Spring Pilot Reviews: Part Two

This spring included a flurry of pilots, some of which faded immediately and others that soared with impressive ratings. To play catch-up, I’m going to forego my usual pilot reviews and offer brief thoughts on all of the pilots in three segments. I’ll try to group them by my general feelings towards their quality and enduring possibility.

For my second pass, I’d like to analyze those pilots that just didn’t quite work for me. I actually kept watching several of these shows to try to get a better grasp on them. Two shows didn’t interest me right from the start, partially because they weren’t what I expected. Showtime’s The United States of Tara was a wacky comedy-drama with a fun premise that I knew would be difficult to execute. Toni Collette, a very gifted actress, plays multiple roles as a woman with multiple personalities. The show just doesn’t have a proper tone, and all the skills Collette possesses can’t make her part any more balanced or focused. A show centered around multiple personalities is almost guaranteed to have multiple personalities of its own, but the way it jumps around so unsubtly makes it impossible to get into, even for its first half hour. The unhelpful John Corbett and the talented Rosemarie DeWitt round out the cast, adding a little here and there, but it’s a show that doesn’t seem to know where it’s headed. Another show that didn’t do it for me is ABC’s The Unusuals. From the advertisements, I expected a serious drama akin to FOX’s brief summer show “The Inside” from a few years ago, with a very dramatic tone and a real-life gritty feel. This show is nothing like that, and while expectations shouldn’t dictate reality, the end result isn’t terribly impressive. Amber Tamblyn, an expert at playing moody, is the lead woman among a cast of mostly men goofing around. Having Adam Goldberg as a series regular recommends the show strongly as a comedy, but I had trouble understanding what exactly was so “unusual” about these cops, other than being somewhat less than effective at their job and bickering a lot. It looks like “The Unusuals” has had just as hard a time finding an audience and a timeslot as it has finding a tone, and it likely won’t be renewed for next year.

Every year, I always keep watching a few shows after not really loving the pilot episodes, and usually drop most of them somewhere along the way. This spring, I made it only to the third installments for three shows I wanted to explore. NBC’s Kings was, hands down, the most gallant, far-reaching, epic drama that was a mismatch with its network from the start. The incredibly intimidating Ian McShane, of “Deadwood” fame, chews a bit too much scenery as the ruler of a certain kingdom, and the David-Goliath parallels are a bit too blatant. NBC, more so that other networks, has tried gambles like this before, with shows like “Book of Daniel,” where a grand, sweeping premise fails to create enough actionable plots that aren’t too grandiose or manageable. It didn’t seem like there was anywhere to go after episode three, and clearly NBC agreed, banishing it quickly to Saturday nights, and then the summer. TNT had a failed venture that got axed at the end of his 13-episode run that was hardly as ambitious but just as starved for direction. Trust Me starred Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) and Tom Cavanagh (Ed) as advertising agents. They’re best friends whose back-and-forth is like a nonstop audition for “The West Wing.” The banter is amusing, but it’s also extremely obnoxious, and the presence of supporting actress Monica Potter, quite annoying by herself, doesn’t help matters. The show’s advertising gimmick and the tied-in glimpse into McCormack’s character’s life in the pilot is cool, but the show just isn’t interesting or engaging enough. Even the presence of Sarah Clarke (Nina from “24”) doesn’t make any of its elements wholly engaging. Both McCormack and Cavanagh are great actors, but the show around them just isn’t completely terrific. The show with the most promise, and the most potential to grow because of its recent renewal for a second season, is FOX’s Dollhouse. I’ve become a big fan of creator Joss Whedon in the past year due to “Firefly” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” and wanted to give “Dollhouse,” which genre-wise is my ideal kind of show, a chance. The pilot was very intriguing, to be sure, but it wasn’t quite right. It was far more focused and compelling than “Fringe,” but I didn’t have a good sense of where it was headed. Eliza Dushku is not a good actress, and having her pretend to be someone every episode isn’t the best use of her limited acting talents. The supporting cast includes great actors like Tahmoh Penikett, Harry Lennix, and Amy Acker, and them being used more instead of the annoying Fran Kranz would certainly help set this show straight. What made me stop watching the show just a few minutes into the fourth episode was seeing Dushku’s Echo delivering a baby. The show was very interesting, but mostly in the way it utilized its ensemble and progressed its episode-to-episode plot. Getting a kick out of all Echo can do only goes so far, and its repetitiveness is made less bearable by the ineffectiveness of Dushku as an actress. I just can’t believe that she’d be all these people, and while a sci-fi show like this calls for a lot of suspension of disbelief, this works to cancel out the impressive fantasy elements of the series. I have heard that the sixth episode is pretty great, and I know that the show getting renewed is a good sign and that clearly the fan base is behind it, so I haven’t completely ruled out picking the show back up again. I’m thinking that perhaps I should skip episodes four and five and just start back up with number six. Any suggestions?

Coming up tomorrow: the pilots that just didn’t interest me, like Cupid and Southland.