Year: 2015

In the US: Saturdays, 9pm EST, Starz
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Whatever else can be said about Starz’s Ash Vs Evil Dead, there’ll always be the fact that every week, it gives us Bruce Campbell, doing what he does best – fighting the Evil Dead. But the show has more than that. It has comedy. It has horror.

The precise ratio of comedy to horror varies with every episode. Most of the time, Ash Vs Evil Dead is quite funny but filled with a lot of gore, typically involving Bruce Campbell using his chainsaw-for-a-hand to chop off a head, disembowel something, etc. Watching Campbell do this, as his idiotic Ash character does something even more idiotic each week, is a joy to behold.

What it wasn’t until this week, though, was scary. Gory, yes. Scary no. But all credit to the show, as episode three gave us a demon rather than a zombie/Deadite, and was actually very creepy. It was less funny, but as I said, the ratio tends to vary.

What the show hasn’t yet worked out is how to make us give a toss about Campbell’s young helpers. Or the FBI agent chasing after them. And while it does have the obvious asset of Lucy Lawless in the cast, she only gets to show up for about a minute each episode – something that results from the fact each episode is only half an hour long, so there’s not much room for development or anything that properly services the main plot.

So Ash Vs Evil Dead‘s biggest asset is also its biggest problem: Bruce Campbell. It’s his show and there’s not much else that’s interesting about it. It’s fine as comedy-horror goes, and far more enjoyable compared to any other horror show on TV right now, but that comedy-horror only really works when Bruce is around.

I’ll certainly carry on watching it, because Bruce is Gold. But I can’t help but feel the show is coasting a little, getting by on Bruce when it could be doing a lot more. Maybe we’ll get that in time, once Lucy Lawless shows up in earnest to show the kids how it’s done. Then it might be dead good. See what I did there?

Barrometer rating: 2
TMINE’s prediction: Not as great as it could and should have been, but still top comedy-horror, and Starz has already renewed it for a second season.

In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, TNT

I’m starting to wonder this season if there’s any point in anyone reviewing just the first episodes of new TV shows. It was always a slightly questionable area, given how series can get better or worse over time. That’s why the blog gave birth to first the Carusometer and then the Barrometer to measure TV quality over time. But now shows are simply deciding to become different shows from the second episodes. Review just the first episode? You’re almost reviewing a different show now.

Agent X is a case in point. It’s not a show that’s actually got much better over its first three episodes, but it has become different. The first episode – first two in fact – was clearly an attempt to do an American James Bond, albeit with more than a hint of National Treasure, with Sharon Stone becoming vice president of the United States, only to discover there’s a secret article of the Constitution that gives her responsibility over a secret agent, who covertly sorts out US enemies, foreign and domestic. Unfortunately, said ‘Agent X’ is played by the most average US TV actor imaginable, Jeff Hephner, and the infinitely more interesting Stone gets to do little but turn up to parties and make phone calls. Meanwhile, her helper monkey Gerald McRaney tries to do Simon & Simon again, but without another Simon to help him, making it a lot less funny than it was in the 80s.

James Bond was an odd choice for inspiration, particularly given the show was created and is exec produced by William Blake Herron, who co-wrote The Bourne Identity. Indeed, both Herron and TNT seem to have thought so, too, because episode three switched from Bond to Bourne, right down to the music and the occasional shakey-cam. It also decided to add a whole new sub-plot about a secret conspiracy against the government from within, one involving Stone’s deceased husband. 

The change is probably a good idea. Unfortunately, Herron and co are the wrong people to implement it. While Hephner is better suited to the ‘average Joe’ concept of a Bourne – who in the books, at least, had surgery to make him look more average – he’s still an utterly uninspiring and implausible action lead, up there with Chris Vance’s TV Transporter in the scheme of things, but not even that charismatic or handy in a fight scene. Not that the stunt scenes are any good, being bereft of good direction or innovation. They try to be clever, but ‘man hiding behind a series of doors and then opening them’ isn’t as clever or interesting as the show thinks it is.

Stone’s still relegated to doing nothing much; McRaney just gets to growl and mentor Hephner into being duller; and it’s all still deep bobbins of the highest order. I might hang around for another episode or two to watch Stone and see if the conspiracy arc goes anywhere interesting. But to be honest, it’s going to be a bit of a chore.

Barrometer rating: 4
TMINE prediction: Cancelled by the end of the season or subjected to a major Legends-style reboot for season two