Saved Premiere

Notice the lack of both exclamation point and Macauly Culkin in this series. TNT just wanted you to know that the airwaves aren’t quite yet littered with doctor dramas, so they pulled this one out of their arsenal of original programming. It’s a nice start, but I don’t see how it can last. It’s your run of the mill EMT drama, if that is even run of the mill anymore There are definitely some interesting things happening: use of stills/wide angle lenses.

This show was shown without commercials thanks to Dodge, but only filled the standard 44 minutes of airtime. I managed to step out before the 16 minutes of Dodge ads that may have followed the airing. Perhaps it was my lack of commercial breaks to stretch my legs, but the show felt very long. It slows down considerably just as it picks up pace, which is confusing. In other words, and this seems to be Television’s usual MO, as soon as a relationship or situation becomes interesting, they pull back and instead show a gruesome accident or gratuitious skin.

Tom Everett Scott does a nice job in the lead. I want to see him crack out some sunglasses and a drumset and give us a little “That Thing You Do” flashbacks. By the way, for those who forget as it is so easy, he plays a gambler on the show. Apparently that has something to do with his character. And apparently he needs to be…wait could it be?…saved! Well, perhaps an Aaron Sorkin or other godsend will make his way over to the script meetings and save Scott’s character from flatlining (medical puns can be fun) before the series does.

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Reading:

Philip Roth

The Plot Against America

The Closer S2E1

So here goes Jon, attempting for the second time to keep a blog. The last one lasted about a week, maybe two. Recently, I’ve had so much fun commenting on other blogs, I figured I’d just take the forum up myself. Tonight’s topic: TV.

So I just watched this commercial free (thanks Audi) season premiere of the Kyra Sedgwick starrer that apparently is the most popular summer show ever. There’s summer shows? My ignorance to the burgeoning seasonal market aside, I must say I was impressed by the show, this being the first episode I’ve seen front to back. However, I must say the 60 minute runtime felt like a strain on the writers. The show basically bounced around the same few facts the whole time, and revealed WAY too much in the last six minutes. I suppose that’s the gimmick that keeps people watching, and ultimately audiences are satisfied by being blindly lead through a mildly interesting hour, only to find out the joke is on them.

What is interesting is that the show seems to be specificaly geared to a female audience. The show is basically what you get if Dick Wolf created a series called “Woman’s Intuition”. Kyra Sedgwick has the onus of playing a strong female character in a market replete with reality drama queens and daunting housewives (desperate as they may be). After a season of episodes, it seems as though the officer’s in her precinct might finally realize that Sedgwick’s character is more than a cute face, yet most of the gimmick seems to fall under the character moving her cases forward by capitalizing on her small stature and southern twang. More power to her, in all honesty. As aforementioned, she is a welcome change of pace as far as female leads are concerned on television. But as far as feminists may have come, she is still hung up on which boy to date! To the overtly male creator’s credit, these usual girlish themes are explored in a fascinating manner as we are already lead to believe she’s such a hardass behind that bright pink lipstick.

As a treatise to Audi and TNT, please, before broadcast television takes that ride into the sunset and OnDemand and DVD rule forever, let’s keep the commercials coming. The writers are buckling under the pressure to fill in the extra 16 minutes, and I love grabbing a snack. So pump up the jamp.

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Listening to:

Jamiroquai

Traveling Without Moving