Amazon Pilots, Part III: The "Comedies"

I know I am late in my comments on Amazon's proposed "comedy" pilots, which in some cases I would not call comedies but rather mini-dramas.  Unlike my earlier comments on The After, I found that all three of these half-hour pilot had merit.  To remind you, here are the three pilots in question:

-- Mozart in the Jungle (half-hour comedy):  Sex, drugs — and classical music — see what happens behind the curtains at the symphony.

-- The Rebels (half-hour comedy):  Julie is in over her head when her husband suddenly dies, leaving her the owner of a pro football team. 

-- Transparent (half-hour drama):  A family with serious boundary issues have their past and future unravel after a dramatic admission. 

Of the three, Transparent probably hits you at the deepest level as Jeffrey Tambor, best remembered as the father in Arrested Development, plays a very different role as a father trying to share a part of himself with his self-centered and spoiled children (yes, Mr. Tambor is leading another strange family).  It seemed to last much longer than your traditional 30-minute show and quickly profiles of the family members as well as the challenges ahead.  While the kids think their dad is dying, what you have here is a situation where a new person is trying to emerge later in life with great trepidation.  I look forward to seeing more.

Mozart in the Jungle has an unfortunate name, but the dueling symphony conductors played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Malcolm McDowell is fun to watch.  As you watch the mingling musicians (a much better title for the show), you get the impression that this will be an adult Glee or more believable Smash, which is good for television since we have plenty of cops and vampires but very few shows that cover the arts. 

Among the three new pilots, The Rebels is the most traditional and therefore the least likely to gain traction.  The antics of the fumbling football team would probably get old over time, but the show promised some good storylines and solid acting by Natalie Zea, who I miss in Justified and enjoyed during her short appearance in Under the Dome.  

And now the rest of the story.  Variety reports Amazon has decided to pick up four of the five pilot, with The Rebels left in the cold.  Of course, I believe The After should be banished from the screen with the light-hearted The Rebels to fill the hole, but it appears the crowds have spoken.  I am just happy that three good shows will soon be available for Amazon audiences.  The battle between Amazon and Netflix continues, and we are all the winners.

Zach: The Real Healthcare Investigation

Sometime you need someone to cut through all the technical details and get to the heart of a matter, as President Obama learned the other day during an interview with Zach Galifianakis on Funny or Die's interview format Between Two Ferns.  This may be the first time I have seen the President shhhh-ed in public (not counting that Republican lout who shouted at him during the State of the Union address some years ago).

Zach went on to discuss North IKEA, called the President a nerd, and then trashed the healthcare website.  What is surprising is that President Obama was able to sling most of it back and show he was a good sport.  I guess dealing with this Congress has given him industrial-strength skin and a Greek hobbit was not going to get him off message.  Speaking of skin, someone needs to look into Zach's spider bites.

I'm Not Sure if I Believe

I watched the first episode of NBC's Believe on Wednesday (March 10) and came away thinking of the Stephen King movie Firestarter. You remember the film - Drew Barrymore is the little girl with special powers running away from the evil government that wants to use her abilities as a weapon.  And David Keith plays her dad escaping from captivity to save her from this nasty world of ours. 

Well, NBC has what appears to be a reboot: 

Levitation, telekinesis, the ability to control nature, see the future... since she was born, Bo (Johnny Sequoyah) has had gifts she could neither fully understand nor control. But now that she is 10 years old, her powers have become stronger and the threat from malevolent forces that would use her abilities to control the world has grown more dangerous. With her life and future in jeopardy, Bo's protector, Milton Winter (Delroy Lindo, "The Chicago Code"), turns to an unlikely source to keep her safe - Tate (Jake McLaughlin, "Crash"), a wrongfully imprisoned death row inmate who's lost his will.

Tate and Bo begin an extraordinary journey, one in which trust must be earned. On the run and traveling from city to city, every place they stop and everyone they meet will be changed forever. But they'll have to keep going to stay one step ahead of the sinister forces after Bo's power... because it will take a miracle to keep them safe forever. 

Overall the pilot was passable, with plenty of extras added by a high-powered team of executive producers: J.J. Abrams ("Revolution," "Fringe," "Lost"),  Alfonso Cuarón ("Gravity," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," "Y Tu Mamá También"), Bryan Burk ("Revolution," "Fringe," "Lost"), Jonas Pate ("Caprica") and Hans Tobeason ("V," "Cult.")  However, the set ups were disappointing, such as the flock of pigeons shown for months in the trailer, which during the show do nothing more spectacular than mess up the hair of the murderous female agent trailing our heroes.  As least Firestarter knew how to mess up the bad guys, though I am sure that is coming later if you plan to stick around. 

