Tuesday, September 06, 2022

TV: Some shows don't need or deserve more than one season

These days, everyone wants a long running series.  That's true even if you bill the program as a limited series (BIG LITTLE LIES) and it's true even if you're a program NETFLIX airs despite their desire for fewer and fewer seasons.  Some shows deserve more than one season, some don't.  Some hang around for five seasons without ever fixing the problems that were evident at the start.  But we'll get to DYNASTY in a moment.  First up . . . 


DEVIL IN OHIO has several things going for it including Emily Deschanel in the lead role.  The thriller also has a lot going against it, including the fact that the creators seem to be entertainment challenged.

That deficiency is clear not just in the execution but also in the premise.

Deschanel plays a doctor, Suzanne, who takes a teenage girl into her family when the girl shows up at the e.r. with a pentagram carved into her back.  Bit by bit, we see crows appear == overhead.  We see her worship a crow.  We learn that she's praying to the crow god.  And we're never, ever supposed to be laughing at this "morning star" 'religion' the cult is practicing.

3 JESS
 
 
So why are we laughing?



Because, like many people, we've seen AMERICAN DAD's season 14 episode "Julia Rogerts."  When Stan and Roger's attempts to recreate a wine for Francine fail because Roger (dressed as Cher in her "If I Could Turn Back Time" costume) is whisked away by a tornado, Roger pouts over Stan's failure to save him.  He bicycles into a small town, one that's a lot like the one Julia Roberts moves to in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY.  There he goes by the name Julia Rogerts and has several encounters with Jessie (voiced by Dermont Mulroney who played opposite Julia Roberts in MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING).  While Jessie seems trustworthy, turns out that he's pursuing Roger to use him as a human sacrifice to the . . . crow god.  They need someone pure -- which Roger laughs at -- just like DEVIL IN OHIO needs someone pure to sacrifice. 

The "Julia Rogerts" episode is one of the most streamed on the TBS channel, on YOUTUBE TV and on HULU -- one of the most streamed of season 14, one of the most streamed of seasons ten through nineteen.  

No one connected with DEVIL IN OHIO ever noticed that?  No one, including Daria Polatin, ever said, "Could this cause some intended laughter?"  Polatin is the creator, the executive producer and wrote many of the episodes.  It never occurred to her.  It really undermines NETFLIX's limited series.

Should it be limited.  We stand by our call that ECHOES does not need a second season.  Season one covered the lives of two twin sisters from the start to the present -- when both were presumed dead but whom the creators and cast of the show now say are still alive.  What really is left to cover that needs a second season?  They're both alive.  Will there be a national manhunt for them?  Will the local sheriff claim she has jurisdiction outside her county and outside her state?  

DEVIL IN OHIO needs another season because the first one was handled so poorly.

That includes casting.  Sam Jaeger brings nothing to the role of Suzanne's husband Peter Mathis because there's nothing to the role.  It would have made a lot more sense -- and created more suspense -- if Sam turned out to be part of the cult.  Instead, we're left with him acting weird -- for no reason other than to build suspense -- and stupid (stupid? bringing a dying bird your daughter wants taken to the vet and 'hiding' it in the garage -- it's just set out in the garage -- is pretty stupid and does make him look suspicious).  Sam also leaves Suzanne at the end.  He's so bothered by all that took place in the eight episodes that he leaves her -- takes their daughters but leaves Suzanne.  She'll show up with a pie but he won't let her in his apartment or see the girls.  Huh?

The other big mistake in casting was Gerardo Celasco.  He plays Detective Lopez.  He should have been cast as Peter because he and Emily actually have chemistry.  Barring that, they should have made the detective gay.  Why?  The chemistry is so obvious, you keep waiting for them to get together.  If Lopez were gay, you'd say, "Oh, they're just going to be friends."  And maybe he is gay.  An old love is mentioned but that doesn't mean it has to be a woman even though we're led to believe it was.  

Besides having chemistry with Emily, Gerardo is also just so appealing that you want more of him.  You care whether he lives or dies so when he's investigating the cult, those scene have tension.  

