CBS has a new series, ELSBETH. Carrie Preston returns in a series playing the character Elsbeth Tascioni -- a role she won an Emmy for and one that she played on 19 episodes of THE GOOD WIFE and THE GOOD FIGHT. That should be good news.
Carrie's built up a fan base over the years appearing in shows that included TRUE BLOOD, PERSON OF INTEREST, CLAWS and in films like MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, 5 FLIGHTS UP and THE HOLDOVERS. That should be good news.
Robert King and Michelle King wrote the pilot episode. That should be good news.
It got solid ratings last week when it debuted -- improving significantly in the time period when contrasted to last year. That should be good news.
So why are we hedging our bets or, at least, trying to tamper down on expectations?
There are two reasons. First off, the format.
ELSBETH is about an attorney who becomes a crime solver. The crime solver genre is overcrowded -- MCMILLAN & WIFE, MCCLOUD, DEAR DETECTIVE, THE SNOOP SISTERS, HART TO HART, THE BLACKLIST, THE KILLING, KOJAK, QUINCY, TENAFLY, ELLERY QUEEN, GIDEON OLIVER, MINDHUNTER, BONES, UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, LUTHER, THE SECRET CITY, THE FALL, DEATH AND OTHER DETAILS, MURDER SHE WROTE, MRS. COLUMBO --
Wait. Let's stop on that last one. MRS. COLUMBO was an NBC mystery series that aired for two seasons and Kate Mulgrew played the lead role -- the wife of Lt. Columbo -- of the Peter Falk series COLUMBO. It started out as MRS. COLUMBO, then became KATE COLUMBO, then KATE THE DETECTIVE and then KATE LOVES A MYSTERY.
ELSBETH is like COLUMBO in that the show is not a who-done-it. Viewers see the crime committed, then Elsbeth shows up on the scene and figures out who and how it was done. Other than COLUMBO, the standard has been in countless series for the killer to be revealed at the end of the show. This led to people catching on that if the big name guest was, say, Larry Hagman, he was the killer. By dispensing with the guessing game, COLUMBO broke the rules
So, for example, in "Try and Catch Me," we see Ruth Gordon's character Abby murder the husband of her late niece. And we know why. She believes he murdered her niece and made it look like an accident. She's a hugely successful mystery writer so she believes she can get away with it. Even when her assistant played by Susan Sullivan begins blackmailing her. Abby matches wits with Columbo and loses.
In last week's pilot, Elsbeth matched wits with a college drama professor played by Stephen Moyer (the two worked together on TRUE BLOOD) who kills one of his students when she plans to out him for seducing her. No one but Elsbeth sees him as a murderer -- in fact, she's the only one at the crime scene who notices various indicators that this was not a suicide. And it builds to a nice cat-and-mouse.
However?
Yeah, there's a however.
The professor is caught not by Elsbeth's wits but by her and the police watching him and catching him attempting to plant evidence on a student to frame them.
It kind of undercuts the whole point of the show. And it's a very weak way to start the series. We now know how a villain can be caught whenever the writers feel lazy -- just have him followed by an entire police squad.
Hopefully, this 'solution' is a one-off and will not be used again on the show.
So that's one problem. What's the other?
CBS.
The show airs on CBS which doesn't know what century this is and has its long, long history of sexism.
More than any other network, CBS doesn't seem capable of learning.
Take MRS. COLUMBO. It actually got good ratings at first. It debuted on a Monday -- a two hour pilot and then showed up on Thursday of the same week for it's first regular episode. But then the next week? Instead of building on the audience, NBC aired a repeat of QUINCY (a two-hour repeat).
ELSBETH showed up last week -- airing in February. And CBS, in their glorious 'wisdom,' plans to air the next hour long episode in . . . April.
Oh, and did you want to stream it?
You can't on HULU. Despite other CBS programs being available there.
CBS is pimping PARAMOUNT+ hard.
So, over the weekend, you might have streamed it there. If you have basic PARAMOUNT+.
If you have it with SHOWTIME -- an add on -- you searched for the show in vain. (Monday, it became available on AMAZON PRIME if you subscribe to PARAMOUNT+ and SHOWTIME).
This is how they unroll a new series?
They don't know what they're doing and it really shows.
ELSBETH should be a show worth watching. If it aired on another network, we'd be more eager to predict its success.