King & Maxwell

My last few posts on this blog have been highlighting some upcoming shows for the fall season.

Let's take a different path today and look at a new show that recently finished it's first "season" on TNT.  Cable shows run on a different schedule than the other networks, so that during the summer while all of that is on hiatus, cable hauls out it's best stuff.  Not a bad plan when you think about it.  Plus, it gives a person something new to watch during those summer months.  If this is all news to you, a typical "season" for a cable show is about 13 episodes.

One of TNT's new shows this summer, King & Maxwell, starring Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn, features two former Secret Service Agents, now private detectives in the D.C. area.  In the pilot, the case involved finding an autistic savant, Edgar, who was suspected of being a serial killer.  King & Maxwell disproved that theory and offered Edgar a job.  He becomes an integral part of their case-solving process due to his skill with hacking, as well as his ability to recognize the clue in numerical patterns and sequences.  The team also seeks help on a regular basis from Benni, one of Sean King's C.I.'s.  Her specialties range from forgery to knowing all the dirt on the criminal activity in the city.  King & Maxwell also "interact" with the FBI nearly every episode.  Agents Rigby and Butler have been tasked to any scene that involves these two.  It is a love/hate relationship, with the emphasis more on the hate.

This series is based on David Baldacci's novels.  Here is what he has to say about the show:


After watching that you probably have a better sense of the characters. Michelle Maxwell is the first one to manage the "take-down" of a suspect.  Sean usually doesn't have his gun.  Does it drive her crazy?  Yes.  Does he care?  No.

One of the things that I really liked in terms of the writing for this show is how they managed the story arc for the first season.  Edgar found an anomaly watching the video of the assassination of Sean's protectee (that led to his not being in the Secret Service any longer).  That thread gets pulled a little bit each show while these two solve all other crimes or mysteries each episode, with the season finale finally unraveling who was really responsible for the assassination.  I LOVE a story arc that umbrellas an entire season with the payoff coming at the end.  I hope that they find a way to do that every season.  We shall see...

CBS: Not The Crazy Ones

Do you remember when NBC reigned on Thursday nights?  Thursday night was the night of the sitcom.  For years, Cheers nailed it down with other (good) sitcoms actually making Thursday nights funny.  When Cheers was cancelled Seinfeld and Friends took over.  For twenty years, people associated Thursday nights with LAUGHTER.

Well, the sitcom has pretty well gone the way of the highway.  There aren't many left.  And those that are here do not live up to the legacy of Cheers or Seinfeld.  Ergo, Thursday night turned into the primetime drama.  Grey's Anatomy and Scandal have stuck Thursday nights.  We went from laughing on Thursdays to sitting on the edges of our seats (at least sometimes).  ABC isn't changing anything.  They have added Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (new show, to view trailer click on previous blog) to kick things off at 8pm, followed by Grey's Anatomy at 9pm, and then Scandal at 10pm.  And I have no idea what NBC is doing because I gave up on that network years ago.  Revolution brought me back last year, but that is the ONLY thing I watch on The Peacock.

So, who's shaking things up?  CBS.  They have returned the sitcom(s) to Thursday nights.  At 8pm The Big Bang Theory anchors the evening.  A new show called The Millers is slated for 8:30pm.  At 9:00 The Crazy Ones comes on and the night rounds out at 9:30 with Two and a Half Men.

Let's talk about the new show airing at 9:00.  It is the most promising sitcom to hit television since Seinfeld decided to take a hike.  Robin Williams is back on the small screen with Sarah Michelle Gellar playing father and daughter as partners in an ad firm.  The world of advertising is crazy all by itself.  Throw in Robin Williams and you have hilarity.  I have watched several things about this show and they pretty much just let him ad lib the whole time.  And it's catching.  These actors have a basic script, sure, but are they ever on it????  I don't know.  What I do know is that it is some funny stuff.  Here is the trailer:



Thursday nights. Finally something to laugh about. Again. Thank you CBS!

Fall 2013: The Year of the Spin-off

The Fall Season is rapidly approaching.  Have you noticed the trend this fall for spin-offs?  I don't think I have seen so many spin-offs in a very long time.  Let's break it down, shall we?

First, let's tackle the spin-off from the Blockbuster movie, The Avengers.  You didn't know that?  Well, buckle in.  Joss Whedon has returned to the small screen with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I predict that this will be a Big Win for Whedon and ABC.  I would watch anything that Joss Whedon wrote, but that is just me.  After Firefly went down in flames I wasn't convinced that any television executive had any sense.  I am hoping that this show restores my faith.  Here is the trailer if you aren't up to speed (turn off the music box at the bottom of the page before watching):


Fairy tales are thriving in books and on the television. The Brothers Grimm and Once Upon A Time are both huge hits. Once Upon A Time first aired on ABC in 2011, so it will be entering it's third season this fall. That show focuses around Snow White, Prince Charming, and the Evil Queen, though no fairy tale character is off limits. They all live in Once Upon A Time after all. This fall a new show is spinning off called Once Upon A Time In Wonderland. If you are thinking, "I bet the main character is Alice." You would be right. Given how well fairy tales have done, it has a fairly good shot at succeeding.


