June 2010 Archives

Powerful FX Two-Punch: "Rescue Me" Returns, Louis C.K. Regroups

June 29, 2010 8:11 AM

The characters played by Denis Leary in FX's Rescue Me and by Louis C.K., who plays an exaggerated version of himself in the new FX series Louie, have two major things in common: They misbehave so much, they almost dare you to like them. And somehow, the more abrasive and honestly caustic they get, the funnier they are.

Leary's Tommy Gavin, the haunted New York firefighter of Rescue Me, isn't played strictly for laughs. Quite the contrary: This series, which begins its sixth season tonight at 10 ET, is one of the best at flipping instantly from laugh-out-loud funny to drop-the-jaw intensely dramatic. From Leary, a veteran standup comic, the hilarious one-liners, and the impeccable timing with which he delivers them, are no surprise. But once again, this man proves that he can ACT.

His comic reactions, when he's quietly absorbing the verbal abuse of his daughters while trying to lecture them, or dealing with the unsympathetic ribbing from his fellow firefighters, are priceless. Leary is as funny when he's listening as when he's speaking, which is the sign of a true comic actor, not just a true comic. And when he's called upon to do something that's dead serious -- dive into a heated argument, say, or reach for another liquor bottle -- he does it with conviction and assurance.

This two-part final season for Rescue Me, split into halves and timed to conclude on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 next year, means we're heading to the end of Tommy's story -- with no assurances whatsoever that it will be a happy ending. But by this point, we're so invested in all of this show's characters that, whatever happens, we expect the ending to be both memorable and moving.

And there's one other strong argument for watching Rescue Me: It gives meatier roles, and more dynamic scenes, to its leading actresses than almost any series on television. Callie Thorne, as Tommy's demanding, high-maintenance mistress, is cracklingly vibrant in every scene, and Andrea Roth, as Tommy's ex-wife, is capable of dismantling or dismissing him instantly, sometimes without saying a word.

The male co-stars, too, show the same strong assurance, going for the laughs (and getting them) in some scenes, and playing it straight in others, as the script demands.

And this year, more than ever, the young actresses playing Tommy's coming-of-age daughters -- Olivia Crocicchia as Kate and Natalie Distler as Colleen, whose growing alcoholism becomes a major plot concern this season -- get a lot to do, and do it impressively.

Leary and series co-creator Peter Tolan have made Rescue Me one of TV's most reliable pleasures, and treasures, since 2004. The first four episodes of this new season suggest their personal fires have not ebbed at all -- so prepare, as Tommy does in the opening minutes, for a very bumpy and unforgettable ride.

Premiering tonight at 11 ET after Rescue Me is Louie, the new series starring another standup comic, Louis C.K. This is such a change from HBO's Lucky Louie -- such a welcome change -- I can't tell you. But I'll try.

Louie is a single-camera series, set and shot in New York, on which Louis C.K. is carrying most of the weight: writer, director, editor, executive producer, star. He's drawn from two of TV's all-time comedies, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, for inspiration, tone and structure, but he's also added something of his own -- something which makes Louie his own.

The obvious debts -- doing stand-up comedy routines to complement the situation comedy part of the show, a la Jerry Seinfeld, and complaining to people about their boorish or bad behavior, a la Larry David -- are done well. The solo routines, especially, carry a lot of punch. They're more extended than the ones on Seinfeld, and, almost without exception, a lot more razor-edged.

But the sitcom scenes, too, resonate with truth, and an edge, that may have you reflecting on them long after the TV set is off.

When the TV version of Louie (who, like the "real" version, is divorced and raising two young girls) goes out on a date, his observations are so full of frustration and resentment, yet so funny and true, you'll laugh almost despite yourself. And in this scene and others, just when you think you know where things are going, C.K. adds a twist, or a surreal touch, that leaves you surprised. And smiling.

Neither Seinfeld nor David, in their TV incarnations, spent much time with kids, who are one of the main obsessions and reliable joys of the TV Louie.

