurice mold and an eager young DJ who's a cross between Ed Chigliak and Chris in the Morning...
Minuses: ... or they'll be annoyed at the blatant rip-offs. Very little male appeal, and I say that as a guy who digs "Grey's Anatomy."

Let's Rob...
Who's In It: Donal Logue, Mick Jagger, Sofia Vergara, Murmur from "The Sopranos"
What It's About: A lifelong loser decides to take hold of his destiny after watching an E! documentary about Mick Jagger's fabulous apartment, and recruits a posse of fellow losers to rob the Rolling Stone.
Pluses: Mick Jagger does a wonderful job of playing Mick Jagger (it's the part he was born to play, baby!), portraying himself as the worst kind of self-absorbed celebrity brat. Writers Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman from "Ed" have fun depicting Logue (who played Phil Stubbs in the second version of the "Ed" pilot) as a man blissfully unaware of his own limitations. Good throwaway jokes like the gang plotting the heist in a "Jewish supply house" filled with giant replica menorahs.
Minuses: Mick, who as of now will only appear occasionally, is far and away the best part of the show, and the scenes with the regular characters suffer in comparison. A little too obviously derivative of "My Name Is Earl," notably Logue having his life-altering revelation while watching a celebrity on TV. Click here to read the full post