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CW

Fool Me Makes Summer TV Magic

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Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia

Penn and Teller’s Fool Me: Wednesdays at 8 Eastern on the CW

I have opened numerous CW reviews talking about the networks love for supernatural dramas and teen dramas, but the other pillar they stand on is obscenely cheap unscripted programming to get them through the summer months. This time around however, they’ve managed to cross two of their pillars yet again, with a reality competition built around the paranormal (or whatever fancy word for magic you wish to use this time around). As a fan of fourth-wall breaking duo Penn and Teller’s last TV effort (Bulls**t), I figured I would take a look at their newest offering (not actually that new, this is a port from across the pond) to see if it brings the same level of entertainment.

Fool Me puts the titular duo head to head vs. a magician, who performs a magic trick. Penn and Teller, then need to replicate the trick after seeing the trick only once. Any magician who fools the veteran illusionists gets the right to perform with them during a show at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Hosting the show is well known British TV personality (and equally obscure on this side of the pond) Jonathan Ross.

You can tell that Fool Me was originally not shot on a CW budget from moment one, as the show opens with a very cinematic and swooping crane shot. Even the shows interview segments look particularly polished (even in relation to the standards of US reality shows). This runs contrary to CW’s prior summer offerings, which seem particularly cheap in comparison (see: the revival of Whose Line is it Anyway and Oh Sit for example)

The truest advantage of this show is that Penn and Teller have such a good grasp of the show that you simultaneously never feel like they’re not the stars but at the same time know when to step back and let the acts win over the crowd. This is particularly notable by their raucous closing act – a number in which Penn razzes a crowd member for a while with a basic card trick before the true trick is revealed when the card in question was palmed with a knife through his hand.

There are some flaws with the show however. Ross is not nearly game enough as a host, often dropping empty platitudes and awkwardly playing off of Penn and Teller’s charisma. This shows itself most glaringly during the opening act, a loaded dice trick where Ross’s cellphone was under the threat of being smashed during the entirety of the trick. Even with his own talk show across the pond, it often seems like Ross feels the need to one-up everyone on stage, creating a very awkward vibe whenever he has to interact with anyone on the stage.

The Final Verdict: I don’t expect a lot from my midsummer filler programming – don’t bore me, and don’t make me think too much, and in a lot of ways Fool Me works on both counts. Ross is kind of annoying, but there’s a reason that Penn and Teller command the amount of attention that any other magician (even the ones who get the occasional one off special cannot). Check it out, especially if you enjoy Penn Jillette’s acerbic wit or enjoy seeing some theatricality.

 

Reign Recap: No History was Harmed in the Making of This Feature

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THE CW UPFRONTS 2013Reign. You might have seen the posters of it around town, with some woman who almost looks like Kim Kardashian sitting with two generic CW hotties behind her. Once I realized that it was about Mary, Queen of Scots, I knew that it was going to be a hot mess, and I should totally jump on that train. So, join me as I recap “Reign.” Warning, you might need a bottle of wine to go with this. [Read more…] about Reign Recap: No History was Harmed in the Making of This Feature

Reign Mixes Prestige And Popular Like Oil And Water

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Adelaide Kane as Mary, Queen of Scots (Source: CW)
Adelaide Kane as Mary, Queen of Scots (Source: CW)

Reign: Thursdays at 9 Eastern on the CW

There’s something about the period piece in both film and television that innately whispers in your ear the word prestige. Part of this is because such films are often rolled out this time of year in an attempt to collect large numbers of Oscars (Shakespeare in Love and last year’s Les Miserables being two such examples). However, in the recent past, period pieces have also been a staple of the cable networks in their attempt to steal eyeballs and critical regards from the big four (HBO had Rome and now has Boardwalk Empire, AMC built an empire on Mad Men). So needless to say, it was to my surprise when the CW elected to pick up Reign, an attempt on mixing the period piece with the CW standard box of tropes.

Reign follows the teenaged Mary, Queen of Scots (Adelaide Kane) as she goes to France in an attempt to secure a political marriage with the dashing Prince Francis (Toby Regbo). Things, however, are made more complicated when Francis is not ready to sign such a deal due to both his uncertainty of an alliance with Scotland as well as a desire not to be committed to marriage at this point. The rest of the royal family complicates matters further, as Francis’ brother Bash (Torrance Coombs) has a crush on Mary, while Queen Catherine (Megan Follows) fears that the arranged marriage will ultimately kill her son.

In very many ways, Reign is exactly what you would expect from a CW show if it took place in a castle in 1500 ‘s France. It focuses on the emotions that come with a being a teen, there will be random outbursts, and they’ll even tease a supernatural angle because, well, it’s the CW. Furthermore, it’s pretty evident that the show is using its’ Scots as a proxy for modern sensibilities (nothing like a Mumford and Sons knock off when Mary decides to smash custom when she dances with her maids!) up against the staid French court. This modern re-imagining extends out to other characters, as Nostradamus is treated as a more malevolent force, mixing his traditional prophet and apothecary role with what could loosely be described as shades of Rasputin.

