Article first published as NOTORIOUS Review on Seat42F.
While we impatiently await the return of
Scandal, ABC has another show on deck that is along the same lines
called NOTORIOUS. It follows a lawyer, a TV producer, and the people
around them as they manufacture news stories and deal with real drama,
lying to pretty much everybody, and contributing to the public’s false
perceptions of reality. It’s very soapy, and is certainly trying to be
sexy in an over-the-top way.
Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs) stars as
Julia George, the aforementioned producer, while Daniel Sunjata
(Graceland) is the second lead, a lawyer named Jake Gregorian. The two
of them don’t have a relationship, since Julia dating a judge (Marc
Blucas, Necessary Roughness) and Jake is interested in his client’s wife
(Dilshad Vadsaria, Greek). But because of the type of show this is, and
because of the easy, immediate chemistry between the two, you just know
they’re going to be dating, or at least screwing, before long.
Julia seems to be the colder of the
pair, having no problem lying to and scolding her on-air talent, Louise
Herrick (Kate Jennings Grant, Frost/Nixon), not that Julia has any room
to talk. She also treats her new intern, Ryan Mills (Ryan Guzman, Heroes
Reborn), poorly, although considering Ryan is thrust upon her through
nepotism, I guess that’s understandable. My point is, we shouldn’t like
Julia because of how she acts towards those around her, and yet Perabo
just can’t play unlikeable so we end up behind her anyway (which is
surely the intention of casting the actress in this role).
Jake is a little more sympathetic. Yes,
he’s into a married woman, but he really does care about her and he’s at
least hesitant about acting on those feelings. Through Jake’s
interactions with his brother and legal partner, Bradley (J. August
Richards, Angel), we see that Jake is a decent human being, even if his
client, Oscar Keaton (Kevin Zegers, Gossip Girl), probably isn’t. So
Jake is probably too good for Julia, but that won’t stop the show from
pairing them anyway.
None of this in of itself is a bad
thing. I’ve enjoyed many shows with similar ensembles and dynamics on
broadcast network TV. In fact, most of the best primetime soapy dramas
happen to be on ABC, including Scandal, so it seems like NOTORIOUS
should fit right in.
But it doesn’t. The level of quality
just isn’t there on this one. It isn’t the cast, who is across-the-board
good looking and charming; it is the writing. So many things happen in
the first hour alone to unnecessarily cause conflict that it stops
feeling real and you’re taken out of the moment repeatedly. How unlucky
can Julia be? Why must Jake have a young employee, Ella Benjamin (Aimee
Teegarden, Friday Night Lights), who is so perfectly matched to Julia’s
Ryan? Why does Louise have to be so lecherous, other than to get in the
middle of couples and potential couples?
It’s also really hard to trust what
we’re seeing when not once, but twice early in the first hour of the
series characters reveal how far their lying goes to the audience.
Suddenly, I’m not going to believe anything I see in a scene until it’s
proven and backed up in multiple other scenes, and maybe not even then.
NOTORIOUS shoots itself in the foot by making the characters so
dishonest and then somehow expecting us to still like and trust them.
This type of show is something I’d be
totally into, and in the past, I may even have looked past the mess and
the flaws to give it a chance to grow into itself (cough, Revenge). But
there are too many good things on right now to waste your time with a
mediocre one that may never be that great (cough, Revenge), and
NOTORIOUS, despite having a great ensemble, just isn’t ready for
primetime.
NOTORIOUS premieres Thursday, September 22nd at 9/8c.
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