Cultural Offerings for the Holidays

Jonny Lee Miller, Jon Michael Hill and Lucy Liu CBS's Elementary.

It can be difficult to decide what to buy people for the holidays, what with so much stuff available out there. So here is my annual list of holiday suggestions, (hopefully) suitable presents for the film/book buff, music lover and TV aficionado in your circle.

The Legal (and Moral) Battles Continue: The Good Fight

Delroy Lindo and Cush Jumbo in CBS's The Good Fight. (Photo: IMDB)

Note: This piece contains spoilers.

As we await the start of a new network fall season, it’s becoming clearer and clearer how entrenched the old school, non-cable channels have become. More doctor and cop shows (New Amsterdam, The Rookie) and reboots and updates of previous series (Magnum, P.I., Murphy Brown) are on the agenda and very few, if any, groundbreaking shows seem to be on the network horizon. In fact, except for the short-lived (one-season) Fox comedy The Grinder, my favourite network series have been the same for four seasons now. (They are ABC’s black-ish and How to Get Away with Murder and CBS’s Elementary). But this doesn’t mean that cable shows, despite freer use of explicit language, sex and violence, are necessarily better. I don’t, for example, get all the acclaim for BBC America’s Killing Eve, whose first eight-episode season centered around an MI–5 agent (Sandra Oh) hunting down a female assassin all over Europe. Oh is wonderful in the role but I don’t buy the series’ plotting and it comes perilously close to exaggerated theatrics even though it’s not trying to be satirical. FX’s Pose, which chronicles the intersection of big business and the Harlem drag-ball scene in New York City in the late eighties, boasted a large cast of (many) transsexual actors in key roles but dramatically was more than a little slack and nearly undone by the one-note performance of Evan Peters as a ‘straight’ man intrigued by one of the girls. Both those series got more ink and acclaim than comparatively better shows on cable, like The Good Fight, the nominal sequel to CBS’s The Good Wife, which turns out to be one of TV’s best current efforts.

I must admit I was reticent at first to watch the show, which has been on for two seasons now and been renewed for a third season for next spring, mainly because I never saw the point of a sequel to The Good Wife, which, to my mind, was for its seven-season run, the finest network show on the air. (It was a bit wobbly in its final season but quickly righted itself. And it ended on a satisfactory and not overdone final note, which simply left the characters continuing their lives without feeling the need to wrap everything up in one great big bow.) Yet The Good Fight, which brings significant regular and supporting characters from that series over to this one, manages to be fresh, funny and gripping in ways that differ from its nominal predecessor. It’s also very relevant to what’s going on in Trump’s divided America.

Old Hat: Observations On The Upcoming Fall Network TV Season

Amber Valletta and Don Johnson in Blood & Oil, premiering on ABC on September 27.

Ever since I was a little kid, I have looked forward to the network Fall TV Season, including getting my hands on a copy of TV Guide’s special issue celebrating the same, and, almost every time out, have amassed a full slate of new and returning shows that I deemed worthy of my time. Tastes change, of course but I have fond memories of past TV seasons, such as CBS’s Saturday night schedule, for a couple of years, of All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show, a lineup that still stands out as, perhaps, the strongest night ever in Network television history. (I am dating myself here as it’s been a long time since prime time Saturday night was considered anything but a graveyard for reruns and cancelled shows running off their last few episodes.) This is why I have never dismissed network television, and feel that despite the glut of cable shows, good and bad, commercial TV still has much to offer.

Last year saw some new appealing network shows, joining the likes of my favourites such as CBS’s The Good Wife and Elementary, which are still strong entries on TV and supplanting in some ways two now disappointing comedies, The Big Bang Theory (CBS), which finally turned bad in its eighth season and the regrettably fast fading Modern Family (ABC). (The Mindy Project, though maddeningly uneven, was still worth watching and, after its cancellation by FOX, was fortunately rescued by Hulu and will continue to run on commercial TV in Canada.) Black-ish (ABC) was a funny, clever sitcom about an upper-middle class black family that addressed issues of racism and racial perceptions in a refreshingly non-politically correct manner and with more courage than The Cosby Show displayed. (The cartoonish The Jeffersons isn’t even worth considering in that light.) Gotham (FOX) managed to wring new gothic blood out of the superhero genre, depicting D.C.’s Batman when he is the young Bruce Wayne and has just seen his parents murdered in front of his eyes. He begins to grow into the caped crusader, under the tutelage of a cockney Alfred, more of a bodyguard than a butler and a former SAS officer to boot, and meets up with a young Selena Kyle (later to become Catwoman and portrayed by a young actress who is a dead ringer for Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Catwoman as an adult in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns), as well as other key figures in his future, such as Commissioner Gordon, who is still just a cop. The new season, subheaded "Rise of the Villains," promises to do even more with The Penguin, The Riddler and, possibly The Joker, who has yet to make his appearance in Gotham.