The Vampire Diaries, on the CW, immediately became a wild success when it debuted in 2009. Can I say that Stephanie Meyer cleared the way for all things vampire amongst the teen set? Some of us were already there. I loved Anne Rice's vampire series, written back in the 80s. I also watched Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. In truth, both are/were far better shows than The Vampire Diaries, but I still tuned in for Ian Sommerholder, who plays Damon Salvatore. The rest of the cast is pretty much a snorefest of teen angst. Well, that was true until 2011 when the plot took a turn and the five original vampires showed up in Mystic Falls. Yep. The five original siblings that turned every other vampire. Yes, that did get interesting. Of course, some were more interesting than others. They are the three that are still alive. Ha! And they will be getting their own show on the CW next season called... The Originals. I predict it will be a raging success.


Welcome to Fall 2013, the year of the spin-off. Did I miss any???

Nashville

image found at www.weheartit.com

I admit it.  I love a prime time soap.  I grew up in the 80s when Dallas, Dynasty, Knot's Landing, and Falcon Crest were all on top.  I remember the summer that "Who Shot Jr?" paraphernalia littered every venue.  T-shirts, coffee mugs, key chains, beach towels - and more - all were monogrammed with the popular question.  Who Shot Jr????  And everyone wanted to know the answer.  Dallas finished on a cliffhanger with JR having been shot in the spring of 1980, and that entire summer, and into the fall, due to a strike by the Screen Actor's Guild,  everyone waited with baited breath to get the answer.  Does anyone even remember?  Not so much.  It wasn't a main character who fired the shot.  However, I will help you out here.  It was his sister-in-law and mistress who pulled the trigger.  I had to look up her name because I couldn't remember it: Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby).  The question turned out to be far more intriguing than the answer.  Ah well.

Back to my original statement: I love a prime time soap.  After Dallas,  Dynasty, and the rest swerved into cancellation, the 90s brought out a new breed of prime time soap.  Technically, anything that carries over from week to week is a soap, for the curious.  We call most of that programming now a prime time drama.  Some sitcoms have managed to avoid becoming soapy, but not many.  Most of the time, full understanding of the current episode relies on having seen the previous ones.  And that makes it a soap.

With daytime soaps running down the drain in the last few years, prime time is getting soapier than ever.  And that brings us to the point of this here blog: Nashville.  ABC aired the show last fall.  Finally, we have a full-blown soap again in prime time that rivals Dallas and Dynasty on the Big Three (ABC, CBS, and NBC).  Yes, I know that cable brought back Dallas; as I said, the public demand for prime time soap has risen in accordance with the failure of daytime soap.

Nashville has everything a prime time soap fan adores plus stellar music.  ABC went all out with the headliners, Rayna James and Juliette Barnes(played by Connie Britton and Hayden Panatierre), and they are dynamite, but it is the rest of the cast that nails this show so thoroughly.  Let's take a look at the trailer for those of who are scratching your heads because you missed this one...



So, Nashville has all of the soapy elements covered. Plus, everyone is rich and the drama is big and splashy (echoes of Dynasty and Dallas...). The cast is amazing and they all can SING. The music in this show knocks it out of the park.

Scarlett (played by Clare Bowen) is one of the best singers on the show. This is her with Gunnar (played by Sam Palladio).


The strength of the music is that everyone is so darn talented. Here is Avery Bartlett (played by Jonathan Jackson) at the Bluebird:


Two of the most talented singers on the show are the youngest. They are the Stella Sisters. They play Rayna James' daughters. They have been singing together for years, prior to their debut on Nashville, and they are AMAZING.


I can't finish out this blog bit without including something from the stars. Here are Rayna James and Juliette Barnes... yes, together. Even rivals come together for the good of the label...


Season 2 will crank up this fall on ABC. I have no doubt it will be as full of surprises as the first season. So, if you are looking for your prime time soap fix PLUS excellent music, Nashville is the right place.

All Roads Lead to J.J. Abrams

image found at www.weheartit.com

I haven't posted anything on this blog in FOREVER.

I am going to try and be better about that.  There were some excellent shows that were cancelled this season.  For instance, FRINGE took an exit and deserves a write-up and fond farewell.  PRIVATE PRACTICE exited due to really poor writing.  Apparently Shonda Rimes can only keep two shows in the air at once.  There is a lesson here.  I hope that she learns it.  Moving on...

