Movie Box Review

Sweeps!

FOX:  AMERICAN IDOL was steady with last Thursday at 5.4, which meant it was again down around 30% from last year and again saw its first half-hour lose to CBS's Big Bang Theory.  THE FINDER, airing against original episodes on every network this week, lost most of last week's gains and fell to a 4th place 2.4 in its hour (which may go down further if Idol had an overrun).

NBC:  The shows on NBC (you may know them better as "the stuff that airs between Smash commercials") suffered more ignominy, as 30 ROCK hit a new all-time low of 1.3 (down 20% from last week's then-all-time low), and THE OFFICE, with a 2.7, had its lowest ever rating on a Thursday.  PARKS & RECREATION provided comparatively good news by rising 0.1 from last week to a 1.8, but UP ALL NIGHT fell 0.1 from last week, also to a 1.8.  For anyone who wondered if THE FIRM could get any lower, the answer was yes--down to a 0.8, where it was probably beaten by plenty of cable networks.

ABC:  An unimpressive start to sweeps, as WIPEOUT matched its season low 1.8, GREY'S ANATOMY got no boost from its hyped "alternate universe" episode and matched the 3.5 of its last original, and PRIVATE PRACTICE, while up 0.2 from its last original, was still near that season low.

CBS:  A strong 2d place to FOX for the night.  BIG BANG THEORY won its half hour, and then ROB was steady with last week, both shows down only 0.1.  PERSON OF INTEREST hit a series high 3.3 that left it only 0.2 out of 1st place for its hour, and THE MENTALIST, while down 0.2 from last week, easily won its hour.

CW:  VAMPIRE DIARIES rose slightly to a 1.2, which left it only 0.1 behind 30 Rock at 8PM.  SECRET CIRCLE was even with last week's 0.7.  

Lots of news, but it's only good for one network.

CBS:  Keeping in mind that the Thursday 8-9PM landscape will change drastically next week with the return of American Idol, CBS got everything it could have wished from the debut of ROB at 8:30PM.  The show's 4.1 blew past the numbers that Rules of Engagement was doing in that slot (let alone How To Be A Gentleman), retained 80% of its BIG BANG THEORY lead-in, and boosted PERSON OF INTEREST at 9PM to its own season high of 3.2.  THE MENTALIST was at a standard 2.7 at 10PM, good enough to win the hour.  Last year, the CBS 8:30PM sitcom (S#![ My Dad Says) did a 2.8 against the debut of Idol, after a 4.2 for Big Bang Theory, so even if Rob takes a hit from last night, it's in a good position to improve CBS's numbers overall.

NBC:  Ugh.  30 ROCK only made it to a 1.8 in its season debut.  That's a little better than what Community had been doing at 8PM, but a whopping 30% behind last year's season average.  On any other network, it would be in line for cancellation.  PARKS & RECREATION didn't benefit from the new lead-in, rising only 0.1 from its last original outing after a Community episode.  (In what now look like the halcyon days of 2011, NBC's 8-9PM sitcoms averaged a 2.2 against the debut of Idol.  That's not gonna happen next week.)  Despite all the marketing dollars spent to promote the new 9PM hour, THE OFFICE tied its season low, and UP ALL NIGHT, in its new timeslot, was up only 0.1 from Whitney's lowest rating in the slot.  But the worst was yet to come:  THE FIRM had its timeslot premiere with a catastrophic 1.0, 45% lower than the number Outsourced did last season at 10:30PM.  That would be a decent (and not exceptional) number for USA; it's a ridiculous rating for NBC. 

FOX:  THE FINDER had a very unimpressive 1.7 debut.  Of course its lead-in beginning next week will be probably triple the 2.4 it had from BONES last night, which should certainly leave it looking healthier--but still, a 4th place finish doesn't suggest much audience enthusiasm.

ABC:  The network took a hit from the higher level of competition on the night, not to mention the marketing dollars spent by the other networks in promoting their changes, as GREY'S ANATOMY and PRIVATE PRACTICE fell to the mid-levels of their season numbers.

CW:  VAMPIRE DIARIES was down a significant 0.3 (by CW terms), but still huge (by CW terms) with a 1.2.  Even with the diminished lead-in, SECRET CIRCLE held steady at a strong 0.8.