ABC’s 1940s and Manhattan-set Marvel’s Agent Carter also brought a fresh eye to the Marvel superhero universe with Hayley Atwell, stellar as the prim and proper but also sensual British agent, fighting sexism from her male fellows who think she is just good for getting them coffee. (It had a light appealing tone, in the vein of Raiders of the Last Ark, which made it far more watchable than its sister show, the leaden and heavy handed Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which I’m bailing on after two seasons.) And ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder was a tough minded murder mystery, set on a college campus, which, to my mind, broke some taboos in its sexual frankness, straight and gay, as well as proffering a cinematic look which made it move swiftly and surely. Yet the upcoming 2015-16 TV season, which begins next week, doesn’t seem to bode as well for new worthwhile fare. I usually sample about a third of the 30 or so new series premiering each fall on the networks. Out of this year’s 19 debut shows, I am hard pressed to find one or two, at most, that entice me enough to consider giving them a shot.

Death Becomes Him: ABC's Forever

Ioan Gruffudd stars in Forever, on ABC

This review contains minor spoilers for the first episode of Forever. 
 

The premise of Forever, starring Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd and Alana de la Garza (Law & Order), and airing this fall on ABC, is outlandishly fun to describe (it is the story of "an immortal medical examiner" who consults for the NYPD). It is also oddly familiar – reminding attentive TV viewers of FOX's (ironically) short-lived New Amsterdam (2008), about an immortal New York City homicide detective (and starred Nikolaj Coster-Waldau long before Game of Thrones was a twinkle in HBO's eye), and  Canada’s Forever Knight, the tale of a 800-year-old Toronto police detective/vampire that aired on CTV and CBS back in the 90s. There are a lot of things about Forever that are familiar in fact. It falls firmly into the "consulting detective" genre, which pairs up a by-the-book cop with an idiosyncratic outsider who boasts unorthodox methods and surprising abilities of detection. This list should always begin with Sherlock Holmes – and his two current incarnations, BBC's Sherlock and CBS's Elementary – but really has almost uncountable variations on American TV: from Monk, to The Mentalist, to Numb3rs, to Castle, and beyond. They often share a sense of fun, as the police officer (or FBI agent) balances the frustrations that comes from having an untrained advisor – with all of their emotional and interpersonal quirks – with the undeniable fact that cases keep getting solved with their help. For all its metaphysical conceits, Forever is probably more appealing on these terms to fans of Elementary or Castle, than say Supernatural or Sleepy Hollow. But if you are like me, and a fan of both light crime procedurals and fantasy, you might want to check out Forever, because it's doing a lot right.

Television Goes Global, and Other Reflections on TV in 2013

The final episode of AMC's Breaking Bad aired this past September.

The past twelve months have brought an embarrassment of riches to the dedicated television viewer. Not only a number of promising new series, but technological and industry developments have made television viewing richer, more diverse, and more convenient than it's ever been. But even on wholly traditional terms, TV has had a good year. AMC's Breaking Bad came to a powerful and satisfying conclusion. FX's Justified had another strong year, and its fifth season is set to air early in January. After some uneven early episodes, CBS's Americanized Sherlock Holmes procedural Elementary went from strength to strength, culminating in a powerful first season, and this fall has proven itself to be much more than the pale shadow of BBC's incomparable Sherlock it threatened to be on paper. In November, TBS premiered The Ground Floor, a new laugh track rom-com/office comedy from Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town) that has grown more charming and likeable with every passing episode. And a year ago, long before Fox's Brooklyn Nine-Nine hit the airwaves in September, who could have guessed that the best comedy team-up on television would be Homicide: Life on the Street's Andre Braugher and Saturday Night Live alum Andy Samberg? All in all, we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Below I review some of the more interesting developments in television in 2013.

