TV Slut - Summer TV Report
Jul. 4th, 2013 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAfter a fairly quiet day, watching fireworks on tv, while I listen to them bang outside my apartment every five minutes.
Summer Television so far is somewhat tepid or limpid.
* Siberia - on NBC on Monday night's at 10 pm. This is a "fake" reality series allegedly set in Siberia, Russia. 19 contestants are sent to Siberia, Russia in a Survivor style series. There's no rules or voting. They have to travel to a remote camp that was abandoned in 1908, which the filmmakers have restored in its entirety. The original settlers had disappeared without a trace. Before the end of the first episode, one of the contestants is summarily killed by something creepy in the woods. We don't see it. We just see the contestant and cameraman racing away from it. We also don't see what it does to them, we're just told Tommy has met with a fatal accident away from camp. The remaining contestants are told they can either stay and fight for the $500,000 or leave now and get $5,000 each for their troubles. There will be no support. If they want to leave they go through the archway and push a red panic button which will send a helicopter taking them home. Otherwise they are stuck out there for the duration. It feels a bit like Blair Witch Project by way of Cabin in the Woods, except done as a reality series.
It unfortunately has all the things you've come to expect from reality shows - the producers go out of their way to suck you into their world. We have the confessionals, documentary style filmmaking, interviews and confessionals. Watching the thing just reminded me of why I hate these types of series. But the idea is interesting. I'd wondered how long it would take for someone to come up with the idea of a "ten little indians style" fake reality drama, where each week a new contestant is killed off.
* Crossing Lines on NBC on Sunday nights fairs a bit better. This is the French/American co-production about an International Crime Solving Unit - headed by a French Cop and an American Detective, it stars Donald Sutherland in a supporting role. And I just realized that Sutherland mumbles a lot.
The series is your typical procedural, with the individual lives of the cops on the team as the B storyline. The main focus is on the American Detective - who is crippled from a deadly interaction with a kidnapper years prior, and is portrayed by a great character. I mainly watching it for him.
* Under the Dome - typical Stephen King fare. If you've seen Tommy Knockers, The Stand, or Storm of the Century - you've seen this tale before and probably can predict what will happen next. The series is being headed by Brian K. Vaughn...so there is promise.
But so far the characterizations feel uneven and a bit cardboard. So far the only standouts are Samantha Mathis as a lesbian psychologist and Dean Norris (from Breaking Bad) as Big Jim, the town's somewhat shady leader and wannabe mayor. Of course, I'm only two episodes into it. There's the stereotypical King characterizations...which seem to populate most of his stories now: 1) The perky journalist who stumbles onto more than she wants to know, 2) the magical kids who figure out there's more going on - something of a paranormal or exterestial nature, 3) the psycho teen who after the fifth time he pops up in a story, you think, okay bored now, kill him already, 4) the girl who wants to get the hell out of dodge, but had the misfortune to be the fixation of the psycho, 5) the grifter with the heart of gold.
Instead of splitting the story into two halves - part in the town under the dome, and part in the area outside of the town...which would have been different, Vaughn and King choose the traditional path - focusing on the small town under pressure...which has unfortunately been overdone.
There's a few new one's popping up in July...that may be better. Plus the returns of some other series. Right now the best summer series is weirdly Falling Skies and Defiance.
Summer Television so far is somewhat tepid or limpid.
* Siberia - on NBC on Monday night's at 10 pm. This is a "fake" reality series allegedly set in Siberia, Russia. 19 contestants are sent to Siberia, Russia in a Survivor style series. There's no rules or voting. They have to travel to a remote camp that was abandoned in 1908, which the filmmakers have restored in its entirety. The original settlers had disappeared without a trace. Before the end of the first episode, one of the contestants is summarily killed by something creepy in the woods. We don't see it. We just see the contestant and cameraman racing away from it. We also don't see what it does to them, we're just told Tommy has met with a fatal accident away from camp. The remaining contestants are told they can either stay and fight for the $500,000 or leave now and get $5,000 each for their troubles. There will be no support. If they want to leave they go through the archway and push a red panic button which will send a helicopter taking them home. Otherwise they are stuck out there for the duration. It feels a bit like Blair Witch Project by way of Cabin in the Woods, except done as a reality series.
It unfortunately has all the things you've come to expect from reality shows - the producers go out of their way to suck you into their world. We have the confessionals, documentary style filmmaking, interviews and confessionals. Watching the thing just reminded me of why I hate these types of series. But the idea is interesting. I'd wondered how long it would take for someone to come up with the idea of a "ten little indians style" fake reality drama, where each week a new contestant is killed off.
* Crossing Lines on NBC on Sunday nights fairs a bit better. This is the French/American co-production about an International Crime Solving Unit - headed by a French Cop and an American Detective, it stars Donald Sutherland in a supporting role. And I just realized that Sutherland mumbles a lot.
The series is your typical procedural, with the individual lives of the cops on the team as the B storyline. The main focus is on the American Detective - who is crippled from a deadly interaction with a kidnapper years prior, and is portrayed by a great character. I mainly watching it for him.
* Under the Dome - typical Stephen King fare. If you've seen Tommy Knockers, The Stand, or Storm of the Century - you've seen this tale before and probably can predict what will happen next. The series is being headed by Brian K. Vaughn...so there is promise.
But so far the characterizations feel uneven and a bit cardboard. So far the only standouts are Samantha Mathis as a lesbian psychologist and Dean Norris (from Breaking Bad) as Big Jim, the town's somewhat shady leader and wannabe mayor. Of course, I'm only two episodes into it. There's the stereotypical King characterizations...which seem to populate most of his stories now: 1) The perky journalist who stumbles onto more than she wants to know, 2) the magical kids who figure out there's more going on - something of a paranormal or exterestial nature, 3) the psycho teen who after the fifth time he pops up in a story, you think, okay bored now, kill him already, 4) the girl who wants to get the hell out of dodge, but had the misfortune to be the fixation of the psycho, 5) the grifter with the heart of gold.
Instead of splitting the story into two halves - part in the town under the dome, and part in the area outside of the town...which would have been different, Vaughn and King choose the traditional path - focusing on the small town under pressure...which has unfortunately been overdone.
There's a few new one's popping up in July...that may be better. Plus the returns of some other series. Right now the best summer series is weirdly Falling Skies and Defiance.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-05 08:49 am (UTC)But I'm enjoying Dean Norris as Big Jim Rennie, so I'll give it another episode or two to get its act together.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-05 02:29 pm (UTC)The Stand tv series did have humor in it - I'll give it that.
And yep, watching it for Dean Norris' Big Jim Rennie as well.