The Box in the Living Room: Round 2
Anyway, aside from the lame side plot, the pilot mostly just suffers from not being funny. Jason Lee seems a bit bored with the role, his accent comes and goes in a manner reminiscent of Kevin Costner. The only amusing part is when the squirrelly gay guy sprays mace in his own eyes then runs face first into a wall. And they showed that on the promos.
I want to say this show has potential. The premise is interesting enough that with some much tighter writing it could end up being a quirky little gem. Or, since this is network TV after all, it will probably end up a tedious little dingleberry. I’ll give it two more episodes to win me over, but another short leash is in order.
The Ghost Whisperer
A young woman is gifted with the ability to see and talk to earthbound spirits that haven’t passed into “the light” who come asking for her help. Also, people cry. A lot.
I’m not exactly sure what I expected with this show. I know I didn’t expect quite as much Touched by an Angel. I think I was hoping for more The Sixth Sense.
Silly me.
Jennifer Love Hewitt gives it a decent go as the wearily afflicted/gifted young woman (Melinda) who kind of wishes she didn’t have to deal with all these ghosts and their problems. In an interesting twist we get a young lead character who is actually happily married (or at least newly married as of the pilot) which gives the series a different direction than the old and haggard “will they or won’t they” cliche, a move I kind of appreciated. Aisha Tyler isn’t even thrown a bone to nibble on as the best friend and co-shop owner? Co-worker? Like I said, calling her character sketchy would be generous. Melinda’s husband Jim (David Conrad) is a paramedic/EMT who throws himself into his job to try and lighten Melinda’s load which sparks a lot more tearful conversations about life and death.
The pilot’s plot involves a Vietnam soldier who died in a helicopter crash and the search for his son, now soon to be a father as well. Let me be clear here, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the show, the performances or the execution of all of the above. The problem is with the relentless schmaltz and puddle-eyed sentiment gushing from every scene. The actors are certainly given plenty of chances to emote, and they do so admirably, but the bottom line is I just don’t care.
I was more hoping for some kind of explanation about how the mechanics of Melinda’s gift worked; some sort of internal consistency or set of rules about how it worked would have been nice. How did the compass get there? How much can the ghosts influence the real world? How does she know if what she’s seeing is a ghost or not? What is the point of the dreams if she can see them when she’s awake? Do their physical bodies have something to do with their spiritual experience? And most importantly, why the heck isn’t this show scary?
One more to meet my minimum requirements, and that’s all. Seriously.
Killer Instinct
A “deviant crime” detective comes back from a leave of absence after his partner (and maybe more?) is killed in the line of duty. He’s assigned a new (young, female, attractive, natch) partner and they start searching for a serial killer who uses venomous spiders to paralyze and kill his victims so he can rape them.
As a standard cop show in the CSI (x3), Law & Order (x3), Cold Case, Without a Trace era, Killer Instinct has very little to offer. Deviant crime? Huh? But somewhere in the middle of the pilot (which TV Guide claimed was “disturbing” or “ghastly” or something like that but apparently I’m the only one who’s been watching CSI for the last five years if they think spiders are grotesque… sheesh) I found myself intrigued. The new partner to Detective Hale (Johnny Messner) seems to be a little too interested in him as she (played with off-kilter charm by Marguerite Moreau) drags info out of his files and stalks him all over the place.
The spider storyline was kind of shrug-worthy, but the closing sequence with the anti-toxin was intriguing from a character establishment standpoint and impressed me enough to redeem even some of the slower moments in the show. I also confess a soft spot for the show being set in San Francisco (and shot with impressive visual style that mercifully does not bite off CSI for once) but it’s hard to tell if that’s because I know and like the biggest city closest to me or because I’m just sick of seeing New York City as the setting for every other show.
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