Besides casting, the series is also poorly plotted.  This results in a lack of suspense.

It also results in Suzanne being an idiot.

The ending?  Suzanne's husbands and kids no longer live in the house with her.  She sits down to Thanksgiving Dinner with Mae only to be pulled away by a phone call.  On the call, she learns that innocent victim Mae wasn't innocent and that she set up much of what took place.

So Suzanne stands there looking like an idiot who has lost everything to defend a victim that was not a victim.  

If a season two could correct that, we'd sign off on it.

We have no conditions when it comes to PEACOCK's QUEER AS FOLK.  The series began as a British program.  It then moved to SHOWTIME with an American cast.  An all White cast.  PEACOCK's version is the third one and, fortunately, unlike HBO MAX's hideous SEX AND THE CITY reboot, they've not adding persons of color as mascots to the former leads.  Instead, they've relocated the show and found a cast that is diverse.  And a cast that is very appealing.  Brodie is played by Devin Way and he's the lead character.  Devin's wonderful in the role.  When he decides to tell Shar (CG) he loves her, it matters and has meaning.  It matters because you like Shar with Ruthie (Jessie James Kietel) even though Ruthie does step out on her (including with Brodie's mother).  But you just want to root for Brodie.  

You want to root for Mingus (Fin Argus) as well.  Especially when he returns to the stage, following a shooting at the club, to try drag again.  You're as excited watching him as his own mother (wonderfully portrayed by Juliette Lewis).  We could write praise for every member in the cast.  They all deliver.  But we want to make a point to note Kim Cattrall.  While so many actresses who find success just try to repeat themselves (often in a sad and pathetic caricature, see AND SO IT GOES), Kim isn't playing that game.  In 2020, she was great in FILTHY RICH (sadly, the male youths were disappointing).  On HULU's HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, she's delivering.  And she's delivering here as well  The character was overly broad -- which was in keeping with the character -- in the beginning.  Later episodes have provided Kim with the space to provide the depth that a real actress can.  When her character Brenda learns that, for example, Ruthie only wanted a one night stand, it's a shock.  Brenda, in love with Ruthie, has announced to everyone she knows that she's now a lesbian.  So it's not just losing Ruthie, it's also losing face.  Kim sketches it in lightly and a scene where she bumps into Juliette Lewis character is so strong it should have resulted in praise and awards for both actresses.

The eight episodes of the series move far too quickly and leave you wanting more -- something you can't say about many shows -- certainly THE CW's DYNASTY earned its cancellation, for example, by padding episodes with nonsense while forgetting it was a soap opera.  Soap operas mean continuing storylines -- or meant that before HILL STREET BLUES.  Once that MTM drama found that viewers would tune in to cop dramas if they had continuing storylines, pretty much every drama in the world began aping them.  So how did DYNASTY forget what it was here?  

With two more Fridays to burn off two more episodes, the show is wrapping up with a final episode that no one planned for a series ender.  The show's problems were immense.  Various actresses played Crystal.  Three, in fact.  The first one, we were later told, was an imposter.  The audience didn't like that Crystal.  What was the excuse for firing the second actress in the role?  And then there was Alexis.  She was also played by three actresses.  Sadly, that included Elizabeth Gillies who was already playing Fallon at the time.  Stunts like that were just nonsense and garbage.  So was the pacing which rushed viewers through episodes and rarely allowed a pleasurable moment.  Most of all too much attention and time went to Fallon.  

Pamela Sue Martin, the original Fallon in the 80s and a great actress, couldn't have had that much time onscreen and held your attention.  Until season five, every episode revolved around Fallon.  It was overdone and it was boring.  Fallon never grew.  (Which makes the thought of her as a mother especially frightening.)  They began to invent nonsense for Fallon to do to keep her prominent.  It wasn't a continuing storyline, it was just make-work scenes.  And they were boring and they were often offensive.  In five years, she should have demonstrated some growth.  Instead, she still came across as a spoiled teenager.  

Elizabeth has the talent to be a lead.  But she doesn't have the talent to be the sole focus the soap wanted her to be -- no one does.  