Fall Slump: When Good Comedies Stumble

Jake Johnson and Zooey Deschanel in New Girl, now airing its third season on Fox

Many television shows drag on far too long, but there is something especially unsettling about watching it happen to a sitcom. While no less upsetting when a favourite drama goes awry, (see: Battlestar Galactica, circa Season 3), the best of dramatic television often succeeds and fails in taking the story in new directions, which means a viewer can easily parse where and how it goes wrong. With ever-growing regularity, TV dramas have enthusiastically embraced television's rich storytelling potential, working in shifting themes, character growth and evolving situations into their long stories. To single out just one current series: FX's Justified has had four strong seasons – even if one or two stand out more than the rest – and it has done this by allowing its main characters to go in and out of new situations, interacting with different and often stand out amazing new actors who come on board for a single season's story alone, leading (for example) to Margo Martindale's Emmy-winning turn in Season 2. As a result, Justified can not only survive the death of main characters and the moral decline of others, it can thrive because of it. But mainstream situation comedy is, well, still largely dependent on its situation – even the best and most accomplished among them are often by necessity static. Static doesn't mean stagnant however. (Bart and Lisa Simpson's perennial and perhaps even purgatorial childhood is still the exception and not the rule.) Having established its fundamental tone, central characters, and key relationships, there are innumerable and endlessly creative situations to work within. ABC's Modern Family, now its fifth season, is perhaps the best example of how strong writing and acting can do amazing stuff within clear and largely preset parameters. 

I tend to return weekly to many of my favourite network comedies as much for feelings of comfort and familiarity as anything else. But when you begin to suspect that the show itself isn't living up to its side of the contract, that trust can often only stretch so far. And this puts even their biggest fans in a particular bind – a feeling not unlike when a close friend has overstayed their welcome on your couch. While some returning shows have been having exceptional fall seasons – CBS's Elementary is simply rocking its sophomore season – some returning comedies are making me eye the door for the first time: How I Met Your Mother, in its ninth (!) and final season; New Girl, in its third year; and most disappointingly, The Mindy Project, growing tired only in its second season.

Vegas, Revolution, and Elementary: Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something New

Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller star in Elementary, a new drama series on CBS

The 2012 fall television season is in full swing – most of the new TV series have premiered and many old favourites are back with new episodes. Back at the beginning of September I have to admit that I was far less excited about the new shows than I have been in many years. Few jumped out at me, and for the first time in a while, there wasn’t a single standout show I was eagerly awaiting (as I had anticipated The Walking Dead and Awake in years past). It seemed like if anything, Fall 2012 was destined to be a season of more-of-the-same: a post-apocalyptic story with conspiracy undertones reminiscent of Lost and Terra Nova, an Americanized Sherlock, at least two Modern Family-inspired sitcoms, a new ode to Justified complete with a gun-toting cowboy/sheriff who plays by own rules, and yet another Matthew Perry comedy!

To my delight and surprise more than a few of these shows have far exceeded my admittedly low expectations. Today I’m looking at three network dramas – Vegas (CBS), Revolution (NBC), and Elementary (CBS) – which, while classic examples of some well-worn television tropes, have so far turned out to be remarkably rich variations on those themes. (Next week, I’ll weigh in similarly on some of the networks’ best new comedy offerings.) 2012 may not be a year for creative risk, but it may turn out to be the year of slow and steady, with more than enough solid network fare to keep you warm throughout the fall.

Sherlock Holmes Redux: The Great Detective Lives On

Sherlock, the recent brilliant BBC-TV series re-imagining and updating of the Sherlock Holmes stories to the present day are, of course, not the only times The Great Detective has been re-worked for television, films and books. And as a long-time aficionado of the Holmes canon – and someone who had the privilege in 1987 of writing a tribute piece in The Toronto Star to Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal hero on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Holmes’ first appearance in print – I must confess I’ve more often than not been happy with how the adaptations of Holmes’ adventures have turned out in print and on screen. These include the distinguished Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies (14 movies made between 1939-46); Billy Wilder’s cynical, but entertaining The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970); and Murder by Decree (1979), which cast Christopher Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Dr. Watson, investigating the murders committed by Jack the Ripper. Two other productions feature men who think they’re Sherlock Holmes: the allegorical and moving 1971 movie They Might Be Giants, with George C. Scott, and The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective, a surprisingly decent 1976 TV movie with Larry Hagman. Interestingly, both of those featured a female Watson, thus anticipating this fall’s CBS series Elementary, with Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) as Holmes, and Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) as Watson. The post Conan Doyle novels have also often been good, with Nicholas Meyer’s excellent Holmes’ pastiches, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974) and The West End Horror (1976) at the top of the heap. (Meyer's third Holmes pastiche, The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson (1993), though worthwhile, isn't as inspired.) In fact, I can only think of a few duds (though I have studiously avoided most of the Holmes in America novels as that seems to me an attempt to pander to an audience that should be content with the London- or European-set adventures of the man). I’m  not enamored of a couple of films, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975) and Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), nor of Caleb Carr’s 2005 novel, The Italian Secretary. (Carr, who wrote The Alienist, has always been better at the idea than the execution, which is a polite way of saying he’s not a very good writer.) Mostly, though, the results in bringing back Holmes and Watson have been pleasing to watch or read. The latest Holmes novel, Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk, as well as the recent DVD release of a criminally underrated Holmes movie, the 1976 film adaptation of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, bear that out.