It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week, assuming Disqus’s anti-Linux bias doesn’t stop you in your tracks
Marvellous. After having becoming a bit shallow over the past few weeks, TMINE’s viewing queue has begun to fill up again. And that’s before The CW unleashes all its new shows this week, ABC (Australia) unveils spy show Pine Gap on Sunday, and Netflix jumps up, shouts “Boo!” and releases both season 3 of Marvel’s Daredevil and its remake of The Haunting of Hill House on Friday.
Crikey. I’ve not even started season 3 of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle yet and that’s been out since Friday.
This past week, however, I have passed third-episode verdicts on Magnum P.I. (US: CBS), Manifest(US: NBC) and Mr InBetween (Australia: Showcase), and I’ve watched a good few other shows, too, about which we can talk after the jump. This week, of course, saw the return of Doctor Who with a new showrunner and a new Doctor. But Black Lightning and SEAL Team also returned, so we can discuss them, too. I made a bit more headway with Maniac, as well, and I’ve kept my eyes glued to a big bunch of the new US shows, too: A Million Little Things, God Friended Me, HappyTogether and The Neighborhood. Plus, of course, there are the stalwart regulars: The Last Ship and You.
Will and Grace is back, too, but what with My Kitchen Rules (South Africa), Masterchef Australia and The Great British Bake-Off, we’ve not had a chance to watch it in The Big Room. Maybe next week.
In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, CBS
In the UK: Not yet acquired
Long-time readers of TMINE will know that I’m not a fan of procedurals. No matter how good they are, their episodic nature and the fact that they’re basically all the same as each other and from episode to episode means I just can’t be bothered to watch them.
Oddly, though, I think Magnum P.I. is a keeper. Maybe it’s because the private investigator procedural hasn’t really been done since the 80s – or at least done well, Terriers and Private Eyes – that Magnum seems like a breath of fresh air in comparison to the relentless cops/FBI/medical formats we’ve been deluged with for more than a decade.
Indeed, Magnum P.I. is a real 80s throwback that’s highly faithful to the original, just with 35 years of modern TV sensibilities added to it. The show has maintained all the original’s plot: former navy intelligence officer settles down in Hawaii to become a private investigator with the help of some old war buddies, the patronage of a rich author and the occasional snooty assistance of an English estate manager. Then it’s twisted it a bit to add some diversity – Higgins is now a woman, Magnum is Latino and there are some Asian and native Hawaiian actors in the supporting cast. It’s also added a few more stunts. But other than that, it’s basically the same show.
And I like it. I like the fact that although there’s a military background to the show that’s occasionally used, it’s not just “war guys do war things on civvy streets”. I like the fact it’s a private detective show in which a private detective does relatively low key things, sometimes a bit dodgily, usually by drawing on the assistance of various pals with different skills, for which he has to negotiate, rather than pull rank. I like the fact he does actually do some investigating, rather than simply get all the answers from a magic crime lab. I like that the crimes he investigates are chasing down stolen tuna fish and checking the background of someone’s wife, rather than always having to stop the next terrorist incident that threatens the whole of the US.
It’s old and regular for the 80s, but it’s now new and different for the 2010s.
Updated
But I also like the fact it’s not 100% 80s. Rather than this being the Magnum show, in which Magnum spends all his time by himself and the current guest star, it’s more of a two-hander. Rick and TC are still in there, but this is basically the Magnum and Higgins show, with the two of them investigating and solving cases together. The same combative/friendly relationship is still there, but having a male/female PI pairing works well (cf Tucker’s Witch – shut up, Private Eyes) and is relatively realistically handled. And while Perdita Weeks is lumbered with a slightly stereotypical posh girl role, she does manage to make Higgins likeable and properly English (points for “football” rather than “soccer”, points off for making her say “automobile” instead of “car”, mind).
