TV reviews

Partners On FX Is Severely Lacking

Partners: Mondays at 9 Eastern on FX

FX has made a number of bold and interesting moves over the past few years – they focused on expanding their comedy division and had strong successes with Louie, Archer, and The League. Two years later, they laid the groundwork for a split into three networks: the FX we all know and love, comedy-centric FXX, and the movie channel FXM. Lately, the network has been an aggressive participant in the event series trend, with limited run series like the various seasons of American Horror Story and Fargo. However, they pay for all of these gambles from a trick they learned on one of their least critically acclaimed shows in the form of Anger Management, where they started using a 10 episode first season and 90 episode second season model to bring in top name stars for their newer shows, like they do with Monday’s new debut Partners.

Partners stars Kelsey Grammar and Martin Lawrence as two attorneys who start a legal partnership at their respective nadirs. Grammar’s character, Alan Braddock, is a hotshot attorney who just got fired from the family business and is making money doing some horrifically unethical legal work. Lawrence’s character, Marcus Jackson, on the other hand, is battling a divorce and has much of his work being performed pro-bono for baked goods. When the court forces the two to work together, they form a partnership in an attempt to be profitable and ethical something neither has completely grasped.

Partners is ultimately a mess. It’s pilot is an origin story that feels thrown together, with it’s points being held together with the absolute minimum of internal logic. The end result, is a story that feels not only rushed, but nonsensical at points due to the wild jumps of logic that the show makes. Furthermore, this show about lawyers seems to take a long detour into Braddock and Jackson being private investigators (while their assistants do seemingly nothing) at least once during every episode. Add in some tacked on family subplots by giving Braddock an unnecessary daughter and you have an incoherent plot soup.

Worse than that, much of Partners feels incredibly tired. Many of the the jokes feel like a raunchier version of something out of a 90’s sitcom (which is no surprise when you consider the showrunner is Robert Boyett whose mostly known for ABC’s TGIF block). This tiredness extends out to much of the line delivery, which for Lawrence especially feels flat and uninspired, as if it’s clear he took the script for the paycheck.

The one bright spot on the show is Grammar-himself, who keeps the same Grammar-esque pomposity and tone adds a little bit of the levity to the shows delivery. While normally I’m not a fan of someone hamming up on a sitcom, here it’s necessary if only to breathe life into the otherwise dull proceedings. Unfortunately, however, even that one bright spot is but a tiny shrub in the path of the awful tornado that Partners ultimately is.

The Final Verdict: The latest 10-90 experiment by FX, I would be surprised if Partners makes a second season. It mixes tired jokes, incoherent plotting, and mostly uninspired acting into what feels like an interminable 22 minutes. Skip this one, FX doesn’t misfire often, but Partners is a complete dud.

Fool Me Makes Summer TV Magic

by Michael Tyminski

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.

Running Wild Feels More Like Running Mild

by Michael Tyminski

Running Wild w/Bear Grylls – Mondays at 8 Eastern on NBC

The last decade brought two styles of reality television into vogue: shows about people roughing it in exotic and often dangerous locales that seemingly put the star in the face of death on a weekly basis (Survivorman, Man vs. Wild), and shows that took a look into the life of the rich and opulent (see any Bravo show that isn’t Top Chef). Needless to say, in the desperate scramble to come up with some summer television, NBC has elected to mix some roughing it chocolate with what it hopes will be some celebrity peanut butter in order to score a hit with it’s newest show: Running Wild w/ Bear Grylls.

Running Wild w/Bear Grylls is at it’s core about one simple concept: extreme vacationing with A-Listers. With a guest list that includes Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, and Ben Stiller, Grylls ventures around the world finding the ideal spots that will push their given celebrity to the limits. Monday’s premiere begins with Zac Efron traversing New York’s Catskill Mountains (an interesting call if only because when I think Catskills, I think skiing, old comedians, and Dirty Dancing – not life or death survivalism) trying to finish a 2 day course that includes a number of challenges including rappelling, skydiving, and survival.

So how is Running Wild? Well it’s pretty slow. There’s a lack of real tone differentiation between it’s high adventure and downtime moments, causing many of the journey’s legs to bleed together. I found a similar problem with last year’s Get Out Alive, meaning that they didn’t really learn the stylistic lessons of last year’s attempt at the same format. This is a shame, because a 120 rappel, skydiving, and worm omelets are all basically played as humdrum as a walk through the park on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t necessarily ask for excessive dramatics here, but some sense of stakes would be nice.