Tonight:  the return of FRINGE!  (There may not be many more chances to use that phrase.)  And the final regular episodes of EXTREME MAKEOVER:  HOME EDITION.  

Previously... on THE FIRM:  Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas), having relocated with his family to the Canadian part of Washington DC, 10 years after the events in the book and movie, has associated his scrappy small practice with a new but equally evil big firm that's particularly interested in him because of an accused murderer he's representing.  Also, the son of the Memphis gangster he brought down 10 years ago is on his trail.

Episode 2:  Like the pilot, the 2d episode spent very little time on the continuing storyline.  The show is apparently going to ape the structure of Damages, with an overexposed flashforward sequence at the very beginning and end of each episode bookending the main action, which in this case took place 5 weeks earlier.  Those scenes, and a single sequence in the body of the show, concerned the new murder case; there was no mention at all of the gangster's son.  

This left the vast majority of the episode for the case of the week, which was both ludicrous and boring.  The son of a wealthy client was accused of having something to do with the disappearance of his girlfriend, and it turned out he really had (accidentally) killed her--but before Mitch could convince him to confess, a serial killer who had forgotten he didn't kill the girl (no, really) said that he'd done it.  Mitch, in a breathtaking conflict of interest, represented both men.  Initially, he had the serial killer freed because he knew the man didn't kill his other client's girlfriend, then had him arrested again when he (Mitch) discovered the bodies of the woman the man had killed.  As with the pilot, series creator Lukas Reiter bears responsibility for this script.

Oh, and little McDeere told her teacher mom that another girl in the class was cheating, and mom figured out how to punish the girl without letting her know the daughter had ratted on her by making her tutor other children.  So there was that.

The Firm continues to be implausibly bad in every way--visually cheap, dramatically colorless, and lacking in any characterization or absorbing continuing story.  NBC would be better off airing the low-cost license agreement for the series than the show itself.

AKA the season's final pre-American Idol Wednesday.

NBC:   In the absence of the 600-pound gorilla that's arriving in a week, the new 8-9PM hour did respectably.  WHITNEY's 2.1 was slightly higher than where Up All Night had settled in last fall, and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA built a bit on that to a 2.3, which is more than anything else at 8:30PM has been able to do for the network all season.  On a night when 3 networks were in repeats, that was good enough for 2d place in the hour.  However, as Mitch Metcalf notes, that's partly because NBC spent a lot of money and effort marketing the shows.  And did we mention American Idol arrives next week?  HARRY'S LAW was up fractionally, while SVU couldn't capitalize much on the absence of CSI in its hour, up only 0.1 from its season low.  (And apart from Idol, next week features the start of Marg Helgenberger's departure from CSI, which can be expected to stunt that show's ratings.)

ABC:  An easy night-long win.  Everything was stable except MODERN FAMILY, which was down a not-insubstantial half a ratings point... but if you're Modern Family, you can afford to go down half a point.  Notably, even with presumably more female-skewing competition on CBS than usual, REVENGE still won its hour.

CBS:  The PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS were down 0.2 from last year, still enough for 2d place over its 2 hours.

FOX:  Basically bowed out for the night, with repeat and new episodes of MOBBED that didn't top a 1.3.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL's 0.9 season premere was excellent by CW standards.

NBC comes face-to-face with its post-football Sunday.

NBC:  No doubt the network thought that whatever the quality of its new series version of John Grisham's THE FIRM (and that quality is quite bad), name value alone would bring it an audience.  Well, not so much:  its disastrous 1.4 put it in last place for 2 hours (tied at 10PM with the certain-to-be-canceled Pan Am).  Where the terrible quality does show is in the constant audience departures throughout the show's running time.  The Firm's blight only affected NBC's Sunday as a one-time event, but there's little doubt it will now taint the network's Thursday nights in its regular timeslot.

CBS:  As expected, the Tebow/Steelers showdown (in overtime yet, albeit the shortest overtime in NFL history) was titanic, and not only gave CBS huge a 7PM boost, but also helped out the network's other shows.  THE GOOD WIFE (which conveniently had one of the niftiest episodes of its season) and CSI MIAMI both hit or matched season highs, and the network swept the night.  (Next week the even more dramatic Tebow/New England blockbuster airs on Saturday night, and FOX has the late Sunday game with NY/Green Bay.)

