Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.
What’s the matter? Doesn’t the name Jerry Juhl mean anything to you? If it doesn’t, then the only excuse that we’ll accept is that you just enjoy The Muppets so damned much that you can’t even take your eyes off them long enough to read the credits, because Mr. Juhl wrote a veritable ton of material for “Sesame Street,” “The Muppet Show,” “Fraggle Rock,” and any number of Muppet movies over the years. (He also wrote “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” an achievement which has, in and of itself, been known to earn him more street cred than all of his other credits combined.)
Here’s one of his classic sketches from “Sesame Street”:
Unfortunately, Mr. Juhl died in 2005 as a result of complications from pancreatic cancer. In fact, he died 2 years ago today. Rather than grow all melancholy at the thought of his passing, however, his widow – Susan Juhl – has deemed it far more appropriate for you to go forth and do something silly and dedicate your actions to the memory of Jerry Juhl.
Jerry, I’m led to understand, was a very silly man. He would’ve been honored if you’d remember him in such a manner.
Caveat: if you do something silly unintentionally, then try to backpedal and claim that you were actually “doing it for Jerry Juhl,” you will go straight to Hell.
Once you’ve written about the pilot twice, there’s really no need for you to talk about it yourself, wouldn’t you agree? But if you happened to catch the first episode of “Reaper,” I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts and see if you enjoyed it as much as I did…or if you didn’t.
If “Heroes” was a proper comic book, we’d be holding a brand new #1 issue in our hands. After a 4-month break, during which time the show’s cast and crew did precious little resting, “Heroes” made its return to the Monday-at-9PM timeslot, and the results were…not bad. Those who’d been waiting all summer for a fix no doubt enjoyed seeing the old gang return, but anyone who’d been psyched to see the introduction of the season’s new characters might’ve left a bit underwhelmed.
So Suresh has been lecturing to less-than-full houses about a virus or plague that’s going after the world’s “heroes,” but he’s apparently been doing so as part of a plan that’s been devised by HRG to bring down his former employers. Don’t know much about the plan, but if it involves bringing Stephen Tobolowsky onto the show, I’m behind it 100%. Tobolowsky plays a guy who offers up an equivalent of the “who watches the watchmen” argument to Suresh when discussing how they chose to take down Sylar, which is interesting…but it’s not as interesting as the fact that Tobolowski’s character seems to have the Midas touch, which has really got to mess with the world’s economy if he’s using it in anything approaching a prolific manner…but, sorry, I’m taking this thing too seriously again. Let’s raise our spirits, then, by pretending that, next summer, Suresh, Matt, and Molly are going to be starring in NBC’s latest sitcom revival, “My Two Dads 2008.” (Seriously, that’s the first thing I thought when I realized that the trio were sharing Suresh’s apartment.)
Speaking of Matt, what the hell happened to that guy over the course of the last four months? Last time we saw him, he was married and his wife was pregnant; now, he’s divorced, there’s no mention of his wife, and he’s living with an Indian scientist and a little girl? (Actually, I was kidding about the whole “My Two Dads” revival, but now that I see it written down, maybe we do have the workings of a pretty good sitcom premise here!) Oh, well, at least he’s back on the police department. Shame about the chick living with him, though; Molly’s clearly got some major issues, and they’re almost certainly the result of the individual whom she referenced at the end of last season as being worse than Sylar.
I might have some bad news for anyone who walked out of my Fall TV Preview thinking that “Bionic Woman” was going to be one of the best shows of the new season. Not that I’d blame you for thinking that, given that I offered the very dangerous claim that “it’s hard to imagine this not being the ‘Heroes’-like break-out series of the 2007 season.” But now that I’ve watched the recast and slightly-retooled pilot, I find that I’m not nearly as excited as I was when I watched the original pilot…and, ironically, the reason why doesn’t really involve the things that have been changed!
But, okay, even so, we should first focus on what has been changed. In the original pilot, the character of Jaime Sommers’ (Michelle Ryan) sister, Becca, was played by Mae Whitman (“State of Grace,” “Arrested Development”), but she’s since been replaced by Lucy Hale. More importantly, though, Becca used to be deaf; now, however, not only can she hear, but she’s also developed a talent as a computer hacker. Hmmm…maybe it’s just me, but this feels like one of those cases where someone in Research & Development said, “Yeah, here’s the thing: deaf characters don’t play real well in the sticks, but, hey, you know what does? Super-cute, super-smart teenage girls who have a natural aptitude that meshes well with their older sister’s newly-acquired bionics!” A deaf character would’ve been extremely interesting, but as it stands right now, this revised version of Becca feels less like a character than a plot device.