And there were a few really good new shows that came out this season.  My personal favorite was REVOLUTION.  It is on NBC.  Now... you must keep in mind that I began a boycott of NBC several years ago due to terrible programming.  Every now and then they would come up with something GREAT and immediately cancel it.  I got SO SICK of this that I gave up on the network altogether.  I would have continued my boycott except that J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke collaborated on REVOLUTION.... and I was back in.  I was also enthralled.  Other best new shows include ABC's NASHVILLE and CBS's VEGAS and ELEMENTARY.

Yesterday, I received a notice that J.J. Abrams has a new show coming out on Fox (probably in the fall) and it looks AMAZING.  Here is the trailer.  Don't forget to turn off the music at the bottom of the page.



What do you think?

Once Upon A Time

I haven't posted one of these in a while. I figure I better get busy because the Fall season is upon us and I haven't done much recapping of what was good about last season. I hardly think one post qualifies! I am going to start limiting these posts to my TV blog, so if you like this sort of thing, you should start following that blog. If I think of it I will make a notation that I have posted on my regular blog and link it in. However, I wouldn't place any bets on my remembering to actually accomplish this feat.

As I mentioned the last time I posted like this, picking one scene out of a season is extremely difficult. With this show, I could not do it. I thought I had it, but then I changed my mind. The show is JJ Abram's Once Upon A Time. The premise of that show is that the Evil Queen placed a curse on all of the storybook characters taking away their Happy Ever Afters. Instead, they no longer know who they are and live in our world in a town called Storybrook, Maine. They cannot leave the town. The only one who knows the truth of the matter is the Evil Queen (Regina) who is the Mayor of the town and Rumpelstiltskin (Mr. Gold). Regina's adopted son suspects the truth when he reads a book of Fairytales provided by his teacher (Snow White) and becomes determined to save the town.

JJ Abrams is also known for Felicity, Alias, Lost, and Alcatraz. I know that he has numerous movie projects to his credit. The only one immediately coming to mind is the newest Star Trek movie (the prequel). Whenever I see his name attached to something I am willing to give it a whirl. His imagination is fearless. I like that about him.

Anyway, Once Upon A Time embraced many of the style points that made Lost so much fun. It, too, rockets back and forth between past and present to tell the story. Even though the characters don't remember who they are, it doesn't change your choices so much. People don't change at the CORE. In other words, you are who you are. So, as they face challenges in this "foreign" world, the story often juxtaposes to their past when they faced a similar challenge. All of these characters are onions. I love that. Mostly because you don't really expect it in a fairy tale. In the fairy tale good is good and bad is bad. Black is black and white is white. There really was no grey. In Once Upon A Time you discover that the story has a lot more shading than you originally thought.

And people aren't just born evil. It was a JOURNEY. And it is walking that mile in their shoes that is always the most interesting part. So, you start out hating the Evil Queen because she is just so darn hateful and evil. And then at the end you find out how she got that way and it is like being turned on your head. Evil isn't born; it's made. And while you wish she had made different choices and could embrace things like forgiveness, those things, too, are taught. What happens when you are raised by evil?

So, I am going to show you two clips. The first one is a combo clip. I would have liked to show you a clip from episode 18 that really showed what happened to Regina to turn her evil, but Disney has pulled it off of youtube. This clip has pieces of it in there, along with other stuff, so it should give you a pretty good picture of what happened.



That episode changed everything we thought about Regina. She was a girl in love with a boy. She had a controlling mother who abused magic for her own ends. A little girl, Snow White, found out about this love that Regina had for the stable boy and encouraged Regina to marry him. Regina decided to leave home with her love, but told Snow that she must not tell anyone, especially her mother. However, Snow was grieving for her own mother, so when Regina's mother began to question Snow about Regina, Snow was an easy target. She easily gave up Regina's secrets, believing all that false concern Regina's mother expressed. And then Regina's mother found Regina and her love and killed him. She then forced Regina into a marriage with the king. When Regina found out what Snow had done, her heart hardened and she blamed her, her father, the whole world for her misery. They would all pay for Daniel's death. They would all be just as miserable as she was. The opposite of love isn't apathy. It is hate. And her hate just ate her alive.

Now, was it unrealistic to expect a little girl to keep a big secret like that? Of course. Did Snow reveal that secret to hurt Regina? Of course not. She thought that Regina's mother loved her in the same way that her own mother had loved her. She didn't know how wrong she was. She didn't know what kind of person Regina's mother was. She didn't understand these people at all. She was a child. However, Regina's pain over the loss of her love never allowed her to see Snow that way.

And that is what makes this scene the best of the season...



