Prime Suspect Locked Away

NBC broadcast one of the final episodes of its short-lived new series, Prime Suspect, last night.

Too bad.  The show has a stellar cast - Maria Bello (ER), Brían F. O'Byrne (Brotherhood, Flashforward), Kirk Acevedo (Fringe!), Kenny Johnson (The Shield!!), to name just a few.  You can't get much better than that.  And the dialog has been sharp, humorous, tough, crackling.

But, sad to say, the plots were nothing special.  With the exception of one superb episode - 1.8 - which brings Jane (Bello) and Reg (O'Byrne) upstate and into a series of escalation action sequences as gripping as you might find in a good movie - the individual episode stories were trite and lackluster,  in contrast to the edge-of-your-seat mysteries in the original British series, which started Helen Mirren.

And the continuing story, which had potential, never really went anywhere.   Jane's difficulties as a female detective in the still male-chauvinist NYPD detective world barely went beyond the conflicts and abrasions of the first episode.  And her personal affairs, in particular, the possibilities of life with Matt (Johnson), never really were developed, either.

But, don't get me wrong, I would have been very happy to pick up the show for the rest of a complete season in the New Year, and will miss it, with all of its flaws.   NBC has added another good show to its roster of what might have beens, if only given a little more time on the air.   The Black Donnellys, Kidnapped, and Friday Night Lights (which managed a bunch of seasons only because NBC brought in DirecTV), and now Prime Suspect ... NBC has great taste in getting shows on the air, but doesn't seem to know what to do to keep them there.

Just two episodes left - next Thursday night, and the week after.  I'll be watching both.

See also review of Prime Suspect premiere ...

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Only Idiots Don't Watch Television...

"Only Idiots Don't Watch Television" was my original title for the following op-ed that I wrote for Newsday this past July, 2006. They changed it to the more dignified title you see below - taken from the next-to-last line of my op-ed - but that's ok, because I do indeed believe that we're seeing a new golden age of television (I say so in the op-ed) - indeed, I've taken to calling our era television's platinum age.

Because, if anything, television has gotten even better since the summer. The first half of the third season of Battlestar Galactica, just concluded last week, was the best science-fiction I've ever seen on television (or at least, the first part of it was - as good as the best Star Trek episodes, and better than most). The Wire concluded a low-key but outstanding season. Kidnapped, foolishly cancelled by NBC, just concluded last night on nbc.com, and it was a superb series - intelligent, stylish, suspenseful. NBC does, at least, deserve credit for fielding it in the first place. Dexter, which I wrote about in a blog post here last week, is a marvelously unusual cop show. Brotherhood is an excellent new political drama. Sleeper Cell, which I also wrote about last week, offered an excellent second season. All three were on Showtime.

And in January, new seasons of Rome (on HBO) and 24 (on Fox) begin. I can hardly wait. In the meantime, as the cold winds of late December blow, here's another look at the view from this past summer...

Newsday
Editorials
IDEAS
TV's new golden age
BY PAUL LEVINSON

Paul Levinson is professor and chairman of communication and media studies at Fordham University. His latest novel is "The Plot to Save Socrates."

July 23, 2006

It used to be called the "idiot box." Critics have been muttering for years that we're a nation of "videots," that television's been rotting our brains. But who are the idiots now?

People who saw "Rome" on HBO this fall? The opening credits alone were a masterpiece of music and animation. Or perhaps the video dopes are those who just finished watching the next-to-concluding season of "The Sopranos" or watched the past three seasons of "The Wire," or I forget how many seasons of "Da Ali G Show," all also on HBO, or the new "Battlestar Galactica" on the Sci-Fi Channel.

All of these shows have been lionized by critics. Tim Goodman of The San Francisco Chronicle called the acting in "The Wire" both "virtuoso" and "phenomenal." David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said of "The Sopranos": "If this isn't art, then neither is Mozart." The series won four Emmys in 2004 and has been nominated for many more. "Ali G" has been nominated dozens of times. "Rome" boasts Jonathan Stamp, former BBC executive producer for history and archaeology, as its history consultant. "Battlestar Galactica" has lifted science-fiction on television to a new level of political sophistiction, sensuality and style.

