US TV

Review: Outsourced 1×1

Outsourced

In the US: Thursdays, 9.30/8.30c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

We’re going to have to tread lightly here. So…

Outsourcing is a phenomenon which sees businesses transfer some of the things they do to other countries, most famously call centres. Someone has to run those call centres, and sometimes it’s a local, sometimes it’s someone sent over from the home country. One of the biggest countries for providing outsourcing services is India.

There. I made it through an entire paragraph without being too controversial. Because Outsourced, NBC’s new comedy show is a great big hot potato that sees an American company fire its call centre and blackmail the centre’s manager into going over to India to run the outsourced call centre. There he meets a motley collection of misfits as well as another American call centre manager who’s been there a few years and a cute Australian call centre manager he’d like to get to know better (Pippa Black from Neighbours).

Still not too controversial?

Well, let’s just say there are a few cultural clashes and a few stereotypes in the mix as well.

Cue the trailer:

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US TV

Review: Better With You 1×1

Better With You

In the US: Wednesdays, 8.30/7.30c, ABC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

If you needed proof that a laughter track – or at least a “live studio audience” – will kill 99% of all known US comedies dead, here’s Better With You to come up and smack you in your face and tell you to “wake up and smell the coffee”.

It’s the kind of show that deals in the occasional cliché like that. But only occasionally.

Now, underneath everything, it’s actually quite funny – despite that occasional flirtation with cliché. Okay, it’s very suspiciously like Rules of Engagement (and the near-forgotten What I Like About You) but this story of two sisters, one in a happy relationship for nine years but unmarried, the other getting pregnant and engaged to a guy she’s been dating for seven weeks, does have some good lines, some good actors, touches on some interesting aspects of relationships and – vitally – makes you laugh.

The trouble is the studio audience crushing every ounce of comedy out of the situation. Here, a trailer and a clip so you can see what I mean.

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US TV

Review: The Whole Truth 1×1

The Whole Truth

In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm Eastern/9pm Central, ABC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

So with most legal dramas (eg The Defenders, LA Law, Shark, The Deep End et al), you have a very obvious set-up. You have the heroic/anti-heroic lawyers who have to defend/prosecute the obviously guilty/innocent defendant. By the end of the episode, said defendant is proven guilty/innocent thanks to our hero’s/heroes’ resourcefulness. Cue the next episode.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer likes to mix things up a little bit. For example, with 2006’s Justice, although our heroes were the intrepid defending attorneys, we never knew until the end whether the client was actually guilty or not – all we knew was that our lawyers were going to defend them to the best of their abilities, using whatever tricks they had up their sleeves.

The Whole Truth builds on this and takes it one stage further. Here we have both a heroic defending counsel and a determined prosecutor and we get to see both sides of the case built, with both lawyers using whatever tricks they can come up with to win. And at the end, we find out whether the defendant was actually guilty or innocent.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Certainly, with Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure, Numb3rs) as well as Maura Tierney (ER, Rescue Me) on board, you’d be thinking that we were onto something good. However, while you won’t feel the pain you might get from watching The Defenders, The Whole Truth is still quite an average legal drama that you can quite easily ignore without feeling you’re missing out on the cultural zeitgeist.

Here’s a trailer, followed by another, almost identical trailer – see if you can spot the difference.

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US TV

Review: Undercovers 1×1

Undercovers

In the US: Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

I really wanted to like this. It’s a spy show (cool). It’s about a husband and wife team (cool, Mr and Mrs Smith notwithstanding). It’s from JJ Abrams (cool). It’s supposed to be fun and action-packed (cool). It’s got two black leads, one of them secretly British (cool, even if she has been in Bonekickers), one of them currently in a film with Ali Larter (so very cool).

Undercovers should be awesome with a side-helping of absolutely awesome.

Yet I was very far from captivated by this first episode, in which two married CIA agents turned caterers are brought back out of retirement to continue one of their old investigations. Or was it because the wife used to date the guy who’s missing? Or was it because of gruff Gerard McRaney’s special side project?

You see: that’s how uncaptivated I was.

Damn. I was really hoping for a halfway decent new show this season.

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US TV

Review: The Defenders 1×1

The Defenders

In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: FX UK, some time in 2011

Allow me to cut to the quick: James Belushi and Jerry O’Connell star in The Defenders.

Still here? Ah, you don’t watch much TV do you? If you did, you’d realise that having either names, let alone both, in the cast list of a TV show is enough to guarantee extreme dreadfulness and/or cancellation (cf According to Jim, Carpoolers, Rex is Not Your Lawyer, Do Not Disturb).

Now, while The Defenders doesn’t sink to the same levels as Do Not Disturb, this legal dramedy about two Las Vegas lawyers – originally intended to be part of a reality show about Las Vegas, until the producers realised the two lawyers they were working with had some very interesting stories – has very little going for it.

Here’s a trailer so you can see what I mean.

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