Rule Breakers (or, USA! USA! USA!)

For a variety of reasons, I have a large backlog of shows to review; while I was traveling and addressing professional deadlines, most of the summer schedule sped by.  I’m only now catching up on the TV reviews.  But I will catch up—promise!  For the time being, I can offer three reviews and a set of Simon Bakers.  I could have connected these shows with any number of thematic threads, but at the moment I’m busy dwelling on the USA network and its programming decisions. 

Ever since USA set out on the “characters wanted” era, they’ve populated their schedule with shows about people who are in over their heads and have to rise to the occasion.  Their protagonists tend to be competent, well-intentioned people with strong (if sometimes unconventional) moral compasses and a need or desire to help others—to heal them, or find justice for them, or serve the public interest, or just plain do the right thing.  They find themselves, whether by design or misfortune, deep in the deep end and have to use extraordinary, often transgressive means in order to swim.  It’s a great recipe for compelling television, and USA has made it work over and over again:  Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, Necessary Roughness, Covert Affairs.  All very effective shows, each in its own way.  And Graceland, which sits in a more morally ambiguous place, but still focuses on a hero in over his head, casting about for justice.

Adjacent to these, but not identical, is Suits—which is also about someone in over their head, rising to the occasion, but it doesn’t have the same moral compass.  The protagonist’s occasion-rising there is all about his own success, and to the extent he helps others, that’s incidental.  To be honest, I find it less interesting, although that may have to do with its disturbing treatment of the legal profession and its canons of ethics than with how entertaining it is.  I know plenty of people who love it. 

In fact, Suits’ popularity may be to blame for the trend I’m seeing.  It’s happening a bit inside the shows, but it’s even more noticeable because of show turnover.  As it’s tweaked its schedule, USA seems to have downplayed the “moral compass” and “helping” aspects of its dramas, but kept the unconventional, transgressive protagonists.  The result is that the lineup isn’t so much about people having to rise to the occasion as it is about privileged people who break rules and get away with it.  And that’s just much less rewarding to watch.

There's something very American about rule breakers, especially those who break the rules in service of all that is right and just.  That's at least one (romanticized, but aren't they all?) version of the story of our nation's founding:  people didn't like the rules elsewhere, so they broke them, and in the process made a better world, with better rules.  And American entertainment certainly has a love affair with the hero who walks the antihero line.  Indeed, even the characters who aren't in over their heads, and still act like they’re above the rules, aren’t always unlikeable.  House, for example, thought he was above the rules and we still rooted for him.  But that was because (a) his rulebreaking was generally in service to helping people; and (b) even he had to endure the consequences of his poor choices sometimes.  The same is true of RaylanGivens:  he’s not good at rules, but he’s great at justice. 

But it’s a different story entirely when characters don’t have that well-meaning core, and never have to confront the consequences of their rulebreaking.  Those characters are just hard to root for. 

These shows all feature rulebreakers, albeit different kinds. 

Taxi: Brooklyn (NBC, new.  Law enforcement procedural.)

Watched: pilot

Premise:  A good detective is such a terrible driver that she has to team up with a taxi driver to solve crime.

Promise: This is a very silly, high concept for a show.  Totally ridiculous.  At its heart, though, is a bantery police procedural, which is a concept I can get behind.  Evaluating it on that scale:  It strives for banter and sass, but at least in the pilot, there’s something wooden about it—some crucial synergy between the writing, acting, and timing just isn’t firing on all cylinders.  It also isn’t quite sure whether it’s a drama or a comedy.  I don’t have anything against the concept of the quirky procedural, but even the quirkiest of procedurals has to decide ahead of time whether it’s trying to be funny or not.  I think this one wants to straddle the line, and it’s not quite working.  It has the potential to be a fun, light show, but to accomplish that, it needs more of a USA/TNT vibe than an NBC one.

Our lead—like so many TV cops nowadays—is motivated by the murder of a parent, and is risking her career to investigate the murder even though she’s been ordered not to.  And although she’s a good cop, she’s outshined at every turn—not only driving-wise, but also investigation-wise—by her taxi-driving partner, who has uncanny instincts for crime-solving.  Holmes & Watson doesn’t work so well when Watson is not only the great person but also the great investigator—in that scenario, Holmes is just the jerk.  Which is sort of where we are with this show:  the taxi driver has it all, and the cop is just—ironically—a vehicle for delivering him.

Verdict:  If I had infinite time, I might come along for the ride.  But I don’t, so I won't.

Rush (USA, new.  Medical drama.)

Watched: pilot

Premise: concierge doctor in LA is generally an asshole and generally gets away with it.

