Pilot Review: Ray Donovan

Ray Donovan (Showtime)
Premiered June 30 at 10pm

I was excited about this show for two main reasons: Showtime was the on producing it, and Liev Schreiber is the star. From the long series of poster ads that I’ve seen plastered along the walkways in the New York City subways, it wasn’t clear just what this show was going to be about. It turns out that Ray is your conventional Hollywood fixer, ready to help out a la Olivia Pope in “Scandal” if something that could hurt your career goes wrong. Yet this show also has a dark side, since Ray has a complicated family history with sexual abuse and a villainous father, and his relationship with his wife is extremely rocky. Schreiber is a great fit for the smooth Ray, able to deal with the trickiest of circumstances with a cool head and able to charm the clothes off any woman he encounters without even doing anything. Paula Malcomson has plenty of experience playing the long-suffering wife, which she did on “Sons of Anarchy” and “Caprica,” and her perceptiveness and pride make her a powerful ally – and likely occasional enemy – for Ray. Eddie Marsan is an interesting choice to play Ray’s brother Terry, and I hope he’s put to good use. The same goes for Katherine Moennig, who was one of the best things about “The L Word” and hasn’t had a stable TV role since. I like Elliott Gould as Ezra, and I hope he’s back for more, and I was impressed with Ambyr Childers as the mistress of Stu (Josh Pais, a great guest star). There seems to be plenty of rich character development here just waiting to happen, and this darker version of “House of Lies” is definitely intriguing.

How will it work a series? Ray’s family is full of colorful personalities, and his father getting to meet his kids at the end of the episode indicates that he’s going to factor in a big way in Ray’s life. Featuring specific cases of spin control each episode will surely be interesting, and I’m excited to see Ray swoop in to clean up each mess.
How long will it last? Showtime is a solid network, and it hasn’t seen a flop in a few years. The fact that this show’s pilot scored the biggest debut ever for a series on this network solidifies a long and promising run. Pairing it with the final season of “Dexter” is an equally smart choice, since this is the network’s future and that was one of the first shows to really show that the network was capable of excellent original programming. I’d expect a renewal within a week or two.

Pilot grade: B+