Yet, as noted, the change to Becca really isn’t what made me start to feel less confident about my initial assessment of “Bionic Woman.” No, basically, what happened was that as I watched the revised pilot, I began to realize that I’d been so taken by the awesomely kick-ass fight scene at the end of the show that I’d essentially forgiven it for anything and everything that had happened before it. This time around, however, I realized that even though it still has a dark look and feel to it that makes for good viewing, it’s riddled with way more cliche-ridden dialogue than I’d remembered. Also, Katee Sackhoff’s attempt to deliver the lines of her character – Sarah Corvus, the first bionic woman – like she’s a too-cool-for-school bitch actually plays more like she’s reading off cue cards. I did not, however, share the feelings of some of my fellow Bullz-Eye / Premium Hollywood contributors about Ryan’s performance; they didn’t think she had much in the way of charisma…and, somehow, I don’t think my suggestion that she reminded me of Ione Skye did do my contrary opinion any favors. But my take on Ryan’s take on the role, however, is that Jaime Sommers is a normal, ordinary woman who’s been placed in an extraordinary situation, and it’s gonna take some time for her to step up to the plate and become a larger-than-life heroine type…and, okay, admittedly, once she gets to that point, I hope she develops a more confident and threatening delivery than she has at the end of the pilot when she utters her farewell line to Jonas (Miguel Ferrer), the director of the bionics program. (Even *I* groaned at that.)
So, anyway, if you’re taking notes, here’s my new, revised opinion of the new, revised “Bionic Woman” pilot: I get the feeling that someone at the network might be pulling the strings to produce a show that’s focused more on thin characterizations and action at any cost than it is on the more interesting possibility of an intellectual technology-centered drama…and the fact that Glen Morgan has evacuated the project makes me even more concerned that that’s the case. Also, as the turmoil with CBS’s “Moonlight” has shown us, there’s nothing like the departure of a member of a show’s creative team to totally screw with its creative direction…and, unfortunately, that’s generally an ailment that all the nanite technology in the world can’t repair.
In closing, here’s a trailer for the show for your viewing pleasure:
Well, this morning’s FedEx delivery brought the screener for the 2nd season premiere of “30 Rock,” and the good news is…it’s still funny! Hooray!
Actually, that’s particularly good news, given that the series just won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series…not that an Emmy Award has ever been anything approaching an indicator of what the public likes. After all, the two highest rated episodes of “30 Rock” during its first season were its pilot and the episode where Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan) goes on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Okay, so, basically, people were curious enough to tune in the first week, but then the only other thing that caught their fancy was the idea of seeing Conan O’Brien in prime time…and we attribute that to the fact that most prime-time viewers have never stayed up until 12:30 and finally wanted a chance to see what all the fuss was about with this lanky, red-headed young upstart. And given that these episodes rated #58 and #57 in their respective weeks means that even when people were curious, they weren’t that curious.
Clearly, however, someone at NBC saw this trend and said, “Hmmm…well, if they’re mildly curious about seeing Conan O’Brien in prime time, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that they’ll be super crazy curious about seeing Jerry Seinfeld return to an NBC sitcom for the first time since ‘Seinfeld’ ended!”
My God. It’s crazy…but it just might work!
Actually, the way they work Seinfeld into the show is one of those concepts that you can almost imagine a panicked television network executive…like, say, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin)…coming up with: they take all the unused footage of Seinfeld that they have lying around, then use it to digitally insert him into every single show on the network. (Yes, they do show examples; no, I’m not going to tell you which shows you’ll get to see him in.) Unfortunately, the problem is that Jack has decided that it’ll be much easier to move forward with the idea if they just, uh, don’t tell Jerry ’til after it’s already on the air. Seems easy enough, since the Seinfeld family is supposedly out of the country on vacation…except that – cue the dramatic music – they’re actually not!
My only complaint about the season premiere is that things mostly start out focusing on the same main triad of characters: Jack, Liz (Tina Fey), and Tracy. Not that they’re not funny, but it’s like I said in my review of the Season 1 DVD set: it’s the episodes that explore the intricacies of the ensemble that prove the most memorable. Yes, it stands to reason that we’d want to know what Liz did during the summer hiatus – even if no-one on her staff does – but the goings-on of the lesser members of the cast are barely touched on…well, except for Jenna. that is. But the fact that the explanation about what’s kept her occupied for the last few months (and the effect it’s had on her) is one of the funniest parts of the episode really only goes to prove my point. C’mon, let’s spread the wealth a little more for the rest of the cast, shall we?
Well, let’s blame that on the fact that everyone’s storylines probably got shrunk as a result of trying to be sure Mr. Seinfeld scored enough face time in the episode and just hope for the best, shall we? In the meantime, have a look at a wrap-up of Liz Lemon’s worst dating experiences from Season 1…
