TNT

Mob City Is All Sizzle, No Steak

Mob City: Wednesdays at 9 Eastern on TNT

As we slowly march through December interseason (it isn’t fall, but mid-season hasn’t kicked in yet either), we tend to stumble upon the shortest of new series, often running six episodes or less multiple times a week (more on another of those “event” shows next week). Often these shows run either as a teaser for a full series, though often they exist because they fit the network’s holiday schedule better than running two new weeks of regular prime-time over a period where pre-emptions can be found all over the dial. TNT, however, is taking the opportunity to instead go big, placing a premiere mini-series in the course of the two weeks before Christmas from a big-name showrunner with some top notch guest stars.

Mob City is the brainchild of Frank Darabont, former showrunner of The Walking Dead and is a noir-style show set in the mid-20^th century oasis of LA. Here, an embattled and corrupt police force must square off against Bugsy Siegel’s (Ed Burns) infamous mob group. However, Captain Frank Walker (Neal McDonough) is trying to shine as a beacon of light in the department, ridding it of corruption while making the fight against organized crime his own. The whole story is told through the eyes of Jeff Teague.

Visually, Mob City is very lush, with the sort of cinematic feel that the best of television now provides. In addition to its’ striking visual scenery, the show doesn’t hesitate to bring that same quality to the foreground, as the show does not hesitate to bring the effects to the forefront, including one cool shot where a failing underling is blown straight through the back wall of his church confessional. The more intricate scenes are also slickly shot, as shown in both the opening firefight of the pilot, and the climactic showdown at the end of the pilot.

Unfortunately, while the show is stylistically amazing, the underlying skeleton is weak. The show’s focal point, the detective Jeff Teague is incredibly boring, even by the stoic noir-lead standards. We spend the bulk of the first two episodes circling around the same points (in what had to indicate a burn-off, we see Necky tell a story about Mickey Cohen’s origins only to see the same exact story visualized in the open of the second episode—with maybe 10 minutes of real time passing between the two). The end result is a show that feels incredibly empty at points while belaboring a mystery that we already know about while failing to develop any other real plot lines to accompany it.

The Final Verdict: Mob City creates a wonderful playground and is a grandiose exercise in world building, but it’s all squandered on a slow moving story with not particularly well flashed out characters (in particular, it’s lead). The end result is the sort of show that seems ideal in the background, with one only really focusing on the TV when the guns come out. I’d skip this one, normally this would be the sort of show I’d call wait and see on (because it’s not necessarily bad), but with a six episode run, the lack of any urgency is alarming, and there’s minimal hope a third of the way in that the show is going to improve it’s structural issues.

Cold Justice is Under Cooked and in Dire Need of Seasoning

by Michael Tyminski

Cold Justice: Tuesday Nights at 10p.m. On TNT

It seems like one of the trends that is starting to gain steam (at least on basic cable) is the proliferation of reality content on networks that up to this point had hung their hat on scripted series. Just this year alone, we’ve seen USA pick up Summer Camp, TBS debut it’s reality series King of the Nerds, and AMC trot out Owner’s Manual. One of the most pronounced shifts towards reality TV, however, has to be TNT, which went from being exclusively devoted to dramas (hence the tagline: We know drama) to unleashing both the Dwayne Johnson vehicle The Hero, as well as tonight’s offering, Cold Justice.

Cold Justice, comes from the brain of Law and Order mastermind Dick Wolf, and unsurprisingly, takes a similar tack to the iconic series. Former crime investigator Yolanda McClary and prosecutor Kelly Siegel travel around the country digging up unresolved cold cases (cases that have been dormant for years) in the hopes of bringing justice to the families of murder victims. The cases themselves range from about five to thirty years old and span from Ohio to Arizona.

So is the real life Law and Order as compelling as it’s drama counterpart? The answer to that question is the most emphatic of nos. While I laud the work that McClary and Siegel do, it’s very clear that the same factors that make them great at solving cases make them incredibly weak TV personalities. Both of them speak with the same clinical monotone, and neither shows a hint of personality at any point (even during their own introductions). This nondescript matter-of-factness extends to the narrator, who speaks in the same exact Ben Stein-like tone.

Similarly, the show relies on a very bland visual palate. The bulk of the show seems to take place in the same one office room, with white walls, white tables, and papers huddled all around. The closest the show does give to a solid visualization is a quick scene involving a turned shoulder in the dingy trailer bathroom that is the scene of the crime. However, the show seems perfectly content to tell (which as mentioned above with the leads– not so much the show’s strength) when it could show, something even most low budget true crime shows manage to find space for in the hour (even a cheesy re-enactment or lazy CGI modeling would do). When it does use visual effects, it mostly comes in the form of a nauseating (and unnecessary) 3-D effect to make words and still photos look like they were literally ripped forward out of the photo and/or page they came from.

