NBC

Ready for Love Feels Unready for TV

Ready for Love: Tuesdays at 9pm Eastern, NBC

The dating show is an interesting specimen that’s evolved with TV over the past half a century. We started with the bubbly dating game show in the Dating Game evolved to the video-dating style of Love Connection and eventually to the reality model of The Bachelor. NBC is banking on the idea that the dating show can move into the American Idol competition age with it’s latest offering.

From executive producer Eva Longoria, Ready For Love is built around matchmakers searching for Mrs. Right for three very eligible bachelors: civil engineer Ernesto Arguello, financier Ben Patton, and Plain White T’s singer Tim Lopez. These men, with the help of their matchmakers, will then try to figure out which (if any) of the twelve lucky bachelorettes will be their perfect soul mate.

Tonight’s episode focuses solely on Tim Lopez (gee, I wonder whom NBC is marketing as the star on this show?) while next week introduces Ernesto and Ben. The show also takes time to introduce it’s matchmakers, including Amber Kelleher (who takes the fairy tale angle), Matt Hussey (focused on the male), and Tracy McMillan (the straight shooter).

Our show begins with Longoria opening with a brief explanation of how the show works, and it’s emphasis on finding the perfect match vs. a casting angle. This then led into a 6 minute-long expository preview video that didn’t give many details as to how this competition works. From there our bachelors must remove three contestants straight off of the bat before they ever lay eyes on their respective suitors. A spanner is immediately thrown in the works as one of the suitor’s in Matt’s pool has a past with Tim. From there we switch to more video packages, where our first set of suitors move into their house and the matchmakers give last second advice before their big first date.

Our second hour kicks off with the girls showing up for their big first group date with Tim, who immediately shows a sense of humor by fake-ratcheting up pressure before putting on a concert for all of the girls. He then has the suitors’ write lyrics to a new song he was working on, which they then sing in groups split up by matchmaker. We also get our first example of gamesmanship, as Leah, the girl from Tim’s past, isolates him for a short period of time, raising the suspicions of our other contestants. After the dating segment, our suitors’ rejoin the matchmakers in the studio, who critique them on their performance in a manner once again not far removed from your standard issue competition show. Each judge then sends one of their “team” up for elimination, with Tim ultimately choosing one to come home. After sparing one of the girls, Tim and the two remaining girls go down to the “garden room” to eliminate one of the girls.

Our hosts Bill and Giuliana Rancic seem passable in that role, but sometimes come off a touch maudlin, as if they were introducing the In memoriam segment of an awards show. It feels very counterproductive, however, that the hosts often work solo, with Giuliana single-handedly emceeing our first hour. Additionally, some of the platitudes felt odd and slightly redundant (at one point Giuliana said “Three of you will be in the bottom three”. In spite of that, Giuliana manages to show incredible efficiency at stoking the fire, making a large issue of the Leah power-play that occurred during the date. Bill, however, seems like complete window dressing, there solely to make the married couple host gimmick work.

Ready for Love seems to borrow liberally from The Voice with the first two episodes being a pretty blatant copy of The Voice’s blind auditions. Additionally, much like it’s lead-in, the show posits our bachelors’ search for love as a competition between the matchmakers (whom also double as our suitors’ coaches). Similarly, all in-studio criticism feels like they are analyzing these girls like its’ a performance art or worse yet some sort of sick experiment in how to get a guy to fall in love with you, which completely counteracts the whole “finding real love vs. the fake love of reality TV” nature of the show that Longoria promised.

This may be the first episode, but the show moves at a glacial pace with large numbers of long and ultimately irrelevant video montages (it’s bumps run a minute plus a clip, and Tim, all three matchmakers and the show itself all receive lengthy video packages). This seems particularly egregious when you consider that each episode runs a way too long two hours and the third set of blind picks were rushed to make room for more irrelevant video montages after devoting two segments a piece to each of the first two batches of contestants. This is made worse when you consider that every major twist is turned into a cliffhanger that leads into a commercial break mid-sentence and that every commercial break is preceded by constant previews of the same 30 seconds of next week.

