BLOOD & OIL Bad Combination

Article originally published as BLOOD & OIL Review on Seat42F.

It should not surprise you to learn that ABC’s BLOOD & OIL is a prime-time soap. After all, the alphabet network relies on the genre just as heavily as CBS does on crime procedurals. It’s sort of their hallmark. But there are good prime-time soaps (Grey’s Anatomy) and bad prime-time soaps (remember Betrayal? No? Me, neither). Which one is this?

Sadly, it is bad. A lot happens in the first hour of BLOOD & OIL, and it turns out to be too much. In an effort to keep the story rocketing along, the writers abandon even the slightest tinge of reality. A terrible car wreck? Yep, both occupants walk away unscathed. Need a large sum of money in a short amount of time? No problem, they’ll get it. Want to build a better life for yourself and your family? It only takes a week, but in this world, it could probably just as easily be gone in even less time. Half a dozen twists rocket past so fast you just might get whiplash. I don’t know how the production can possibly keep up this pace for twenty-two hours a year, as even in the pilot, it seems like they’re blowing through all the possibilities.

That just makes the show hard to get into. If you cannot relate to the people, or at least wish you were them, why would you watch? There isn’t a deep mystery, nor a bunch of secrets remaining hidden. It’s just betrayal and bad deeds, one after another, that cause harm to the other characters, and makes life harder. Then, a fantastical solution presents itself so that they can quickly move on to the next thing. The show itself has ADD.

BLOOD & OIL is basically an inferior Dallas. Inferior even to the recent TNT continuation of that show because of BLOOD & OIL’s all-over-the-place structure, with about an equal quality cast. As soon as you see the premise, you’ll see why Dallas is the first show that springs to mind to compare it to.

The cast is a solid B-tier. All of the actors are serviceable, but none stand out as excellent. They handle the scenes well, but without a lot of subtext. All of these performers could be well-used in certain parts, but not as the lead ensemble of a drama like this, and their combined average deliveries keep the show in the middle strata of quality.

Set in a North Dakota oil boom, we get a batch of moderately interesting players. Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl) is Billy LeFever, a brash young man with big dreams. Along with his high school sweetheart, and now wife, Cody (Rebecca Rittenhouse, Red Band Society), Billy borrows a lot of money from his family and friends and moves to a town he is sure he can strike it rich in. Once there, he meets tycoon Hap Briggs (Don Johnson, Dash Bridges), who ends up taking a shine to Billy. Hap has his own strong, loving partner, Carla (Amber Valetta, Revenge), and a screw-up son, Wick (Scott Michael Foster, Greek). These two families are the center of BLOOD & OIL, with a few townspeople sprinkled in every once in awhile.

What would make BLOOD & OIL worth your time? Perhaps a slower, more thoughtful arc in which the characters actually have to work for what comes to them. Maybe there could be some challenges we see them struggle to overcome. And perhaps some deep scenes which require more than a surface-level emotion could be added. None of this is evident in the first hour, and I’m not confident any of it will be incorporated into future installments, either.

BLOOD & OIL premieres Sunday, September 27^th at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

‘The Other Woman’ – Blu-ray Review

Article first published as ‘The Other Woman’ – Blu-ray Review on Blogcritics.

Movies make it to disc so much more quickly these days than they used to! Barely three months after its theatrical release, The Other Woman gets the Blu-ray and DVD treatment on a single disc. The story of a wife, her husband’s mistress, and his other mistress, it’s a comedy of female bonding and revenge, with a dash of 9 to 5 vibe, as the trio of women make the sleazy man who has wronged them all pay. Too bad it’s not that funny.

At the center of The Other Woman are two figures. Cameron Diaz (Bad Teacher) plays Carly Whitten, a tough lawyer who thinks she has finally succeeded in the dating world, a struggle that has made it hard for her to care about others as a coping mechanism. Leslie Mann (This is 40) is Kate King, the spouse without a job or kids to occupy her, and who desperately needs something in her life besides giving her husband ideas to use at work. They form an unlikely bond of friendship as they decide how to handle their common scourge, Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones). They later find him sleeping with Amber (model Kate Upton), too, which prompts them to take their schemes to the next level, determining that Mark must be stopped once and for all and punished severely.

Diaz and Mann are two film veterans, so one would think that their casting in The Other Woman would be a no-brainer. But they aren’t well used and the film suffers from a mediocre script. It’s nice to see Diaz playing the rock at the center of the crazies, and Mann does annoying well. But Kate is too annoying, to the point where it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her, even as one realizes that Mark’s behavior may be a driving factor in her current personality. The two also go from detesting one another to being bosom buddies without enough explanation in between, during their second night of getting plastered. A smidgen more connection between point A and point B would be welcome.

The Other Woman doesn’t get any better when Upton shows up. Upton and singer Nicki Minaj, who plays Carly’s entitled assistant, are not actors and it shows. Thankfully, Don Johnson (Nash Bridges, Miami Vice), who plays Carly’s dad, and Taylor Kinney (Chicago Fire), who is Kate’s brother and Carly’s love interest, are good. However, this makes for a very uneven ensemble, keeping the film rough around the edges.

Coster-Waldau is deliciously charming and sociopathic, but we don’t get to see that enough. For most of the running time of The Other Woman, he’s getting away with things, not suffering at all for his sins. In fact, at least one of the females who has the most justifiable anger towards him still is tempted to sleep with him even after the truth about him is exposed. By the time he gets his comeuppance, which, of course, must happen, it’s satisfying, but doesn’t give the actor enough of a chance to shine in that more interesting situation.