The two girls, and the paces through which they put their father, is one of the elements that make Louie its own. Even a standup routine about volunteering as a monitor in the school lunchroom is unique, it seems, to C.K.'s perspective: Who else does that?

But it works. Louis C.K., by taking firm control of his new TV series, has converted me into a fan.

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Hell Freezes Over Again: First the Book is Finished, and Now the Website Relaunch is Nearly Here

June 25, 2010 5:10 PM

Long ago, I swore to myself (I do that a lot, especially when working with computers) that TV WORTH WATCHING would be redesigned and relaunched before we published "Guest Blog #100." Our guests, after that much time, deserve their own comfy spaces. Well, when we post our next guest contributor's column Monday, it'll be #99, so we're cutting it really, really close.

But honest, folks, the redesign is right around the corner. If you picture July being a corner. And we thought, since this is such a laborious and painful exercise anyway, we may as well expend every effort to get it right. So we're asking YOU for help...

We don't want to spoil surprises by prematurely unveiling Eric Gould's beautiful new website design. (He hates it when things go off prematurely.) But we can tell you this much:

In the new TV WORTH WATCHING, every contributor will have his or her own home blog page, just as Diane Werts and I do now. In addition to the latest posts from Diane and I, the main page will make room for the openings of the latest three or four posts from them, giving us many more voices from the start.

Best Bets, with its nightly round-up of TV choices, will continue to be the feature around which the site is built -- and we're working on making it interactive, an addition requested recently by one of you indispensable readers. Which made us think: What OTHER ideas do you have that we might be able to pull off to make the site more functional and enjoyable?

We're making it a searchable website in the new incarnation, and even adding a spot for favorite fun videos. We're adding a few other things, too, but the key thing is our writing staff. TV WORTH WATCHING, I truly believe, has the most authoritative and readable gaggle of TV critics gathered anywhere, and we're about to add even more tenured talent to the mix.

And, I believe just as truly, we have the smartest and most literate readers anywhere on the whole damn web. We're thrilled you've stuck with us since our November 2007 launch, or joined us along the way. So even though our production/edit/design team is overwhelmed already, we're taking advantage of your collective smarts by asking:

What next?

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Check Out -- Or Check Into -- ABC's "Boston Med" Documentary Series

June 24, 2010 1:22 PM

While most so-called reality TV shows are unwatchable and uninspired, there's a show about actual reality that begins tonight (Wednesday, 10 ET) on ABC, and sparkles like a diamond amid all the summertime TV coal. It's an eight-week documentary series called Boston Med, and it's captivating. [I review it on today's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, but other observations, as well as a link to the review, follow...]

Most of ABC's new summer offerings are scripted, and are disappointing. The Gates, despite Rhona Mitra, is a pale, diluted version of HBO's True Blood. Scoundrels, despite Virginia Madsen, is a pale, diluted version of FX's The Riches. And tonight's Rookie Blue, a Canadian import, is a pale, diluted version of just about every raw-recruit cop series ever made.

Ah, but Boston Med, which begins tonight and runs Thursdays through the summer, is a pleasant, unscripted exception. Like Hopkins, a previous ABC documentary series from executive producer Terry Wrong, it captures true life -- and true death -- in the rooms and corridors of a major medical institution. In this case, Wrong and his crew filmed, for more than a year, at three Boston facilities, and emerged with dozens of compelling, often overlapping stories.

My full Fresh Air review can be read now, and heard after about 5 p.m. ET, by clicking HERE.

Meanwhile, let me add two things.

One is that, in tonight's opening installment, you'll meet Pina Patel, a fourth-year resident who wonders whether, outside of her demanding and successful career, she'll ever find the right guy. This show should help: She comes off as absolutely charming.

Two is that, when this series concludes in two weeks, it does so with a special episode, about the world's second attempted face transplant, that is a knockout hour of television -- with a real-life story line as twisty and turny, and as emotional and engrossing, as anything churned out by Hollywood screenwriters. Even the gifted ones.

I'll write more about this series after viewers have had a chance to sample it. For now, just check into Boston Med, and check it out. You won't be sorry.