The show works best once it moves back within the reality paradigm, as it allows the show to play with its’ cast’s personalities (Hailey’s the funny one, Leah is the girl from the past, Christina is the serious one with the Musical Talent). Unfortunately, it is also a slave to many of the genre’s cliches (the three girls who get the most screen time during the date are inevitably your bottom three). This is a shame, as less of the time is focused on building the relationships than the gimmicky and half baked in-studio segments.

The Final Verdict: It’s bloated, it’s exposition is in all of the wrong places, and it starts throwing in twists before it can even establish a format. In a lot of ways Ready for Love is a hot mess that wants to have its’ cake of being a Bachelor clone, while also eating from the ratings cake of its’ Voice lead-in. Any ethical concerns aside about love being a competition, the show suffers from terrible pacing that bogs down any action. Would it have really killed the producers to eschew that opening 10 minutes and half of the bumps for a full third blind audition segment and/or to introduce us to the rest of Tim’s suitors in the date segment? Skip this one, it doesn’t do romance any favors and there are better ways to spend two hours of your Tuesday night.

Hannibal is Delectable, to Die For

by Michael Tyminski

Mads Mikkelsen is Hannibal (Source: NBC)

Hannibal: Thursdays 10p.m. NBC

In a year where killers are in mid-season vogue (Cult, The Following, Bates Motel), it would only make sense that one network would take on one of the silver screen’s most genial killers of all time: Hannibal Lecter. This has potential to be a huge risk, however, as Anthony Hopkins’ turn as Lecter in Silence of the Lambs remains one of the most iconic performances in cinema history. Add in the fact that NBC’s last 10pm Thursday offering remains one of the most abysmal offerings of a show this season (Do Not Harm) and we suddenly see one of the most high-risk, high-reward scenarios in a time slot that has held some very lauded offerings (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, ER).

Hannibal follows a much younger Lecter than we are used to as the show takes us back to the origins of Lecter as a killer. When criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) consults Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) in order to track down a criminal whose head he can’t get into, it looks like the beginning of a beautiful partnership. They are surrounded by a veteran cast including Lawrence Fishburne as Dr. Jack Crawford, whom doesn’t always agree with Graham’s methods.

The premiere has Crawford going to Graham to chase down a serial killer whom murdered eight girls in the Minnesota area. When they struggle with the forensic details and Graham cannot get into this killer’s head (despite his pure empathy), Crawford recruits Lecter in order to get in the head of a cannibal (any guesses who this cannibal might be?). However, Graham views Lecter with suspicion due to the issues between himself and Crawford, while Lecter uses subterfuge to try and break Graham.

The first thing I noticed, and I think many people will notice, is how visually impressive the show looks. It has the best set of blood effects I’ve seen on a show this ilk, and the cinematography of both Will’s murder replays and his dream sequences never fail to impress. The show has a very cinematic feel to it in general, especially in terms of the camera work even in it’s more subtle instances, such as the dark silhouette-like introduction to our titular character.

In addition to the visual beauty of the show, the show is well acted. Hugh Dancy’s Will Graham perfectly displays the sort of anti-social (and tortured) personality that they have written for him without being excessively hammy. Mikkelsen’s Hannibal is friendly, a touch stern, and far enough removed from Hopkins’ portrayal that over time I could see one becoming comfortable with it as an alternative approach to the character, while portraying Lecter’s love of mind games and foreshadowing the monster to come. For me however, the biggest surprise was watching Scott Thompson (of Kids in the Hall fame) playing an understated and astute forensic pathologist.

The writing also feels tight in a number of ways. First and foremost, it was not afraid to take its’ time bringing Hannibal into the party, instead focusing the first half hour on Will Hughes, whom in and of himself is a gripping protagonist. Similarly, I appreciated that the writing showed small flashes of the cannibalistic killer we all know and love, including the standard issue Hannibal lectures, the emphasis on politeness, and the overall mastermind aspect we’ve come to expect from the character. The ending felt a little rushed to compensate for taking the time, but considering the way the episode resolved itself (I try to avoid spoilers wherever possible), it makes perfect sense in hindsight.

