TV is the New Reading

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in week of premieres

First off, I have many good things to say about NBC’s new hospital drama “Mercy,” which was a bit overwritten but, as I’d hoped, it found a balance between deeply flawed and impossibly good. Taylor Schilling as Nurse Veronica has difficult patients, out-of-control egos to negotiate among the administrators and doctors, and while she does dispute course of treatment with them at least she has some trauma background from a tour of service in Iraq.

That service landed her in bed with Dr. Chris Sands who followed her back to the states and right into a storage closet, despite the fact that she’s still trying to figure things out with her estranged husband, Mike, a contractor. Veronica’s life is complicated by living with her alcoholic parents who want to see her reunited with Mike, and her friends who just want her to be happy. And as Veronica’s brother pointed out, Mike may have cheated on her while she was overseas, but at least he hadn’t fallen in love, and that’s what Veronica’s got to work through with Chris.

In this new, very character-driven show we see a woman who is drawn to do the right thing, if only she could figure out what that is, and what that right thing is for whom -- herself, her family, her job. She gets some encouragement from one of her charges, a patient who earlier was tormenting the nurses, thanking her for her encouragement in the final stages of her cancer treatment and for talking with her and reminding her that she, Veronica, is an outstanding nurse.

Also enjoyable is the working-class environment. It can get really irritating in other shows but in this case it really fleshes out who Veronica is. Final shoutouts to Jane Mulgrew as Veronica’s exasperating mom with the big big big hair, and Michelle Trachtenberg as Chloe, the littlest nurse in her Hello Kitty smock. Good to see her expressive little face again.

Sticking with hospital dramas for the moment I’d avoided the two-hour season six premiere of “Grey’s Anatomy” because I was worried it was going to be two hours of unbearable schmaltz and nothing I hadn’t seen. In fact, it was an emotional thrillride that managed to say a very respectful goodbye to T.R. Knight’s character George O’Malley, and described a number of new tragectories these otherwise familiar characters might be taking this season.

The theme for the two-hour premiere was communicating through grief, and the different forms it takes. Dr. Bailey turned deeply inward, Christina got dark and inappropriate, Dr. Hunt continued working through his post-traumatic stress response, Callie quit her job, Lexie moved in with McSteamy, Derek and Meredith just started having everywhere sex and while Izzie couldn’t figure out why new husband Alex was irritated by her extended grief over George, Alex was still trying to work through his own grief at having briefly lost Izzie and a do-not-resuscitate order that wouldn’t let him try to save her life.

Structurally, the chief was growing more and more erratic as his position was in jeopardy and as it turns out, Seattle Grace will be merging services with Mercy West. He was distracted, got his leg schmucked up in a car accident -- not too seriously given the driver’s side impact -- and he found himself on the other end of the sort of “budget cuts” that made him deny a life-saving MRI for a teen whose very growth was stretching his spinal cord and causing him constant pain. Sheppard overruled him, diagnosed the problem and helped the patient.

It was a wild and crazy ride and suggests good things for the coming season.

The Good Wife

Now for a couple of disappointments, starting with “The Good Wife” on CBS. I’ve got to say, whatever the premise, post-“ER” Julianna Marguelis seems to have some obsession with elbowing her way onto the television and practicing law. She’s supposed to be the wife of a disgraced prosecutor, the title role, that “good wife” who stands by her philandering high profile husband. He’s been jailed and she’s trying to get back to work as a lawyer, joining a law firm and taking a pro bono case for a chance to become a junior associate.

Her case involves a retrial of a carjacking gone wrong. A quick review of the evidence and she’s discovered not only will the original strategy fail -- the case only had a hung jury because one of the jurors was a complete loon -- but never mind because AHA! Something has been hidden from the defense team -- a piece of evidence that turned suspicion onto another person. It’s just magical that she caught the evidence she caught -- no less magical that it still existed (seriously? Any company would be logging security footage for more than six months -- and that’s after prep from a murder trial which usually doesn’t have that quick a turnaround so the event could’ve been more than a year ago, but the company’s still archiving security footage of a parking lot), and also, despite her having to scramble her way up to speed, she has time to examine tapes from the day before and the day after? And based on her more detail-oriented eye -- and a tip from her jailed husband (how many times are things going to hinge on that, I have to wonder) -- the defendant is acquitted and they write up a warrant for the defendant’s brother.

