Fall Line-up October 2006

by Richard Koscher
Photos by Russell Byrne

September has finally arrived bringing with it the end of the summer TV doldrums. American TV seems to have no lack of mediocrity. The producers seem to have some sense of national inferiority because there appears an unspoken rule that all shows with a panel of judges must include one judge with a British accent.
We have some good news on the American TV scene to report, however, as we move into the fall season. I’ve reviewed some Fox shows that promise to bring adventure, drama, and laughs to our living rooms.

We have some good news on the American TV scene to report, however, as we move into the fall season. I’ve reviewed five of six Fox shows that promise to bring adventure, drama, and laughs to our TVs.

A House is in the Fox
I haven’t been a fan of the House sitcom. But apparently good things are going to happen in that show during this third season. The character of Dr. Gregory House is played by the very talented Hugh Laurie whose lengthy résumé includes the Hollywood remake Flight of the Phoenix. House displays the bedside manners of Ebenezer Scrooge on a down market day. He prefers to treat an infectious disease victim as a patient without acknowledging the need of also treating him as a human being.

Viewers of the series will remember that during the season two finale, House was shot by a former patient’s husband in retribution for what the man perceived as House’s mishandling of his wife’s case. Even fans will admit that House is not a person who is perfectly innocent of much, and to some extent he was reaping the seeds he had sowed by not being a nicer person. I was actually hoping on some level that he wouldn’t pull through but, in a shocking surprise to his co-workers (although no surprise to viewers, of course), House survived his ordeal and, in so doing, gained a new perspective on the proper treatment of patients. This guy is never going to be nice, however.

Much of the show»s attraction derives from the fact that beneath his crusty and cruel exterior House actually cares for his patients. His underlying concern does nothing to redeem his behavior, however. He is blunt, obnoxious, and possesses the social skills of a surly 15 year old. He has a teenager’s lack of humility and self-restraint. In the season premier House engages in inappropriate activities such as throwing grapes at the hospital janitor and riding a skateboard through the halls of the hospital. He insults coworkers by his bossy attitude.

House’s loutish attitude towards people is offset by his fearless championing of the truth, which at times slides down to emotionally abusive exercises of honesty. In the premier show of this third season, for example, House holds a cigarette lighter beneath a woman’s bare foot to prove that she is only pretending to be paralyzed.

The real reason why House is the number one drama on the Fox Network and ranked in top 10 of all primetime programs is that House’s churlish and antisocial behavior is offset by his brilliance. Like the detective, Sherlock Holmes, House can look at the details of a particular case and in a seemingly offhand manner draw conclusions that his less-brilliant associates completely missed. He can often diagnose a patient’s ills by simply looking at him and listening to what he says.

Who wouldn’t keep a person with that kind of skill around? Who wouldn’t keep a sitcom with the cheerful panache and gripping drama of House programmed into his/her Tivo?

Romancing the Standoff
Standoff is another new entrée in the Fox fall line up. The cast includes the talented Ron Livingston who plays Matt Flannery as a crisis negotiator. Livingston was one of my favorite characters in the earlier mini series Band of Brothers for which he earned a well-deserved Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. His talents also shown in the cult hit Office Space where in the lead role of Peter Gibbons he played office-malcontent opposite Jennifer Aniston. Office Space became one of the best selling DVD rentals of all time.

Livingston plays his Standoff role opposite a character named Emily Lehman played by Rosemarie DeWitt who might be recognizable for roles in shows such as Sex and the City, Law and Order: SUV, and the critically acclaimed series Rescue Me.

The premise behind Standoff is that two crisis negotiators are working as a team in trying to defuse some tense weekly hostage situation so that a SWAT team doesn’t have to come in for some extreme and often messy dénouement.

The series adds a typically Hollywood-type romance when it is revealed during the first standoff that Matt and Emily are engaged in a romantic entanglement with each other.

The pilot got the series off to a good start in some ways, but I thought the relationship between Matt and Emily did not work on screen because it was not fully developed. These two fine actors ought to have been able to get enough sizzle into their relationship to make me believe that they actually had something going on. It seemed more like a relationship between Mike Scoot and Dwight Schrute from the office rather than a torrid romance.

Too much suspension of disbelief was called for when these two professionals began to air their personal feelings for each other while deciding who is going to negotiate with the terrorists. The producers were obviously trying to play the scene for humor but the attempt was jarring and out of place. After all, Standoff should aspire to be like a segment of 24 rather than like an episode of Seinfeld. The pilot also failed in instilling even less sizzle in the action scenes than in the relationship between the two lead characters.

This show does have great potential and maybe this could be a great show in the future.

It is curious to observe how Fox seems to be touchy on the subject of Islamic terrorism. The Islamic wannabe terrorist was a big blond guy who, it turned out, actually had issues with his mom rather than with the State of Israel. I think broadcast companies are shying away from depicting terrorists who look like 99.9 percent of the world’s Muslim extremists actually look.

A Praiseworthy Prison Break
Prison Break is a series that started off great last season and seems to gather momentum with each episode. Right from the beginning the show grabbed me with its fresh new style and superb acting. I couldn’t believe last year how it would be possible to spend an entire season planning to break out of a prison without the episodes becoming repetitive and boring, but I found it engaging every week.

If you haven’t been following the show, Prison Break follows the trials of a man named Lincoln Burrows who has been unjustly condemned to death for murder. Only Lincoln’s brother, Michael Scofield, believes his protestation of innocence. Brother Michael is an engineer who designed the Fox River Penitentiary where Lincoln is being held, so he manages to get himself arrested and sent to the same prison so the two of them can break out.