ABC:  Once football was done for the night, the network survived the pyrotechnics pretty well.  ONCE UPON A TIME had its highest rating in more than a month, and even DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES hit one of its best numbers of the season.  Only poor PAN AM continued unable to fly its way out of  what will surely be its terminal turbulence.

FOX:  THE SIMPSONS ran directly against the Tebow overtime in most of the country, and got slaughtered, hitting a season low.  After that FAMILY GUY improved, but was still at the low end of its season ratings.

Tonight belongs to ESPN.  With the college football championship game airing, both CBS and FOX will be in repeats, with NBC throwing another helping of WHO'S STILL STANDING, FEAR FACTOR and ROCK CENTER at the wall, while ABC airs the female-skewing BACHELOR and CASTLE. 

THE FIRM isn't NBC's #1 priority for midseason--that would clearly be Smash.  (In other news, there's no truth to the rumor that NBC has decided to change its corporate name to "Smash--The Monday After the Super Bowl".)  But The Firm is the inheritor of the network's once-grand Thursday 10PM timeslot from the busted Prime Suspect, making it an important part of the line-up.  And NBC has taken enough hits by now--after years of battering and the network's gradual loss of its years'-long arrogance, it's not even fun to beat the place up anymore.  So it's not with any joy, but with simple obligation, that it's necessary to call The Firm out for the terrible, tedious show it is.

Technically, the series is an extension/sequel to John Grisham's 1991 best-selling novel--the book that made his career--as well as Sydney Pollack's gold-plated 1993 film version, which starred Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Jeanne Triplehorn, Holly Hunter, Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, David Straitharn, and half the character actors in Hollywood.  The show is set 10 years after the events of the book and movie, in which lead character Mitch McDeere (Cruise in 1993, Josh Lucas now), was pursued by a murderous, mobster-controlled Memphis law firm and had to go into witness protection.  McDeere and his family (Molly Parker in the Triplehorn part, Callum Keith Rennie taking over David Strathairn's role as Mitch's ex-con brother who's now private investigator for Mitch's law firm, and Juliette Lewis as the brother's girlfriend and Mitch's assistant, plus a new character of the McDeeres' 10-year old daughter) have come out of the program and relocated in Washington DC--although actually the series is shot on a low budget in Canada, so after a brief slam-bang (extra cost) opening sequence, there's no effort at all to even simulate a DC setting--where Mitch and company have started a struggling small firm.

The 2-hour pilot barely pays lip service to the carryover plot from the original novel, although there are hints that it'll become a more prominent thread at some point, since the Memphis mobster Mitch was responsible for overthrowing has a college-age son who will now presumably be on his tail.  Instead, the show is mostly a familiar procedural, with Mitch representing criminal defendants and an Erin Brockovich-type product liability claimant.  The wrinkle is that in order to get the resources to fight his cases, Mitch has to associate his scrappy firm with a larger and clearly evil one headed by Tricia Helfer (6 from Battlestar Galactica--at some point she and Rennie will have a scene together and we'll get a mini-BSG reunion), which of course has nefarious and ulterior motives related to a murder case Mitch is defending.  Eventually the evil firm will probably tie in with the Memphis boy gangster, although that hasn't happened yet.

The Firm may improve in its regular 1-hour format, but as a 2-hour pilot, it commits the cardinal sin of being flat-out boring.  It's also frequently ludicrous and often horribly written (by Lucas Reiter), with dialogue that sounds like the poor actors, who've all proved their very solid talents elsewhere, are reading out place-holder lines from a script outline.  Grisham's novels themselves can often be accused of some of the same flaws, but he's such a master of rip-roaring pace that his books work despite their deficiencies.  Slowing down his kind of mush, especially when the tone is utterly humorless as well, is nothing less than suicidal for TV drama, and the result is painful. 

If NBC is to regain anything like its old form, it needs to embrace some kind of identity, something other than the scatter-shot desperation that (except in its Thursday sit-coms) has been its mode for the past half-decade.  Smash, based on its pilot, could be a step in that right direction.  The Firm, though, offers no identity beyond bland mediocrity.