Unfortunately, this CW-ification of history also mars so many of the show’s dramatic scenes. A climactic argument involving the complicated political entanglements ends up coming off with the same raw emotional nerve that one gets when a teen argues with their parents (but I don’t WANT to be in an alliance with Scotland!). In a lot of ways, it’s mildly disheartening that a show focused on the French Court and political intrigue fails spectacularly at producing any sort of intrigue whatsoever (I blame this as much on a network forced excising of a racy scene as I do the writing, which tends to awkwardly embrace two part storytelling – there’s point A and point B, but there’s no road between the two).

Everything else, in terms of both the technical and acting, is best described as competent without being particularly mind-blowing. The scenery, particularly inside the castle is lush and opulent, as one would expect of the French court, however, the insistence on both of Henry’s sons running around in leather jackets was fairly off-putting.

The Final Verdict: How one will feel about Reign is dependent on what you’re looking for: If you want a prestigious period piece, Reign will suffer horribly. However, if you view Reign through the lens of the network it’s on, you get a nice fit in terms of what CW programming is all about (with more mature themes and some dubious history thrown in for good measure). I would probably advise one to check it out if they’re into that CW mold, but skip it if you’re looking for some Game of Thrones lite.

Fall Premieres Bring Mixed Results To The Big 4

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With fall premieres winding down (we’re down to the CW’s Reign, NBC’s Dracula, and whatever FOX has saved for after baseball), let’s take a moment and see how the major networks fared in a fall where every network (even CBS had question marks).

So how did the major networks fare this fall? Well it was mixed to say the least with each network having some success on their schedule, but also with a number of unanswered question marks in the schedule remaining that way, this will become quite apparent as we break things down network by network.

ABC: ABC seemed to have one of the more ambitious strategies for the new fall season, blowing up it’s Dancing with the Stars and Extreme Makeover Tuesdays in order to pave the way for new scripted material. The anchor show on that night, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a success, holding down the number three drama slot in the ratings. The rest of the night, however, has been an unmitigated disaster with the comedy hour struggling, and Lucky 7 registering so nonexistently on everyone’s radar that the show got the dubious honor of being the first show axed of the year (two episodes in, typically reserved for the Do No Harms of the world). I wonder if part of this is scheduling related, as it seems weird to pair up a show that will likely do well with males 18-49 with a two family comedies and a slice of life drama and expect audiences to stay from your massively hyped lead in. Elsewhere on the schedule, ABC has had a number of flops including Once Upon A Time in Wonderland (doing horribly in the ratings) and Super Fun Night.

CBS: The last remaining network juggernaut maintains that position for another year, and does so again on the back of it’s veteran series. However, it too struggled with it’s newer offerings (almost all of which were comedies this year). We Are Men also received a two-and-out, The Crazy Ones is bleeding viewers week to week, and Mom’s numbers have not been particularly successful. There has been one new success story for CBS, however, and it comes in the form of the Will Arnett vehicle The Millers, which takes full advantage of its’ Big Bang Theory lead in. While the Tiffany network seems in very strong shape in the short term, it can not be pleased with its’ long term picture.

FOX: Fox continues what seems to be a major trend across all four networks this year: success on the drama front, with serious questions on the comedy side of the schedule. While Sundays continue to chug along with the Animation Domination block, we can already see that Seth McFarlane’s cache is starting to run out of steam with the network. American Dad is being scuttled off to TBS, The Cleveland Show saw the cancellation ax last year, and his new offering Dads feels like an unmitigated disaster. Unfortunately, that poison has run all the way through Fox’s Tuesday comedy block, as freshman Brooklyn Nine-Nine and sophomore The Mindy Project both also have sagging ratings on Tuesdays (this is a shame, as I particularly like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and feel it got hurt by drawing Agents as direct competition). However, Fox has succeeded in shoring up its’ dramas, adding Sleepy Hollow as a success story as it has already been renewed for a second season (no back-order however in order to make room for The Following).

NBC: Last year, NBC looked for success by following a strong two prong strategy: using The Voice to set up successful dramas, and making it’s comedy as lifeless and watered down as possible in order to reboot the line-up. The drama prong, succeeded, while the comedy side ended with every new show getting canceled and the network relying on decidedly not generic Community and Parks and Recreation to hold the fort for another year. This year, they went back to the same well– with the same results. The Blacklist, which followed The Voice on Mondays scored the first back-order of the year while the comedy block is once again in shambles. Parks and Recreation, thrown to the wolves against the Big Bang Goliath is down in the ratings, while The Michael J. Fox show is the only other show averaging above a 1.0. The biggest hole however, is at 8:30, where Welcome to the Family failed to be welcomed into America’s homes and is effectively on death watch until NBC can pull Community (which has quickly turned into NBC’s Rules of Engagement as a show that solely gets renewed to plug holes) from the bench to stabilize ratings. Regardless, after the past two years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see NBC try something new next year, possibly swapping it’s comedy Thursday with it’s drama Wednesday to hold the fort, because this is not a sustainable business model for the peacock.

