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.
BCI, a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation, has the rights to release a bunch of stuff from the old Filmation animation archives…and, just in time for Halloween, TVShowsOnDVD.com announces that BCI are totally going to make the YEAR of a bunch of kids who grew up during the ’70s with this release:
Proving once again that Hollywood incorrectly believes itself to be utterly bereft of original ideas, Disney has decided to unnecessarily remake the just-barely-classic ’80s film, “Adventures in Babysitting.”
The original starred Elizabeth Shue, who would later go on to depress the hell out of us in “Leaving Las Vegas,” but the new version will find Shue’s shoes (c’mon, you saw it coming, surely) filled by former “Cosby” kid Raven-Symone. You know, I don’t really have any problem with Symone in the role; I just think it’s obnoxious that Hollywood is taking movies that aren’t even 20 years old yet and are trying to remake them.
There are few things more likely to disrupt a show than a drunken Jackie Chan…so you can imagine that things didn’t go so smoothly a the recent Jonathan Lee concert when Chan – who reportedly admitted to being intoxicated – jumped on stage and demanded a duet with Lee.
“Senator, I have never claimed to be able to hold my sake.”
Chan, who was an invited guest at the show, is probably not going to be invited back. We don’t actually have confirmation on that, but I think you have to figure it’s a given.
Brigitte Nielsen – who was destined to remain a long-legged, large-breasted footnote of the ’80s until she scored an extra 15 minutes of fame by appearing on “The Surreal Life” – has married for the 5th time.
The “lucky” fellow this time around is one Mattia Dessi, who’s listed in the Yahoo! article about the marriage as a “former model”; he must not have been a very good one, however, since Nielsen’s Wikipedia entry refers to Dessi as a barman. From model to bartender to a has-been’s boy toy. Gee, is that moving up or down the corporate ladder…?
You can’t very well begrudge the USA Network for attempting to find a perfect companion show to run along with their well-established hit, “Monk.” You can, however, waggle your finger at them for maybe trying a little too hard to reproduce the comedy / drama feel.
James Roday, who looks like Sam Rockwell’s little brother, plays Shawn Spencer; he’s most decidedly a slacker – the number of jobs he’s held since getting out of high school is decidedly into the double digits – but from a very young age, he was trained by his policeman father (Corbin Bernsen) to be very, very, very observant. Yes, it’s worth three very‘s. Though he’s easily bored (hence the tendency to leave a job once he’s felt he’s learned all he can), Shawn’s skills of observation remain honed; he regularly watches the local news and calls in tips to solve crimes, based on what he’s witnessed in the reports. These calls, however, lead him to be picked up by the cops and questioned in one of the crimes; in an attempt to weasel out of arrest, he claims to be a psychic…and that’s when the fun begins.
Unfortunately, Shawn’s having too much fun. That’s not a plot development, however; that’s a critical opinion based on the fact that his dialogue is a bit too wacky. He’s always ready with a quip or a joke, to the point where it becomes obvious that the scripts are trying desperately to paint him as a real cut-up. We get it; he’s funny. Now how about a bit of subtlety…?
Shawn’s crimefighting buddy, Gus (Dulé Hill, who played Charlie Young on “The West Wing”), is appropriately cynical of his friend’s motives, but he’s painted with a broad brush here, basically serving just to give Shawn someone to bounce his one-liners off of. Bernsen’s gruff performance as Shawn’s dad, Henry, is great; one hopes he ends up getting more screen time as the series progresses.
But will the series progress? Let’s hope so. USA has ordered 11 episodes, and, despite the heavy-handed humor at times, there’s a great concept at work here. Particularly impressive is the camerawork used when Shawn is using his gift for observation; the feel is rather like you’re looking through Sherlock Holmes’s eyes while he’s putting together the pieces to solve a mystery. Just stop trying so hard to be a laugh riot. When you’ve got a good premise, use it; don’t try to shoehorn it into matching precisely with the show preceding it.
In this case, a little less comedy will go a long, long way.
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