Film and Television

Rehashes, Reworkings and Reimaginings

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Once again, there are quite a few British remakes, shows based on movies, and "reimagined" old TV series among the pilots greenlighted to film for the 2009-2010 season.

NBC, burned badly by THE BIONIC WOMAN and KNIGHT RIDER, seems to have sworn off re-imaginings this season, though they are shooting a pilot based on the movie PARENTHOOD, which already inspired a flop 1990 sitcom on the same network.

CBS seems to have lost interest in foreign remakes (after getting burned with ELEVENTH HOUR, WORST WEEK and THE EX-LIST) and reimaginings (though they haven't tried any yet), passing on proposed remakes of HAWAII FIVE-O, LOST IN SPACE, and STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO. That said, their sister netlet the CW is shooting a MELROSE PLACE remake to capitalize on their success with BEVERLY HILLS 90210.  

ABC is shooting pilots based on the movie THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, the 1983 NBC series V, and a stateside version of the BBC hit sitcom NO HEROICS. 
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Fox is shooting a U.S. version of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS and resurrecting THE HUMAN TARGET, a comicbook franchise that inspired a flop Rick Springfield series on ABC back in 1992. 

To see a complete list of the networks' various pilots, click on the individual network links above.

Watching Harry O

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I have been treating myself to episodes of HARRY O after a day of work. It's been an interesting experience. The first 13 episodes were shot entirely on location in San Diego and had a slow, laconic pace and a real style. David Janssen's Harry Orwell almost never did anything overtly physical…he had a bullet in his back, for God's sake, and he was hardly a buff guy. The plotting wasn't very rigorous, but individual scenes were often sharply written. But around episode 14, the show moved to L.A. and lost a lot, if not all, of its style. The main title theme/opening sequence was "toughened" and so was Harry, who although still world-weary, now gladly engaged in fisticuffs. Suddenly there were sexy and scantily-clad women everywhere and none of them could resist his non-existent charms (though he didn't seem very interested in bedding them). Much of the work that had been "on location" moved into the soundstage and looked it (one particularly cheap set was clearly, and superficially, redressed multiple times over two episodes). On the other hand, Anthony Zerbe came in as Lt. Trench, the best "friend on the force" in TV PI history (and a role that earned him an Emmy). The scenes between Harry and Trench, which would have been expositional hell in any other PI show (and in the first 13 of Harry O, with Henry Darrow as the cop, often were), crackled and became the best thing about the series. I am only three episodes into the LA-set episodes, though. There are still 24 more to see…including one where Henry Darrow's Lt. Manny Quinlan character came back to be killed off. (You can see the first scene of the second Harry O pilot and the first regular episode, "Gertrude," on YouTube)

I Do Not Understand the DVD Business

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The complete first season of CANTERBURY'S LAW, a show from last season that nobody on earth watched, is coming out on DVD this week. All six episodes. To which I say….WHY!? 

What possible reason could there be for putting this unmitigated flop out on DVD while there are so many, many shows that people did watch, that actually lasted more than a mere six episodes, that still haven't been put out on DVD? 

What is the market for this? Who do they expect to buy this thing? Are there legions of Canterberries out there, dressing up like Julianna Margulies at CanterberrieCons and clamoring for its release that I don't know about?

I do not get the TV-on-DVD business at all.

This Stone Finally Turned

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Jesse Stone is back…finally. CBS is airing THIN ICE, the fifth of Tom Selleck's Jesse Stone movies and the first one not adapted from a Robert B. Parker novel, on March 1. The big mystery, though, isn't the one that Stone solves in the movie — it's why it has taken so long for this one to show up on TV. It was shot in August 2007 and has been on the shelf ever since, even though the Jesse Stone movies are consistently strong performers for CBS (and the last one earned Selleck an Emmy nomination). And the network hasn't lost faith in the franchise…they've already ordered and shot NO REMORSE, the sixth movie in the series. So why was THIN ICE on ice for a year-and-a-half? 

I'm just glad it's finally airing. I love the Jesse Stone movies — far more, in fact, than the books that they have been based on. I hope this one is as good as the others. CBS could do a lot worse than making Jesse Stone a weekly series, assuming that Selleck is up for it.

UPDATE 3/2/2009: Just finished watching it. I think it might be the best of the Jesse Stone movies. 