To the shows credit, Wolf creates a very realistic depiction of the criminal investigation process. Unfortunately, since the criminal justice process involves a heavy amount of fairly mundane tasks, Cold Justice doesn’t seem to possess any of the interesting qualities that turn procedurals into hits and make the fine people at CBS lots of money. This would be fine if it built to any sort of confrontation, but the shows potential big moments (the interrogations, the DNA results, the big sell to the DA) ultimately fizzle out, thus making for a completely drama free and remarkably unexciting hour of watching people sit in an office and sputter the same points over and over again.

The Final Verdict (no pun intended this time around): Cold Justice is a bland pastiche that quite frankly had me ticking down the minutes to the end of the show. While there have been shows in the past that have offended my sensibilities (LA Shrinks), made me question the logic of the producers (Blood and Oil), and have been comically incompetent (Cult and Zero Hour), this is the first show that I found boring enough that I had to force myself to keep watching it. Skip at all costs and watch grass grow, it will be more entertaining.

Mediocre Writing and Subpar Action Mar King and Maxwell

by Michael Tyminski

King and Maxwell: Mondays at 10p.m. Eastern on TNT

Since the turn of the millennium, has there been a more dominant sub-genre of drama on television than the crime procedural? Since 2000 alone, our strongest drama franchises have almost exclusively been in the genre, including CSI (and it’s two spin offs), Law and Order (and its two spinoffs), and NCIS (and its’ spinoff). One subsection of the drama that has been immune to this boom, however, are your private investigator driven shows, an 80’s staple that included such standout hits as Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon, and Murder, She Wrote. It is in that tradition that TNT draws inspiration for it’s newest show, King and Maxwell.

King and Maxwell follows the cases of two former secret service agents who became private investigators: the rational and even headed Sean King (John Tenney) and the cluttered and impulsive Michelle Maxwell. Both became private investigators after missions went horribly wrong (a candidate that King protected was assassinated, while Maxwell’s charge was kidnapped). The two then work together to solve crimes in legally questionable fashion while clashing with the FBI over their methods, leading to a slightly more dysfunctional version of the “case of the week” model.

Tonight’s episode opens with a car chase where Maxwell chased down a suspect driving a bus in a beaver suit to a government building. After being cornered and pointing a gun at Maxwell, King arrests him with the aid of a trusty laser pointer. Ultimately, this lands our titular duo in jail, as they used some **ahem** extralegal methods to catch our criminal. They leave the jail to find that a serial killer’s lawyer was murdered last night.

After confirming Ted’s death, Sean goes to the prison to speak to Edgar Roy, the serial killer in question, while Michelle goes to check out Ted’s house. Both encounter resistance, as Sean can’t get Edgar to speak, while Michelle has to break in and ends up getting shot at while looking for evidence. Our FBI harpies then return to harass our private investigator squad to break the news that Roy has broken out of jail.

Maxwell and King then set off to investigate a defense contractor tied to Roy. This ultimately leads them to an abandoned overpass, where they get into a fight with the contractor’s heavies, before leaving to get answers from an informant and for King to pore over the data, only for King to end up assaulted by a mysterious interloper. The data comes together leading to King and Maxwell meeting Edgar at “The Wall”. After a confrontation, we find out that Ted’s assistant was a mole, leading to our big finish. Finally, King and Maxwell take on Edgar as their bookkeeper.

Now you may think to yourself: that sounds like a lot of action for the procedural genre! Unfortunately, this show cuts corners with the effects budget, such as in our obviously CG’d car chase. Additionally, many of our settings look sparse, including a surprisingly tourist free downtown DC (that for that matter doesn’t really look like DC), a “prison” that looks like an empty warehouse (where one learns that guard-free late night visits in dark rooms are possible – which looks even more ridiculous when you consider that the show visits a more realistic looking police station halfway through the show. There’s also a terrible fight scene where there are more swings and misses than a pitcher’s duel.

The writing also feels mediocre. While the advertising and explicit exposition are supposed to make Maxwell into an aggressive type-A hothead who thinks in the moment, while King is a wily trickster who uses deception, subterfuge, and enjoys the finer things in life. Unfortunately at times the two tend to blend into each other, as we tend to see very little of either the hothead or the wonk in either of these characters. Even worse however, is the writing for our FBI interlopers, particularly Inspector Rigby (Michael O’ Keefe), who is often stuck with the most ridiculous of put-downs and slams (including one about looking for lost dogs). His partner Agent Carter instead gets every canned, banal, detective quote in the book.

