| THE GOOD
· Ugly Betty (debuts September 28 on CityTV and ABC) – The preview ads for this series do the show a disservice. Seeing Betty bang head-on into a glass conference room wall can lead you to think that this is some pie-in-the-face affair. In reality, this new hour length series knows how to deliver comedy and pathos in many forms.
Ugly Betty tells the storyof Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), a plucky self-starter who lands a gig at a high-end fashion magazine, despite the fact that her own personal sense of style can best be described as a train wreck. Surrounded by cutthroat fashionistas, Betty takes a severe ego bruising in the pilot. At one point our portly heroine is forced by her boss into a truly humiliating fashion photo shoot. Through it all, Betty steadfastly remains true to herself. She is an awkward oddball who is easy to root for, in a series that is smart, funny and filled with much respect for its title character.
· 30 Rock (debuts October 11 on NBC and October 14 on CTV) – Oscar-nominated actor Alec Baldwin (The Cooler) teams up with Saturday Night Live vets Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan to deliver a truly inspired show about a show. Fey stars as Liz Lemon, the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy program known as The Girlie Show. She brings uproarious life to the series as a sarcasm-spewing dynamo who’s determined to control her professional destiny. Alec Baldwin plays her eccentric and unpredictable new boss with all the smirking, sublime charm that has made him the most consistently funny SNL guest host of the past two decades. Fey and Baldwin establish a lively comedic tone in the first half of the 30 Rock pilot, but the show really takes off when Tracy Morgan appears. His turn, as an in-your-face, posse-toting comedic actor who is crazier than all the characters he plays, is absolute genius.
THE BAD
· Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis (part one, September 15; part two, September 22 on CBC) – This mini-series dramatizes the summer of 1990 conflict between the Mohawk nation and the Quebec and Canadian governments. Unfortunately, the drama is sorely lacking. I firmly recall the media coverage at the time of the land dispute and I remember tensely wondering when this particular powder keg was going to explode. The TV version of the Oka crisis misses the mark in attempting to recreate that tension. Too much time is spent showing members of each side of the conflict sermonizing in formalized language that rarely resembles the way real people speak. The two-part telefilm features a large ensemble cast but character development is insufficient. Time is never taken to paint anyone as more than an impassioned zealot.
· Jericho (debuts September 20 on CityTV and CBS) – What if a nuclear bomb went off and nobody cared? Well, what you’d have is the new TV series Jericho. Don’t let the trailer with its dramatic mushroom cloud fool you, this show is dull.
A nuclear bomb explodes near a small Kansas town and its residents are cut off, left wondering what is happening to the rest of the world. It sounds riveting. It should be, but it’s not. Actors Skeet Ulrich (Scream), Gerald McRaney (Major Dad), Pamela Reed (Kindergarten Cop) and the rest of the cast turn in flat performances in a show that drags itself through one uninspired scene after another. Ulrich unconvincingly comforting a school bus full of doe-eyed elementary school kids is a definite pilot episode lowlight.
THE SHOULD-BE-BETTER
· Men in Trees (debuts September 15 on CityTV and ABC) – A famous relationship coach played by Anne Heche (Everwood) is marooned in Anchorage, Alaska. Her fiancé has left her for another woman and she’s pissed at all men in a place where they outnumber women by about 10 to one. Heche is likable and suitably vulnerable in the lead role, but the relationship guru whose own relationships are a disaster has been done before (Hitch, Clueless, Sex and the City). It’s in danger of becoming as cliché as the psychiatrist who is more volatile than his or her patients (Frazier, Something About Bob, Analyze This). Speaking of clichés, The Men in Trees pilot features Heche doing battle with a rampaging raccoon, not unlike those you can find in the movies RV, Elf and Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. |
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