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TV Documentaries Inspire and Inform, While Shows Like "Wipeout" Suggest TV's "Downfall"

June 22, 2010 10:56 AM

Tonight ABC presents two high-action, low-brain competition summer series: the returning Wipeout and the brand-new Downfall. Yet elsewhere this week, quality nonfiction offerings shine -- and deserve to be supported, applauded, and, in spirit, imitated...

I'm tempted to ridicule ABC for wasting hours of valuable broadcast prime time on such tossaway junk. And ABC, for the likes of Wipeout, deserves that ridicule, without question. But ABC also is devoting many hours this summer, beginning Thursday night, to an outstanding documentary series, Boston Med, that is a companion series to its previous, equally ambitious Hopkins 24/7.

I'll preview Boston Med in detail later in the week -- but plan for watching or recording it, Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET. Meanwhile, other outstanding documentaries are available this week, if you know where to find them... which is where TV WORTH WATCHING comes in. Here are two you might otherwise overlook:

On ESPN Tuesday night at 9 ET, the latest edition of the 30 on 30 umbrella sports documentary series is called The Two Escobars, and it's intensely impressive, and impressively intense, on many levels. It's about the Colombian soccer team that played in the 1994 World Cup, which sounds esoteric and uninteresting -- but is the exact opposite.

The two Escobars of the title are two men who are no relation, but whose fates were fatally intertwined. One is Andres Escobar, the captain of the rising-star Colombia team; the other is drug lord Pedro Escobar, whose illegal fortune funded soccer fields, and in some cases teams, all over the country.

Parts of The Two Escobars display some thrilling soccer action, including the most grandstanding, show-offy, astounding goalie saves I've ever seen. Yet that goalie was in jail by the time of the World Cup -- and replaced by a man who watched helplessly as his own teammate, Andres Escobar, accidentally deflected a ball into Colombia's goal, killing the team's chances to advance in the tournament.

Two weeks later, Andres himself was killed, too. His death, the death of the other Escobar, and the complex story of the rise and fall of Colombian soccer -- all of it is told with amazing access and honesty. One interview, with Pablo Escobar's enforcer, has him admitting to having killed "about 250 people -- but only a psychopath keeps count."

Yikes.

Then, Wednesday night at 8 ET, HBO2 repeats GasLand, the superb Josh Fox documentary that is likely to get you more incensed at the gas industry, and at certain regulatory agencies of the U.S. government, than any news or images from the Gulf of Mexico right now. HBO premiered this documentary Monday night, but if you missed it, make sure to catch it on this second go-round.

Parts of it are wryly comic, even when they're deadly serious -- as when one resident, complaining of suspected pollution from local natural-gas extraction activities, puts a match to the water coming out of his kitchen tap... and lights it.

But other portions of GasLand are numbingly, frighteningly serious. Fox patiently but persistently makes his case airtight -- or, in this instance, gastight -- and all but screams that something must stop, and change. It'll have you screaming, too, which is a measure of how good GasLand really is.

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Once Again, A "Fresh Air" Interview Yields Some Breaking News About NBC's "Friday Night Lights"

June 18, 2010 8:05 PM

Two years ago, when I interviewed NBC's Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Chandler broke the news about the impending deal with DirecTV that would save the series from cancellation for two more seasons. Well, I just recorded an upcoming Fresh Air interview with Lights co-star Connie Britton -- and, once again, emerged with some breaking news...

I asked Britton whether the recent deal with ABC Family to acquire all five seasons of Friday Night Lights might lead to yet another last-minute reprieve for the excellent family drama series.

(At this point,DirecTV has shown all of season four, NBC is partway through its own showing of season four -- the latest episode is shown Friday night at 8 p.m. ET -- and Britton is down in Austin, filming the final three episodes of season five.)

She was doubtful, and said both the scripts and the buzz suggested this indeed was the ending for Friday Night Lights. Many former cast members are returning for one final appearance in these last episodes, though, and Britton confirmed one additional tasty fact: Before the series concludes its filming for season five, cast and crew will descend upon Philadelphia for some location shooting.