Ironically, they are both doing the things they are doing out of love. Regina is doing what she is doing out of a twisted love for Daniel. Snow is doing what she is doing out of a pure love for the man she has come to call Charming. Regina thinks that bringing a non-death to Snow White will bring her peace. It won't. She doesn't yet get that because what she really wants is Daniel back and nothing will give her that. However, Snow will have her peace because she is giving the man she loves safety, even it is at her own expense. They are living on the opposite sides of the emotional spectrum. Ironically, watching this scene I feel more sorry for Regina than I do Snow White. She has a long way to go before she will know any peace in her life.

Until you dig out all of the junk there is no room for any good stuff in your life.


image found here

Storming the Castle.

Even before the Hookers and Hangers challenge/contest, I have been thinking a lot about what makes good story. For me, good story is good story. The format doesn't really matter so much. It can be a book, TV show, movie. They are all designed to tell a story. I like TV shows because the intent is that the story goes on... at least, until it doesn't. But, it goes on for a while. And if it is written well, you get to peel back the characters, just a bit at a time, to fully know them. Life is this journey, and they are always in a process of discovering who they are, as the new things that happen to them change them. And we also find out, just a bit at a time, how they got to be the way they were. Or still are. For anyone interested strictly in character development, it is fascinating.

The other thing that I like to watch is the choices that the writers make. Sometimes there is *something* hanging out there from the previous season that MUST be addressed this season in a television series, BUT the ways that they can do it.... Well, they are too many count. Just like in life. Some will go well. Some medium well. Some badly. Some even worse.

So, I have been putting some of my mental resources into thinking about what I considered to be the best scene of the season for My Shows. That is really hard, by the way. Sometimes you have a scene for each set of characters blah blah blah. Narrowing it down to what is approximately the best three minutes of the whole season... aagghhh.

You are going to watch this three minutes and think to yourself.... hmmmm. Especially if you don't watch the show. But, watch it anyway. Focus yourself on Castle primarily. Beckett secondarily. And then I am going to break down how this applies to EVERYONE. That is what makes it the best.

You have to click here to watch.

The hanger at the end of last Season was the Trauma that Kate referred to: she was shot and nearly died. When she was shot, and losing consciousness, Castle finally told her that he loved her. He had come *thisclose* to telling her many times, but didn't.

So, when the season starts the question on everyone's mind is, "Where will they go from here?"

Turns out, they didn't really need to go anywhere. Beckett claimed that she had no memory of anything surrounding the shooting. It was the Trauma.

We find out later that isn't the case. She confesses to her shrink, or a friend, or both, that she always remembered everything, but it was just too much to deal with at the time. She was dealing with PTSD from the shooting (true) at the beginning of the season. And the feelings for Castle were just too much THEN. However, by the time Castle overheard this confession (not the one he was expecting, btw) Beckett was nearly ready to discuss her feelings for him. Let's say she was gathering her courage. Or gearing up. The conversation itself might have still been a few weeks out.

Now, the writers could have allowed Castle to find out Beckett remembered any number of ways. They CHOSE this one.

Maybe you didn't see blood on the floor. Or a proverbial arrow shot through the heart.... what you did see was the look on his face. He looked like someone gut punched him. Someone did. The person he cared about most had been lying to him for about eight months. Bam. Right to the gut.

At this point, everyone does what everyone does. Castle immediately moved into self protection mode. Beckett decided that she'd missed her chance; Castle no longer cared. And it could have gone on like that, but that circumstances forced some confrontations.

The beauty of this scene is that I don't know a better way that Beckett could have done it. She needed to take care of her PTSD before she took care of her love life. When you are losing it psychologically, that is not the time to be worried whether or not the boy likes you or not. She is a detective on the NYPD and melting down could cost her life. So, battling those inner demons and coming out on top had to be the priority. Had she told Castle that she heard what he said, it would have been unfair to say that I need to put you on hold for eight months... but I sure do like you a lot... I might even love you.... I just don't know. Probably because she wasn't admitting that she had PTSD in the first place to anyone but herself. Bah. You admit that and they take your gun. So, she worked it out while she worked. Stubborn lady.

However, don't we all do these things? Take your own issue and sub it for PTSD. Put on hold things or people that matter. Continue to do something that you feel you need to do because it is who you are even if it now scares you to death. Or hurts you in some way. And that is Life.

What makes Castle who he is.... well, that one is harder. He is the guy who after he has his man tantrum knows this woman. And he understands everything I just wrote. And it is why no matter how crazy she makes him, it's still the best crazy ever. Plus, he's a writer. Writers tend to see inside things in a way that the average person misses.

And, for the record, the last episode of the season was AMAZING. The whole darn thing.


image found at www.googleimages.com