I am just not sure I will be back after having waited for this show.  It reminds me of the last Star Trek movie, where J.J. Abrams took his much modified story, copied the earlier series after trashing that time-line, and then was so confused at the end of the movie that all he could do was crash a starship into San Francisco and kill tens of thousands of innocent souls to add drama to a dying storyline.  Very sad, and I am not sure if a modified Firestarter will end any better. 

The Returning Dead, Once Again

Tonight (March 9) ABC brings us Resurrection, the tale of a small town where the long dead return after many years as if nothing had happened.  Here is the trailer and the ABC write-up:

The people of Arcadia, Missouri are forever changed when their deceased loved ones suddenly start to return. An 8-year-old American boy wakes up alone in a rice paddy in a rural Chinese province with no idea how he got there. Details start to emerge when the boy, who calls himself Jacob, recalls that his hometown is Arcadia, and an Immigration agent, J. Martin Bellamy, takes him there. The home he claims as his own is occupied by an elderly couple, Henry and Lucille Langston, who lost their son, Jacob, more than 30 years ago. While they look different, young Jacob recognizes them as his parents. Those closest to the family try to unravel this impossible mystery — but this boy who claims to be the deceased Jacob knows secrets about his own death that no one else knows. 

Hal Boedeker in the Orlando Sentinel noted that ABC is in need of resurrection:

ABC has tossed “Resurrection” into perhaps the most difficult time slot where it will face the wildly popular “Walking Dead.” But the zombies don’t have a monopoly on thrills, and Arcadia certainly merits several visits, based on the first two episodes.

You may be saying to yourself, "Hasn't this story been told before?" The answer is yes.  The French beautifully told this tale in a show called The Returned, which was later picked up by the Sundance network for U.S. viewing.  The Returned begins with the appearance of a young girl killed in a school trips years earlier.  It is worth checking out if you have not already done so.  Yes, it is subtitled, but the acting is superb and the intertwining story-lines make it a memorable show.  The French are already working on season two, and A&E is thinking of its own version of this French thriller. 

And just last year BBC America had a separate series called In the Flesh, where former flesh-eating zombies were cured and reintegrated with their families with, shall we say, mixed results.  This British import was a very dark comedy that was part social commentary on our ability to accept a whole new group of "outsiders" into our living rooms.  Think of it as The Walking Dead where all the zombies simply say "sorry about that" and want to go out for a beer.  Yeah, creepy in that way.  And the Brits are already working on season two as well.

So, you have plenty of shows to keep you company late at night as the house creaks and you think of long-lost Aunt Mildred.  Wait, was that the doorbell?

Cosmos Returns, This Time on Fox and National Geographic

I am a fan of Carl Sagan's masterpiece Cosmos, broadcast on PBS in 1980.  Officially titled Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, the series was an eye-opening experience providing a fascinating perspective on the heavens above us and the role of humans within in it (as miniscule as that may be). 

So are we ready for the reboot tomorrow night (March 9), Cosmos: A Spacetime Journey?  And is Fox the network to do it?  In terms of a reboot, I would say astronomy has advanced considerably in the past 34 years, so the new show has plenty to share with us, such as newly discovered planets orbiting distant stars.  And having Neil deGrasse Tyson as the host steering the "Ship of the Imagination" was a smart move since he has been the astronomy guy to Americans for many years now.  

Dr. Tyson is excited about bringing Cosmos back to television, noting in a recent Wired interview: 

Whoever said you couldn’t communicate science by way of stories? Cosmos is an occasion to bring everything that I have, all of my capacity to communicate. We may go to the edge of the universe, but we’re going to land right on you: in your heart, in your soul, in your mind. My goal is to have people know that they are participants in this great unfolding cosmic story. 

As far as Fox, luckily the National Geographic Channel is also involved, which gives me a better feeling.  And, of course, none of this would be possible without the approval of Dr. Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, who was the co-creator of the original series.  So Fox and family could not go crazy with an earlier formula that worked so well.  Even the involvement of Seth MacFarlane, the animator of sophomoric television, could have been a disaster, but the artwork I have seen so far has no talking dogs and diabolical infants, so we should be okay.  