What, and why, she won't say -- but even the where is tantalizing. Connie and Kyle, welcome to Philly. Hope to see you while you're here.

My interview with Connie Britton should appear on Fresh Air in the next two weeks. Stay tuned -- and keep visiting here, because I'll let you know when it's scheduled.

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Computer Problems Almost Do Me In -- But I Live to Scream Another Day

June 17, 2010 12:24 PM

The reason updates have been sluggish last week and this: a series of disconnected, disconcerting computer problems, requiring a repair, a replacement, some wholesale data movement and password changes -- and, today, hours on the phone with every third tech-support specialist in Mumbai...

But things are back, and fixed. Today's Best Bets are up, finally. But I'm down, so instead of writing an angry next-day reaction to CBS's absurdly frustrating Paley Museum special about TV's Biggest Surprises, I'm going to give myself the afternoon off. Away from the computer.

The daily grind is doable again, the hardware is fixed, the software is loaded, but I need some space.

In space, I'm told, no one can hear you scream...

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"A-Team" Movie Loses, But TV WORTH WATCHING Reader Wins

June 14, 2010 3:07 PM

The opening-weekend box-office figures for the new movie remake of The A-Team were so low -- about half of general Hollywood predictions -- that I pity the fool who's still hoping for a cinematic sequel. Even so, one of our readers, in the contest to predict the opening grosses, came very close without going over, so wins some stuff...

Congratulations, Carina. You guessed $21 million, which was the closest guess to the actual $26 million box-office estimate for The A-Team without going over. (Though he went over, Chris was closest overall, with a $27.3 million prediction.)

So, Corina, I'll contact you to get your actual address, and preference of prizes. Thanks to everyone who played -- and, of course, everyone who comes here to visit and read. Pleasing you guys is my grand plan... and I love it when a plan comes together.

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Cable Comedy Pioneer Robert Klein Strikes Again -- On HBO, Again

June 11, 2010 4:27 PM

Robert Klein opens his latest HBO special, Robert Klein: Unfair & Unbalanced (premiering Saturday night at 10 ET), with a very funny song, backed by a full orchestra. By contrast, he opened our interview with a joke about TV WORTH WATCHING: "It's a small website, I take it..."

He immediately rescinded his comment, saying that wasn't true any more. That, while he didn't watch much prime-time broadcast television, he was a big fan of such esoteric fare as the History Channel, the films on Turner Classic Movies, news channels from all sources, and so on.

"David, I am a television addict. I have to admit this," Klein said in a phone conversation Friday. "We got one in 1951 when I was nine years old, and my father hooked it up with my uncle, and Sid Caesar was on, on Saturday night -- Your Show of Shows. And the set has been on ever since."

In the annals of TV history, Robert Klein plays a not insubstantial part. In 1975, he starred in what was cable television's first-ever entertainment special -- An Evening with Robert Klein, the first of his nine solo comedy concerts for HBO. That was 35 years ago, when cable TV barely existed, and when HBO's usual daily schedule was two movies a night, with blank space and a countdown clock in between.

"They showed movies," Klein recalled, "and these movies were in the theater just a few months before. So it was a novelty -- you could see a movie at home, with cursing, unedited, uninterrupted!" Klein, a popular young comic on the college circuit, was approached to have his act captured by HBO's TV crew, and offered to its 500,000 or so subscribers, who were isolated, he recalls, in Eastern Pennsylvania, parts of Long Island, and only the borough of Manhattan proper.

"It was an hour," Klein explained, "instead of the eight or nine minutes I got on the Carson show, or Merv Griffin." And when his full act was televised, New York Times TV critic John O'Connor reviewed it -- garnering HBO's first press notice for programming.

"No one could say he went crazy," Klein admitted, "but he realized the potential of this idea."

Klein has been running with "this idea" ever since. His first special, he jokes in this ninth special, included some profanity because it could ("I said, 'Shit, shit, I can curse! That was my wit'"), but Klein always has been more about substance than shock. Or, when he gets playful and loose with language, it's to make a point -- as with his opening song, in Unfair & Unbalanced, urging President Obama to "keep your pecker in your pants."