There were strong actors in the cast who should have been brought to the foreground.  Michael Michele was first-rate as Dominique and ran with every (underwritten) scene she was handed.  A true force of nature, it was difficult to watch someone so talented be repeatedly short changed in episode after episode.  Once you noticed that, it became even more difficult to stomach Elizabeth's nonsense as Fallon.  Oh, look, a rare turtle that Fallon'll use to stop a construction project!  Oh, look, now Fallon wants to defeat an old school rival and the charity she heads.  Oh look, viewership is dropping off with this crap, does no one notice? 


Michael Michele was first rate.  She had a number of talents trailing behind her.  Robert Christopher Riley (Michael) and Rafael de la Fuente (Sammy Jo) were amazing on their own.  When they were teamed as best friends and business partners, the show had a dependable team that always delivered no matter how poorly the scene was written.  Sam Underwood (Adam) and Sam Adegoke (Jeff) were very talented but repeatedly misused and relegated to the second and third string.  We have no idea if Maddison Brown can act.  She was called Kirby on the series.  She seemed to break every known rule and make it work.  Whether that was acting or just luck, a real show runner would have placed her front and center in her first season on the show (season two) instead of keeping her buried as a back burner character for seasons two through four.  The focus on Elizabeth's Fallon -- the incessant focus -- meant that many solid performers were relegated to nothing like Wakeema Hollis who really connected with the viewers as Monica.  Or James Mackay who left the role of Steven in season two -- after Adam had made him think he was crazy.

On the original series, Steven was played to perfection by Al Corely and then the light weight Jack Coleman took over.  So viewers of the reboot assumed this was another 'in joke' (that no one would find funny) when Mackay left and they waited for Steven to return played by a different actor.

Didn't happen.

That was bad.  Steven is Fallon's brother.  And he is Fallon's brother who has a score to settle with Adam -- the brother he doesn't know he has.  

But the character was left to dangle because the show runner wanted to waste everyone's time with Fallon having a gal-pal snowing trip or even worse nonsense.

It could have been a great reboot.  There were actors who were really something to watch (and that may include Maddison Brown -- if she can't act, she still grabbed you by the eye balls -- we are not picking on her or mocking her, we are noting what she did, the choices she made, were truly original, if that was acting, she's someone to watch).  They should have had storylines to match.  Instead, every episode felt padded and, in the end, it was the filler and the waste that killed the show and ran off viewers.


Anthology programs once held multiple slots on the small prime time hours that three networks could offer.  Even than, as ROBERT MONTGOMERY PRESENTS . . . quickly found out, the viewers weren't eager for a new cast each episode.  (Elizabeth Montgomery would become part of the ensemble on her father's show and make her television debut there.)  Audiences don't just want the same actors every week, however, they want the same characters.  It was a lesson networks still hadn't learned by 1990 when NBC put CAROL & COMPANY on the air.  No, viewers were not wanting to see Carol Burnett and her ensemble in a different play each week.  They instead wanted her to do the characters she'd done before and create new recurring characters.  Fans so disliked CAROL & COMPANY that it harmed Carol's career.  Returning to THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW in the fall of 1991, she saw that the fans who initially turned out for CAROL & COMPANY were not willing to now turn out for what they wanted -- her back in THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW.  A trust had been broken and it was not to be repaired.  (Had CBS done a better promotional effort for the show, a larger number of Carol's fans would've shown up.)  

NETFLIX vows that no show of their own will ever go as long as GRACE AND FRANKIE did.  That makes no sense.  Shows like GREY'S ANATOMY are the lifeblood of NETFLIX -- multi-episode programs that people can binge and rebinge.  They need multi-season offerings -- especially now that they're in the process of losing every deal that they had with various networks to stream their shows.  NETFLIX once meant multiple seasons of, for example, GREY'S, SCANDAL, FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD, NIKITA, VAMPIRE DIARIES, THE ORIGINALS and many others.  But those aren't NETFLIX programs and soon they will be gone.  They need programs with multi-seasons if they're going to have any kind of long range future.  But, that said, every show doesn't deserve even a second season.