Awards in themselves are certainly no sure indication of quality. But, combined with the raves of critics and cinema-level writing, acting, and production, the achievements of this new age of television are unmistakable.

Who are the nitwits, now? People who saw or missed those shows?

It's not all cable - the networks have been enjoying a golden age, too. "Lost" on ABC and "24" on Fox are two prime examples - "24" led the pack in Emmy nominations announced earlier this month. And in all cases, the availability of these series on DVD, which allows the viewer to see multiple episodes of a series without commercial interruption, is fueling the new excellence of television.

But it's not entirely new, either. There have been great programs throughout TV's history, ranging from "Have Gun, Will Travel" to "Star Trek" to "All in the Family" to "Hill Street Blues" to "ER," to name just a representative sampling over the decades.

What's different now, though, are the wings of new media that, rather than flying away from television, are lifting it to new heights. Not only cable and DVDs, but iPODs, which offer downloadable episodes, are making television easier to watch - and better. Why better? Because when people were obligated to watch television on inflexible schedules dictated by the networks, many shows were pitched to the lowest common denominator. The cardinal rule of that first, now bygone, age of television was "thou shalt not offend or confuse." But when people can see television on their own schedules - whether via on-demand cable, DVD, TiVo or iPODs - television can take chances. It can hire topnotch character actors like Ciaran Hinds, who last year played a supporting role in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated "Munich" and starred splendidly as Caesar in "Rome."

TV can now cater to more individual tastes. Its programs must still live or die based on their rating shares, but the pie is now split so many ways that a smaller piece can go a lot further than in decades past.

Like books and movies, TV can now take real risks to achieve excellence. It can try a prime-time show on polygamy, such as HBO's "Big Love," or a sitcom about a suburban school mom who sells marijuana, like Showtime's "Weeds."

Back in the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan applied the term "rear-view mirror" to help explain our perception of new media. He meant that we see new technology through lenses ground in the past. The automobile was first called "the horseless carriage" and radio "the wireless" before they broke free of their pasts, attained names in their own right and claimed their destiny.

How many people who still think TV is only for dullards and laggards are seeing it through a rear-view mirror, looking at it backward, focused on network domination and stick-figure characterization? Was that what Harper's editor Thomas de Zengotita had in mind when he called cable TV - along with the Internet and DVDs - a "vast goo of meaningless stimulation"? Maybe TV needs a new name.

But, by television or any other name, the much-maligned tube is finally achieving its potential not only to entertain but inspire.

It used to be thought that watching television distracted us from more noble intellectual pursuits like reading. But, to the contrary, it seems that an intellect charged by any medium is all the more hungry for new adventures of the mind. Literacy is on the rise. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy found an 8 percent increase in reading abilities in the past decade. "Harry Potter" and "The Da Vinci Code" are happening in this new golden age of television. Its rising tide will likely be lifting many more boats to come.

Relevant links:

• Defending TV, Again - This Time, Because It's Too Good! 31 March 2007
  
• The Goldplated Globes: What They Missed On TV 18-minute podcast
  
• TV Roundup: The Field in Mid-November 21-minute podcast
  
• first place for Dexter 3-minute podcast
  
• Weep Not for Kidnapped 3-minute podcast
  
• Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium by Paul Levinson

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The Plot to Save Socrates "challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly "a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News "Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

TV Roundup: The Field in Mid-November

reposting this here - the original post on twice upon a rhyme on November 9 is getting lots of attention...

also check my latest Light On Light Through podcast on this - also available on iTunes

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Time for another assessment of the current tv season. We're in the November sweeps - one of the months which advertisers use to decide how much commercials on tv are worth. The networks - all of tv - are thus more attuned than usual to getting the highest possible ratings - the greatest number of viewers.

I realized, the other night, that my tv viewing can basically be divided into three categories. At one end, I drop whatever else I'm doing, rush home early from dinner, put aside writing a blog post or listening to a podcast, to watch a tv show when it's broadcast live. At the other end, I'm feeling as I look at the tv that I'm wasting my time, and just about anything else would be more enjoyable or productive or of value or interest to me. Then there's everything else in between - which translates into I like a show enough to tape it and watch it later, catch a replay, but not enough to let it direct the schedule of my life.