Take a look at the Cosmos trailer and you will be a better sense of what is in store.  I am hopeful that all parties did this right.  And if you want to see the original Cosmos program with Carl Sagan, the National Geographic Channel will be showing all 13 episode today.

More Emergencies in Chicago: Sirens

Chicago recently brought you firemen in NBC's Chicago Fire, policemen in NBC's Chicago PD, and tonight paramedics in the USA Network's Sirens.  But based on the reviews to date (before the very first episode premeries), the show is on life-support.  But first, the set up per the USA Network:

From the distinct comedic point of view of Denis Leary (RESCUE ME) and Bob Fisher (WEDDING CRASHERS), SIRENS follows three of Chicago’s best EMTs whose sometimes silly, self-righteous and even self-destructive personalities make them unqualified for sustaining relationships, friendships and most occupations. They are, however, uniquely qualified for saving anyone who winds up in their ambulance. Johnny (Michael Mosley) is a good-looking, sports-loving, Chicago EMT working with his best friend Hank (Kevin Daniels). Brian (Kevin Bigley) is a wide-eyed and excitable new EMT who still lives with his parents. Jessica McNamee will play the female lead, Theresa, a smart female cop with the Chicago PD who still loves her ex Johnny, but ultimately had to move on when he wouldn’t commit.

Can Denis Leary do for paramedics (or EMTs) what he did for firemen in Rescue Me?  Well, he moved to a shorter format based primarily on jokes rather than drama, so he has much less room to work.  You can judge for yourself after viewing the trailer, but this is not your father's TV show Emergency (yes, a very old show before they had motorcycle cops in CHIPS, another old show).  The critics to date have plenty to say.

Mike Hale in the New York Times notes

The subjects of humor in the early episodes of “Sirens” include penis size, the ubiquity of online pornography, smelly homeless people, wisecracking black children and the way women in yoga pants look from behind. The story lines and characterizations seem to have been culled from online personality quizzes, bachelor party conversations and two-year-old issues of Cosmopolitan.

Robert Bianco in USA Today gave the show a mixed review, noting

The show's younger stars all are personable, if not yet exactly memorable, and all told, their show is an agreeable, mildly amusing time-passer. Which would be fine, if we weren't always aware that Leary can do better and cut deeper.

The new series is based on a 2011 British show of the same name, which was based on a book Blood, Sweat, & Tea by ambulance technician Brian Kellett.  It is worth checking out the trailer for this earlier series.  It has a different feel and stars Richard Madden before he became known around the world for Game of Thrones. 

Enough history?  Well, it might also be worth pointing out that the British Sirens was dropped after one season.  Will history repeat itself? Time will tell. 

More Than Justified

With the fifth season of FX's Justified winding down, I was reading up a little on Elmore Leonard, the creator of Raylan and many other memorable characters in his long career that ended with his passing last year.  Christopher Orr had a nice article in The Atlantic on the man and his work titled "The Elmore Leonard Paradox."  I have to admit that I had no idea that so many films came from Mr. Leonard's pen, from The Big Bounce to 3:10 to Yuma and Get Shorty. And it seems his pairing with Tarantino created an energy that worked well for everyone involved.

Mr. Orr writes:

By most appraisals, he had long since dethroned Raymond Chandler as the greatest of American crime writers. Many critics argued that, if anything, the reference to genre slighted his contributions. Martin Amis described him as “a literary genius,” and “the nearest America has to a national writer.”...Over the years, he honed his spare, dialogue-driven prose to a lethal leanness, and earned a reputation as the “Dickens of Detroit.”

In terms of Justified, Mr. Orr's article discusses the appearance of Raylan's white hat (Leonard wanted a smaller one) as well as the Kentucky setting of the story (Leonard's stories were more likely to take place in Miami and Detroit).  Learning this information helped me to better understand Raylan starting out in Miami in the series pilot episode, the Detroit mafia connection running through the seasons, and the first episode of season five that took place in both Miami and Detroit.  Unfortunately, Leonard was not able to enjoy season five (or at least from an Earthly perch). 

For more on the man and his creations,check out the Leonard's official website, where you can find a list of his novels, film adaptations, and more.  You can also check out his biography and read how Leonard was born in the south and finished his childhood in Detroit - two experiences that forever colored his work.  I will be busy for a long time catching up on the varied creations of this talented man.