Mar
9
Pilot Season | “Hunter”
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I’m taking an episodic television writing class, so I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately. Well, Hulu. And while I should be watching all the current, critically-acclaimed stuff (“Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Cheaters”), I can’t help but see what else is out available for instant streaming. I’ve been chipping away at old, old episodes of “The Outer Limits,” which is great. But I also noticed a big, gaping hole in my life: the fact I’ve actually seen precious few TV shows from the 1980s. So, I thought I’d start doing regular blogs about the pilots to popular TV shows from Reagan era. Let’s kick things off with the first episode of “Hunter.”
Created by Frank Lupo, “Hunter” stars 6′6″ ex-football player Fred Dryer as Sgt. Rick Hunter, a shoot-first-ask-questions-later supercop on the LAPD. Hunter goes through partners like bullet-riddled Kleenex, and his particular brand of policework has him on the outs with Captain Cain (Michael Cavanaugh), a desk-riding bureaucrat. Early in the episode, Cain issues a memo to everyone in the precinct that outlines his touchy-feely approach to crime-fighting (e.g. always fire a warning shot); it’s the kind of B.S. that could easily get a man killed on the streets. The streets, by the way, are as dangerous as you’d expect. Hunter can’t even stop by the bank to make a deposit without showing up in the middle of an armed robbery. Even worse, there’s a serial killer on the loose, some nutjob in a ten-gallon hat who targets blondes that frequent a country-western bar.
Not wanting to be paired with the bowtie-wearing doofus Capt. Cain’s assigned him, Hunter partners up with Sgt. Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer, who I think might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life…ever). She’s another loose cannon, and therefore, they make most insubordinate duo on the force. I’m glad that the producers didn’t make McCall a shrinking violet, like Tyne Daly’s character in the Dirty Harry movie, “The Enforcer.” Rather, McCall’s basically Hunter with ’80s hair and a skirt. At any rate, they put a blonde wig on McCall and have her go undercover as a potential victim for the redneck bar ripper.
Meanwhile, Hunter butts heads with his psychiatrist, Dr. Bolin (Brian Dennehy). Capt. Cain, the pencil-pushing empty suit that he is, has ordered all officers to have bi-annual psychiatric evaluations. Now Bolin holds Hunter’s career in his hands. A negative evaluation could cost Hunter his badge. But Hunter begins to suspect that Bolin might actually be the killer he and McCall are looking for. Coincidentally, the killer, whose M.O. is slashing women’s throats, drives a Ford Bronco.
The episode also has a few interesting character beats. Hunter’s the son of a big-time crime boss and the only member of the family who chose to work on the right side of the law, and McCall’s a widow, whose husband was killed in the line of duty. They both have very personal reasons for not wanting to molly-coddle scumbags.
Here’s some more fun trivia about the 90-minute ep:
Hunter’s Catchphrase (Spoken Twice): “Works for me.”
Occasions McCall Goes Undercover as a Prostitute: 2
Explosions: 1
Flipped Cars: 2
Body Count: 4
Best WTF Line, Spoken by Sgt. McCall: “We’re going to wind up doing weekends in the electric chair if Cain finds out about this.”
Would I Watch It Again? Absolutely. “Hunter” is a blast.
So far, we’re off to a good start with my Pilot Season experiment. I loved “Hunter” something fierce. To borrow a phrase, the show definitely “works for me.”
-Brad Lohan
Feb
22
Liam Neeson on “Miami Vice”
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Believe it or not, I’d never seen an episode of “Miami Vice” before last weekend. I’ve seen the incomprehensible 2006 Michael Mann film, but never the source material upon which it’s based. As it turns out, the show starred many then-unknown actors — including the star of “Unknown,” Liam Neeson — who’ve gone on to enjoy A-list status. And so, I think I’ll start doing a regular column about “Miami Vice” episodes with celebrity guest stars before they became celebrities.
The Actor: Liam Neeson as ex-IRA terrorist, Sean Carroon.
The Ep: “When Irish Eyes Are Crying” (3.1).
Best Line: Det. Gina Calabrese laments, “I just wanted to do something where I could help people; never thought I’d be killing kids.”
Who Else Is in It? Jeff Fahey as weapons dealer, Eddie Kaye.
Best Moment: Eddie Kaye blows up Crockett’s $150,000 Ferrari with a Stinger missile during a product demo.
Hilarious Anachronisms: Terrorists are portrayed as handsome Irishmen with lilting accents.
Fun Trivia: Liam Neeson played the titular character in 1990’s “Darkman.” Jeff Fahey later starred in “Darkman III: Die Darkman Die” as the villain and as Darkman in disguise as Jeff Fahey’s character; so, they both played technically played Darkman.