The CW: It seems weird that the network I have to most to say positively about is the CW. While this may in fact be because they do not have a single comedy on their fall schedule (did I mention this has been a particularly atrocious year for comedy?), I think it’s predominantly because they know what they’re aiming for and one of the stronger premieres of the season in The Tomorrow People. Their other big debut, Reign hits Thursday (i’ll be reviewing it here at Manhattan Digest, likely will be up Friday afternoon), so theoretically the CW gets an incomplete, but is already miles ahead of where they were last spring when they stuck us with Cult. 

The Tomorrow People Has a Promising Future

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Robbie Amell (Source: The CW)
Robbie Amell (Source: The CW)

The Tomorrow People: Wednesdays at 9 Eastern on the CW

The science fiction drama has always at been looked at as both a niche format as well as a television staple (particularly in syndication). Lately, however, it seems like a procedural heavy schedule has pushed most sci-fi off of the big four (with the closest things that qualify being Lost and Revolution) and solely into the corner of that genre’s SyFy. However, if there is one broadcast network that has seemed most open to dabbling into such matters, it’s the CW, which takes it origins from the UPN network (home of both Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise), the WB network (whose extensive line of “teens playing with the supernatural” series is even more impressive) and of which many stations were the same syndicated stations that ran Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and 90’s fantasy stalwarts Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess. It’s from this tradition that the CW draws with it’s newest offering The Tomorrow People.

The Tomorrow People, a remake of the 70’s British series (and very early Nickelodeon staple), begins with Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell), then a normal teenager, acquiring some very supernatural powers, such as teleportation and telekinesis. After acquiring these powers, he finds out that he is not alone in having these powers, meeting three others: John (Luke Mitchell), Cara (Peyton List), and Russell (Aaron Yoo). However, these powers also put them at odds with a concerned group of paramilitary scientists known as Ultra who view their new found powers as an existential threat to the current fabric of society. It is in this conflict that Stephen must navigate through, weighing a normal life on one hand with a group of people who truly can understand him on the other.

Like many series with sci-fi and action components, the first thing that I’m prone to notice are the visual effects, and in this case, they are quite impressive. This is particularly noticeable in the fight scenes themselves, as they manage to roll a slick teleportation animation into fights without relying on jarring camera work. Similarly anytime that a force ball (imagine a big invisible hadoken from Street Fighter) gets rolled out or Stephen takes bullet time to the next level, the show maintains a very cinematic quality that rivals Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The only real complaint I have on the visual level is the CW mandated insistence on every show taking place in darkness for at least half the episode.

The Tomorrow People also is surprisingly well written for a pilot. While it’s expected that many pilots require heavy exposition which in turn slows the plot to a grinding halt, the unloading of key facts is handled deftly and nimbly. This is in part due to the pilots brisk pace, in which three stories are very rapidly resolved in cinematic fashion, often showing where lesser shows would suffice with telling. There is only one particularly jarring hitch (which admittedly felt exclusive to the pilot) in that tonight’s episode often felt more like Stephen, our protagonist, was being dragged from point to point, whereas our lead character could likely stand to use more agency in his actions (and the last few minutes hint he should in the future).

If there’s one particular weakness to the episode, it’s in the acting. The dialogue tends to feel wooden at points, especially in early interactions between Stephen and John. However, even in this one particular rough spot, we can find clear standouts. Mark Pellegrino, who plays series antagonist Jedekiah Price (of Ultra) in a way that manages to creep and disconcert without feeling excessively hammy.

The Final Verdict: There’s a lot of potential in The Tomorrow People. It’s cleverly written, looks impressive, and paired with the sort of show that feels like a comfortable lead in (Arrow) that could lead to a long and fruitful first run (and later syndication). Many of the show’s flaws (which mostly lie in characterization and acting) are the sort of things that can be fixed and developed over time, as pilots tend to be bare bones in those areas. I’d recommend checking it out if you’re looking for an action/sci-fi fix on your Wednesday night, as the major network competition unilaterally skews away from those sort of shows.

Fall Preview: CW

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Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia

Last Season: America’s other network waved goodbye to one of its’ best known shows in Gossip Girl, said hello to one of the season’s worst shows in Cult, revived Whose Line is it Anyway over the summer to modest success, and generally was just “there”.