The story stumbles along for quite awhile, taking a bit of time before it goes anywhere. Then, once it does, it goes a little too fast, jumping from tiny pranks to the big finale quite quickly. Some of the emotional hurdles between the three women and their feelings for the man are leapt over with barely a mention, making the girl power angle fall short, too. The ending is very neatly tied up, which makes sense for a film like this, but it also robs the proceedings of authenticity and honesty. This could be forgivable if there were more jokes, but since the tone is more focused on pathos than laughs, it doesn’t quite land. There are worse ways to spend two hours, but neither can I really recommend this movie.

The extras for The Other Woman are light. We get eight deleted scenes, including an epilogue tag for Mark, a gag reel, gallery, trailer, and “giggle fit,” nothing that really gives insight into the production or story. The picture and audio quality are excellent, as most current films tend to be on blu-ray, but other than a couple of beach shots, there’s not really anytime this is taken advantage of, so blu-ray is preferred only in that DVD starts to look bad after watching most video in high definition.

In all, The Other Woman is forgettable and this release doesn’t show much effort to try to make up for that. If you’re so inclined, it is available now.

The Kent Chronicles now on DVD

Back in the 1970s, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Declaration on Independence, John Jake wrote a series of eight best selling novels. Collectively know as The Kent Family Chronicles, or The American Bicentennial Series, they tell the story of Phillipe Charboneau, a Frenchmen who travels through England and the New World in Revolutionary times, changing his name to Philip Kent, and interacting with a surprisingly large number of historical figures. The series continues with Philip's descendants, eventually ending in 1890.

Given the books' popularity, it should come as no surprise that they would be adapted for the screen. Or, the first three were, anyway, as television miniseries. Acorn Media has released a DVD set of these called The Kent Chronicles. This three disc edition contains the trio of films, broadcast in 1978 and 1979, and each over three hours long.

The first in the series is The Bastard. Here, Phillipe Charboneau (Andrew Stevens, Dallas, The Boondock Saints) is 17-years-old when he learns that he is the son of the Duke of Kent. The Duke is ill and won't claim his bastard child. Feuding with the legitimate family, and too poor to go home, Phillipe flees to London. There he meets Benjamin Franklin (Tom Bosley, Happy Days), who convinces Phillipe that America is the place to go.

Changing his name to Philip Kent, the protagonist is not in Boston very long before getting involved with the rebels and participating in the Boston Tea Party. Philip concurrently plays a role in the early dispute for the colonies, while haunted by the past he left in England, which follows him across the pond. The Bastard culminates in love and the Battle of Concord.

Picking up months later, The Rebels continues Philip's role in the war. This takes him away from home, leaving his wife, Anne Kent (Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City) to fend for herself, which, to make a long story short, does not go well.

The Rebels also follows Philip's friend, Judson Fletcher (Don Johnson, Miami Vice, Nash Bridges), a drunk and a womanizer. Judson's luck may even by worse than Philip's, as it's awfully hard to build a life for oneself when constantly offending others. If only Judson could give up the women and the booze, he might stand a chance.

In the third chapter, The Seekers, the Kent family has grown older. Philip's son, Abraham (Randolph Mantooth, Emergency!), is the new focus, and he's trying to build a life on the frontier. Family squabbling rears its ugly head again, resulting in some severe falling outs. Eventually the family is caught up in the War of 1812.

After watching The Kent Chronicles, it's really a shame more adaptations weren't made from the rest of the books. The Bastard and The Rebels tells Philip's tale pretty completely. But The Seekers mostly sets up his kids and grandkids for stories that never make it to screen. The books have the luxury of additional volumes. This DVD set does not, making the third installment, while still enjoyable, inferior to the first two.

On the whole though these are excellent specials, and a big draw is seeing all of the famous faces that pop up throughout the saga. William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal) plays Paul Revere. Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly Hillbillies) is Benjamin Edes. Lorne Green (Bonanza) is Bishop Francis. Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible, Airplane!) plays George Washington. Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H), John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Jim Backus (Gilligan's Island), William Daniels (Boy Meets World), Robert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Delta Burke (Designing Women), Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), Ed Harris (The Hours), Olivia Hussey (Romeo & Juliet), and Eric Stoltz (Caprica) also appear, among others.

The Kent Chronicles is sort of like a Roots for white people. Yes, the suffering is often brought more upon themselves in this series than the historic African-American one. But it depicts several generations of a family, showing the story of how they got to America, and what happened after. It's also a little bit like Forrest Gump in that the fictional narrative is interwoven with many important real events. It might not be quite as entertaining or renowned as either of those, but it's still a very good story, well executed here.

The Kent Chronicles is most definitely a product of the era in which it was made. More soapy than political, the budget wasn't available to get too gritty or realistic. The story frequently sways into the cheesy and melodramatic. However, if you keep in mind not only the time period in which the action is set, but also when the miniseries were made, it's easy to just enjoy this escapist television, not worrying about plot holes or historical inconsistencies.

Visually, too, The Kent Chronicles is a bit lacking by today's standards, but perfectly acceptable for the time. The quality isn't bad for the late 1970s, though one wishes a little more work would have been put into restoring it. It's presented full screen. But given that this is the only release available for these shows, most fans will just be grateful for any edition.

Sadly, there is a severe lack of bonus features. All that is included is a two minute trailer and a biography of the books' author, John Jakes. Couldn't the actors have been interviewed? Historians consulted to give perspective? Ah, well. Maybe, if The Kent Chronicles sells well enough, we'll get extras and a better restoration when it comes out on Blu-ray.

The Kent Chronicles is available now wherever DVDs are sold.

If you like my reviews, please follow me on Twitter! Check out my new website, JeromeWetzel.com! Article first published as DVD Review: The Kent Chronicles on Blogcritics.