Oddly enough, the slowness actually contributes to the show’s strongest point: for a guy who’s famous for being stuck in the woods alone, Grylls is a surprisingly good interviewer. If Running Wild was truly meant to be celebrity rehabilitation puff-piece in the wild, then Grylls more than holds up his end of the bargain, coaxing his guests through numerous tasks – (the Catskills become Grylls personal high ropes course) while using the downtime to ask seemingly probing questions that ultimately make that weeks celebrities look better. This distinction becomes night and day when you see Efron’s cutaways, as the cocksure actor in many of the shows cutaways gives way to a more vulnerable soul out in the wild.

The Final Verdict: For the second straight summer I’m reviewing a Bear Grylls reality show, and for the second straight year, the show feels like it’s just there. It’s a true shame because Grylls is a quality TV personality, it’s just that Running Wild makes life-or-death resemble a trip to 7-Eleven. This is the sort of show that typically puts my thumbs firmly in the middle – check it out if you have nothing better to watch on an early Monday or are waiting for American Ninja Warrior.

Food Fighters Scores A Split Decision

by Michael Tyminski

Food Fighters: Tuesdays at 8 Eastern on NBC

The competition genre has seemingly been on it’s last legs for a while as the genre (Voice aside) has struggled to produce new hits. The end result is that reality hours for the most part have been down across the board, except at the peacock, whose newfound respectability (unfortunately, much to my chagrin, I can’t put quotation marks around respectability anymore) has a summer schedule jam-packed with as much unscripted TV as possible (Last Comic Standing, America’s Got Talent, and American Ninja Warrior being just some of NBC’s recent summer offerings). They add to this stable of competition television with Tuesday offering Food Fighters.

Food Fighters, at it’s core is like Bobby Flay’s Throwdown on steroids. One contestant, with their signature dishes (everyone’s got one – they typically get busted out for dinner parties and the like) must take on not one celebrity chef, but five whom attempt to knock the contestant off their culinary pedestal. The show stars Adam Richman (of misguided thinspiration scandal fame as well as Man vs. Food) as the host, while the celebrity chef pool features a mixture of familiar Food Network stars (Duff Goldman, Cat Cora), brand ambassadors (Lorena Garcia), and new faces (Jet Tila, G. Garvin, Elizabeth Falkner).

The first thing I noticed while watching Food Fighters was the grandiosity. The kitchen area is two tiered and sweeping, the show doesn’t spare it’s prize budget (you’re looking at a $100,000 top prize that seems attainable, but at the same time it’s tough to walk away with less than $5,000 – $10,000). While a lot of cooking shows have tried to give this sort of vibe in the past – this show is truly the closest an American company has gotten to copying Kitchen Stadium from the Japanese Iron Chef, with it’s decadent two tier kitchen, tons of lights and almost game show like appearance.

This grandiosity, thankfully, extends out to the chefs, who play up generally affable villains in the pro-wrestling mold. This include Kevin Belton, a Cajun chef with a knack for witty banter and playing to the crowd, and Marcel Vigneron, a former Top Chef competitor who has a knack for unorthodox cooking methods. It’s Garcia, however, who steals the show by putting on balancing act unlike any other with some impressive knife work and nimbly sashaying around Richman when he gets in the way during a mid showdown interview. Surprisingly subdued amidst the largeness of this show is Richman himself, who despite operating as host, commentator, and interviewer manages to fill a background role without taking the spotlight away from the competitors.

Of course, none of this grandiosity means a thing without a sound format, and Food Fighters comes through in that regard. Seeing how it’s ultimately the battle between home cook and celebrity chef, the show relies on two key twists to balance the tables. First and foremost, in a twist taken from Throwdown, the judges are average citizens, who are put to a blind taste test. Secondly, however, is the strategic element of Food Fighters, where the home chef picks which chef challenges which recipe, meaning that seafood experts could be forced to bake, while Italian cuisine maestros can be pushed into making tacos.

There are, however, a few mild quibbles. First and foremost, the five course setup gets slightly monotonous at points, even if the timers were often incredibly short (all of the battles ran between 15 and 25 minutes in length). The judging segments also seemed fairly weak, with the judges often restating the obvious, which makes some of the decisions feel downright puzzling when Richman announces them. Finally, the show only bothers to promote the end-bosses of any given show, which is a true shame, since it slightly misleads it’s audience.

