TV reviews: ‘The Class,’ ‘Standoff,’ ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’
More first impressions of the new fall shows.
“The Class” (Mondays, CBS): Premise: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the day he met his fiancee, a Nice Normal Guy hosts a reunion of their 3rd grade class. Fiancee dumps him at the party; guests at the party reconnect with each other; a sitcom is born. What’s unusual about this one, which stars the uber-likable Jason Ritter as the Nice Normal Guy, is how much focus seems to be placed on the people as characters and not just as punchline delivery systems. In the 22-minute pilot there were several decent laughs and some genuine poignancy, too; kudos to the actors for doing so much with their characters in so little time. TiVo verdict: Season Pass, at least for now.
“Standoff” (Tuesdays, Fox): It’s a drama about FBI hostage negotiators, with the added twist that the two lead negotiators (a man and a woman) are secretly dating each other. The first episode suggests the focus will be on hostage-related crises, not personal ones, and that’s a good choice. Pretty good tension with the standoffs, mild surprises in the way they’re resolved, and the characters are likable enough. I won’t watch it every week, but it seems light and enjoyable enough to catch now and then. TiVo verdict: Low-priority Season Pass, ignored if something more urgent is on.
“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (Mondays, NBC): Never having watched “SportsNight” or “The West Wing,” I was personally unfamiliar with the legendary writing talents of Aaron Sorkin. Now I see what I’ve been missing: sheer genius. My friends, THIS is a TV show! It’s set behind the scenes at a “Saturday Night Live”-style sketch comedy show, focusing on the backstage drama and mayhem that go into working for network TV. The dialogue is fast-paced and snappily written, the energy high, the acting (by Matthew Perry and Amanda Peet, notably) impeccable. It helps that it’s about one of my favorite things — the inner workings of TV — but even if it were something else, I suspect I’d find these characters and situations fascinating, so compelling is the writing and direction of the show. TiVo verdict: Season Pass.
September 21st, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I got tired of Amanda Peet’s smirky smile everytime something would happen. I think she was going for a “twinkly eye effect” that I didn’t really get. I also don’t like how Sorkin has such a self-congratulatory sense in his writing. “We are a compassionate Democratic presidency” as in the West Wing. How heroic to be a compassionate Democrat. Or “We are a smart, progressive tv sketch show, not afraid to offend knuckle-dragging Christians.” Again, how heroic. If he gets too heavy-handed in his critique of Red Staters he will lose me. As it stands right now, I’ll give it another chance. There is no doubt that his programs are well-produced and well-acted (except for smirky face). It was a decent start.
I liked Kidnapped, and The Unit is the bomb. I wonder if Eric has ever watched Battlestar Galactica?
September 21st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
The one thing that was bugging us while watching Studio 60 is that we couldn’t figure out what Jack’s position was. She’s the new president and he’s her boss? What does that make him? (Took some digging, but he’s apparently the chairman of the board.) We’re willing to give it a shot for Chandler, er, I mean, Matthew Perry.
Lots of good TV watching to look forward to.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:34 pm
I liked it as well, but then I’m a huge Sports Night fan and a sometime West Wing watcher (I’ll Netflix it eventually, but I couldn’t commit to more TV when it was in it’s heyday, I just couldn’t!).
If you liked this, though, you’d like Sports Night. So now you’re gonna Netflix it, right? Right?? Just ignore the on-again-off-again laugh track (mostly off again, but when it’s on again it’s quite grating, as all laugh tracks are).
September 21st, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Studio 60 sounds good. Isn’t there another new show along the same lines? I’d be interested to hear a comparison.
Did anybody watch “Jericho” last night? I hesitate to get involved with any new TV show unless there’s really a lot of gushing going on (it took me three seasons to finally watch Seinfeld and half the first season to check out Lost). But that one has an interesting premise (more of a realistic Lost scenario) so I thought I might give it a chance. I taped it, but haven’t watched it yet. I almost hate to, though, on the chance I’ll feel committed to watch the rest, especially if it’s ultimately only the premise that is really great. Anyway, I’d be interested to hear some comments on that.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:58 am
Eric H. - Jericho was pretty good. Going into it, I too thought the premise looked interesting but was skeptical of how the quality of the show might be. Aside from the final scene that sort of felt tacked-on and obvious, I thought it was well done. The acting was, for the most part, adequate. The plot had enough angles to it to keep it fresh and I’m genuinely interested to see what happens next. I doubt it will have the depth of Lost, but if it keeps moving the way the pilot did, it could easily surpass Lost in pacing quality.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:26 pm
I thought it was AWESOME. Amanda Peet’s little smile, I thought was cool and a little endearing. And who’d have thought Chandler could do such an admirable job in a serious role. I can’t wait to see where this one goes.
and on the topic of the “Crazy Christians” skit that was cut from the “Studio 60″ broadcast:
I think you only have to worry about the red-stater “crazy christian” bashing if you feel it applies to you as a red stater or Christian. The fact is, much like there’s a difference between Muslims and Islamo-fascists (or whatever the nom du jour for islamic extremists is from the Bush administration), there ARE crazy Christians… Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist church, anyone?
Christians should be decrying the crazy Christians just as much as Christians think Muslims should be decrying and denouncing Islamic extremists.
Whoops. I’m sure this is supposed to be a comment on the review, not a debate about the comments. Sorry, EDS!
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:29 pm
I didn’t care for Jericho. To me, it felt like cliche after cliche after cliche. Everything you’ve ever seen done in an action adventure movie (and I’ll leave them out since you haven’t watched it yet—but trust me, you’ve seen it before) was plugged into the pilot episode. I most likely won’t be back.