Underthinking Pilot Season: Backstrom

Hello!

Cat here. Yes, I'm just racing through these today. I forgot about Backstrom. I think I'd convinced myself that I'd already written this post. I was looking forward to this show since I saw the trailer and yeah, I like it. I missed having a procedural in my life. House has ended. Psych has ended. I think Burn Notice has ended but I just stopped watching one day and never looked back so I can't be sure. I can't watch Bones anymore. It's too dumb. I tried, probably two or three seasons longer than I should have, but I can't watch that show anymore. Castle is alright but it's not a show I want to watch every week. And there are only so many Law and Order reruns you can watch. Backstrom fills that void for me.

There's not that much to say about it. It's a fine little procedural in the vein of all the other special, quirky dudes solving crime or illnesses with their unique brand of snark and insight. You know what you're getting into when you turn one of these shows on. On a positive note for Backstrom, I actually like the rest of the ensemble. I think the weakness of the show is when it wants to get too serious. Everything with Backstrom's back story and those little close-ups of Rainn Wilson... "feeling" things really deeply are just... Yeah, it's sweet that they're trying to go there but it doesn't work.

CONCLUSION: Do you need to watch Backstrom? No. But if, like me, you're looking for a procedural to fill that void... maybe check it out. You could certainly do worse.

Underthinking Pilot Season: The Grace Helbig Show

Hi there,

Cat here. I'm going to keep this one short. I'm a fan of itsgrace on youtube. I wanted to like this show. I did not like this show. It feels incredibly awkward... in a bad way, like they haven't been able to capture what makes Grace so funny. The camera feels like it's at a remove. The format does not feel strong at this point and I hope these aren't permanent segments. The monologue, Deal... it feels forced. And also like a long livestream where they're just throwing things at the wall. Her podcast is great. You should listen to it if you haven't done so already. Her book is alright but not really that funny. If you're looking for a good memoir, I suggest Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson instead.

CONCLUSION: I will keep watching. Of course I'm going to keep watching. I'm hoping they'll find their footing soon. You probably shouldn't watch until they do.

Underthinking Pilot Season: The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore

Hello internet,

This seems like an odd show to underthink as we've been talking about narrative fiction shows so far but I decided to throw it in the mix anyway. We've already talked about Blackish, which Larry Wilmore was involved with, and it is a new show that premiered this season and you know what, look, this is my blog, well, our blog (Hi Gab!), and we're going to talk about what we want to talk about.

I've watched almost all of the 35 episodes that have aired at this point. I may have missed five or fewer episodes because I didn't have enough time to watch them and they just expired from my hulu queue. Regardless of the exact number, I feel like I have a good grasp of the show at this point. The decision to go with the panel show was an interesting choice but it's ultimately a big weakness. Even on Fox News, the panel show format, not the shows with the talking heads but the ones on Fox News or Fox Business where people just hang out and talk, are the worst. They might actually contain fewer inflammatory ideas and comments and foster a real discussion but they are generally quite boring. And when people want to talk over each other or get in their soundbytes, things become a bit of a mess and there's no depth to the discussion.

I admire the fact that The Nightly Show isn't afraid of tackling big ideas but I don't think this is the right format to do it. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is just a superior show. For me, it's the news show that inherits the mantle of Stewart and Colbert and pushes farther into tackling big issues and provoking change. For the most part, I just don't find The Nightly Show that consistently funny and the panelists rarely delve deeply into the subjects they tackle and make any original salient points.

CONCLUSION: This isn't a show you need to watch but if there's a topic that interests you maybe tune in once in a while. You may get a laugh or two out of it but you probably won't learn anything and it'll likely just reinforce the viewpoint you already hold.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Marvel's Agent Carter

Hello there,

Cat here. I know, I know. I am super behind on this. At this point I've already seen the entire first season of Marvel's Agent Carter and I'm sure you have as well if you had any interest in the show. But let's just go ahead and talk about it anyway. The best way I can explain my experience watching the show was that the things that I thought would appeal to me didn't, but I still found a lot to enjoy about it.

It is still so difficult to write good female characters for some reason that it seems that many times people just stumble into a good female character without that being their main goal. I think that might be why there are often more compelling female characters in ensemble shows or in the background than female leads. It gets very tricky and the dearth of well-written female characters results in an incredible pressure on a show that decides to have a single female protagonist, never mind one with a so called "feminist agenda."

So yes, I could pick this pilot apart. I could point out that it starts with establishing Peggy Carter as a character in relation to Captain America and with her uttering the lines "I'll get Howard on the line. He'll know what to do." The hero makes a brave, self-sacrificing choice while the heroine is helpless to stop him or to help. But over the course of the series, we see this moment as the anomaly. Usually. Although it never stretches believability in Agent Carter, having such a capable character can be a bit boring. After a while it's not as a exciting to watch a show where the doctor, lawyer, detective, etc. is going to be able to resolve the problem within the hour. Having the series start with this moment which stands in stark contrast to the rest of Peggy's adventures makes her successes somehow more satisfying. We've already seen her fail.

So what was it that I expected to be drawn to that let me down? Well, after two or three episodes, you stop caring but this is really not a period show. The costumes are... fine, but did nothing to place me in the era. There's something about the entire world that feels like they were trying but didn't really succeed. I don't know if it was a budget issue or an attempt to recreate the comics or just a lack of research and imagination but I always had that sense of remove. And, oh, the accents. I don't know if it was worse when people were trying or when they weren't. I'm looking at you Chad Michael Murray. The dialogue didn't always help. Again, I wasn't sure if it was worse when it sounded completely modern or when they forced period slang.

