Well, it was a backdoor pilot but its ratings weren’t very good, so I don’t think Mockingbird Lane – Bryan Fuller’s ‘reimagining’ of CBS’s The Munsters for NBC – warrants a full review.
For those of you who don’t remember the original, it essentially saw the Universal Pictures’ ideas of Dracula, the Wolfman, the Bride of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster all living in a house together with a relatively normal woman as an everyday blue collar US family called the Munsters. Herman the monster is the bumbling father, Lily the bride is the practical mother, Grandpa the vampire is a cooky old man and Eddie the werewolf is an average kid. The humour came largely from the juxtaposition of their standard horror film appearances and powers with their normal behaviour and activities.
Here’s the original pilot, so you have an idea of what it was like, even if they recast Phoebe Munster and made her Lily afterwards:
The show was popular in syndication, popular enough to have reunion movies and even an updated series made in the 80s called The Munsters Today. Now, we have Mockingbird Lane – named after the road the original Munsters used to live on. And, to coin a phrase, Mockingbird Lane is a very different beast.
For starters, all the Universal Pictures iconography has gone, replaced in favour of more modern horror films: Eddie Munster turns into a proper CGI wolf, Herman Munster (Jerry O’Connell) is intelligent and handsome but a patchwork of parts à la Ken Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Lily (Portia di Rossi) looks normal but can become mist, control insects and spiders, and bewitch men; while Grandpa Munster (Eddie Izzard) is a full on Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, able to change into a man-bat, dissolve into rats and enslave others with his blood.
More than that, it’s actually surprisingly horrific. While there is the same sort of humour as the original’s in the background, the only people really trying to fit in are the new Eddie Munster, who doesn’t know that he’s a werewolf, and Lily who just wants to raise her son. Meanwhile, Grandpa wants to drain the local population of its blood; and Herman needs his heart replacing using neighbours’ spare parts. And you get to see all of this, from Grandpa ripping apart mountain lions with his teeth to neighbours having their hearts ripped out.
In keeping with this new vibe, the show’s main point of difference from the original is that there aren’t that many jokes, and what there are seem to come mostly from Eddie Izzard’s occasionally James Mason-esque delivery and more frequent ad libbing. As a result, there’s not much drama and not much comedy, so the pilot feels like it’s just there to exist and to give us some nice visuals and nice ideas, without really giving us much by way of story. We don’t really know why the Munsters have moved into town, beyond the fact they had to leave the last one; we don’t really know what their motivations are, particularly Lily’s; we just know they’re here and creepy.
To be honest, despite Fuller’s pedigree on Heroes and Pushing Daisies, it was only okay, lovely to look at thanks to Bryan Singer’s directorial skills, but hampered by a lack of clarity in what it was trying to achieve. As a pilot, it serves up some visual treats, but doesn’t give you much of a reason to watch the hypothetical next episode that would have come.
All the same, it’s actually not bad. Jerry O’Connell has never been better or more likeable than he is here; Eddie Izzard gives a great performance and is entertaining, even when the script isn’t; and it looks great. It’s just a shame there wasn’t more meat on its bones. Here’s a trailer so you can see what you missed:
And if you’re in the US, you can still watch it on the NBC site or below.
It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched in the past two weeks that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
First, the usual recommendations: 30 Rock, Dexter, Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23, Go On, Homeland,The Last Resort, The Mindy Project, Modern Family, Red Dwarf X, Suburgatory and The Thick of It.
Still in the viewing pile: Misfits. But here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching.
Dexter: A little silly, but still as tense as it used to be.
Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23: A delightfully daft way to introduce new viewers to the show, with the B in question demonstrating extreme insanity, and the show offering 20somethings extreme TV nostalgia fun with cameos from Busy Philipps from Dawson’s Creek, Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar from Saved By The Bell – all, in standard, Don’t Trust The B—- style, as ‘themselves’. M-P G was actually good, which makes a difference from Franklin & Bash then.
Go On: The first post-pilot weepy episode. Which is moderately embarrassing when you’re commuting on a train.
Happy Endings: Dreadful, but redeemed by some good performances and Elisha Cuthbert. Hope the next episode is better.
Homeland: It’s so hard to keep up with the producers and their twists and turns. Not absolutely convinced by the speed of the events in the episode, but handled well nevertheless.
The Last Resort: Another tense one, although the end result was somewhat corny. The best action show on TV at the moment, though (although maybe Strike Back: Vengeance is good – will let you know when I watch it).
Modern Family: They always do really good Halloween episodes, don’t they?
Red Dwarf X: Rubbish. More like series four or five than previous episodes and correspondingly bad.
Suburgatory: Back on the recommended list. Quite sweet, but it feels like no one pays much attention to character continuity.
The Thick Of It: A low-key way to end the series. You really wanted Malcolm to go out on a high, but a realistic way to end it all, I guess. What can replace it?
Vegas: Perilously close to the quality of the first episode, with only minor hobbling from the procedural aspect of things. Also good to see a few black faces in the story for a change.
And in movies:
This Means War: Tom Hardy and Chris Pine are spies who are both dating Reese Witherspoon. Who will she pick? You won’t care, because it’s largely rubbish and McG directed it. But it actually does have a few decent moments in, include a very funny paintball tournament, and both Hardy and Chelsea Handler liven the whole thing up beyond the standard drek. Also features Til Schweiger.
“What did you watch last week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?