So really, what’s happened here isn’t the good wife at all, but the improbably talented lawyer, and I for one am not looking for a new legal drama right now.

“Brothers” is a strange lead-in for “Dollhouse” on FOX, but retaining the focus on women, I want to celebrate the appearance once again of CCH Pounder, who, following her Emmy-nominated work as Claudia Wyms throughout the run of “The Shield” on FX, brings admirable gravitas to her mysterious operative character in SyFy’s “Warehouse 13” and is WAY too much actress for her role as the mom in this new FOX comedy “Brothers,” focused on a pair of brothers.

Chill, played by Daryll Mitchell, is in a wheelchair because his NFL superstar brother Mike, played by Michael Strahan, didn’t pick him up from a party one night, and he got a ride with a drunk driver and BAM! Mike has squandered all his NFL riches but he’s still a football hero and celebrated on every flat surface in Chill’s restaurant. Their father, a high school football coach they call “Coach,” played by Carl Weathers, is looping through the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and CCH Pounder is pretty much running the show.

Comedians occasionally make excellent dramatic actors and the reverse is occasionally true, but I really don’t see her as Moms Trainor for however long this series continues. I mean, this is maybe the first sitcom focused on a black family I’ve seen on network television since “Martin” went off the air, and it seems actually a little too conventional. I wish it well, but I don’t see tuning in myself and as for Ms. Pounder, I’ll look for her somewhat more compelling cameos on Syfy.

Eastwick

In other disappointments, the pilot episode of ABC’s “Eastwick” premiered and it’s just OK. I mean, I loved the Jack Nicholson movie with Cher and Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, but this made-for-tv remake, even with Rebecca Romijn and Jamie Ray Newman and Lindsay Price as, essentially, Susan from “Desperate Housewives” just do not seem to carry it off.

Not unusually, I’m enjoying the Devil character in “Eastwick,” Paul Gross as Darryl Van Horne. I enjoyed Nicholson’s version quite a lot, I enjoyed Ray Wise in “Reaper,” and I think this Paul Gross person has the right voice for it in this production. Playing the Devil allows actors to just chew the scenery with smarm and confidence. He’s completely confident in his own diabolical nature which allows him to get away with the most outrageous behavior which at the same time is quite seductive. The Prince of Darkness tends to be a pretty compelling gig and Paul Gross is playing it out to the walls.

As for the storyline, a wish for more control over their lives brings a trio of small town women together and find the confidence to improve their lives welling up from inside of them. Ultimately, this power will be rooted in darkness and a meddling demon sex god. Me, I’d suggest women who harness this power to improve their lives are not necessarily trafficking with Satan, but as with everything, your mileage may vary.

FlashForward

To me, ABCs “FlashForward” was everything everyone has been buzzing about for months, now, and more. It’s got an excellent “LOST” vibe with some worldwide weirdness no one’s got any kind of a handle on. It’s got stories in the wake of the current disaster with the entire world all blacking out for two minutes and 17 seconds, which is plenty enough time for some pretty awful stuff to happen. Then there’s the visions everyone is having from several months in the future, and how different some of their lives seem – for those who even have a vision of life at that time. There’s security footage of a Walker, a mysterious masked figure in a long dark coat who seems to be surveying the crowd while everyone else is passed out.

And there’s the L.A. investigator who was pursuing a suspect across a bridge when he blacked out and saw the future status of his own investigation of the blackout. His vehicle fell from the bridge as he and his partner emerged from it amidst worldwide chaos.

It’s a great story with some reasonably acceptably sketched in characters already for a pilot, especially one which laid the groundwork for an absolutely compelling sci fi mystery thriller, so let’s hope the ratings and the writing quality holds so ABC keeps it around until it can let us know what the heck just happened here?!

The Beautiful Life

I promised I’d give a reaction to “The Beautiful Life,” the CW’s drama about models all sharing a house in New York and their crazy lives. There wasn’t a whole lot of “there” there. I got the sense that this show would be really exciting for very young teenagers, where one day you’re on a boring conservative vacation with your boring conservative family and then suddenly you’re discovered looking ever so beautiful and in a flash you’re life is awash with glamor, mandatory parties, beautiful clothes and you’re showered with more cash than you would ever know what to do with simply for looking beautiful, if not actually a little sick.

