Movie Box Review

On summer Sunday nights, the 4 broadcast networks air a grand total of zero hours of original scripted programming; instead, viewers get a strict diet of animated repeats (FOX) and unscripted series like Big Brother (CBS), America's Got Talent (NBC) and The Bachelorette (ABC).  Looking at the schedule, one would assume that there's no audience at all for scripted entertainment to end the weekend.

During the same hours, though, half a dozen cable networks air some of their most valuable original scripted shows, most of them with significant success, in genres that range from soapy horror (True Blood, HBO's biggest hit) to crime (Breaking Bad on AMC, The Glades on A&E, In Plain Sight on USA), from scifi (Falling Skies on TNT) to sophisticated sitcom (Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO).  Even in Fall, when the FOX cartoons will be new and CBS and ABC bring their procedurals and soaps back to the schedule (and NBC gratefully airs football), Sundays remain the leading night of the cable scripted week, with hits like Dexter and The Walking Dead joining the line-ups (and undoubtedly Mad Men will return to its Sunday home in early 2012).  Sundays have become to cable TV what Thursdays are to the networks:  the place to showcase a network's marquee comedy and drama.

HBO's return of ENTOURAGE to its schedule earlier tonight completed the cable summer Sunday package.  This is, of course, the 8th and final season of the series, but by no means the last we've seen of these characters:  in a development that suits the general formlessness of the show, HBO has put a feature film version in development (hoping for a counterpart to its bonanza with the first Sex and the City movie), so no one should expect an "ending" when the series finishes a couple of months from now.

Tonight's season premiere, written and directed by series creator Doug Ellin, was perfectly in keeping with what the series has always been:  a slick, pleasant half hour with the boys, gliding over reality and dramatic consequence in favor of snappy odes to luxury and friendship.  The action picked up 3 months after the Season 7 finale:  Vince had avoided jail for his coke possession by going to rehab, and as the episode begins, he's about to go home.  Although various things have happened while he was gone (E and Sloan are officially broken up, at least for now; Ari and Mrs. Ari too), the most dramatic development is the apparently drastic diet Turtle has gone on--Jerry Ferrara is a shadow of his old self.  (I'm happy for Ferrara's good health, but not so sure this works for Turtle as a character; his genial comfort with his own bulk was part of what made him the most grounded of the group--well, that and the pot.)  

The main storyline of the premiere was the effort of the friends to keep Vince away from stimulants of any kind and all stress--particularly difficult because he'd come out of rehab with a lousy idea for a new project (something about a dog being smuggled to the site of a mine cave-in to help dig for survivors, which Vince was going to direct himself) that no one wanted to tell him was dreadful.  In the way of Entourage, neither of these problems turned out to be very serious, and the only potentially affecting revelation of the episode, that the separated Mrs. Ari is seeing someone else, led only to Ari belting down fake vodka.  (One assumes that the fiery end of the episode won't change much either.)  Entourage has always been interesting for its mix of accurate detail (real restaurants and clubs, genuine industry jargon, cameos by stars playing versions of themselves) and utterly unconvincing substance (Vince as an actual movie star); it seems likely to go out on the same note.

A quick look at some of the other Sunday cable series:

TRUE BLOOD:  As addictive as it's always been, the guilty pleasure in an HBO schedule that always has its fill of high-quality medicine (Boardwalk Empire, In Treatment).  The storyline about amnesic Eric is so far delightful, and nothing but good can come from Fiona Shaw's addition to the cast.

BREAKING BAD:  Just begun, and blistering already.  Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Giancarlo Esposito give 3 of the best performances on television, and the supporting cast is right there with them; Vince Gilligan's show may be pulp, but it's a reminder of how satisfying and deeply horrifying pulp can be.

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM:  Larry David does what he does, and no one who's imitated him over the last decade or so can do it as well.  Tonight's episode, with Larry frequenting a Palestinian restaurant where Jews go for illicit meals so their Jewish friends won't see them, was particularly inspired.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: The decision to write Mary McCormack's real-life pregnancy into the show turned out to be a good one:  having an actual emotional through-line in the season has placed the series apart from the rest of the light USA procedurals and given it some heart--without cutting back at all on the flashing repartee.

FALLING SKIES:  TNT's big-budget Spielberg show still seems to finding its way (it's already renewed for a second season, so no rush).  The last couple of episodes, with danger coming from other humans rather than the CG effects or guys in monster suits, have been an improvement, and so has the toning down of Will Patton's military man, who's now more of a weathered colleague to Noah Wyle's hero than an antagonist.  Moon Bloodgood, too, has stepped up in recent episodes that demanded more serious drama from her.

 

At this point, it would be fairly shocking if the NFL and its players didn't settle their labor dispute in time to have a full pro football season.  (That sound is NBC falling to its knees in relief.)  One issue that seems likely to remain unresolved in the new labor agreement is the NFL's initial demand for 1-2 additional regular season games, which the players resisted.  Since--at least for now--the season will remain 16 games long, reports are that the league, which already airs Thursday night games in November and December on its self-owned NFL Network, may attempt to gain $600-700M of new revenue in another way:  by pulling 8 more games from Sundays and, perhaps as soon as next season, sell a first-half package of Thursday games to another network.  (There's even the possibility that the new network will be offered a full season package, although that would damage the league's attempt to build up the NFL Network as a valuable commodity.)