The plot gets thick with political intrigues both outside the prison and within the prison society. The complexity of the various interlocking environments within which the series takes place provides great fodder for high drama to occur each week.

One of my favorite Prison Break characters has turned out to be the worst felon in the prison. Theodore Bagwell, otherwise known as T-Bag, as played by Robert Knepper, is a wonderful and very believable bad guy. Rarely has an actor been so good at being bad. John Abruzzi, best known for his role in Fargo, is also brilliant as Peter Stormare, another felon who is currently on the loose.

The season opener starts with a bang. If you saw it you know that Veronica Donavan, who was Peter’s lawyer, was shot and with her passing took the only outside resource Peter had.

Prison Break is a must-see show, it’s so captivating that I don’t even check my emails during the hour that it is on.

Vanished into Thin Air
This season’s first great premier, Vanished, was produced by Paul Redford who has The Unit and The West Wing in his credits. The show features an original and fresh storyline that makes viewers want to catch the action from week-to-week.

The show centers around a woman, Sara Collins, who has become a missing person. Her disappearance is complicated by the fact that she is the wife of a prominent Georgia senator. The hunt for Sara uncovers information that could threaten the American Way of Life.

Nothing in Vanished is at it seems. Nobody is above suspicion; everybody is trying to protect dark secrets. Each episode reveals new clues in the ongoing search as the search wends its twisting course towards its eventual and final disclosures.

The Vanished pilot seemed fast, fresh and innovative. However, already in the second episode I noticed that I was checking mails and taking phone calls. The show got off to a great start but somehow lost me in the second week. I hope subsequent episodes can regain the momentum that the pilot had built up.

Happy Hour Strikes a Happy Note
It appears that our wait for the next big comedy show on Fox has come to an end with the advent of a new entrée with the cheerful name Happy Hour. In the tradition of Dean Martin’s 4 p.m. martini happy hour tradition, I put “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” on the CD player at 4 p.m. while I observed Starbucks Hour, since I don’t do the martini thing. Then I put Happy Hour on and kicked back to watch the pilot.

For some reason the opening scene almost ruined the series for me. The pilot episode began with two of the weaker characters in the show, Heather (Brooke D’Orsay) and Henry (John Sloan). Once I got past that awful opening scene the show got better and better.

The Happy Hour premise is that Henry Beckman (played by John Sloan) has been talked into moving to Chicago by his girlfriend so that he can get a job working for her uncle. Henry’s life falls apart when his girlfriend dumps him in Chicago, he loses his job, and ends up sharing an apartment with Larry (played by Lex Medlin). It turns out that Larry has bizarre philosophies about life in general and about women in particular. Larry helps Henry find a new job in an office. One of the rules in his new place of employment is that the whole company breaks at four o’clock for Happy Hour.

Beth Lacke plays Amanda in a role that seems to be Deborah Messing meets Megan Mullally (of Will and Grace fame). Even though Beth looks like Audrey Tautou she really pulls the part off. Her facial expressions are great and I really buy into her humor.

Another character who made me laugh out loud was Larry who Medlin portrays as a vain, flashy, and yet loveable rogue, who agrees to allow Henry to stay with him and who, of course, introduces Larry to the 4 o’clock Martini Happy hour.

This amusing and witty show is one of Fox’s best shots for great comedy. If they keep up the pace then Happy Hour could become a big success for Fox!

’til Death
This is a show that I couldn’t wait to review. Who can forget the unforgettable performance by Brad Garett as the hapless brother in Everybody Loves Raymond. I was happy to see him back on the screen playing the lead in Fox’s second comedy attempt this Fall.

’Til Death is a comedy about middle-aged Eddie (Brad Garrett) & Joy Stark (Joely Fisher from Desperate Housewives). The couple has figured out that they have been married almost 9,000 days. Some of those days were pretty tumultuous. Their new next-door neighbors are young newlyweds Steph (Kat Foster from Law & Order) and Jeff Woodcock (Eddie Kaye Thomas, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”) have been married for less than two weeks and have yet to lose the passion and idealism that characterizes love when it is still young and fresh.

The show demonstrates the contrast between marriage during its honeymoon period and one that has survived more than two decades of disillusionment and battle. The point is made that a married couple should maintain their sense of romance or, if not, they should at least figure out how to remain together so that there is someone to drive you to the hospital for your operations.

The show has great moments. It addresses itself more naturally to a married audience than a show like Friends or Seinfeld. I kept an eye on my wife as we watched the first episode together. I wanted to see what she thought was funny. We both laughed when a reference was made to one of the character’s failure at trying to raise an herb garden. If my wife had been blessed with a green thumb, she would be growing these things.

The show is weakened, I think, by the fact that Brad Garrett carries the show by himself. Next to him Eddie Kaye seems green and inexperienced. I can’t understand how they made such a casting error. Happy Hours proves that you don’t have to have known actors and still have talent.

I’m not ready yet to give up the show for dead, but Eddie Kaye has to figure out how to step it up a notch to keep up with Brad.

Celebrity Duets
There has been only one unmitigated disaster on Fox so far this season. Celebrity Duets, which was put together by Simon Cowell, who produced the American Idol is not worth any comment beside, “Please Fox! Drop this fast!”

With the lineup on Fox this fall we could have a good season without ever changing the channel. I intend to enjoy this completely!