“When Irish Eyes Are Crying” starts off the third pastel-drenched season of “Miami Vice” with a bang when Det. Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago) saves ex-IRA terrorist Sean Carroon (Liam Neeson) from an assassin’s bullet and quickly finds herself rather — ahem — TAKEN by him. Although Carroon’s pillow talk has him reminiscing about making his first kill at 15, Gina nonetheless believes he’s a reformed freedom fighter, seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, Crockett and Tubbs go undercover as South African weapons smugglers to nab arms dealer Eddie Kaye (Jeff Fahey). Their order calls for a pile of Stinger missiles along with the usual automatic weapons and grenades and suchlike. When Crockett and Tubbs find out that the Stingers are from 1980, seemingly past their sell-by date, Eddie Kaye loads one into a launcher and blows Crockett’s black Ferrari to hell. This scene is what sold me on “Miami Vice.” The reflection of the burning wreck of the car in Crockett’s sunglasses — and everyone’s apparent invincibility to things like traumatic brain injury — convinced me that I need to see every single episode of this program.
Crockett and Tubbs’ bust goes sideways, though, when they find out they were outbid by someone else for the Stingers. But who? Why, it’s none other than the tall, dark[man] and handsome Sean Carroon, who wants to blow up a Concord. Once an IRA terrorist, always an IRA terrorist, I guess. Gina corners Carroon — missile launcher in hand — on the rooftop of a parking structure, and a super-sad ’80s love song swells over the soundtrack. She has him dead to rights but waits for Crockett to show up and gun him down; Don Johnson’s the star, after all. Liam Neeson’s obvious stunt double then does a header off the parking structure.
“When Irish Eyes Are Crying” is a terrific point-of-entry into the series. It has everything you could ask for: character, emotion, a car blowing up. Liam Neeson’s great in a rare turn as a villain. I simply can’t wait to see another star-studded episode of “Miami Vice.”
-Brad Lohan
Nov
9
I finally watched the pilot episode of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” last night. Based on Robert Kirkman’s long-running (and slow-moving) graphic novel, the series opener was written and directed by Frank Darabont (“The Mist”) and produced by Gale-Anne Hurd (“The Punisher”). I think the show should be retitled “Bored to Death,” but there’s already something called that on HBO.
What a shambling corpse of an episode! It runs through all the familiar tropes without breaking any new ground. In fact, there’s a section that draws heavily from the beginning of “28 Days Later,” but without the growing sense of dread or creepy atmosphere. The zombies simply ain’t scary in this thing. David Tattersall’s cinematography is so brightly-lit and washed-out. Afternoon is probably not the most spooky time of day to encounter flesh-eating corpses.
Andrew Lincoln stars as Rick Grimes, a deputy sheriff who was laid up in the hospital during the first few weeks of the zombie apocalypse and slept through the whole thing. He spends most of the episode stumbling around bow-legged in a hospital gown, trying to comprehend what’s happening. Characters in zombie movies, TV shows and comics always seemingly exist in universes where there are no zombie movies, TV shows or comics. And so, we have to watch them flounder for awhile until someone comes along and tells them what’s what.
The zombie rules are the same. If you’re bitten, you turn into one of them. The only way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head. You could try putting one to sleep by showing it the pilot episode of “The Walking Dead,” but even a slow-moving zombie wouldn’t sit still for this slog.
The problem with “The Walking Dead” graphic novel — and I’ve read every one of ‘em, so I know — is that everything feels padded out. Kirkman is more interested in on-the-nose dialogue and his bland characters than zombie carnage. The show has the same bloat. It runs a little over an hour, but it feels like three. Nothing really happens until the final moments, just like in the damn comic, and then — boom — it’s over. I like cliffhangers as a narrative device when the events building up to them keep me engaged. Otherwise, they’re a cheap gimmick used to salvage otherwise underwhelming material.
And trapping the hero INSIDE A TANK doesn’t even seem like all that much of a cliffhanger to me. “Ooh, how’s he going to get out of this scrape?!”
I don’t think I’m going to bother with another episode of “The Walking Dead.” I know the pilot had boffo ratings for AMC, but I’d've probably bailed on this if I hadn’t dropped $3.99 for it on iTunes and desperately needed to come up with something to complain about on my blog.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
24
Man Alive, “The Walking Dead” Looks Rotten
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Against my better judgment, I’m still reading Robert Kirkman’s zombie snoozefest, “The Walking Dead.” Every six months, another trade hits stands, and I dutifully pick it up, wondering just how boring the apocalypse will get. The most recent volume has hero Rick Grimes and his son, as well as his ragtag group of interchangeable nobodies I can’t remember the names of, stumble upon a seemingly idyllic community that’s populated by folks who don’t carry firearms and are trying to return to normal, everyday life. Everyday life with zombies lurking just outside the gates!