Promise: The central character is so deeply unlikeable, egotistical, and unempathetic that it’s impossible to root for him.  Like, I’m pretty sure that rooting for him actually actively makes you a worse person.  This isn’t just a doctor who takes drugs.  This is a doctor who does drugs.  It isn’t just someone with blind spots, who’s good at their job but bad with people.  It’s someone who literally accepts money to overlook the fact that a rich guy hit his wife as retribution for drinking his juice, and then tells the woman “can I give you some advice?  Don’t drink his juice.”  After that, it’s not a long trip to see where this show puts its women:  they’re pretty much all victims of particularly female sorts.  (Domestic abuse, breast cancer, unidentified abuse/trauma, etcetera).  Some of them have the personal strength and competence to rise above it, but the way they prove that is by rising above their victimhood.  That’s not true of the men, but they’re no less stereotyped by gender:  one is histrionic about an injury to his penis, another has anger control issues; most treat the women around them like objects.  But the truth is that there aren’t many complex characters here.  Everyone is a foil for this Rush guy.

And I want to be clear:  Rush is skilled doctor, and he’s not wholly morally unredeemable.  There is a sliver, maybe even more, of good in him.  And if I expected this show to be a redemption story—a story about this deeply flawed human finding and nurturing the remaining shreds of his humanity—I might be able to get on board.  But no:  although he knows it feels good to do good things, this man is unrepentant, maybe even proud, of being a bad person.  So as far as I can tell from the pilot, this is a story about a loathsome person, who everyone knows is loathsome, just being loathsome and occasionally stumbling accidentally into some good.  

Verdict:  Nope.

The Musketeers (BBC America, UK show, new to the US.  Action/Adventure.)

Watched: Pilot

Premise: Much swash is buckled in 17th Century France.

Promise:  This show has swash to spare.  The musketeers are charming fellows, and they’re surrounded by gorgeous costuming and set design, and there’s plenty of politics and intrigue swirling around to generate plots from week to week.  So that’s promising.  As of the pilot, though, the show seems still to be deciding whether it’s “high quality” or “fun,” and is occupying a middle ground without quite landing on either.  I was hoping it would be a nice replacement for the BBC’s Robin Hood, but this show’s pilot, at least, doesn’t quite accomplish it—it’s doesn’t quite have the same freewheeling, campy joy.  Or, for that matter, the campy joy of one of its co-producer's previous shows, Primeval.  The Musketeers' villain’s evil is more subtle, and the show in general lacks the twinkle in its eye.  But it easily may acquire it, if it wants to.  The central characters are all irresponsible in some ways and competent in others, which makes for some good banter and adventure.  What the show really needs—and doesn’t yet have, at the end of the pilot, but could easily develop quite quickly—is the sense of “all for one and one for all” camaraderie that we’ve come to associate not only with Musketeers, but also with good buddy shows. 

I’m encouraged that the Musketeers have a plucky, sassy female ally, but discouraged that in the pilot, she keeps being mistaken for and/or having to impersonate a prostitute.  The other women of note on the cast are Queen Anne, described by the King as “having more opinions than any other woman I’ve known” and a femme fatale who is, well, a femme fatale.  I’m really hoping they do more character development on the ally and the Queen.  Right now they’re pretty conventional, but BBC America’s period dramas have been pretty good at women who don’t “know their places,” and I’d enjoy seeing more of that. 

I’m awarding 3 SimonBakers to Satisfaction (USA, new.  Drama.) 

Premise, as far as I can tell:  after an investment banker discovers that his wife has hired a male escort, he decides to explore being an escort himself. 

Prejudice:  This is mostly a personal-taste-based decision born of time pressure.  My DVR filled up, and something had to go before I tried it, and Satisfaction got the honor because I don’t particularly enjoy stories about infidelity.  They tend to both bore and frustrate me.  I’m also not that enthusiastic about watching another show featuring the ennui of the privileged.  So that’s a double whammy for me.  But both are topics that that can be done well, and it’s possible this show has accomplished it.  I just won’t be watching it try.

Also giving 3 SimonBakers to Reckless (CBS, new.  Legal drama), chiefly because it is a legal drama.  It seems to feature some iffy ethics and some sensationalized sex crimes, too, but to be honest I haven't paid enough attention to know.  Maybe it's great, but somehow I doubt it.  

And finally, you may have noticed that I’ve skipped a bunch of sitcoms.  Not for taste-related reasons; I actually was quite looking forward to trying out Mystery Girls, Girl Meets World, Playing the Engels, and Welcome to Sweden.  As it turned out, though, other demands on my time took over.  If there are any new sitcoms that you recommend, let me know!

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  Oh, so many shows. These include Dominion, The Last Ship, Tyrant, The Leftovers, Finding Carter, Extant, The Strain, The Divide, and Manhattan.  Maybe others.  Golly gee, I'm behind.