Articles by Rob Buckley

In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC
In the UK: Channel 4, probably sometime in January if their acquisitions budget holds up

As we’ve found out already, the US writers’ strike has proved to be a boon creatively (if not ratingsly) for a host of shows. Heroes has come back refreshed, albeit daft as a brush as always; My Name is Earl is back on track, but still not desperately funny; and The Unit is vibrant and exciting again.

Other shows haven’t quite fared as well. Chuck‘s a little better, but is pretty much the same old, same old; while Life‘s intricate storyline is proving hard to get back into without sufficient incentive for the viewer.

Dirty Sexy Money is having similar issues. Last season, it was confused. It thought it was intelligent television and so needed to have a message – something like rich people aren’t to be envied since they’re messed up. But it never really could work out what its message was and got its head all confused, poor thing. The result was an extremely convoluted storyline of extreme silliness, involving bed-hopping, Catholic priests with illegitimate sons living in Brazil, politicians with transgender mistresses and murder.

Over the break, though, the writers have sat down, meditated, and decided they know what’s wrong. Screw intelligent TV, screw messages: let’s just have fun. And even more convoluted silly storylines.

Continue reading “Review: Dirty Sexy Money 2×1”

In the US: Mondays, 8/7c, NBC
In the UK: Probably Virgin One again

Chuck was a show that had a lot of initial promise that it never quite managed to live up to. Chuck (Zachery Levi), a tech support guy for a consumer goods superstore, accidentally gets all the CIA’s and NSA’s intelligence data dumped into his brain and so gets thrown into the deep end of spy work. Assigned to protect him are the NSA’s John Casey (DanielAdam Baldwin), a Reagan-loving, gun-worshipping hard man; and the CIA’s Sarah Walker (Yvonne Stahovski), an aggressive-passive high-kicker whom Chuck would quite like to date (and vice versa) and not just for their cover story, if only it weren’t for the rules of the job.

Anyway, despite the fun premise of spies working undercover down at the local shops among all the IT slackers and fast food flippers, the show never really grabbed me. It was always close to being very good, but never quite made it. There wasn’t a whole lot of chemistry between Levi and Stahovski, both of whose characters are quite dull, despite all plot indications to the contrary, and I gave up after three episodes – only for my wife to start loving it on Virgin 1 and so I ended up watching the rest anyway.

So with a good few months to think about the show and how to fix it, have the producers managed to tinker enough with the format to make it more appealing?

Continue reading “Review: Chuck 2×1”

In the US: Mondays and Fridays, 10/9c, NBC. Moving to just Fridays from the 3rd.
In the UK: Still not yet acquired, unless Hallmark hasn’t told me something

There are so many cop shows out there that each needs its own gimmick to differentiate itself from the other. The traditional way of doing this is with the lead cop – Columbo, the down-at-heel, working class detective; Ironside, the detective in a wheelchair; Raines, the detective who imagines he can see dead people; and so on.

Life is no different, although it’s always had a confusing focus. On the one hand, Damian Lewis’s Charlie Crews could be ‘the Buddhist detective’, following some intensive reading of Zen books on enlightenment.

“Have you ever shot anyone?” a kid asks him on the subway when he sees Crews’ gun.

“Why would I do that? Violence against another is violence against everyone. Violence against everyone is violence against the self,” replies Crews.

But Crews was framed for a murder he didn’t commit and spent over a decade in jail. He’s picked up some odd skills and tendencies inside; he’s missed out on the Internet and other modern inventions; he’s also a multi-millionaire and a cop again after the lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment was settled. And now he’s out, he wants to find out who framed him then punish them.

“Yes, I have. And they all had it coming,” Crews further explains to the kid.

The ‘Buddhist, ex-con, multi-millionaire, out-of-time detective”? That’s not easy to get a handle on.

With that schizoid attitude, Life has always had a tricky time working out what to do with its life. Should it focus on the cases that Crews solves with his Buddhist insights? Should it focus on Crews or build up the supporting cast of not quite so interesting regular-type people? Should it stick with the general story arc of who framed Crews?

Lots of questions – has it worked out its happy place in the second season, and what is the sound of one hand pressing the buttons on a Nielsen box?

Continue reading “Review: Life 2×1”