UPDATE 2/27/2008: MaryMcNamara at the Los Angeles Times loved the movie, too.

With a cast that has won its weight in Emmys and Golden Globes, it's not surprising that

"Thin Ice" is filled with great performances; what is surprising is that so many of them are so marvelously small and subtle. This is a slow-moving film, especially in comparison with the often hyperkinetic pacing of today's television, but that's one of its greatest strengths.Like good police work, good storytelling requires time and a eye for detail; "Jesse Stone: Thin Ice" has both.

UPDATE: Alan Sepinwall at the New Jersey Star-Ledger gives the movie a rave.

It's a role that fits star Tom Selleck like a glove. "Thin Ice" is Selleck's fifth Stone movie, and the first not directly adapted from one of Parker's novels, even though several Stone books remain unfilmed. (The eighth book, "Night and Day," came out this week.) Given the richness and cinematic quality of the Stone books, I was nervous about the TV series moving away from the source material, but Selleck so thoroughly embodies Jesse's flinty yet wisecracking personality that "Thin Ice" feels like something Parker might have written, even though he didn't.

When Boobs Aren’t Enough

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I caught up on the premiere of DOLLHOUSE, which is MY OWN WORST ENEMY with boobs, a much more muddled concept, and much less compelling characters.  But even nice boobs aren't reason enough to tune in for another episode.  So I won't be watching again. 

UPDATE: I broke my resolve, mostly because of Kay Reindl's rave review, and watched episode #2. I liked it even less than episode one. The story-telling in the episode is a time-shifting mess (that felt like clips from the scrapped pilot) hung around one of the dustier TV cliches — yet another variation on "The Most Dangerous Game," and not a very interesting one at that. Kay found depths of emotion in the episode that I didn't see — or, should I say, feel — at all. It was about as cold and distant as a TV show can get, which isn't a good thing. By it's very nature, DOLLHOUSE is a show devoid of character because each week Ms. Boobs-in-a-tanktop gets imprinted with a new personality. So the only constant are the boobs-in-a-tanktop (to the point of of being unintentionally funny)…and the enormous suspension of disbelief required by the franchise itself, which is overly and unnecessarily complicated and not the least bit enthralling. LA FEMME NIKITA — the movie and the series — told the same basic story as DOLLHOUSE. So did MY OWN WORST ENEMY. At least with ENEMY there were two distinct characters to care about, both played by Christian Slater. And the concept was a much easier buy, and more cleanly dramatized, than the one in DOLLHOUSE. But ENEMY still bombed. I'm betting that this one will, too. You'd have to be a diehard, slavishly devoted Whedon fan to stick with this. I'm not. 

Lazy Days and Beloved Characters

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I finished writing my latest MONK novel the other day and I felt like lazing around. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and after writing a book I didn’t feel much like reading one. So I vegged out on television…some new, some old.