Kirkman’s pacing is turgid, his characters either bland or transparently evil, and the occasional curveballs (i.e. the deaths of major characters) carry little to no dramatic heft. Maybe it’s because the genre’s played itself out.
Never is that more evident than in the 4-minute trailer for Frank Darabont’s highly-touted “Walking Dead” TV series, debuting this fall on AMC. I’m a major apologist for Darabont’s wildly unloved film “The Mist,” but this looks like one of the cheapjack fanfilms that were all the rage in the mid-2000s: polished and Hi-Def, but perfunctory in its style. Something about HD makes everything look less like a movie-movie and more like a student film. I don’t know what it is. A lack of warmth in the image?
Perhaps the clip’s worst crime is when it borrows wholesale from “28 Days Later,” the last rock-solid zombie-horror movie of the aughts. I sincerely can’t believe Darabont went with Kirkman’s almost beat-for-beat ripoff of Danny Boyle’s excellent film. But, he did. So we get a retread of a guy waking up the hospital, stumbling around human wreckage, trying to puzzle together what has happened. Zzz. Had we skipped ahead to Rick on horseback and heading for the blitzkrieged Atlanta, I’d've been a bit more engaged. And this is the sizzle-reel, people. I think it’s all fizzle and no brains.
-Brad Lohan
Oct
20
By the End of the First Month, I Didn’t Miss TV
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I don’t watch television. I have a TV, which I use to watch DVDs and the occasional VHS tape. What I mean is that I don’t watch any current programming on television. Name any show that’s on right now, and chances are very good that I’ve never seen it. I just don’t care. I think TV is about the lowest form of entertainment available. It’s become one of those culturally acceptable addictions, like drinking coffee or compulsively updating your Facebook status with some bit of bullshit every hour. TV watching is so prevalent, so much of a part of our societal fabric, it’s actually weird not to do it.
All that being said, I’ve been thinking about getting cable. I did have cable once — for a whole month! — when I first moved out to L.A. in 2002. I even remember watching the pilot episode of “girls club,” the extremely short-lived David E. Kelley legal drama starring Gretchen Mol. But I’d signed up for the cheapest subscription that Comcast had to offer, and it showed. The picture was full of grain and I only got a couple dozen channels. I didn’t have Comedy Central or MTV or Cartoon Network, but I did get some janky channel that showed foreign-language cooking shows all day. I couldn’t afford to upgrade to a more expensive package. So I said the hell with it and ultimately canceled my subscription altogether.
I’ve flirted with the idea of getting cable over the years. But I can always talk myself out of it. I’m working full-time and going to school; my free time is eaten up by homework and exercise and trips to the movies; I can better spend my money on exotic dancers. I also hear that cable providers suck. From what I understand, Time Warner Cable has about the shoddiest customer service this side of a gypsy encampment. I don’t think my apartment complex allows for me to get a satellite dish, and I wouldn’t want one anyway. Satellites should be used for monitoring the weather, taking spy photographs and being doomsday weapons. They’re not for bouncing UFC into the homes of Pabst-drinking rednecks.
I also heard about that retarded business not too long ago where our fascistic government ordered all Americans to upgrade to hi-def or be forced to — gasp — go without TV!!! I thought that was the biggest pile of hooey in the history of this country. When Hollywood and our lawmakers climb into bed together, no good can come of it. Anyway, my television is analog, so I’m basically Fred friggin’ Flintstone. And I ain’t going to upconvert to some $1000 flatscreen monstrosity to watch “Dancing With the Stars” or “Glee” or any other cacamamie show. There are better things a person can spend his money on, like a Russian mail-order bride named Svetlana.
So you can see, I’m conflicted about cable. Well, I’m not all that conflicted. I simply can’t seem to justify the hassle. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone even bothers anymore. Once you get beyond the sting of missing your favorite shows, you realize there are other things to do with your time, better things. Then you stop having favorite shows and start wondering why you ever liked watching TV in the first place.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
28
When I asked, “Will People Actually Watch ‘Stargate: Universe?’” the other day, I had no idea what sort of response I would get. It turns out that, yes, people will indeed. What’s more, almost all of these people think I’m an idiot for being a Gater Hater. I received more comments on that blog than I have for any other piece I’ve written to date. Most were from trolls flaming me, but those are the ones that I find incredibly amusing. Being able to catch hell from some masturgater in Sweden is a why I love the Internet.
