The Goodwin Games: The pilot is a little awkward and there's maybe too much setup; none of the leads really hold the show on their own (I continue to think that TJ Miller is a strong utility player, but like Jon Heder a little of him goes a long way). Elijah's baffling presence added a level of surreality to the show. The "father's pre-recorded video predicts what the kids are going to say and do" gag was funny at first but I don't think holds up in subsequent gags. I hope the premise's inherent versatility is lived up to, and they don't have the same dumb "lol we're a family we gotta stick together, each of us is special in our own way" moral with every episode. TJ Miller's character's kid is really adorable and I'd say the strong point of the show could definitely be his maturation into a father. I think this is definitely a show that could have been developed and salvaged into a working, ongoing show. Pity that they're burning it off.
Save Me: I expected more. In part because Heche is a good actress, and in part because the preview made this feel more intellectual than the resulting product is. One thing that doesn't work right off the bat is that if Heche is going to be literally performing miraculous acts of vengeance each episode, then no one could possibly doubt that she is convening with God; like Evan Almighty, the premise that no character believes her only works if there's reason to doubt her based on the actual character interactions we see. The kid daughter is a shrew, no idea what they were hoping with that characterization. It's weird to me that the husband's affair was resolved by the end of the first episode. I felt tons of tonal inconsistency between the first and the second episode. Referring to God as "he/she" is a pretty stupid bleating--I know they want to simultaneously stress that this is a non-sectarian conception of God and make Heche seem like a hippy affluent yoga liberal, but I found it very conspicuous. Also I found it a little rude or aggressive. Stuff was a little too broad and telegraphed and it comes together as a much less smart or cutting work than I thought it could have. Michael Landes reminds me of Adrian Pasdar to the point of distraction. Time probably could have made it into a better show, but I think this is one of the bigger misfires I've seen. Maybe a case of inflated expectations on my part.
Arrested Development S4 E1-4: The humour and acting is exactly as good as it's ever been. The writing is still delightfully smart. I'm not going to say anything about jumping the shark, quality downhill, people don't got it anymore. A lot of the new plot elements and some of the social commentary of the 2008 bubble burst and new technology stuff is great. This is very much Arrested Development. Having said that, I've noticed a few things. The production values are terrible -- awful chromakey (actually some of the worst I've ever seen in a professional series, I have no idea what happened here), terrible sound mix (poor ADR, over-scored, score mixed too high), weak sets, some bizarre camera choices (James Lipton walking towards the camera in episode two or three is one of the single worst camera shots I've ever seen--he looks like a dwarf, his clothes don't fit well, the shot lasts entirely too long, it's shot at a weird angle, what the hell). The editing is not tight at all, each of the four episodes I've seen so far could be shortened 4-5 minutes without losing anything and almost every individual gag is slowed down significantly from S1-S3. The reliance on guest stars to fill the gaps because the family members are separated is definitely unfortunate, I thought the original seasons worked well in part because the family was the core of the show and the guest stars were typically sparing. There's a bunch of stuntcasted stuff that feels superfluous. Exception: Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen as the young Bluths are well-cast. So what I'd say so far is that I have extreme confidence that the people working on this show have the capacity to produce more Arrested Development without a quality decline, but that very obvious constraints on this season have contributed to it not working as well as it could have so far. Opinion subject to change when I've seen the rest of the season.
By the way, I never do this but... does anyone have any recommendations for TV shows to watch? Did Magic City end up being any good? Longmire? Justified? Luther? Falling Skies? Merlin (wasn't this cancelled?)? Among period pieces -- Downton Abbey? Call the Midwife? Ripper Street? Spies of Warsaw? How many of these are good? Keep in mind the kind of person I am. I like stuff that is emotional, existential, among dramas I like it when the tension comes from slow build, deep character study, intellect. I like economy, like the way stage plays or something like 12 Angry Men does so much with so little. I like politics. I like some melodrama but not generally soapy stuff. I like shows about criminals and crime, not so much about cops. I only like period pieces when something other than the period is doing the driving. I don't tend to like procedural case-of-the-week stuff. I have access to all Canadian and US services. I watch a whole lot of everything so please don't recommend Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, or stuff that I very obviously have already watched.