This Season: It’s the CW, so needless to say, we will continue to see the typical mix of teen soaps and supernatural dramas. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the 17 year history of the network, as it’s most successful shows were teen soap Dawson’s Creek, the supernatural Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the supernatural teen soap Smallville.

It does seem however, that the CW is lining up Thursdays to be its’ new big night, debuting two new shows after The Vampire Diaries. First and foremost is new vampire drama The Originals (10/3), before ceding the spot two weeks later to Reign (10/17), a Carrie Diaries sort of show that follows the teenage Mary Stuart (better known Mary, Queen of Scots).

The Originals will be shuttled off to Tuesdays at 8, where it will lead into the current cream of the CW’s crop: Supernatural (10/8), making Tuesday another night built around the paranormal phenomena.

Wednesdays further continue this trend combining the superhero drama Arrow (think Smallville but replace Superman with b-tier DC hero the Green Arrow) with a revival of the British sci-fi series The Tomorrow People. Both of these shows are set to make their season debuts on 10/9.

While the middle of the week has a strong fantasy bent, its’ in the CW’s other two days that we see the networks soapy side. Friday nights bring the return of two series: The Sex and the City prequel Carrie Diaries, and veteran reality show America’s Next Top Model, this year with the tagline “Guys and Girls”. Both series debut on October 25th.

Mondays, meanwhile bring the return of two other CW dramas: the tent pole Hart of Dixie, and the second year drama Beauty and the Beast. Much like most of the CW’s debut week, these shows return on October 6th.

Cult Creates A Self-Averting Prophecy

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Cult: Source Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia

Cult: Tuesdays 9pm Eastern on the CW

It only makes sense that in a television season in which we have an over-the-top new show about a cult (The Following) and an over-the-top new show about a conspiracy (Zero Hour) that the CW would attempt to create a show that is about both a cult and a conspiracy and ignore the part about being over-the-top.

Cult follows disgraced journalist Jeff Dean Sefton (Matthew Davis) and over-inquisitive production assistant Skye Yarrow (Jessica Lucas) as they try to chase down Jeff’s brother Nate whom have been kidnapped by a group of overzealous fans of the CW (don’t worry they won’t let you forget the conceit that a CW show is popular no matter how far fetched that may seem) show Cult whom are committing copycat crimes for those that they’ve seen on the show.

The show within a show (for the purposes of avoiding confusion from here on out will be referred to as Cult’) is a supernatural thriller that involves police detective Kelly Collins (Alona Tal) chasing down the Manson-esque cult figure Billy Grimm (Prison Break’s Robert Knepper), whose followers are responsible for the kidnapping of Kelly’s sister Meadow and her family.

Cult’s main conceit comes from the way these two worlds interact, especially when viewed through the lens of it’s reclusive creator Stephen Rae. When a lecherous network executive (whose only two notes as a character are trying to force the show to have mass appeal and staring at Skye’s butt) tries to contact Mr. Rae, it has seemingly dire consequences. Meanwhile, much of the show’s symbolism crosses between the shows two universes whether its the older Orange sedan used for kidnappings, the two color 3-D glasses that Nate hands Jeff, the cult symbols that populate characters in both universes, or the rampant cosplay that exists in the Cult’ community.
While all of this intricate groundwork has room to spark potential interest, the show fails because it fails to resonate emotionally on any level. It’s hard to buy Cult’ inspiring any killers because it gives off the vibe of a show that’s not too far removed from former WB mainstays Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Charmed. Similarly the show’s twists seem more confusing than shocking (including two key twists at the end that I will not divulge in order to prevent spoiling the show should you wish to watch it). Finally, there is nothing less emotionally inspiring for Cult‘s mystery solving mantra of “watch TV, save the world.”

Similarly, in those rare moments where the show does try to give off some emotional resonance, it’s plagued by wooden acting, particularly on the part of Matthew Davis, whose sole expression throughout the entire 44 minutes is one of puzzlement devoid of any real empathy (even when he sees what he thinks is a pool of his brother’s blood). Knepper does a solid job as big bad Grimm, but Grimm is not written to be as compelling as Joe Carroll nor seems as threatening as White Vincent, the two villains of the two other shows that tackle similar subject matter.

The Final Verdict: It’s never a good sign when a fake show pulls someone in better than the real show surrounding it. Cult’ is a wacky goofy supernatural mystery that looks like the sort of thing that would fit perfectly on SyFy. Unfortunately, the show surrounding it, Cult, is devoid of real tension, a coherent story line  or even a reason to care (with one protagonist who is pretty unlikable and another who isn’t well developed). As a result, we never really have to worry about fans going crazy and performing copycat crimes with this show, because I can’t really see people putting the mental investment required to figure out a show that doesn’t look to payoff the emotional investment required to watch it. Save yourself the hour and watch The Following or a rerun of The X-Files if you’re looking for a supernatural thrill, because there’s none to be found here.