The Final Verdict: Hannibal just clicks. The show is visually vibrant, its’ characters are incredibly deep, and the show is not afraid to put spanners in the works to keep its’ characters from succeeding (for me one of the worst things about the forensic drama genre is when it becomes incredibly obvious that the criminal will always end up in cuffs at 55 past the hour). The show seems compelling as Hannibal will continue to find new ways to break Will, Will tries to shrug off Hannibal, and Crawford will be completely confused by both of them. My recommendation? Watch it.

Late Night Turmoil Threatens to Engulf NBC (Again).

by Michael Tyminski

Thursday morning became a hotbed for rumors about the future of NBC pillar The Tonight Show. It seems that for the second time in five years, the Peacock is finding the least graceful way to handle the impending departure of Jay Leno (a decision that nearly killed the network five years ago, and a decision that the network is more than willing to make again).

The first piece of news was that with Jimmy Fallon’s anticipated ascension to the late-night throne, The Tonight Show would return to New York for the first time in four decades. According to the New York Times, NBC is apparently already in the process of building the set at their Rockerfeller Center studios in anticipation of a 2014 transition, with fall of 2014 being the latest possible date for such a transition. I am entirely in favor of such a move, if only because the idea of NBC’s four most venerable institutions (Today, The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, and the NBC Nightly News) in one building just feels correct.

In turn, this transition has also managed to cause Leno to slowly open fire on NBC in his recent monologues, including making constant mentions of how NBC has managed to dip to lower rankings than Spanish language Telemundo, making it the number five network in America. This in turn prompted an angry email from NBC head honcho Robert Greenblatt demanding that Leno stop bringing up that embarrassment on air. Needless to say, Leno has continued mining NBC for fodder since the email was sent. Personally, (and very rarely do I do this) I have to take Leno’s side in this kerfuffle. Mocking the network president is a time honored television tradition (and about 1/3 of the jokes in the entire seven season run of 30 Rock). If you don’t want to be fifth or have people point out you’re fifth, maybe I would stop putting out shows like Animal Practice and Do Not Harm.

So how’s Fallon reacting to all of this? He’s being coy, saying all the right things, and generally trying to keep this succession from spiraling out of control, playing down the rumors in last night’s monologue.

What do I think overall? I think NBC needs to play their hand particularly cool, as the last time they bruised Jay Leno’s ego they eviscerated their prime-time schedule, embarrassed themselves and dug themselves a hole that they are still struggling to get out of three and a half years later. Furthermore, NBC has traditionally proven themselves inept at making the Tonight Show transition (see: Carson to Leno, Leno to O’Brien back to Leno), and being aggressive at forcing Leno out seems to create a much bumpier ride than there needs to be. People forget it took a decade of Friday guest hosts and a considerably older Johnny Carson to move him from the late-night chair. That being said, it’s probably in the best interests of NBC to move Fallon to the Tonight Show chair as soon as possible, as Late Night seems to be getting the lions share of both the advertising and the ratings stunts (Justin Timberlake week). However, I could also see it being likely that the Leno force-out is part of broader network-wide change in personnel with the ratings struggles of Today possibly forcing Matt Lauer out in the near future as well.

NBC decides to return Sing-Off to airwaves

by Michael Tyminski

In what has to be a stunning reversal of events, NBC’s other singing show The Sing-Off is finding its’ way back on to the airwaves in the fall of 2013.

The show’s return was announced via a casting call from show judge Ben Folds, who posted it via his Facebook earlier today. A new production team is supposed to be involved, as Entertainment Weekly notes that Mark Burnett Productions (who also does the Voice and has been a juggernaut in the reality genre for the past decade) is working to revamp season 4.

The show, which ran for three seasons between 2009 and 2011, was cancelled when NBC opted to double down on its’ hit competition franchise, The Voice for the 2012 season. It’s most notable winner was YouTube sensation Pentatonix, known for putting a futuristic spin on the a capella genre.

