First Thoughts: Cane

Ah. First day of school...Opening Day...Midnight Madness...and the first disappointment of the fall TV season.

I shouldn't be all that surprised, after all, that Cane was boring and unimpressive. It's a soap opera trying to be like the Sopranos, but its on network TV, so it will be lobotomized and watered down. I should have called it, but I was blinded by the residual good feelings of Jimmy Smits as Rep. Matt Santos from the West Wing.

Actually, that was part of the problem with Cane. If you're going to have a drama about a family in a cutthroat business, then you better have some characters who are cutthroat. Hector Elizando needed to wake out of his Princess Diaries stupor and grow some business sense...or at least seem like someone who would be a hardass to worth with. The only character with any sense of ferocity is the "villain"...who is so one-dimensional that he's laughable.

Milquetoast is probably the one word I'd use to describe Cane. The flashbacks, filmed in sepia tones, even, were so poorly done that I thought I'd switched channels to Lifetime. The preview for the rest of the season made Cane look even worse...why they are fixating on the murder of Quinones, the man who killed Elizondo's daughter decades earlier, is bizarre.

While some people criticized The Sopranos for rarely having corpses come back to haunt the mob family, I appreciated that you never quite knew what would happen next, and that the Mafia operated on a different level of legality than everyone else.

If the Vega/Duque family are even worth caring about, then they need to be powerful enough to be above the law. Otherwise, they're as boring as watching molasses move. I'm done with this one.

First Thoughts: Big Bang Theory

Dorks are all the rage this season, or at least, on Mondays around 8:30 pm. Enter this scripted...er...comedic...er...sit-com version of "Beauty and the Geek" starring the second best part of "8 Simple Rules", Kaley Cuoco, and a few other guys including the Nicholas Cage impersonator from Studio 60. So, he's gotten a promotion.

Speaking of Studio 60 remembrances, the nameless, speechless Asian character from that show ended up on Chuck as a member of the Nerd Herd. And she actually spoke! Another promotion!

I believe it has been Ian who has said that pilots are often a poor way to judge a TV show, which is kind of like judging a restaurant during its first two weeks. I say that because there was a lot of repetition in the types of jokes told, as if the writers needed to browbeat the premise into our brains. I'll give the show another episode or two, mostly because of Jim Parsons.

He has great comedic timing and fits his character perfectly, reminding me of David Hyde Pierce's scene-stealing performances as Niles Crane on Frasier. Sadly, Johnny Galecki as Parson's roommate, is not very good and does little to build up the empathy I'll need to feel sorry for him when Kaley finds ways to reject him frequently, yet gracefully.

For tips...he should check out Chuck. Dork power.

The Return of the Teev: CBS Upfronts

The Teev is back. I've been missing the television writing for a while, so why not jump in with the upfronts happening this week. I'll be trying to update the blog at least 3-4 times a week from now on.

Yesterday, I caught up on the NBC/ABC schedules for next season and discovered a thoroughly enjoyable game. Look at the promotion photo, ignore the show's title, guess the premise of the show. Unsurprisingly, the success rate is rather high. So now, for you, my guesses for the new CBS lineup. Because CBS is the most successful network, however, they are only premiering 6 new shows, as opposed to NBC's 8 and ABC's 12.

SHOW 1: BIG BANG THEORY
Guess: 2 geeky college friends are looking for a third roommate and a hot ditzy blonde moves in; the two friends battle over her love in a typical New York City romance.
Actual: "Two geniuses get lucky when a beautiful young woman moves in next door and decides to teach them a few things about the world outside of physics."
Verdict: Spot on.

SHOW 2: CANE
Guess: Jimmy Smits plays the mayor of a small sailing town in California, and must deal with his teenage daughter's love life and the volatile politics of small-town America.
Actual: "A South Florida family runs their successful rum and sugar business while dealing with both professional and personal turmoil."
Verdict: Not very good…I picked the wrong state for a leading Hispanic male actor.

SHOW 3: KID NATION
Guess: This show already looks dreadful. A group of children who live with their divorced parents in the suburbs band together to prevent their enemies in the world, the principal and the big bully down the street, from ruining their friendship.
Actual: "Forty kids between the ages of 8 and 15 are given 40 days to build a new community -- complete with their own cooking, businesses and government -- in the ghost town of Bonanza City, New Mexico."
Verdict: Dammit, I didn't realize this was going to be a reality show. I forgot those are in the mix here, and I totally would have gone a different route. Wrong again.

SHOW 4: MOONLIGHT
Guess: An up-and-coming private attorney in New York decides that money isn't everything and chooses to devote his life to helping out the homeless.
Actual: "A vampire for 60 years, Mick St. James works as a private investigator, dealing with the difficulties of immortality, a slew of undead adversaries and his love for a mortal woman."
Verdict: Shoot. Didn't see that one coming. Mick St. James is a typical bad name for a show like this, though.

SHOW 5: VIVA LAUGHLIN
No picture. Drat. Some dramedusical bastardization produced by Hugh Jackman and set in Las Vegas. Sounds too high-concept to me.

SHOW 6: SWINGTOWN
Guess: A period-series based in the 1970s about a factory-worker dad and how he copes with the changing times.
Actual: "Residents of a Chicago suburb in the '70s are into couple swapping, open marriages and key parties, but they soon come to realize that their alternative lifestyle comes with its own complications."
Verdict: I got the era right, and the whole "changing times" thing. Will a show about swingers really be successful? I'm skeptical.

Finale Results: I was terrible this time around. Do any of these shows look appealing to you? If the Jimmy Smits show enters Scarface territory, being dark and twisted, I could see that being good. I do love my rum. Otherwise, CBS should just stick to its predictable procedural dramas and unfortunately popular sit-coms.