The Final Verdict: It doesn’t necessarily add a ton to a genre that’s pretty well played out (both food competitions and competition style network shows), but Food Fighters won me over by coming way closer to the pinnacle of the genre than most of the cooking shows out there and generally sidestepping most of the melodramatics and ridiculous gimmicks that are a staple of the format. It’s downfall, however comes in it’s high variance, like many game shows, there will be some curbstomp level showdowns (one chef used egg roll wrap for his tacos because he “couldn’t find the tortillas” and got soundly whumped 5-0) to go with some truly amazing battles (Garcia’s showdown in particular, even the result is a headscratcher). Check it out if you get the chance, even if it’s the sort of show that will likely work better catching the odd battle or two on Hulu.

The Strain Is A Virus Stuck In A Useless Host

by Michael Tyminski

The Strain: Sundays at 10 Eastern on FX

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a ton of fantasy and horror on the airwaves – NBC has found a Friday night niche running out shows like Dracula, Hannibal, and Grimm. AMC scored a huge hit with The Walking Dead (which will be it’s last major tentpole standing after Mad Men leaves the air next year). HBO has found strong success off of shows like Game of Thrones and True Blood. Even Showtime has entered the fantasy game with Penny Dreadful. Now FX, which has made it’s name in drama off of gritty realistic dramas like The Shield, The Americans, Sons of Anarchy and Justified is getting into the supernatural game with The Strain.

The Strain, the brainchild of film director Guillermo Del Toro, follows the CDC Canary Team, a unit designated to handle to some of the world’s worst viral outbreaks. This time around, however, the outbreak is a virus that afflicts it’s hosts with an ancient strain of vampirism. As a result, Canary Team member Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) assembles a rag-tag army of New Yorkers to fight the vampires in a war that will determine the fate of humanity.

Let’s start with the positives: when The Strain wants to scare the pants off of you, it’s going to scare the pants off of you. This is particularly notable in the slower early portions of the pilot, where the episode lulls you into a false sense of security before using it’s jump scares judiciously. The show also manages to give off a couple of solid gore scares along the way for good measure, as you expect from a show that gives you large numbers of dead and undead bodies floating around at all times.

Unfortunately, those crystallized horror moments are lost in a bloated pilot. As is typical for FX, The Strain‘s premiere clocks in at around 100 minutes. Unfortunately, the pilot squanders most of it’s first half setting up awkward romance and divorce plots for Goodweather that feel tacked onto the show’s ultimate premise of good vs. evil. What makes these bloated moments particularly damning though, is that these moments don’t actually make me care about Goodweather (or any of the protagonists for that matter).

The flatness of the writing unfortunately extends out to much of the show, including the acting. It often seems like the actors are sleepwalking through their lines, even though the only characters with lines so far are the living ones. Similarly, while many horror movies tend to have their fun little moments (often when an undesirable character gets theirs), The Strain exists on being drab everywhere – even plucky moments where Goodweather and assistant Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) are exchanging what one would assume would be banter are completely devoid of punchiness.

The Final Verdict: There’s a good show waiting in The Strain if it just cut out all the fat and focused on the primary plotline. Unfortunately, with the amount of filler in the show, it’s going to take a lot more than diet and exercise to slim down what felt like a grossly bloated pilot. I’d skip this one or wait until the season’s closer to over before looking at it– Sundays at 10 are prime real estate for dramas and this one has to be the weakest new offering in that time slot.

Vicious’s Bite Is Delightful

by Michael Tyminski

Vicious: Sundays at 10:30 Eastern on PBS (Check your local listings)

No need for a double take, I am actually reviewing a new PBS show. While typically PBS skews a little more highbrow or educational than what most of my readers typically want to see, when I found out about Vicious I knew I had to make an exception to the rule because anything starring Ian McKellen will trump pretty much anything else, including an HBO series premiere happening concurrently (if I have time this week, I will try to pick up The Leftovers during the week). British comedies have traditionally had a strong cult track record in the US (PBS in particular being a key importer of the subgenre) so it should be interesting to see how Vicious translates as it moves across the pond.

Vicious is a multi-cam comedy about two longtime romantic partners Freddie Thornhill (Ian McKellen) and Stuart Bixbi (Derek Jacobi) trying to age gracefully while sharing the same London flat for a half century. With both men well beyond retirement age, their free time is mostly spent entertaining guests and slinging the most caustic invective possible at each other. The two are surrounded by a small clique of other elderly friends, and Ash, their considerably younger twenty-something neighbor.

