Fall TV Season 2010 - Comedy

I'm rather embarrassed to mention the two new comedies that I enjoyed during premiere week. They are quite irreverent and not very PC. I'm honestly not sure if these shows will last anyways, but their first episodes made me set the DVR to record them for the next few weeks. The first show is Outsourced on NBC. It airs right after The Office which is a great lead in to this politically incorrect show about a manager who is sent to India to handle a novelties call center. Everyone has called for help or been called by their credit card company from a call center in India. We all know the accents and the frustration. This show demonstrates the other side of that phone call. It's a job, with little pay and little understanding of American culture. Like The Office, the characters all represent people we have known in our own jobs taken to extreme comedic proportions. Manmeet uses the call center to pick up women. He spends his time telling overweight, 55 year olds who smoke how gorgeous they are instead of selling them products they don't need. Gupta is the annoying coworker who talks non-stop about things no one wants to hear and doesn't take any hints when people don't want him around. I was immediately hooked. The other comedy I enjoyed was Raising Hope. It's a white trash show like Roseanne but with a heart, as the main character ends up with a baby and he has no idea what to do with her. He does realize that he needs a car seat for her and sets out to pawn his possessions using his only form of transportation that is safe for her, a shopping cart. That is the "family shopping cart," the one they use over their fire pit when they grill outside for dinner. Once again the characters are what carry this show. The mother and grandmother, played by Martha Plimpton and Chloris Leachman respectively are superb. Leachman actually wears only a bra for most of the episode which is both gross and hilarious at the same time. And former Goonie, Plimpton, as irascible as ever, was a delight to see on the screen once again. My only concern is whether the show can stay funny beyond the first few episodes. Only time will tell.


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Fall TV Season 2010 - Drama

The new TV season started this week and so far I liked the potential of The Event and Undercovers.  The Event has similarities to last years Flashforward in terms of plot (something/one trying to take over the world/government ) as well as its multiple characters/timelines to follow.  The main character, played by Jason Ritter (who looks more and more like his late father every year) was excellent in the role.  He drew me in immediately.  My only fear is that the show will fail to take cues from Lost and attempt to drag the story out instead of having set times for conclusions.  Viewers want things wrapped up, they don't want to be dragged on a wild goose chase for multiple episodes without some payoff.  Flashforward did not learn this lesson and was canceled, another great concept that went down in flames.  Undercovers, created by Alias director/producer JJ Abrams also caught my eye.  While JJ Abrams name alone made me watch the first episode, I will continue to watch because of the great casting of the main characters.  Two unknown actors fill the main roles of the husband and wife spying team of Steven and Samantha Bloom (Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and they are excellent, especially Boris (yummy).  Their boss is played by Gerald McRaney.  A TV staple for over 20 years, Gerald perfectly fits the role.  While the show is similar to the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I'm already attached to this cast more than I ever was to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  Hopefully the plots will continue to live up to the history of JJ Abrams other projects (Lost, Alias, Fringe) so that I will have a new favorite show to add to my collection.  Another show that premiered this week titled The Chase also had enjoyable moments and a great cast.  However, it doesn't appear like it will be a show where you have to watch every episode to keep up, so I may just watch occasionally.  One of the supporting actors is a favorite of mine from Prison Break (Amaury Nolasco played Sucre) and another Prison Break alum, Robert Knepper (T-Bag) will be guest starring in an upcoming episode.  Despite all of the hype and critical acclaim, I hated Lonestar another new drama that premiered this week.  I found it slow and boring in places.  The main actor didn't carry the role the way I felt a leading man should and the concept of a man keeping two women in the dark about his duplicitous nature just rubbed me the wrong way.  I hated the fact that he was stringing these two women along and yet I was supposed to accept and like this aspect of his character.

Inception, Best Film of 2010?

Last night, I saw what is so far the best movie of 2010, Inception.  Wow, what an amazing film.  I was blown away by its complexity and genius storytelling.  Christopher Nolan wrote an amazing screenplay which held the viewers attention through its amazing twists and turns.  The plot could have gotten out of hand and lost the intended audience, but by using certain visual cues to help viewers remember which dream plane they were on, everything ended up making sense in the end.  The acting was excellent.  Joseph Gordon-Levett was amazing.  Every time I see him I always flash back to his 3rd Rock from the Sun character, which I didn't like.  In this film, however, he showed his acting chops and wow, I was impressed.  The only part that bothered me was the ending, which was left ambiguous.  I am one of those people who like happy endings.  I want the fairy tale.  Everything can go wrong during the course of the film but by the end I want everything to turn out ok.   I therefore choose to believe that at the end of Inception, (Spoiler Warning) Leo's character returns to the real world and his kids.  He is not still in a dream.

Take me back to the 80's - The A-Team!

So I went to see the A-Team on opening day with my friend Shannon and I loved it. What a great adaptation of the TV show. It had enough elements from the original show (like classic lines "I love it when a plan comes together," the theme song, large areas of destruction, B.A's fear of flying etc...) to please die hard fans but it wasn't so trenched in tradition that new fans couldn't enjoy the experience. The acting was the best part of the experience. Bradley Cooper was excellent as Face. He continued the playboy tradition of the character set by Dirk Benedict and was well tanned and muscled to appeal to female viewers. Liam Neeson was a perfect Hannibal, with his gray hair and stogie. He was the man with the plan and always in control. Murdock was probably the most surprising and enjoyable performance of the film. Sharlto Copley of District 9 was superb. After his first scene in the mental hospital, I was completely convinced that he was Murdock, the slightly insane but lovable and trustworthy pilot of the A-Team. His was the hardest role to play, because if he came across as too crazy then he wouldn't be believable as an equal member of the team, let alone a helicopter pilot. The only character that took me a little while to warm up to was B.A. Baracus. It took about 30 minutes before I was able to forget the image of the original B.A., Mr. T, and accept this new model as the same character. By the end of the film I was rooting for him to return to his mohawk and kick some enemy butt. Overall, I think The A-Team was a great remake and a possible sequel material as this one really set the stage of the group as a team, fighting for the underdog. It wasn't as good as the Star Trek reboot of last summer but it comes in a close second. "I pity the fool..."

Fringe

So lately I have gotten into the TV show Fringe. After finishing my thesis, I started catching up on all of the shows I had missed while studying, writing and working for the past two years. I am a hugh JJ Abrams fan, so I was curious when Fringe first premiered 2 years ago. I even made time to watch the first episode, but I wasn't hooked. With Alias and Lost, all it took was one episode and I wanted to watch more. I couldn't wait for the next week to see what happened. With Fringe I could care less. At the end of the first season however, a lot of friends at work started talking about how great Fringe was. I was once again intrigued but because of school and my thesis I couldn't commit to another show. Then two months ago they had a special on Fringe Season 1 at Best Buy - $9.99 for the whole season. I couldn't pass it up for that price so I bought it and started watching. I had to really stick with it for the first 5 episodes (I had been told that the show really improved after the first few episodes), but then I was hooked. The X-Files overtones of the show make it more creepy that JJ's previous endeavors but a lot of his signature moves are there. The strong female lead, the good looking male lead/sidekick, action, interesting characters, mythology and intrique. While Walter, the genius/mentally unstable character steals the show, his son, Peter (played by Joshua Jackson - Mighty Ducks and Dawson's Creek Fame) is equally interesting and has now become the main reason I watch the show. I feel for these characters and I'm now invested in their outcome.