The “new” were the latest episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.
The BATTLESTAR episode was, astonishingly, one hour of pure exposition…mightily well-written, grandiose and flowery exposition, but exposition all the same….the dreaded “Irving the Explainer” taken to new, galactic heights by three Cylon-the-Explainers. Only a serialized series on it’s last episode or two that doesn’t give a damn anymore about drawing new viewers would dare film an episode like that and call it entertainment (though Marc Bernardin at Entertainment Weekly thought it was so “revelatory” that it “melted my Goddamn face off.”)
The TERMINATOR episode was merely dull and totally uninvolving, relying heavily on the over-used trick of having the hero (or in this case, heroine) talk to an imaginary character. Alan Ball should be shot for doing it so effectively on SIX FEET UNDER because now every TV series has to do it. Nobody seems to have noticed that it became a cliche three years ago and is now slipping into unintentional parody. At least the folks on GREY’S ANATOMY have raised the stakes by having the heroine fuck the character who isn’t there…oh, wait, I take it back, GALACTICA did that two seasons ago when it still had a sense of humor to go along with all of its dread and misery. The folks at TERMINATOR have forgotten what made the TERMINATOR movies so much fun…and have gotten mired in dreary angst…probably because angst is cheaper to shoot than Terminators destroying things. The John Connor character has become a morose, whiny, Excedrin headache come-to-life…but the two lady Terminators? They’re great.
The “old”  TV that I watched was a private eye marathon that I staged for myself with episodes of HARRY O starring David Janssen, THE OUTSIDER starring Darren McGavin and THE ROCKFORD FILES starring James Garner.HarryO
THE OUTSIDER and ROCKFORD were, essentially, the same show, about a down-and-out ex-con turned private eye in L.A. Roy Huggins created THE OUTSIDER and co-created ROCKFORD with Steve Cannell, who brought more humor to the concept.  I liked all three of them very much ..not so much for the plotting, which was often weak and predictable, but for the mood and the terrific anti-private eyes at the heart of those series (and the brilliant lead actors who played them). Nobody did world-weary heroes and lovable losers like McGavin, Janssen and Garner.  It’s hard to pick a favorite among these three great series, but if I had to, I guess it would be HARRY O.
Janssen is a pleasure to watch as beach-bum Harry Orwell, riding around San Diego on the bus, tie loose around his collar, a permanently pained expression on his tan, lined face. What a terrific character. Both Rockford and Ross were tougher than they looked, but not Harry. He wasn’t tough at all. Just bone-tired and lonely…and too caring for his own good. He couldn’t even run after a bad guy or a damsel in distress, not with that damn bullet permanently stuck in his aching back. What other private eye but Harry would turn down a willing Linda Evans by saying “I can’t make love unless I’m in love…just a little.” Ross and Rockford would have bedded her in a second…out of desperation and opportunity if nothing else. Not Harry.
Sure, the plotting in HARRY O was often lousy, but the show captured, better than any other before or since, the pure pleasure of reading a great PI novel. The show wasn’t as complex as a Ross MacDonald or even John D. MacDonald novel, but it aimed for that kind of emotional and psychological complexity…even when it pandered with a drooling psychokiller plot (starting with it’s pilot, “Smile Jenny, You’re Dead”).
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Watching HARRY O, ROCKFORD and THE OUTSIDER, I realized what those old shows had over those two, recent episodes of GALACTICA and TERMINATOR. Character. Keep in mind, GALACTICA and TERMINATOR are two of my favorite shows (well, they were). But, at the risk of sounding like an old coot blogging from his bungalow at the Motion Picture Home, I think that too often shows today confuse angst with character, dread with depth, misery with complexity. A character doesn’t have to be in endless spasms of self-loathing, denial, heart-break and agony to be someone worth watching or caring about. That’s cheap and easy “complexity” for a writer, it’s writing a character rather than creating one…and it’s a beating for the audience. Characters are more than the sum of their pain, anguish and loss…and their capacity for cruelty to themselves and others.  It’s not superficial or weak writing to explore more subtle conflicts…and to season them with humor, compassion, vulnerability, and some joy. There are people I love very much who are going through very hard times…and yet they haven’t lost their sense of humor or their ability to find joy in their lives, even in their darkest moments. If anything, it’s that capacity for humor and joy that is seeing them through it.
I love (or, I should say, loved) GALACTICA and TERMINATOR…but Captain Adama and Starbuck, Sarah Connor and John Connor….in the end, they aren’t memorable characters. They feel like writerly constructs. Pain masquerading as character. They don’t live and breath the way Lt. Columbo, Tony Soprano, Archie Bunker, Adrian Monk, Al Swearingen, Mr. Spock, Mary Richards, Matt Dillon, George Costanza, or even Dexter Morgan do, to name a few. Because despite all of the dark, angst-ridden conflicts that the writers have created for them, the characters on GALACTICA and TERMINATOR are incessantly one-note: Miserable. And too often than not, they leave the viewer feeling the same way.

Remakes A-Go-Go and Not-A-Go

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Variety reports that Fox has cast Kathryn Hahn as Edie (played by Jennifer Saunders in the original) and Kristen Johnston as Patsy (originally played by Joanna Lumley) in their latest attempt to remake  the hit UK sitcom ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. Hahn was the neighbor in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and Johnston is best known for her work on 3rd ROCK FROM THE SUN.

Meanwhile, director king David Nutter, who has a perfect record of getting his pilots picked up to series, has agreed to helm the third try at a WITCHES OF EASTWICK series. 

CBS greenlit a slew of pilots this week…but so far they haven't ordered the buzzed-about remakes of STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO or HAWAII FIVE-O.