That being said, I’m now strangely curious about this program. Part of me wants to see what all the fuss is about. I think that if I can sit through a few episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager,” I can probably take anything. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get into it.
Hell, maybe I’ll become a full-fledged Gater and attend conventions like this one. Michael Shanks is going to be in attendance! And it’s only $30 to get an autograph from him. A photo with Shanks will run you another $45. But it’ll be worth it! I mean, this is Michael “Dr Jackson” Shanks we’re talking about here, not the “one key” guy from “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” (That’s an obscure James Spader reference.) There are even two version of Shanks you can get yourself photographed with — clean or scruffy! That’s a tough call. I think a hardcore Gater — the kind of Gater that men want to be and women want to be with — would pony up the $90 and get himself photographed with both clean Shanks and scruffy Shanks.
Good God, people.
At any rate, I’ve done something I never thought I would do. I added disc one from the first season of “Stargate: SG-1″ to my Netflix queue and bumped it up to the #2 position. I’m going down the rabbit hole or through the Stargate, rather. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m going to approach this with an open mind. I’ll even forgive a crummy pilot if the show can find its footing in the first few eps. But by that same token, if I’m not compelled to watch the rest of the season after disc one is over, then I’m going to stand by my original position and hate the Gate.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
27
Will People Actually Watch “Stargate: Universe?”
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I was driving down Beverly Blvd. last night, and I saw a ginormous ad for “Stargate: Universe” on the side of a building. It got me thinking. Just how many “Stargate” TV spinoffs are there, anyway? Let’s see. There’s “Stargate: SG-1,” which ran for 10(!!!) seasons; “Stargate: Infinity;” “Stargate: Atlantis;” the forthcoming “Stargate: Universe;” and the “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” and “Stargate: Continuum” telefilms. Another TV movie, “Stargate: Extinction,” is slated for 2010!
Christ on his throne, that’s a lot of “Stargate.” That’s way too much “Stargate.” Now, I’ll be honest. I saw the original “Stargate” film two or three times in the theater, read the novelization and own the movie on DVD. I even watched the two-hour pilot of “Stargate: SG-1″ when it came out on video. Because it had originally aired on Showtime, there was even brief, partial nudity! I still thought it was a crushing bore and decided to limit the depth and breadth of my “Stargate” fandom to the Roland Emmerich movie.
However, there’s a segment of our population, folks who call themselves “Gaters,” who’ve kept this franchise afloat for over a decade. Yes, according Wikipedia, “Gaters” are legion. They even attend fan conventions like Gatecon and Gateworld. Being a bit of a geek myself, it’s always refreshing to find a community that I can make fun of.
With the advent of DVD, it’s quite possible that there are humans walking among us who’ve seen literally every single “Stargate” film and TV show. They’ve gone even further than that by reading the expanded universe novels and comics. I’ll bet even some of them have written slashfic, deeping the series’ mythology with all the kink the TV shows leave out. Yep, when I Google “stargate slash fiction,” there are about 400K results.
Some of you might think I’m just being a jerk, ripping on people who suffer from an inability to differentiate between good and bad science-fiction. And you would be right. But look at the damage “Stargate” has done. “SG-1″ lasted for three more seasons than “MacGyver.” What a gross misappropriation of Richard Dean Anderson! “Stargate” and all its fans have simply gone too far.
I can only hope this new series is the franchise’s last. How many friggin’ planets out there can these goofballs visit anyway? I mean, the universe isn’t that big…is it?
-Brad Lohan
Jul
1
“Eastbound & Down” Is My New Favorite TV Show
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Danny McBride is quickly becoming one of my favorite comic actors. I finally saw “The Foot Fist Way” a few months ago and have been quoting it endlessly. He stole “The Pineapple Express” from Seth Rogen and James Franco. After watching “Tropic Thunder” again last Christmas, I found myself wishing his role in that film had been expanded and Jack Black’s reduced. McBride’s about to explode. I hope “Eastbound & Down,” his new HBO series, is what puts him on the map.
I got the first three episodes from Netflix today. The pilot’s incredible. McBride plays Kenny Powers, an MLB has been who returns to his hometown and lands a job as a junior high PE teacher. His high school sweetheart (Katy Mixon) happens to be an art teacher there as well. But she’s engaged to the milksop principal. Where some characters are impressed with Powers’ celebrity status, nobody’s quite as amazed as Powers himself. McBride can somehow play the arrogant prick yet remain likeable enough that you still root for him.