In many ways, that’s the American dream, but in that it works for probably 0.001 percent of the population, it’s not a rational goal. But then very young teens aren’t the most rational of audiences so it probably speaks to them much better than it spoke to me, especially since you could probably make about five of those glamorous little stick figures out of me and have enough left over for a chichi little lap dog.

Perhaps most interesting -- even more than supermodel Elle Macpherson as a magazine editor -- is the appearance of Jaime Murray as Vivienne, some sort of procurer. Murray played grifter Stacie Monroe in the AMC series “Hustle.” This role is not nearly that interesting. But Murray is. She might be the most interesting aspect of this production. Otherwise, the show is just another show on the CW with pretty teenagers having teen dramas.

Dollhouse

Friday was a full night of premieres itself and I’ll have more to say about “Medium”s excellent return and its move to CBS later, but I have to mention the second season of “Dollhouse,” a FOX production where Eliza Dushku and several others are programmed with a concoction of made-to-order memories in an underground supersecret collaborative called The Dollhouse. They are hired by people for a variety of tasks and then back to the Dollhouse where their memories are wiped. There’s a lot of complicated backstory with the staff at the Dollhouse as well and that makes for some great storytelling.

The show allows the actors to show off a range of emotions and physicality, and provides a unique way to tell a different story every week. Sadly, they go to the “glitch in the programming” well a little bit too often, but otherwise it’s a generally satisfying spot of sci fi to close out the week.

The Forgotten

“Criminal Minds” is back on CBS but that particular profiler potboiler is pretty well established, so you’re either watching it already or you’re not. I love it, but that’s because I love profiler shows. Not all of them, it seems. I took in Jerry Bruckheimer’s “The Forgotten” on ABC starring Christian Slater as Alex, an ex-cop whose daughter was kidnapped and now he spends all his time hunting down unidentified bodies with a small team of volunteers.

The volunteers get the police file with exactly enough information to get them started and then they donate hundreds of dollars in latex alginate creating a sculpture of the person, printing off full-color “Have you seen me?” posters, driving all over the place, taking on emotionally damaging situations where they inform the family they’ve found the body, and they hit any number of dead ends. Honestly, when the one team member said it got her out of her mind-numbing day job I had to wonder if she wouldn’t rather join law enforcement or start a community swing choir (oh and by the way, “Glee” rocked this week). These volunteers tend to be specifically motivated by loss in their own lives, but they each seem to be broken in their own special way.

As I suggested, “The Forgotten” could be wonderful or it could be awful. As it was, it really depends on what you’re looking for in a show. I asked myself halfway through the pilot episode why this show wasn’t on CBS, and then I realized that CBS already had “Cold Case” and didn’t need this one as well. I’m not adding it to my weekly rotation, but I can see where people might.

Coming up

Looking ahead to another full week of premieres using the Zap-2-It TV listings generated at MinotDailyNews.com, highlights this week welcome the premieres of “Desperate Housewives” and “Brothers and Sisters” ABC Sunday beginning at 9/8c. Also, FOX premieres a full night of fresh animated comedy including “The Simpsons,” “The Cleveland Show,” “Family Guy” and “American Dad,” all starting at 8/7c.

Monday night welcomes the NBC series premiere “Trauma” beginning at 9/8c and raising the question as to just how many things can reasonably be expected to blow up each week in any one American city before we qualify as Iraq, and FOX premieres the second season of “Lie to Me,” featuring Tim Roth, which is all I can really say about that.

Tuesday features back to back NCIS’s on CBS, not something I watch but I should have more about that soon, and Wednesday features new Kelsey Grammer sitcom “Hank” and something called “The Middle,” which looks exactly like “Malcolm in the Middle,” and another week of “Modern Family” and “Cougar Town,” rounding out what is billed as ABC comedy Wednesday. “Private Practice” is starting up again Thursday at 10/9c on ABC featuring Kate Walsh and that’s really all I have to say about that.

“Til Death” is back for some reason Friday at 8:30/7:30c on FOX, but much more interesting is the two-hour series premiere of “Stargate: Universe,” just the latest extension of the “Stargate” franchise which has been airing on Syfy for more than 10 years. SGU sounds like a “Star Trek: Voyager” version of the franchise, stranding an international team aboard a distant starship with no means of returning to Earth, but the premise will probably get nailed down pretty well in the two-hour premiere, so more on that after it airs.

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