This is a stunning surprise in a year where networks are suddenly looking to bring back old favorites such as CW returning Whose Line is it Anyway? (without Drew Carey, but with many of the show’s original favorites).

I for one, enjoyed the original series, which encouraged creativity in arrangement and overall musical talent versus the never-ending audition process that plagues shows such as American Idol and The Voice. It should be interesting to see if they bring back the full panel (i’m going to go out on a limb and say that Folds is involved seeing how he publicized the casting call).

Many Happy Returns: Community

by Michael Tyminski

Community: Thursdays at 8pm Eastern on NBC

Since we last saw Community: A ton has happened in the last 9 months since any new Community last showed new episodes. Community was narrowly re-upped for a fourth season. The show’s creator was unceremoniously canned due to budget issues with Sony, Chevy Chase got really mad for a bunch of reasons, the show was moved to Friday (to be paired with Whitney…ewwww) only for that move to be rescinded when the Peacock had a disastrous developmental season left too few shows to be called up from the bench. As a result, the show was pushed back to spring, which is perfectly acceptable to me as it means that we will be replacing one of my least favorite holidays (Valentine’s Day) with one of my most favorite holidays (Halloween). Finally, Barack Obama was reelected president and the Manhattan Digest was created.

Oh wait, that section was supposed to be a recap of what happened on the show to catch people up? Ok. So when we last left off, the Greendale Seven had just saved the school from Chang, who had taken over the school in pure Napoleonic fashion after installing an imposter dean and kidnapping the real dean. A few months later, Jeff was forced to choose between his career and his newly found friendship when Shirley and Pierce struggle to determine who would run their new sandwich shop. Troy saved the air conditioning school and moved into the room that was formerly the Dreamatorium. Finally Britta was giving Abed therapy, which almost led to Evil Abed trying to recreate the darkest time line by being generally evil.

Our season premiere looks to revolve around two key points. First and foremost, the Dean has a limited number of tickets to a course titled “The History of Ice Cream”, which in true Greendale fashion leads to a Hunger Games style campus-wide fight for those precious few tickets. Additionally, we learn that last year’s beloved dictator Chang has acquired a case of amnesia, meaning that he has completely forgotten about his psychotic reign of terror last year (though hopefully he hasn’t forgotten how to play the Key-tar).

What I’m looking forward to: One of the things that last season finale did well was leave a number of plot threads open for season four while leaving an ending that would not be a complete let down in the case of cancellation. We should finally meet Jeff’s dad this season, which I’m awaiting with baited breath as Jeff’s daddy issues played a large role in season 3. Finally, even without a fifth season renewal, season four seems like a natural closing point to the story about college, so the absolute worst case scenario is the story reaches what would be it’s natural conclusion.

What I’m not looking forward to: No new episodes after may? A possible change in tone in an attempt to “broaden” the show under Sony’s behest? Whatever line it was that made Chevy Chase blow up midseason? This topic is pretty difficult for me as Community is easily one of my favorite shows on the dial and I am way too happy to see it return (hence the column title: Many Happy Returns). However, knowing the creative tour de force that is Dan Harmon (and if you haven’t checked out his podcast Harmontown I strongly recommend it) is gone, the show could lose some of the intricacy that was it’s hallmark over the last two seasons.

30 Rock Goes Out With a Bang after 7 Seasons

by Michael Tyminski

Last night marked the series finale of 30 Rock after seven long seasons, and the show ended as it lived: full of rapid-fire humor, Tracy Jordan’s antics, Jack Donaghy’s classic manipulative tricks, and Liz Lemon being as neurotic and frantic as possible.