Unusually, the show decided to wait until episode three before altering its format slightly. While episode one was marred by Fast and Furious director Justin Lin’s fondness for stupid CGI car stunts, episode two’s only tweak was to lose the CGI and keep the car stunts. But episode three acknowledged that being set on Hawaii, the show should probably have some Asian or native Hawaiian cast members, so has added Tim Kang (The Mentalist) as a police detective and Amy Hill (UnREAL) as the Hawaiian heritage curator of Robin Masters’ estate.
The additions do actually work and Hill’s presence should be a big clue that the show is also quite funny, as should the fact that Magnum’s biggest PI rival on the island is Ken Jeong (The Hangover, Community, Dr Ken). Although there is a seriousness to it, as there was with the original, it’s not po-faced and a lot of it is enjoyable to watch not because of the action but because of the camaraderie and the jokes.
With Lin gone, though, the action is actually pretty decent, too, with a rooftop chase scene in the third episode showing directorial nous almost on a par with Kathryn Bigelow’s famous Point Break scene.
If Will and Grace was an exemplar of how to bring back a classic comedy show and update it for modern sensibilities, while still remaining faithful to the original, Magnum P.I. is its partner in crime when it comes to procedurals. It’s a really enjoyable, frothy, funny, sometimes serious, sometimes exciting show with a good cast that will help you get through a bucket of popcorn every week. The supporting cast are its weak link and need more to do, but otherwise I couldn’t be happier with this one, now it’s settled down.
In the US: Mondays, NBC, 10/9c
In the UK: Not yet acquired
The secret to any show based around a central mystery is that both the central mystery and the quest for its solution has to be interesting. Manifest, which is by equal measures a knock-off of Lost, The 4400, FlashForward, Six Degrees and The Whispers, just about manages to make both of these things interesting. Just about.
The show sees a whole bunch of people – some strangers to each other, some not – take off on a plane journey in 2013 and land in the US in 2018. Time hasn’t passed at all for them, but for everyone else on Earth, time has passed normally and everyone has got on with their lives, assuming their loved ones died in a plane crash five years earlier.
On top of that, 20 or so of the mysteriously returned passengers start hearing voices telling them what to do, and when they do as bidden, it turns out the voices do know what they’re talking about. Principally, unlucky in love cop Melissa Roxburgh and her brother Josh Dallas end up solving crimes together, often through bizarre coincidences, usually accompanied by the frequent reappearance of their flight number, 828, in everyday life.
What?
The central mystery, of course, is what happened to the plane. Hints so far have been reassuringly secular. Although the first episode suggests that there is some element of predestination involved, with Dallas’ kid gaining access to a life-saving leukaemia treatment that wasn’t available in 2013, but is in 2018, thanks to another one of the plane’s passengers, for example. But, it’s become clear over these first three episodes that something else is at work, something (literally) shadowy and potentially even malevolent. All of which suggests either aliens or time travellers, doing their best to fix some wrongs in their past using their foreknowledge.
Which could be cool. Or it could still be God and his angels versus Satan and his evil minions. Which could be cool, but a bit stupid in context. Or it could be something else made-up and not very cool at all.
At the moment, it’s just about cool enough that it’s enough to sustain my interest. It’s being dripped out quickly enough that I’m not feeling too impatient, and although everything about the drama and this central idea is clichéd, particularly the possibly evil NSA investigators, it’s still done just about smartly enough than my curiosity is still piqued.
MANIFEST — “Pilot” — Pictured: (l-r) Josh Dallas as Ben Stone, Jack Messina as Cal Stone — (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/NBC/Warner Brothers)
Who?
As I predicted in my review of the first episode, however, most of each episode is taken up with the random cop dramas instigated by the voices, as well as the soapy soapiness of people trying to cope with the fact that their loved ones might have moved on, twin sisters have grown up, parents have died and children have gone to jail. You do feel like telling everyone to suck it up and get on with it a lot, every episode.