So how is Vicious? Well starting with the obvious, it’s an incredibly snarky show, and it’s the sort of show that truly succeeds at it’s barbs. In a TV environment where barb-loaded multi-camera shows often swing and miss (Whitney and Friends with Better Lives both come to mind) for it’s barbs to feel not only funny but also unforced is a refreshing change. It often does that by layering the causticness on top of the delusions of much of the friend circle, whose swollen egos make for a sufficiently juicy target for the sniping that comes later.

None of this however, succeeds without McKellen and Jacobi, who completely succeed at being an old, married couple. The two are often at each others throats, but it becomes clear in the end that while a half-century of familiarity brought a ton of contempt, one doesn’t just stay with someone for that long without actually caring about the other person in the relationship. Furthermore, both actors’ theater background is put to good use as Vicious gives them room to truly ham up and vamp a little bit, which only helps to embellish the slams that are central to the show. It is in radiating out from McKellen and Jacobi that Vicious finds it’s groove and clearly the best angle for a show that doesn’t really do B-plots.

There are some very important structural issues that hold Vicious back though. This is particularly notable whenever the full cast happens to occupy a scene such as tonight’s wake: everyone (Ash excluded) seems to operate as the same exact level of acidity, leading to instances where everyone aside from the central pairing gets drowned out. The plotting also seems fairly threadbare at points, with the show often meandering or circling on it’s punchline-laden asides just a tad too much.

The Final Verdict: Vicious is an exemplary execution of the multi-camera sitcom. It doesn’t necessarily add anything new or revolutionary to the format, but instead simply works because it’s central pairing is better than pretty much any central pairing on this side of the pond. I’d recommend checking it out, with it easily entering must watch territory if you’re into McKellen or very biting comedies like Veep.

Rising Star Doesn’t Quite Break Through

by Michael Tyminski

Rising Star: Sundays at 9 Eastern on ABC

We’re at a weird point in the life-cycle of the competition show. Many of the original mainstays of the genre (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars) are clearly on the decline of their life cycle. However, The Voice aside, it’s not like there’s a ton of new competition shows that are ready to plug those holes in the schedule (X-Factor flopped, The Sing Off works best as a limited format). The end result is a genre that seemed like it was slowly finding it’s way off of prime-time schedules. However, much like the miracle NBC found with The Voice, this time it’s ABC living on a prayer with it’s newest show: Sunday night’s Rising Star.

So how does Rising Star stand out from the numerous other singing show’s we’ve seen before? Well to begin with the audition process isn’t too far removed from The Voice’s: 90 seconds, blind to the judges, and it’s on the contestants to impress. Where Rising Star is different is that it factors America into these auditions: instead of one judge looking to put you on their team, 70 percent of voters need to like you in order to raise the wall and move on to the next stage. Having a disproportional weight (each judge can boost your total by about 10 percent) are the show’s three music experts: Brad Paisley, Kesha, and Ludacris.

So how does Rising Star play out? Well it’s main conceit is somewhat misleading, as it seems extremely difficult to make it to the 70 percent threshold without the support of at least two if not all three of the experts (one contestant squeezed by on the backs of two of three judges – Ludacris is by far the toughest of the three to please). However, the experts have the correct interplay with tons of prodding (especially by Brad in Ludacris’s decision) that It also seems to be busting out its gimmick chest a touch early, with surprise audience auditions being busted out in the very first episode.

Rising Star does ace a lot of the little graphical things, having an incredibly slick look. The video wall the contestants perform behind is visually impressive, and the show busts a staggering array of camera angles over the course of the two hour premiere. Additionally, Rising Star put a ton of variety in its’ acts, putting classic rockers, boy bands, country acts, conventional pop acts, and even opera behind it’s video wall.

Weirdly enough, despite having shown solid comedy chops on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, host Josh Groban struggles as the show’s host, often creating at least one awkward moment per segment. This, combined with an often off-kilter sense of the moment (Groban struggles when the situation calls for a more bombastic voice – oddly enough he would work much better in the experts’ chair I think) create a mildly disorienting experience that will make competition show fans pine for a Carson Daly/Ryan Seacrest type. Where there is hope for Groban is in the pre-recorded video segments, as he does seem like he has a genuine interest in the contestants work.

