|
External
|
ENTERTAINMENT October 3, 2006 Monday Night Roar
A week ago, I wrote about Heroes. I wasn't complimentary but I was nicer than I could have been. Since the pilot debuted, I've been monitoring opinion on the Internet and I'm astounded at the amount of positive feedback. I must not be seeing the same show called Heroes that airs 9pm Mondays on NBC that the Heroes worshippers are getting. Maybe my DVR is receiving some alternate universe feed. The show called Heroes I've seen so far is pretty bad. Now that episode two has aired, things haven't improved any. This week, Hiro stumbles upon the tortured artist killed by the serial killer. Hiro finds the artist by seeing his name in the comic book. What?! Show me any comic book creator in real life who publishes his name, address, and a picture of himself in the back page of his comic book! Who the hell would do that? No comic book creator wants comic book nerds showing up at their door. But Hiro does, and when he finds the murder scene and a gun lying on the ground, he picks the gun up?!?! Hiro may be Japanese but what kind of an idiot stumbles upon the scene of a murder and then immediately puts his prints on the potential murder weapon? Retarded. Most retarded of all is Niki Sanders: what's going on there makes no sense. So her murderous mirror self possess her and does stuff she can't remember? Fine, whatever, but why does Niki bring her son with her in the middle of the night to bury the bodies of the mobsters in the trunk. Sure, the kid is asleep but what if he wakes up and sees his mom digging a shallow grave? And doesn't anyone smell the corpses in the trunk or is the trunk of a Cadillac odor-proof?It's just stupid and lacking any logic. The whole Niki storyline is stupid. The only decent plotline so far besides Hiro teleporting was Claire Bennet and her evil stepfather -- until her friend with the camcorder suddenly tells her the tape he made disappeared. Then we find Evil Stepfather has it. So the Evil Stepfather somehow learned about and then took the time and effort to locate where the teenage boy hid the tape and procured it? That's the kind of nonsense logic we find in Smallville, where a billionaire like Lionel Luthor spends his days dropping by Smallville High School and threatening 17 year old Chloe Sullivan in the school newspaper room. Stuff like that doesn't make sense. It's hard to care about any of these characters when they behave like idiots. Great Krypton, is this one badly acted show! Just about all of the actors are terrible. Greg Grunberg, Adrian Pasdar, and Hayden Panettiere are not bad actors (and Panettiere is sure as hell not bad looking; she's the hottest piece of forbidden jail bait on network TV) but they sure are being badly directed. Just last episode, Claire Bennet had a Southern accent: "Ah walked through fahr and didn't get burned." This week, no accent. Her father doesn't have one, neither do her friends. The Indian was probably the worst actor on the show until his title was stolen by the neighbor who showed up to hang out with him in his dead dad's apartment. And by all the stars in Orion's belt, is the voice over narration by the professor from India horrible! He prattles on and on Charles Xavier-style (but without Xavier's style) about "genetic evolution" and "God" and whatever else, asking all these rhetorical questions that have no direct correlation with the action in the episodes. Tim Kring, the creator and writer, has no idea how to write science fiction. He sucks at it. He doesn't have any idea that in science fiction, the first thing you do is establish the rules. In The Terminator, Kyle Reese explains how time travel works so the audience knows they can only go backwards and not forwards. He explains what the Terminator is so we know its abilities and limits. In Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi sits Luke Skywalker down and explains how the Force works, what it is, what a lightsaber is, etc. Instead of the rhetorical garbage the Indian narrates in his voice over, Kring could instead use this device to explain the rules of how the Heroes' powers work so we're not scratching our heads wondering what's up with evil mirror stripper or how someone can fly (or levitate) with no visible means of propulsion. But no, Kring doesn't do that. Why? Because Heroes has to be mysterious -- it has to be like Lost. This show is so desperate to be Lost. Kring sure studied his Lost DVDs, took copious notes, and did as much as he could to monkey-see-monkey-do what makes Lost work. And he's crap at it. I'm really disappointed with Heroes so far. The basic concept has such potential but it's being heroically screwed up.
As much as I'm generally enjoying Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, it's getting harder and harder to ignore how unfunny the show within the show is. See that picture at the top? Steven Weber is the dividing line. Everyone to his left, Perry, Peet and Whitford, are terrific. They're funny. They're awesome. The three to his right, ugh. Timothy Busfield is cool, but the other three... The show calls them The Big Three and they're supposed to be the most popular and talented of "Studio 60's" cast. Three episodes in and it just isn't there. None of them are convincing as comic actors. Sarah Paulson's news joke about the bear going "Roar!" was terrible. Terrible! They are just not funny. And yet, the show keeps insisting they are. The show keeps saying "Studio 60" is hilarious, that it's killing in the ratings, and is getting better and funnier. We're continually being told something that our eyes and ears do not recognize is true, and it's hurting an otherwise dynamite show. Is no one running Studio 60 honestly not seeing the fundamental problem the show has? Why didn't or don't they hire actual successful real life comic actors to be on the show? Why not hire people like Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Norm MacDonald, Tim Meadows, Molly Shannon, or (even though he wasn't SNL) Andy Richter -- people who are genuinely from a sketch comedy background to give "Studio 60" the authenticity it needs? Why not a storyline that SNL knows all too well from real life - a talent purge where the old cast gets ousted for newer, fresher faces, especially since the crux of this show is that Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are supposed to be restoring an old warhorse to its former glory. Every episode thus far has ended in a complete victory for The Real Big Three, Perry, Whitford, and Peet, with "Studio 60" getting better and better even though every time we are shown the sketches they're worse than the worst Mad TV sketch. I find that story simply not believable. A season long arc where the Real Big Three have to fight and claw their way bit by bit to making "Studio 60" a success again might have been better. Instead, the Real Big Three are presented with a problem and they beat it in the hour, all the while telling us the show they're putting out is great when it clearly isn't. From what they've shown us, I wouldn't watch their "Studio 60". It looks worse than Heroes.
|
 |
