NOTORIOUS Bad?

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 22^nd at 9/8c.

FOX's SECOND CHANCE

Article originally published as SECOND CHANCE Review on Seat42F.

FOX’s first mid-season drama out of the gate this January is called SECOND CHANCE. While it has gone through quite a few title changes (it used to be known as Lookinglass, and before that, The Frankenstein Code), the premise seems to have stayed relatively consistent. A brilliant, but antisocial, man develops a way to save his dying sister, reversing what death means. Testing it on an old sheriff who was murdered, it’s about someone getting a second chance to live.

It’s probably wise they didn’t keep Frankenstein in the name of the show. Frankenstein was about creating new life, and this series is about getting a do-over on a life misspent. Dr. Frankenstein obsessively sought to create a creature for his own selfish purposes, while the brain in this, Otto (Adhir Kalyan, Rules of Engagement), is trying to save his sister, Mary (Dilshad Vadsaria, Greek). And if you’ve ever read the novel by Mary Shelley (which I do recommend), I doubt you’ll see very little of that echoed in this particular story.

The revived is Jimmy Pritchard (The Loop’s Philip Baker Hall at the start, then EastEnders and True Blood’s Robert Kazinsky, likely for the rest of the series). While Jimmy’s death is just a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is life is made up of bad choices, being a bad father to FBI agent Duval Pritchard (Tim DeKay, White Collar) and drunk Helen (Amanda Detmer, What About Brian), and having to resign from office in disgrace. At least Duval’s daughter, Gracie (Ciara Bravo, Red Band Society), still likes Grandpa.

Obviously, Jimmy is probably not the ideal man for Mary and Otto in terms of personality, but his genetic markers make him ideal for their science experiment. Hence how an uneasy partnership is formed.

I like the SECOND CHANCE pilot, and think it could be a very interesting drama. If it is about Jimmy trying to be a better person, and if it remains about his family (Duval and Gracie are main characters, and there’s a very cool twist after Duval meets new Jimmy), I would very much enjoy this show. The first episode is certainly focused on those things, and that’s a good sign. I am also very interested in the Mary / Otto relationship, and what goes on within their company and with their assistants, Alexa (Vanessa Lengies, Glee) and Arthur (Scott Menville, Teen Titans).

What I worry it will devolve into is a case-of-the-week procedural. It could take a little bending, but if Jimmy teams up with Duval and works to solve cases so he can be the lawman he never was, I’ll be super disappointed. FOX hurt its failed, almost brilliant sci-fi series Almost Human by trying to force it into a procedural box. That show managed to still be good, but it could have been so much better without the shackles. I could easily see this one taking the same path since so much of the broadcast networks’ fare does.

Which is a shame. With FOX in a total ratings free fall this year, and the Big Four dying out overall, it seems a good time to take a chance on something new, something exciting, something that can build a loyal fan base who excitedly engage and may even bring back a canceled show for a second chance if it doesn’t live long enough. SECOND CHANCE could be FOX’s second chance to get things right, which would be nicely poetic. It just seems unlikely that it will be.

SECOND CHANCE premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. on FOX.