White Collar: I didn't watch last season, because the show was opposite something. I no longer remember what. So the first episode I saw was the second episode of the second season. I still had no problems following what was happening and I was really liking the show. The premise comes from the end of Catch Me If You Can, where Leonardo DiCaprio starts working with Tom Hanks to catch other forgers and the like. Except in White Collar there's also this whole thing with the bad guy's ex-girlfriend and some evil FBI agent, and whatever. If you've seen the commercials, you know the story.
Anyhoo, even without any previous experience with the show, it's still good. While the show goes with the whole pairing a straight-laced guy with the bad boy thing that's been done a thousand times, it messes with the concept by making the bad boy ex-con man a hopeless romantic and gives the straight-laced stiff guy a hot, fun wife (Tiffany Amber Thiessen, Kelly from Saved by the Bell, yes, she's still VERY hot) and something of a rebellious streak.
Burn Notice: The best thing about this show is that it refuses to remain static. Its set-up of a burned spy helping others while trying to find out what happened to his career could have been drawn out indefinitely. However, the hero/ MacGyver bad-ass spy Michael found the people responsible for ruining his life at the end of season one, spent season two dealing with them, and then spent season three trying to get back into the spy game while avoiding people he'd pissed off who now knew how to find him. Now in season four, Michael has to take down a lunatic assassin who has a problem with him. And , oh yeah, he ends up helping people in his own way every episode, cause that's just what kind of guy he is.
One thing that you might get tired of in the show is how the fact that Michael goes undercover as someone to make some bad guy come out and get caught can get a bit old sometimes. But, the show is fun, cool, and the way they've handled Michael's relationship with on-again/ off-again/ ex/ current/ it's complicated Fiona has been great, especially this season.
Psych: While watching the season premiere of Psych, something occurred to me. What professional wrestler John Cena's previous attempts at film acting had lacked wasn't that the hero was as stiff as a steel beam filled in with concrete who seemed to be reading his lines right off the page, it was that they weren't action film parodies starring big John as the straight man in a farce, coupled with two people who are not taking the situation nearly as serious as they should be.
I love this show, I loved this episode, and the scenes between Shawn (James Roday) and his girlfriend Abby (Rachel Leigh Cook) were so good, you can't help but notice how much talent these actors really have. This season's started great, and I can only hope that continues.
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Since you watch a lot of USA shows, I am sure that you have noticed a trend with all of them (and I think that we have discussed this before) that they are all basically preocedurals, i.e. my name for shows that solve a case an hour. Are they done better than a lot of the network types of these shows? Sure. Do they a have more character development? From the older ones on network TV (all the CSI's and Law and Orders) yes, but some of the newer ones (NCIS, Bones, Castle, etc.) not really. The USA shows have taken these old ideas of the solve a case an hour show so that they can work well in repeats/syndication and improved on it. Now that it has worked well there, some of the network shows are also improving on the old standard also, and since half of TV is now a procedural of some sort, it has worked for the better for TV viewers everywhere. Thanks to USA for that. I also love how the USA shows basically repackage old ideas and just update them (come on, all Burn Notice is missing for it to be A-Team is a black guy with a mohawk and a cool black van...or maybe it is just MacGvyer without the Canadien accent?). That is why I am still surprised you don't watch more of the new fangled procedurals on network TV. Is it because they are network (not a good argument, since USA is owned by the same company that owns NBC, or used to be anyway)? Are they opposite something else? Do you just have to be different from the masses (I can respect that choice, BTW, if that is the reason)? I'm just saying, you may enjoy some of them if you watched a couple episodes (especailly Castle and NCIS, which is bascially a USA show with a bigger budget, right down the wisecracking between the team, the one hot girl, and the somewhat offbeat people who are always there to the main characters with their special skills). Anyway, I know you hate it when I change the subject, but will you be writing any on Lost this year. Just curious on that one
ReplyDeleteWith Castle, I found I got tired of the "will they, won't they" thing between the leads by the end of the first season. I still love Nathan Fillion and dream of awakening in his body, but the show got annoying to me. NCIS I never started watching because it was a spin-off of JAG, which I never liked. The CSIs got on my nerves because that's apparently where good actors go to die (Gary Sinise, how far you have fallen).
ReplyDeleteAnd you're forgetting that the best USA show, Psych, is best because it's really a comedy. This show actually goes out of its way to mock and parody the "usual" crime/ procedural shows, and Shawn and Gus never stop making jokes.
And there's no one with special skills on Psych or Burn Notice, the leads do everything for themselves.
As for Lost, it's still early.
I'll buy that the Psych guys get by on their charm and jokes (and you're right, that thing is an outright comedy, and if Chuck nailed their tone of jokes+action more often, I really believe that show would be more popular, though it is doing fine right now anyway) but admit I'm confused about Burn Notice. Yes, the lead does a lot for himself (much like Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly do on NCIS) but then what is the point of having Bruce Campbell and Fiona around? Aren't they there to supply support to Michael, much like the quirky people with speical skills I mentioned on NCIS, mainly being the coroner (Ducky), the lab geek (Abby, who BTW is really hot also), and the computer expert (McGee, who is also a full time agent)? That was my point on the similarties of the two shows, though if I'm misreading Burn Notice. please enlighten me.
ReplyDeleteI was counting Bruce Campbell (Sam) and Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) as some of the leads on Burn Notice. Just like Shawn and Gus are a duo, Sam, Fiona, and Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) are a trio, and though one among them might be better at specific jobs (Fiona with explosives, Sam with wooing older women), all three have similar skills and training.
ReplyDeleteChuck is getting darker this season. Also, Psych is such a blunt parody, the network might have an issue with them mocking their own shows. But Chuck's ratings are better anway, so that doesn't seem to matter.