So, with that in mind, here's how I see the current tv field:

Battlestar Galactica:

Well, as I've mentioned many times, I think it's the best show on television right now. The show took a daring turn last season, introducing a radically new plot thread at the end of the final episode. The thread was wrapped up almost completely in the first part of the current season - another unexpected move. I had lunch the other day with Bob Hughes - entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal. We had a great conversation, in which I indicated that The Wire was the best show on television about the real world, because Battlestar Galactica, a better show this year, is science fiction. Battlestar Galactica is about the real world, Hughes replied. And he's completely right. The show is so good that, not only do I put aside everything else to watch it, I'm almost willing to do the same for the many blog posts, message boards, and podcasts percolating about the show.

Dexter:

Showtime's new show about a serial killer who takes out other serial killers is, so far, the best new tv this season. Michael C. Hall - of Six Feet Under fame - plays the part to chilling, sometimes even humorous, perfection. I've never quite seen anything like this on television. A serial killer with a social conscience... He has trouble relating to people - because he so detached - but is nice to his girlfriend. (Note added November 16: The shows raises the important ethical issue of whether a serial killer of serial killers is ultimately a good or a bad human being - worth seeing for that reason alone.)

Heroes: NBC's surprise hit, which had a nice recent cover on Entertainment Weekly. Sort of X-Men meets Unbreakable, but more charming. Highlights are a great Japanese character with a realistic (as far as I know) portrayal of Japanese culture, a single mother who does web-cast porn, and a literally indestructible cheerleader. But not all the heroes are all that interesting. Still, there is enough that appeals to me that I'll keep watching - if not always on its prime showing on Monday, then its replay on the Sci-Fi Channel on Friday (two hours before Battlestar Galactica). (Note added November 16: I'm enjoying this show more and more - especially because Hiro is a time traveller. Heroes gets more complex with every episode - a very good progression.)

Kidnapped: The merciless dictates of ratings first caused NBC to move the show to Saturday night, and then to a life solely on the nbc.com web page. At least that's better than what happened to Coronet Blue, the classic fragment of a lost tv series from the 1960s (which I'll likely be writing about on some quiet weekend). Kidnapped has intelligence, style, subtlety, and deserved better than this - though, who knows, maybe life online is not such a bad life these days.

Lost: Came back after a disappointing second season with a pretty good first third of a third season. But, I don't know, the show could have been better this season, too. The flashbacks had almost no new information. The action in the original camp was boring. Mixed into this were some excellent threads about the Others, about Kate, Sawyer, and Jack ... but the show still feels to me like it's in a little bit of trouble. We're still without answers to most of the crucial puzzles of the first season - such as why characters who presumably met for the first time on the doomed plane had intersecting lives years before the plane... (see my twice upon a rhyme blog post on this from about six months ago)

The Nine: It's on right after Lost, but the possibility of even one new message or e-mail is enough to pull me away from this show. The main problem, for me, is the show has not really progressed very far since the bank robbery which got the ball rolling. I suspect it will soon have fewer than nine viewers...

Six Degrees: Another show that started off pretty good, but doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Like Heroes, it has an uneven mix of very appealing and somewhat boring, obvious characters. But it lacks the sparkle of Heroes, and its New York City ambience is not as good as the streets in Kidnapped.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Bring back 77 Sunset Strip from the late 1950s! Studio 60 had a few good moments, but the Aaron Sorkin banter weighs heavy. I don't dislike this show as much as do some critics, but NBC skipped a couple of weeks for this show, and I barely knew it was missing.

The Wire: Well, you all know how much I enjoy this show. And though this season is not the best for The Wire, without Stringer Bell, it is still outstanding, superb, television. And that opening song - "Down in the Hole". Every season I'm a little annoyed when they put up a new version in the opening credits. And every season, after 3 orr 4 episodes, I'm liking the new version the best.... (Note to blogspot readers: See my "The Wire Without Stringer," a post from a few weeks ago on my twice upon a rhyme blog. And the listen to the Light On Light Through podcast of "The Wire Without Stringer," for a 60-second preview of Idris Elba's new song, "Johnny Was". Idris played Stringer Bell.)

So, there you have it ... I'll have another round-up in the next few months - by which time, Jack Bauer will back on the screen...