While ESPN would probably participate in the bidding, they already have Monday night games and carry college football on Thursdays.  The speculation is that more serious bidders might include Versus (now part of the NBC-Comcast empire), TNT, FX, and Spike.  All of those networks have far wider national coverage than the NFL Network, which during last season's games was available in about 50% of the country.  Even with those limitations, last year's games were doing 18-49 ratings in the low 2s according to TV By the Numbers; that number would likely rise steeply if a larger network carried games.

Thursday, of course, is one of the most important nights of the week for broadcast networks, partly because movie studios heavily advertise their weekend releases that night.  Every network showcases its heavy hitters on Thursdays:  Big Bang Theory on CBS, Grey's Anatomy on ABC, The Office on NBC, the upcoming X-Factor on FOX.  If the new football games do a 4.0 18-49 rating or higher, which certainly seems possible (ESPN sometimes does a 6-7 rating with Monday games), that would equal the night's biggest hits--and probably end up higher than any of them, once football's toll on the existing shows is taken into account.

Football has a downside from a broadcast network point of view:  although the ratings are great, the cost (these games could run $75-100M each) is equally enormous.  But this is where cable networks have a huge advantage over broadcast:  along with earning advertising revenue, a cable network, like ESPN, can pass costs along to subscribers in the form of higher monthly fees.  A good deal for everyone--except the broadcast network competition.

HBO can afford to keep little-watched shows like In Treatment and Treme around, because they're not selling advertising--they're selling a brand.  People who will only watch True Blood and Entourage feel better about being subscribers when they know they've got access to excellence at other hours too.  TNT, though, needs eyeballs that sponsors will pay for, and the excellent Men Of A Certain Age never supplied those in any numbers.  The show was virtually unmarketable, having no procedural hook and protagonists who, often foolishly, tried to make their ways through middle age; the only thing that might have saved it was a great deal of Emmy love, and a single nomination for Andre Braugher yesterday wasn't enough.  Ray Romano (who also co-created the show), Scott Bakula and Braugher gave performances as good as any on television--with one of the finest supporting casts as well--and the writing was superbly, quietly nuanced in a way that sadly will never draw a big crowd.  

Or:  how is FALLING SKIES not Terra Nova?  I've raved about FOX's Fall dinosaur spectacle, and here's another Steven Spielberg special-effects extravaganza, centered around a family trying to hold onto its identity and its life in a hair-raising environment--so what's the problem?

One is sheer familiarity.  Other than the Jurassic Park series, we haven't had all that many fantasies about modern-day humans mingling with dinosaurs, so although Terra is obviously heavily indebted to Jurassic, it still feels somewhat fresh.  Falling Skies, on the other hand, is set in the same post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead and Jericho, with the same alien invaders as V.  The "mech" robots sent by the aliens to hunt humans are slicker versions of the "toasters" in Battlestar Galactica, and the "skitters," the aliens themselves, have that same vaguely walrusy look we've seen in any number of alien thrillers.

The bigger issue, though is as always the script. Here we have to mention the phenomenon of the 2-hour premiere.  Very often, this marketing "event" is really just a packaging of the original 1-hour pilot with a second episode that may have been produced months later; there can be significant differences between the two, including different writers and directors.  (This may also be the case with Terra Nova, of which I've seen only the first hour--although that one ends with a cliffhanger, which hopefully means more consistency with the initial hour.)  In the case of Falling Skies, the first hour of the premiere was written by Robert Rodat (the show's creator and best known for his script for Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan), and the second hour by Graham Yost (creator of FX's terrific Justified).  Yost's hour is far superior.

The Rodat hour sets out the basic situation:  former history professor Tom Mason (Noah Wyle), his wife killed by the alien invaders, and one of his sons taken hostage in a high-tech version of slavery that involves harnesses injected into the body, is now a soldier, trying to rescue his imprisoned son, watch over his other 2 boys, and also retain some level of humanity.  His commander, and also adversary, is Weaver (Will Patton), a doctrinaire soldier who cares little for civilians; and Tom's friend--and, almost certainly, eventual romantic interest--is doctor Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood).  There's a lot of windy speech-making about the military's interests versus the general populace, and clumsy exposition (we know Tom is a history teacher because he can't open his mouth without citing some ancient battle or other).

Yost's script is much better, partly because a lot of the background is out of the way, but also because it has action that's tauter and more surprising (although, the series budget having kicked in, there are fewer special effects).  There are also some sharp new characters, notably John Pope (Colin Cunningham), a cunning bandit who threatens to kill Tom, but who (if the show is at all smart) will become one of the good guys. If Falling Skies can continue along this path, the show may become a better way to waste a summer hour.

The premiere's ratings were good but not sensational:  its 5.9 million total viewers were less than TNT had for its launch of Rizzoli & Isles last year (which was promoted as far less of an event), while its 2 rating in 18-49s was well below the premiere of Walking Dead on AMC.  Still, if these numbers hold up, the network will be quite happy, and with the season's end of Game of Thrones (we have to wait months until it returns!), there's a place on the night for this genre.  If the show's second hour is to be trusted, the quality of Falling Skies may be rising, which would be good news for TNT, and for us.