The Final Verdict: Rising Star is the sort of show that has some clear strengths (it’s pretty, it’s experts have the same sort of rapport that brought The Voice to prominence) and some clear weaknesses (Groban’s live hosting, the format doesn’t add anything to a played out genre). The end result is a show that seems fine as an off-season fill for Voice junkies but this show is doomed even if it goes up against the slumping Idol. Check it out if you really need a fix for singing shows over the summer, if not wait and see – this can be much better show if Groban ultimately becomes more comfortable in the host’s role.

I Wanna Marry Harry Is The Epitome of Trash TV

by Michael Tyminski

I Wanna Marry Harry: Tuesdays at 9 Eastern on Fox

One of the perks of this Olympics-distorted television season is that the schedules became scrambled to the point where the late spring/early summer dumping ground was somewhat diffuse (many networks ran their six and eight episode pickups back in the winter) compared to previous years. This means that inexplicably enough, the last time the schedule was so sparse that I was looking at something that had potential to be pure dreck was three long months ago. Luckily, the fine folks at Fox returned to their classic trash TV sensibilities with Tuesday night’s offering.

I Wanna Marry Harry comes from the same formula of reality shows that brought us The Joe Schmo Show and Joe Millionaire a decade ago: find some willing marks, mislead them, and throw them on TV for their confusion and our entertainment. This time around, the con involves confusing twelve American women that they are being flown to England to compete for the heart of British royalty. However, this Harry is a commoner whom merely happens to resemble Prince Harry.

So my first and foremost impression? I Wanna Marry Harry is the most painfully mean-spirited show I’ve seen in a while. We never really get to see the positive aspects of any of our suitors, who are all portrayed universally as ditzy party girls with no real depth and a bunch of gold-digging tendencies. Our fake “Harry” is introduced in a montage that involves him being completely inept at playing the role or on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the idea of having to deceive these suitors (about the only thing he gets right is the con artistry).

The reason that much of the show feels so mean-spirited, is that when it doesn’t feel mean, it instead feels empty and vapid. Much of the conversation between the girls is reduced to mildly catty discussion, when they aren’t trying to jam the word “Prince”, “Harry” or “Fairy Tale” into every last sentence uttered on the show. This extends out to the show’s filler, which often focuses on slow-motion walks or unmaskings of people whom we already know the identity of (They devoted a full minute to the twelve contestants unmasking, cutting to an ad break for “Harry’s” unmasking).

Equally frustrating is the basic execution of some simple aspects of I Wanna Marry Harry. There are poorly lit cutaways, the transition shot is often little more than a dizzying pan across the top floor of the castle, and there are times where it felt like the show clearly blended two different confessional interviews into one sound bite (each cutaway had the suitor in question wearing something different and with a different hairstyle). In many ways it felt like the show spent all of it’s money on the accouterments to try and fool the girls, because the difference between the level of detail at the set and what the viewer sees at home is stark.

The Final Verdict: There are so many things wrong with I Wanna Marry Harry, but I think the simplest way to describe it is as this: it goes to these elaborate lengths to try and fool it’s bachelorettes, but comes off very slipshod in how it presents the show to it’s viewers. It hides it’s vapidness with meanness and it tries to make it’s con man it’s sympathetic character. Skip this one, it adds literally nothing to a sub-genre of shows that were played out a decade ago.

Penny Dreadful Is Actually Quite Delightful

by Michael Tyminski

Penny Dreadful: Sundays at 9 Eastern on Showtime

There’s been an increasing space for horror on the television landscape over the years. In addition to AMC’s blockbuster The Walking Dead, one can find ghoulish figures on FX (American Horror Story), A&E (Bates Motel), NBC (the entirety of their Friday night block), and SyFy (which admittedly deals more heavily in horror than the other networks mentioned above). Showtime is adding their own take on the horror sub-genre tonight with it’s newest series Penny Dreadful.

Set in Victorian-era London, Penny Dreadful plays off of the origin stories of the numerous horrors that were set in that time. This means that we get a world with Vampires, Frankenstein’s Monster, and even Dorian Gray while also having it’s fair share of mystics and hucksters. When Sir Malcolm Murray’s (Timothy Dalton) daughter is taken by supernatural forces, he assembles a team including trick gunman Ethan Childress (Josh Hartnett), Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadway), and his mistress Vanessa Ives (Eva Green).