It’s a shame that the the show looks like a B-movie and is written in a mediocre fashion, because the actors are really forced to struggle to carry the weight. Both Tenney and Romijn play the mismatched buddy cop partnership very well, often bickering like a married couple, occasionally over the stupidest things (such as a Michelle’s messy rowboat and tendency to shower with the door open). Ryan Hurst does a convincing job playing Edgar Roy, a difficult job, considering that he has to juggle the complexities of Edgar’s high functioning autism who happens to have seen more than his fair share of things that you couldn’t unsee. O’Keefe tries his hardest to channel Rigby’s stern and tight demeanor, but unfortunately seems like he’s on the verge of corpsing through most of his lines.

The Final Verdict: King and Maxwell is fairly serviceable as far as private eye procedurals go, but ultimately does a lot of the little things just wrong enough that it feels like watching an old sci-fi movie and see the strings hanging onto the spaceships. If you can somehow muscle your way through all of the corner cutting, you end up with a show that ends up throwing just enough twists and turns for you (there’s one section at the end where the conflicting mindsets of our principle characters nearly gets them killed) to stay less predictable than the case of the week format usually provides you. The end result is a show that could be watchable if they focus on chemistry in future episodes but becomes unwatchable the minute it throws any action sequence at you.

The Hero Is An Action Packed Summer Thrill Ride

by Michael Tyminski

The Hero: Thursdays at 8p.m. Eastern on TNT

It’s incredible to chart the growth of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He started off in football, at the University of Miami before ending up in the world of professional wr– **ahem** sports entertainment. It was a bit part in 2001’s The Mummy 2: Revenge of the Scorpion King, however, that allowed him to make a jump into movies, often alternating between family friendly Disney star and tough gritty action hero like his role in the Fast and the Furious series. TNT’s newest show is the newest step for The Rock, being a show very clearly molded from his vision.

The Hero is a reality competition that takes nine everyday people and puts them in taxing situations in order to determine which of them gets the title of “Hero”. These situations are designed not only to test their physical skills, but their mental and moral ones as well. Johnson not only functions as executive producer, but host and mentor to the contestants as well.

We open with the Rock explaining the game from the roof of a 60 story building. The mechanics of the game are very closely related to ABC’s The Mole. There are two challenges a show: a team challenge and a solo challenge. One person is designated as a hero who can put large sums of money in the pot or keep them from themselves. The solo challenges are worth $10,000 to the Red Cross and double the time for that weeks solo challenge. Our solo challenger, chosen from the phase 2 participants of our team challenge, then plays for the right to either put $50,000 in the team bank or they can pocket it, guaranteeing that they go home with a fairly large sum.

During the first challenge, Patti (one of our contestants not tabbed for the team challenge) is summoned up to the roof, where the Rock gives her an offer. $25,000 to the pot, or $25,000 in her pocket. After a struggle in which our two most musclebound contestants take 25 minutes to touch hands, our smaller pair acquires the second half of a secret code in 3 short minutes. The team makes it to the summit and puts the code in in the nick of time, giving the extra time for the solo challenge.

Returning successfully, our contestants must discuss whom they will send on the hero’s challenge, where $50,000 of prize money is on the line. Our heroes meet in a pretty cool superheroes lair, where they ask our three remaining heroes about whether or not they would be good for our challenge, which was teased as “in the dark”. The challenge involves walking around Noriega’s Bunker in the dark looking for a generator which will open up all of the lights, unlock the cash, and escape in 20 minutes or less.

Our contestants come from all walks of life including Cheerleader, Cop, Surgeon, Technician, Construction Worker, Fitness Trainer, Single Parent, Salon Worker and Professional Wrestler. Unfortunately, once the rules are in place, they’re all prone to bickering. While it can grate and get excessive at times, it’s intriguing how to see that the rules of the game can divide what one would think would be a fairly unified front.

The Rock plays an interesting combination of host, tempter, drill sergeant, and of course, the trademark flippancy that one would expect from Mr. Johnson. He balances these roles fairly well, though it should be interesting to see whom will take the temptation offer from the Rock, as some of our contestants seem to already have some degree of hero worship for him (no pun intended) from minute one of the show.

There is a ton of beautiful cinematography on this show, including great shots from extreme heights during the Tower Bank challenge and a lot of beautiful sunrise/sunset shots of the Panama city skyline. Similarly, the show’s night vision footage in the Noriega’s bunker challenge is pretty impressive. The challenges are also well designed, as both challenges were completed just barely in the nick of time (though those extra ten minutes were essential).