The first half of this double header finale revolved around Jack Donaghy’s quest for happiness and Liz adjusting to being a stay at home mom. Neither goes particularly well as Liz immediately starts a fight on a moms only message board (with an anonymous poster that happens to be her husband nonetheless), while Jack goes off to formulaically fill out a pie chart with various things that are “supposed” to make him happy (such as faith, hiring a guy off the street to co-anchor for today, and a threesome with Nancy Donovan and Elisa. Despite filling in his happiness pie chart entirely, after reaching a number of goals (including an angry screed by Nancy Pelosi), Jack feels more disappointed than ever and leaves the job that he worked his entire life to get. Conversely, Liz and Criss come to realization that Liz would make the better breadwinner of the couple and Liz goes off to find a new writing gig. This ultimately leads to Liz and Jack getting into the most tumultuous argument in the seven year run of the show after Liz feels betrayed by the fact that Jack made her “want more” (in terms of dreams, expectations, and generally not settling).

Tracy and Jenna on the other hand, formed the backbone of the show’s two B-plots. Jenna attempts to adjust to the show’s cancellation by throwing Jenna-style tantrums but cannot cope with the fact that absolutely no one is listening to her. As a result she tries TV (only to be forced to play roles like corpses) and movies (only to find everyone in Los Angeles is younger and prettier than her). Tracy meanwhile is upset that Kenneth is not around to do him a favor as he used to in his positions of both page (and janitor), leading to a heartwarming moment where he “releases” Kenneth from his entourage.

The second half of the show revolves around a major plot development that occurs in the first half with Liz having to put up one final show of TGS in order to fulfill a contract obligation to Tracy Jordan. However, a monkey is thrown in a wrench when Tracy runs away in order to ensure the show never happens, unknowing of a hefty penalty in his contract that would be owed to him if the show does not reach the 150 episode milestone. As a result, Liz has to chase him down in order to shoot the final episode. Liz ultimately finds Tracy in a strip club, where Tracy is running from the show in order to avoid having to say goodbye.

Meanwhile Jack is trying to patch up with Liz after the tumultuous argument that occurred at the end of the first part of the show. This ultimately leads to Jack hitting rock bottom and various cast members wondering if Jack was looking to off himself. However, this turns into Jack’s final manipulative game, as Liz finds him boarding a boat to find his true bliss, only for it to turn into the shortest boat trip of anyone’s life after deciding to push a “see-through dishwasher”.

The show’s final C-plot involves Frank and Toofer trying to get Lutz to move off of Blimpie’s when he got to choose the writers’ final lunch. Nothing however will work to make Lutz not pick Blimpie’s as he chosen it for revenge after all of the hell the other writers have given him over the past seven years (until Liz, who is tyrannical about food throws Lutz in her office tells Cerie to order sushi and dessert). However, Lutz takes the ultimate of measures to ensure that the writers’ will eat Blimpie’s, come hell or high water.

The finale as a whole impressed, often juggling four plot lines through both halves of the show, with neither section feeling particularly crowded, and giving every cast member a proper send off, be it Jonathan finally screaming at Liz how Jack was all his, Pete’s attempt at faking his death, and Tracy’s father finally returning from buying that pack of cigarettes. This comes as no surprise, however, as 30 Rock has done an excellent job this entire season of wrapping up lingering plot arcs, whether it’s Kenneth’s final rise to the presidency of NBC (a long term callback to a remark Jack mentioned in which he stated that “Kenneth will be running this company in five years”), Jack’s final realization that despite her salty interior, his mother was really caring for him the entire time, or Liz’s adoption arc that mysteriously fell off the face of the earth somewhere in the middle of season three.

The (in this case, absolute) final verdict: 30 Rock went out with the sort of ending that a show of it’s caliber deserved. Despite the massive changes that many of the major characters had over the course of the show, it took lengths to prove that it’s central characters (Jack, Liz, Kenneth, Tracy, and Jenna) were still at their core the people that they were at the start of the show. As has been the case all season, the show managed to neatly tie up a number of unresolved loose plot lines, whether it’s Jack’s unresolved love life or the Liz Lemon adoption arc that disappeared from consciousness over the past couple of seasons. A terrific sendoff (and the first of many this season for NBC’s Thursday night lineup) for a show that was fearlessly frenetic and funny.

NBC

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