The special, taped at the Amaturo Theater at Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts, includes several musical numbers, including a closing reprise of Klein's classic "I Can't Stop My Leg," all arranged by long-time musical director Bob Stein.

"I do comedy and music in every show I've ever done," Klein said proudly. "I'm really a good singer -- for a comedian."

But the monologues are strong, too, as when Klein launches into what he himself calls "a corker of a routine" about Sen. Larry Craig, he of the infamous "wide stance" men's bathroom scandal. At times, on the special and in conversation, Klein seems downright irritated -- and with good reason.

"I love this country," Klein told me. "I was born here, my parents were born here, and it's the greatest country in the world. But our pre-eminence is by no means guaranteed. I see a dumber America, a more vicious America, a more selfish America. When Sarah Palin makes fun of Joe Biden for saying that paying taxes is patriotic, I find that appalling. It is our DUTY to pay taxes."

[Robert Klein: Unfair & Unbalanced premieres Saturday at 10 p.m. ET on HBO, and is repeated Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET on HBO2.]

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Lots Going On: New TVWW TV-to-Movie Contest, New Late-Night "Feud" with Fallon and Ferguson, and Lively New Comic Showcase on Showtime

June 10, 2010 10:58 AM

There's so much going on, I'm going to try and catch up in one big burst. Today's column will cover a) the latest TV WORTH WATCHING TV-to-Movie contest, asking for opening-week box-office guesses for The A-Team; b) the latest late-night "war," this time between Jimmy Fallon and Craig Ferguson; and c) a delightful new talk show, The Green Room with Paul Provenza, premiering Thursday night at 10:30 ET on Showtime...

TV WORTH WATCHING A-TEAM CONTEST

If you didn't win anything in our last contest, or even if you did, it's time to try, try again. What do you think will be the opening-weekend box-office gross for The A-Team, the new remake of the awful 1983 NBC action series?

The rules are the same as for previous TV-to-movie contests. Guesses must be posted by noon ET Friday (in this case, June 11), and the prize will go to the person who guesses closest without going over. (Warning: Last time, that meant the prize went to a cynical but savvy contestant who guessed $2 and $1, respectively, for Sex and the City 2 and MacGyver.)

The prizes this time? Let's look around on my floor and see. Okay, the winner can choose from among:

1) A cool Fox Fringe cube, complete with snazzy Fox packaging.

2) A cool Caprica disc and flash drive, from Syfy, in an uber-cool futuristic acrylic case.

3) A jump rope from Lifetime's Diet Tribe.

4) A set of giant playing cards from Alice, also from Syfy.

Enter once. Visit often.

NEW LATE-NIGHT FEUD? A MICKEY MOUSE VERSION, PERHAPS...

Wednesday night in the late-night TV landscape, two networks conspired to do something requiring tricky timing and an unusual degree of cooperation. Because NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup finals went into overtime, the plan was foiled on the East Coast - but West Coast viewers, especially channel-hoppers, were treated to something that may have been unprecedented.

On Tuesday's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS, the host -- who, since winning a Peabody, has taken to wearing a giant Mickey Mouse glove on occasion and waving to the camera -- followed an unscripted impulse and waved to rival NBC late-night host Jimmy Fallon, asking him to wave back.

The next day, producers for both shows collaborated on an impish followup, and timed the spots in their respective shows accordingly. Viewers on the West Coast, if they happened to be fervent flippers with their TV remotes, got the full effect.

First Fallon, on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, noted what Ferguson had done the night before, and sported his own Mickey Mouse glove while pretending to cry, threaten, and, eventually, wave back. Then, as soon as Fallon's bit was over, Ferguson, over at CBS, interrupted his opening monologue to note, with glee, that Fallon had just waved back at him.

Maybe it's only in a Disneyland world -- but hey, maybe we CAN all just get along...