Despite the ensemble cast and characters, there’s also nobody who’s actually really any good or watchable among the lot of them: the characters are unremarkable and tedious, there’s not one good line per episode, and the actors have so little of note to work with, you could have Mark Rylance and Benedict Cumberbatch read the scripts to you and you’d still barely remember it. There’s no Mark Rylance or Benedict Cumberbatch in this cast, mind.
All of which makes Manifest a show I can’t recommend to anyone. There’s no point to watching this show, unless you happen to like a slightly sci-fi crime procedural in which everything gets solved thanks to some help from some voices.
However, unfortunately, I’ve now watched three episodes, and there’s been just enough interest kindled in me by them that I’m going to stick with it for a while. To be fair, that’s more than FlashForward managed, but I doubt I’ll make it for a full Lost run. Then again, I doubt Manifest itself will make it that far, either.
In Australia: Mondays, 8.30pm AEST, Showcase
In the UK: Not yet acquired
You’ve got to admire Showcase’s guts in launching a new drama not only written by but starring a complete newcomer to TV acting and writing. Yet it’s a brave decision that’s paid off magnificently with Mr InBetween, which sees Scott Ryan playing a nightclub bouncer who also moonlights as an enforcer and hitman for Damon Herriman.
Despite being billed as a black comedy, the first episode was more a drama with a hint of comedy – a character piece without jokes, just amusing yet plausible situations, as we see Ryan’s constantly smiling killer alternate between day job and personal life, throwing people off walls and getting tongue-tied when a girl likes him. Ryan, who was himself odd-jobbing as a pizza delivery man and taxi driver when the show got the green-light, is impressively naturalistic and convincing, the kind of bloke you’d have jokes with down the pub, yet always be a bit wary of because of his constant smile.
Episode two is an even darker affair than the first episode, with Ryan going on a revenge mission against the guys who hurt his mate – or the guys he’s told did it, anyway, and we see what happens when Ryan accidentally kills the wrong the person. Yet buried in the middle of the episode is a downright hilarious conversation between Ryan and his daughter, in which he disabuses her of the notion that there is a Santa Claus (“To be honest, I don’t even know how he and Jesus are related”), before spinning her a long yarn about the time he met a real-life unicorn (“It winked at me.”).
Episode three, meanwhile, explores Ryan’s character as he goes to court-mandated anger management, where he picks a fight with a wife abuser, declaring himself a cut above the low-life’s he’s with – he regards himself as doing a public service. But it’s also a bit more darkly comedic, as he has to deal with a fight between his mate and his Russian brother-in-law, who has decided to rob him.
Mr InBetween
The first three episodes of Mr InBetween have all been consistently excellent. The half-hour runtime means each episode is tightly focused with zero flab, yet still manages to allow for characterisation and character development. The show never makes Ryan’s profession ridiculous, but takes both him and it deadly seriously, even if he does occasionally like a laugh and wind up in some odd – but not too odd – situations thanks to his mates.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
The US networks are hurling new shows at us, hither and thither, yet the fall season isn’t truly underway yet, amazingly enough, with a couple of networks still to let loose their main offerings.
Still, elsewhere, I’ve reviewed A Million Little Things(US: ABC), Single Parents (US: ABC), The Cool Kids (US: CBS) and Murphy Brown (US: CBS), but there have been another couple of new CBS sitcoms this week, too, which I’ll be covering after the jump: The Neighborhood and Happy Together.
Netflix, of course, lives by its own rules and gives us new shows all the time. I’ve already passed a third-episode verdict on recent arrival The Good Cop and I’ll be looking at the first couple of episodes of Maniac after the jump, too. And, of course, it’s the Spring season in Australia, and I previewed Mr InBetween last week, with a third-episode verdict due on TMINE in the next few days (fingers crossed, tomorrow)
I’m sure there’ll be more shows to come this week and next, so keep your eyes glued to TMINE for all the latest reviews.
After the jump, on top of those new shows I mentioned, I’ll be casting my eye over the latest episodes of the regulars: Magnum P.I., Manifest, The Last Ship and You. One of them’s getting a promotion to the recommended list, but which one?
