The Extratextuals

NBC sure loves superpowers: first Heroes last year, now the time-traveling Journeyman (though don’t expect much similarity between Kevin McKidd and Hiro), the new Bionic Woman, the supposed super-cop in Life, and super agent Chuck. Maybe Dwight from The Office is next in line for powers? Below the fold, I continue with my fall pilot reviews.Bionic Woman

How it was probably pitched: Remake, anyone?

This show and I already had a history by the time I came to watch it. The concept intrigued me; yes, it’s been done before, but in a post-Buffy, post-Alias television, it has new prospects. The teasers underwhelmed me. Then I heard Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica was in it, and I got interested. Then I heard bad buzz. Then good buzz. I can’t say I expected great things, but neither did I expect crap. By the end, I wasn’t impressed. To begin, the show has a snail-like pace, which is bad news for a would-be action series. The acting, the script, the filming, and most things about it are just okay, or worse. The use of music for pathos is overdone and too obvious, and though it aims for a visual style with most scenes filmed in grey, rainy Vancouver tones, X-Files it is not. Worst of all, nothing she does is presented as cool – superheroes can be reluctant, but they should be aware that they’re cool, and have cool powers. This one mopes around, and even when learning, for instance, that she can run faster than a car, or jump across building tops, she seems about as enthusiastic as if she found out that her superpower was the ability to harvest basil with her mind. Even Starbuck seems out of place, not wholly comfortable with her evil Bionic Woman character. I’m happy to see so many Brits making it into American television (the Bionic Woman is East Enders‘ Michelle Ryan, Pushing Daisies stars Anna Friel, Journeyman stars Kevin McKidd, and Cane includes Polly Walker), but nothing about this show jumped out at me, despite supposedly sporting four bionic legs.

Chuck

How it was probably pitched: Freaks and Geeks meets Mission: Impossible

I really expected very little for this, which tells me that the ads are doing a bad job. Many posters just show Chuck’s face with a white background – hardly very exciting. But Chuck really impressed me, and I wrote less notes than for any other show, since I was watching. There’s a fun generic mix here: part comedy, part spy procedural. Chuck works at Buy More’s “Nerd Herd,” a nice play on Best Buy’s Geek Squad, fixing computers and cell phones. Until several hours worth of fast-edited subliminally-encoded state secrets are uploaded into his brain by a doomed friend from college; with the new information, he is able to help CIA and NSA fight the bad guys. It’s silly, but playfully relishes its silliness in a way that is ultimately smart and often very funny. Chuck is played with skill by Zachary Levi, and has a sharp script. When his sister lectures him on needing a plan for the future, for instance, Chuck explains sarcastically that he has a five year plan, but needs to choose a font. It’s nice to see “geeks” written lovingly, Apatow-esque, not Big Bang Theory-esque (the latter of which, I’ll deride in due course). Like K-Ville, the pilot totally underbaked the procedural, and so like K-Ville, I’m interested to see whether this was an exception for the pilot, or whether the writers are banking on the set-up and the chemistry to make it work. That chemistry, between Chuck and best friend, and Chuck and CIA agent, is good, but most successful procedurals have good cases, even when they have a bad cast, so it might prove risky to gamble on the opposite. That said, Chuck amused me more than most of its colleagues, and I’ll be keen to watch how it develops.

Journeyman

How it was probably pitched: The Littlest Hobo meets The Time-Traveler’s Wife

Okay, so he’s not a German Shepherd, as was Canadian TV’s The Littlest Hobo (non-Canadians: imagine a roaming Lassie), but our hero’s task, as he learns throughout the episode, is to go through time and ensure that the cosmic order works the way it would like to. Kind of Quantum Leapy, in that he often doesn’t know what he’s meant to do, and must simply follow instinct. Yet no entering of other people’s bodies occurs; indeed, this pilot episode keeps him in a San Francisco in which his earlier self is living out his life, so if you’re a Kevin McKidd fan (from Rome), you get two of him. But this isn’t The Parent Trap, thank God (as much as I’m sure Lindsay Lohan wishes she could go back in time, I’m sure). It’s gimmicky in premise, but smartly done, with nice dramatic elements, and a fine performance by McKidd (though his American accent needs a little work). The neat twist is that his former girlfriend, who he believes to have died in a plane crash, turns out to be a Journey(wo)man too. By the end of the pilot, he has no knowledge of why he is a Journeyman, who chose him, who directs his jumps, and so forth, so though a mystery-a-week program, the pilot builds in prospects for serial development and revelation. If it goes that way, I’ll be interested. As it is, it’s nothing super special, but still good television. San Francisco’s such a photogenic city that I’m amazed more shows don’t film there, and the production values are of typical high NBC quality, meaning they capture not just images but moods. McKidd’s character’s confusion is effectively evoked, and in general the show was more demanding of its viewer’s attention than I might’ve expected. Smart stuff.

Life

How it was probably pitched: Imagine a zen-y House, except he’s a cop

Our main character in Life recently spent 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s finally been exonerated, and has gone back to being a cop. Though the show is careful to depict everyone else in prison as Nasty And Evil, somehow prison made him more caring, and somewhere inside he picked up some zen. So he’s now a quirky cop, obviously intended to be House-esque, in that his methods are odd, those around him don’t understand him, and yet he’s meant to be a genius. Except instead of lambasting humanity in good old Dr. House style, he’s all sensitive and philosophical. The show is littered with distracting, poorly-done documentary-style cutaways in which we hear family, friends, and colleagues discuss his conviction, all of which prove lazy ways of offering narrative information. Damian Lewis as Charlie Crews is interesting, even if I don’t buy the remarkable change. And the endless “guy who’s been in prison for 12 years” jokes grow tiresome, especially when we’re asked to believe that he doesn’t know any recent technology (what, no TV privileges? That’s not prison, that’s Hell!). It’s filmed quite well, though, with a sort of “white” feel to the cinematography that matches the zen philosophy, even if the script can’t keep pace. The procedural element of the show is stronger than K-Ville or Chuck, though his magical ability to solve things that no mortal cop can is unbelievable. I wasn’t bored, but wasn’t excited either, so file this one away alongside the other Law and Orders as “meh TV” for me.

previews Bionic Woman, Chuck, fall previews, Journeyman, Life, NBC, pilots