My other issue was the female empowerment angle. Throughout the series, I feel like they failed time and time again at portraying sexism. It was just so overt. And yet still not that offensive. It was an odd middle ground where they seemed too afraid to show characters act truly reprehensibly and yet too afraid that more subtle forms of sexism would be missed by the audience. The show asks us to have sympathy for pretty much all of the other agents with speaking parts who display sexist behaviors or attitudes so I understand not wanting to make them unlikable but it ended up feeling so awkward and undercutting whatever message they were trying to get across.

There were some fun gadgets in the pilot. I wish there'd been more of those throughout the series instead of Howard Stark's weapon of the week.

So now let's talk about what I did enjoy. The show is very easily digestible. It has a decent blend of the procedural and the overarching story line which made it compelling from episode to episode. And as someone who pretty much ignores most action and crime films, it was unexpectedly satisfying to watch the fight scenes in Agent Carter. I'm far from an expert on fight choreography but I think Hayley Atwell and whoever directed those scenes did a brilliant job making them exciting to watch and believable.

CONCLUSION: I feel like I rambled quite a bit with this one but here are my final thoughts. It's not a perfect show. It wasn't the period piece I wanted it to be and it bungled the feminism but I found it pretty entertaining and I would absolutely watch a second season. They'll have to work harder to make me actually emotionally invest in any of these characters but it has a lot of potential as a spy show.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Empire

Hello everyone,

Cat here. Put music in your show and I will watch it. Glee. Smash. Nashville. Galavant. But unlike the creators of those properties, I understand that those shows aren't meant for everyone. But then there's Empire.

Guys, if you're not watching Empire... why are you not watching Empire? It is delicious, soapy goodness with musical breaks and I can't get enough of it.

Sure, not everything makes sense. There's that nonsense Lucious spouted about the internet and disenfranchised youths when the internet has lowered the barrier to entry for the music business and allowed smaller artists and unrepresented artists to reach a larger public than they would have been able to without it. There's no good reason why he has to groom one son to be his successor instead of having them work together. King Lear had three daughters.

But if you can watch this show and not get taken in by Terrence Howard's and Taraji P. Henson's performances, I don't know if we can be friends. Taraji in particular is amazing. Not that the show needs carrying but let's just say she's ready and able to shoulder the burden should she need to. Beyond that, Cookie is still a very interesting character. She's not politically correct at all but at her core, she's a good person. And don't think I missed her shout out to one of (I think) the only two women in that boardroom. I see you, Empire. I see you.

While I think the family dynamics are the strongest part of the show I would like to learn more about Tiana and they really need to do something about how they're writing Andre's wife because none of that makes even an ounce of sense.

CONCLUSION: Watch Empire. I'm going to. At this point in the series I don't care that much about any of the sons and there's a whole boatload of craziness happening but I will continue watching to see what they pile on next. You should too. 

Underthinking Pilot Season: Marry Me

Hi guys,

Cat here. Continuing on with my effort to just plow through a bunch of these posts, let's talk about Marry Me. I like Casey Wilson. Happy Endings was great. The Hotwives of Orlando was occasionally amusing. I like Ken Marino (Reaper, Burning Love). I should like this show, right?

Well, at the start, I didn't. I didn't hate the show but it was feeling a little forced. I was hyper aware that the show was a show. I didn't connect with the characters because it felt like one long sketch or a game of how fast people could deliver their dialogue. Honestly, I felt like I was drowning in banter.

However, as the pilot went on the laughs picked up. The jokes are there and the line delivery is great. Having now watched more episodes, the characters are growing on me though I still feel that sense of remove. They feel more like actors than people and in going for a laugh you sacrifice a lot of emotional depth. So while I don't really care about the characters that much even now, it is an enjoyable little half hour show.

Lastly, tell me the Kevin's are not how they should have written Rachel's dads on Glee.

CONCLUSION: Give it a chance for a few episodes. If it doesn't win you over, it just might not be for you. It's pleasant and funny and diverting but not a must watch.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Red Band Society

Hi there,

Cat here. I've had a bunch of notes cooling in drafts for different shows and it's time to speed through them. We might as well start with Red Band Society since it's been cancelled. Spoilers for the pilot ahead.

The first strike against RBS was the voiceover. I eventually got used to it on Blackish, Selfie, Manhattan Love Story, and A to Z but enough already. And now it's on Fresh Off the Boat. Who came up with this infuriating trend for this TV season? Red Band Society is without a doubt the worst offender though since the narrator here is the kid in a coma. It also stretches believability to have him as the narrator because even with him overhearing things in his room and the other characters talking to him, he would not know this much about everything happening in the hospital.

There's a level of ridiculousness here but it's less Glee and more Juno and I don't mean that as a compliment in spite of how you might feel about those respective properties. The dialogue is terrible and I don't know where this hospital is that has a giant school room with all of these students who I guess are at relatively the same learning level. The characters are ridiculous and not in an appealing way.

Overall, I didn't find the pilot funny at all and none of the characters (except for Octavia Spencer's nurse character) made me want to watch another episode.

And now for a list of times RBS seemed to want me to hate it.

• "Shouldn't we call 911?" "Not til I post this on Instagram." 
• when the cheerleader visited the coma kid in the "in between" world
• the mindbogglingly terrible metaphor of the cheerleader having an enlarged heart and needing a heart transplant
• the textbook characterization of the girl with the eating disorder
• the time the cheerleader said "cray cray" unironically
• the probable love square