The Final Verdict: The Hero is one part Mole, one part action movie, and entirely balls to the wall. While the contestant’s bickering can get very annoying very quickly, this is the slickest and most compelling looking reality competition show I’ve seen to date. The challenges are also well designed and compelling to watch. It’s completely worth checking out, and could possibly become must watch if later episodes carry the same amount of entertainment value.

Monday Mornings is a mediocre way to spend a Monday night

by Michael Tyminski

Monday Mornings: Airing Mondays at 10 p.m. Eastern on TNT

David E. Kelley made his return to television last night with the debut of his new show Monday Mornings. The former creator of such hits as Picket Fences, Boston Legal, the Practice, and Chicago Hope teamed up with former CNN medical adviser Dr. Sanjay Gupta in this new medical drama.

Monday Mornings tells the story of a group of doctors working at prestigious Chelsea Hospital who deal with both the crush of incoming patients as well as the hospitals extra-intense mortality and morbidity councils (which often occur on Monday mornings, hence the title of the show). These conferences are a key wrinkle to the show, as the interrogations often bounce the proceedings from a straightforward 90’s style medical drama (that’s right, no irascible pill popping doctors or soapy voice-over intros here) into courtroom show territory.

The show features an all-star cast including Alfred Molina (who will admittedly forever be Dr. Octopus to me) as Dr. Harding Hooten, a punishing chief of surgery who makes Percival Cox look non-abrasive by comparison, and Ving Rhames as Dr. Jorge Villanueva, a trauma chief with a knack for instant diagnoses and an uncanny ability to dispense advice. These characters in turn, are surrounded by a number of high level doctors, whether its hot shot neurosurgeons Ty Wilson and Tina Ridgeway (Jamie Bamber and Jennifer Finnigan), Dr. Sung Park (Keong Sim) a Korean neurosurgeon whose English is rusty exposing a brusque attitude, antisocial Buck Tierney (Bill Irwin), and the fast speaking workaholic Sydney Napur (Saryu Rao).

Like most hospital dramas, the pilot revolves around a number of patient cases, including an 11 year old who is diagnosed with a large brain tumor, a young woman who attempted to commit suicide by leaving her car on a train track has a ticking time bomb inside her brain, a woman whom is experiencing uncontrollable tremors, and a woman who has been through Chelsea Hospital five times in the past three months with various symptoms but no real long-term answers. Additionally, strains are shown in Sydney’s and Tina’s love life, however these strains manifest themselves in different ways and are a relatively minor subplot.

There are a lot of things that this show does well. The acting in this show is generally pretty strong, with Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames, and especially Keong Sim (who does a bang up job portraying Sung Pak’s brusqueness). Similarly, the show excels in its surgery scenes, where stunning visuals help to create a tangible feel of tension throughout the show (Ty Wilson’s hands being completely covered in blood after a botched surgery was particularly resonant). Finally, the pilot does an excellent job of easing the viewer into the show, giving quick glimpses into most of the principle characters and the flow of the show before ratcheting up the tension about 20 minutes in.

The one thing I did not like was the way that sections of the dialogue felt particularly contrived. This was particularly evident whenever the show tried to inject a little comedy into the proceedings, as the show often would jam snarky one-liners into situations that don’t warrant them (the reference to a side character being referred to as “007” because he had a license to kill fell particularly flat to me). This is a shame because the show is so excellent at producing tension that the one-liners often kill the flow of the scene. The editing feels awkward at points, making a major emotional reveal (Dr. Napur’s boyfriend rescinding his proposal) come off wooden, with a surprisingly hard cut in the middle of Ridgeway’s reaction.

The show could also use some a little additional characterization since after the pilot the shorthand description of both female leads is “they’re married to their job, and it’s ruining their home life” (I admittedly should have seen this coming when TNT’s own website for the show only described each character with a sentence or two). Additionally, while the stars deliver, many of the side characters tend to come off very wooden, with often either a rushed delivery of lines, awkward capitulation to authority, or hammy overreaction.

The Final Verdict: Monday Mornings marks a return to form for David Kelley. It follows many of the aspects of an ER-style medical drama, but also can slide into a courtroom style drama when the focus shifts to room 311. It’s star studded cast generally delivers, especially Ving Rhames and Keong Sim, but it seems difficult for anyone to excel because the writing and editing generally feels lacking. It’s mediocre, but it has the benefit of being in a Monday 10 p.m. time slot that is not exactly the deepest in television.

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