So how is Penny Dreadful? The show is actually quite good. It’s writers, John Logan and Sam Mendes, who teamed up for Skyfall, understand very early on that showing is more important than telling in most horror formats, and the show’s strong visual sensibilities help to embody that dynamic. It also allows the show to avoid the oft used info dump in the pilots of many shows, creating a sense of mystery as to what exactly Dreadful’s undead are capable of.

Visually speaking, Penny Dreadful is the most encompassing celebration of gore on the small screen since Hannibal. Blood and viscera are constantly present, whether it’s on murder scenes, the resurrection clinic or even in the Egyptologist’s office. In addition to the gore and unease, the show is pretty masterful in it’s handling of jump scares, finding new and original ways make you fly out of your seat. The framing is also terrific, particularly in it’s action scenes – there’s at least one pan that puts you in the mind of a trick shot spraying bullets 360 degrees in a circle.

The acting in Penny Dreadful is fairly strong as well. Logan and Mendes wanted a more, more human aspect to horror shows, and the incredibly subtlety in traditionally hammy characters such as Frankenstein’s monster is amazing to witness. The acting is also very strong in it’s two leads: Hartnett is a delight as old western gunslinger Chandler, and Dalton plays an incredible man on a hunt for vengeance in finding his daughter’s kidnapper (in a lot of ways think of Dalton as Liam Neeson in a supernatural Taken).

The Final Verdict: It’s been a while since Showtime has found a truly killer new show (Masters of Sex was the last one?). Luckily for them, Penny Dreadful is incredibly delightful, hitting all of the right notes while missing very few – it’s mystics do tend to be written a little over-vague. It’s an easy recommendation on my part to say watch this – while it could have benefited from a slightly later start (I feel the Game of Thrones crowd will dig this show), there’s no reason this shouldn’t evolve into a summer hit.

Last Week Tonight’s Formula Works For Oliver

by Michael Tyminski

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Sundays at 11 Eastern on HBO

It’s amazing how late night TV sometimes ends up feeling like the royal family, with a particularly strong emphasis on lines of succession. Leno gave way to Fallon, Letterman will give way to Stephen Colbert. The reason I mention this is because tonight’s show was the end result of what could have easily been a situation that turned into a Leno-Letterman like squabble. After John Oliver’s strong run as guest host of The Daily Show (while Jon Stewart went off to direct a movie), HBO swooped in and gave him a megabucks deal to host his own Daily Show like show. This both tamped down any long term questions of who would succeed Stewart (which would now be reopened courtesy of CBS picking up Colbert) and gave a rapidly rising star (who has had an increasingly strong body of work over the past few years) a payday in line with what he deserved.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver follows a mix of political satire and talk similar to what one would expect from The Daily Show. Both shows open similarly, building around commentary on recent news, though Last Week Tonight? tends to take a slower, more measured approach. It first two acts work similarly (with the second act tending to be a little more focused on one story), before switching to a pre-taped interview in the third segment. The act breaks are composed of pre-taped videos often presented in as an aside (with topics such as John McCain tells the same joke six times in six different places).

So how is Last Week Tonight? Well first and foremost, it tends to be consistently funny, if a little quieter than you’d expect. In lieu of the loudness you get from a Stephen Colbert type, the show instead focuses on Oliver’s razor wit, sarcasm, and flabbergasted reactions to stupidity. The show uses small pieces of original video (there was a funny parody video ripping on the Oregon health markets inability to register a single soul despite blowing $250 million dollars in taxpayer funds on the site), though generally the action never strays far from Oliver, even during the show’s briefer interview segment.

If there is a flaw to the show, it’s that it can become monotonous at points. The act breaks are incredibly short and while Oliver’s style is very easy going, he’s only the only presence on the screen for the vast majority of the show. The act breaks themselves are also incredibly short (maybe 15 to 30 seconds in length, maximum) This is in comparison to The Daily Show, which has a longer interview segment and various correspondents in addition to commercial breaks in order to better break out the show.

The Final Verdict: Last Week Tonight works because it takes much of the Daily Show formula and applies it to Oliver’s own style. The end result is a strong half hour of TV that’s perfect for winding down an otherwise intense Sunday evening of TV. This show has quickly bumped up into watch this territory, as it is a great nightcap to HBO’s powerhouse Sunday night springtime lineup.

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