Episodes two and three on the disc aren’t quite as excellent as the first, which is just a brilliantly executed pilot that does all the place-setting without ever being draggy or overly expository. Another three episodes round out the season; they’re coming from Netflix tomorrow and can’t get here soon enough. “Eastbound & Down” could’ve easily been a film, but I like that co-creators McBride and Jody Hill are doing it as a TV series. I could watch Kenny Powers all day.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
22
My Favorite “Star Trek” Plot Contrivances
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I’ve got about 5 episodes of “Star Trek” left to watch before I will be finished with TOS. That said, the third season is a total slog. I used to power through 5 eps in one evening. Now if I can get through a single episode, I feel like I’ve achieved something. The budgets were slashed by the network for season three, and it shows. Most of the episodes are entirely ship-bound, which really takes away from the whole “explore strange new worlds” bit. Limiting the action to the Enterprise narrows the scope of the storylines. So there are a lot of scenes of people sitting around bullshitting. Bullshitting and bulkheads — that’s the third season in a nutsheel.
Having sat through over 70 episodes of “Star Trek” in less than two months, I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed about two-thirds of TOS. Even some of the weaker entries in seasons one and two still have some moments of greatness. Some of these moments are fantastic plot contrivances that the writers repurpose when all else fails. Of course the biggie is that the Enterprise crew encounters some God-like life form that has the mind of a child or a crazy-person. There’s also the convention that the red-shirted crew members bite it on a fairly regular basis. But there are some other ones that crop up every now and again which I find amusing.
One of the main characters dies. I don’t know why they made such a big deal out of Spock’s death in “Wrath of Khan.” Pretty much every member of the Enterprise crew has croaked during TOS: Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov. They’re all resurrected one way or another. Chekov’s actually died twice, IIRC.
The villains disable the landing party’s phasers. I don’t know why the crew members don’t simply carry guns, since their phasers are almost always neutralized by whatever nogoodnik sentient life form they encounter on the planet surface.
The Enterprise is crippled and unable to be repaired. The ship often sustains some sort of damage that makes it seemingly impossible to maintain its life support systems and/or achieve warp speed. Its state of disrepair is unfixable until of course they think of some way to fix it.
The land party’s communicators are taken away. Whenever the crew sets down on a planet and encounters trouble, their communicators (and useless phasers!) are confiscated, so they can’t call for help. They also can’t be beamed back aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk encounters an old mentor or colleague who’s gone berserk. Captaining a starship is a high-pressure job. Apparently James T. Kirk is the only man who’s been able to do it without losing his mind. All his friends from his Academy days or captains he once served under are now nutzoid.
All life forms are fluent in English. It doesn’t matter if they’re Federation-hating types like the Klingons or the Romulans or a race of beings that have never encountered another civilization before, everybody in the galaxy speaks colloquial English. (This is perhaps my favorite convention in all of science fiction.)
There are a shit-ton of planets just like ours. “Class M” planets have similar atmospheric and gravitational conditions to Earth. And the galaxy is filled with them!
I think those 7 are a good snapshot of my favorite contrivances. I’m sure I must be forgetting a couple. I’ll see if any more emerge as I knock out the remaining episodes.
-Brad Lohan
May
28
Being a Completist
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Of the three rebootquels released so far this summer — excluding “Angels & Demons” because it’s unfortunately not a follow-up to Tom Hanks’ seminal “Bachelor Party” — I’ll only be picking up one on DVD. That would be “Star Trek.” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Terminator Salvation” are one-and-done films, movies I can’t imagine ever sitting through again for any reason whatsoever. As a completist, this causes me great pain.
When I fall in love with a franchise, I fall hard. I collect all manner of dumb bullshit associated with the film cycle. Currently, I own three out of the four “Star Trek” glasses from Burger King. I got a free t-shirt at the 12:01 am screening of the movie earlier this month. I’m even holding out hope that I’ll someday meet a green-skinned chick that I can add to my menagerie.
I’ve always been a collector. Toys, comics, DVDs, apparel, drinkware — I love all manner of useless crap that does not impress women. Last night I shaved with a Wolverine Quattro razor. Now that I have more discretionary income, not to mention an eBay account, I don’t have to wait for my birthday or Christmas to roll around, like I did when I was a kid, to add to my collection.
But what happens when a franchise starts to go stale? I own “X3: X-Men United,” but I can’t see myself giving it a spin again. If I lived closer to Amoeba Music — the puppy lake for DVDs I no longer wish to own — I’d probably sell it back as I did with “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” It’s a sin against completism, I know. Still, I can’t see myself shelling out money for movies and other ancillary junk that belong to a creatively bankrupt film series.
So does that make me an incompletist? I mean, I own “Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction” on DVD. I have a fairly high tolerance for misfires, all things being equal. But one can only love a franchise so much before having to let it go.
-Brad Lohan