MAKE SURE TO VISIT SHOWTIME'S "THE GREEN ROOM"

Paul Provenza, the comedian who directed The Aristocrats, clearly knows how to make fellow comics comfortable, and to get them to talk naturally about some very funny stuff. So it shouldn't be surprising that his new Showtime series, The Green Room with Paul Provenza, is as hilarious as it is.

But hey, this is one funny series -- one that Showtime should get behind, big time, for a very long stretch.

It's the most entertaining, and illuminating, look into the comedy mind since Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg on TV Land -- but that series was one on one. In Green Room, Provenza plays host to four fellow comics, and the five of them, surrounded by audience members seated so close they share the same camera shots, just riff. Brilliantly.

The opener, televised Thursday night at 10:30 ET, features Eddie Izzard, Drew Carey, Larry Miller and Reginald Hunter. And if you're less familiar with Hunter than the others, that's the point of Provenza's booking strategy: Throw one talented relative unknown in with the comic celebrities, and watch them all swim in the deep end.

Each gets his turn to shine, and make you laugh out loud. Each takes turns being an appreciative audience, a riotous storyteller and a deady heckler. In episode two, Sandra Bernhard actually heckles herself, following her own personal story about abortion with a tossaway one-liner so brutal in its honesty, the others - including Roseanne Barr and Bob Saget -- sit there in appreciative, stunned silence. In episode three, Andy Dick makes the first joke about his court-mandated alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet, but by no means the last.

These unscripted conversations are funnier than most sitcoms, and tossed in among the show-biz stories are valuable insights about comedy -- all peppered with enough genuine punch lines to have you worn out at the end of each half hour. So far, Showtime and Provenza have made six.

Order a dozen more, for starters. The Green Room with Paul Provenza has the confident feel and smell of a franchise show.

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It's True Love, Welcoming Back HBO's "True Blood"

June 9, 2010 4:46 PM

The third season of HBO's True Blood begins Sunday (9 p.m. ET), picking up right where last year's season ended -- and man, is it a joy to have back...

I reviewed the new season of Alan Ball's clever, funny and very sexy vampire series on Wednesday's edition of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. You can read -- or hear -- the report by clicking HERE, which will take you to my review on NPR's website.

By the way -- the teacher of vampire literature and pop culture I mentioned, but didn't identify, at the start of the story? He's Mark Dawidziak, TV critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and an adjunct faculty member at Kent State University. Thanks for the inspiration, Mark. And for arranging the lunch at Primo's in Akron...

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TVWW Movie Contest Results: MacGruber Bombed Bigger Than ANYONE Expected

June 1, 2010 7:51 AM

The results are in for the latest TV WORTH WATCHING guess-the-opening-weekend grosses of movies based on TV. I'll reveal the winner(s) in a moment, but man, the clear loser is MacGruber. The latest Saturday Night Live spinoff managed to scrape up only $4.1 million of ticket sales its opening weekend...

The sequel to Sex and the City 2, with benefit of an extended Memorial Day weekend opening, wound up with an estimated 51.3 million -- respectable, sort of, but less than the original earned on its opening weekend two years ago.

Therefore, to win this contest, a contestant had to guess Sex and the City 2 and MacGruber in that order (which everyone did), and come closest to their totals without going over on either, which only one person did.

That person was Rich Greenhalgh, one of our student contributors, who entered with a sarcastically pessimistic lowball prediction of $2 for Sex and $1 for MacGruber. And I'm pretty sure he meant dollars, not millions.

He was playing the Price Is Right rules cannily, however -- and even though (or especially because) he's an unpaid employee here, I feel it would be wrong to deny him the Ghost Hunters night light he claimed so prematurely and enthusiastically.

But, to reward at least one loyal TVWW reader, I've decided to award a second prize, to the person who guessed the lowest total on MacGruber, and the closest (without going over) on Sex and the City 2.

Using that admittedly arbitrary set of guidelines, the winner is Ken Rehfield, who guessed $43 million for Sex and $16 million for MacGruber. (I'll contact you, Ken, and find out which of the remaining prizes most catches your fancy.)

Next up, in a few weeks, The A-Team! And I pity the fool who overestimates...

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