In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, The CW In the UK: ITV2 again
When Gossip Girlfirst popped up on our screens, it had a certain something. Okay, it was aimed at teenage girls and was about ridiculously rich people having ridiculously privileged educations and behaving like spoilt brats. But it was sweet, it had its heart in its right, there were some decent male and adult characters, the dialogue was witty, and it was actually quite clever.
Over the next two seasons, it became the must-watch show for teenage girls and indeed older women, keen to find a Sex and the City replacement, as well as a few men. However, as it went on, things became a little sillier. Although the producers promised they weren’t going to make the same mistakes they made with The OC, it all started to go wrong. Ridiculous plots and sub-plots started to crop up (Jenny’s stab at a fashion business, for example); everyone started to play ‘musical boyfriends’, yo-yoing between them all without any real rhyme or reason; and soon the cast had forgotten it was a drama and began mugging it for all it was worth.
So have the producers taken advantage of the summer break to take stock, regroup and come up with some storylines that don’t want to hit your head against a wall at the stupidity of them all?
I’ll give you three guesses. You’ll only need one.
A little while ago, we were musing on the lack of romantic couples on TV – and the even greater lack of couples who remain romantic once they get together.
Yet, it was not always so. Cast your mind back to The Thin Man series and you have great chemistry between a married couple; indeed, in the world of crime-fighting, TV has had many such couples, including Jonathan and Jennifer in Hart to Hart, the less than PC-titled McMillan and Wife, the now-obscure but once highly rated Wilde Alliance, and James Bolan and Barbara Flynn in The Beiderbecke Affair et al.
Comedy-drama Tucker’s Witch, from CBS c.1982, featured another crime-fighting married couple, although as the title suggests, “with a twist”. Rick and Amanda Tucker are married private investigators. However, Amanda discovers that she’s inherited her grandmother’s powers of witchcraft, which as she learns more about them, either help or hinder them in their investigations.
The show starred Tim Matheson, best known now as the vice-president in The West Wing, but then known for series such as The Quest and the movie Animal House. Joining him was Catherine Hicks, who’s probably best known as the whale-loving scientist in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It was one of those series that ITV used to chuck out at 1.30pm on a Tuesday afternoon for some reason, and I really liked it, although I have minimal memories of actual plots. Oh well.
Incidentally, the pilot back when the show was called The Good Witch of Laurel Canyon, starred Art Hingle and Kim Cattrall from Sex and the City. However, following her ‘locker room scene’ in Porkies, CBS ordered her part recast. Which is odd.
As are the titles, which really seemed to love that cat.
As recession has struck, so US TV’s attitude to the rich has changed. Where once there was admiration and envy – Sex and the City – so admiration has faded and been replaced by amusement – Gossip Girl and Dirty Sexy Money – before eventually reaching disdain – Privileged and now Royal Pains.
The envy’s still there though.
While still wishing it had their money, Royal Pains is nevertheless quite a fun show that despite its essential dislike of the rich has heart to make up for this unworthy emotion.
Set in the Hamptons, New York state’s retreat for the ultra-wealthy, it sees disgraced ER doctor Mark Feuerstein accidentally wander into a new job as a ‘concierge doctor’ – a live-in, on-call doctor who looks after the rich and famous when they have those little problems the rich and famous suffer from: drug overdoses, car crashes – and deflated breast implants.
