CONVICTION Vague Title for Messy Show

Article first published as CONVICTION Review on Seat42F.

ABC has a new series coming out called CONVICTION (the third show this millennium to go by the name, by the way). In case that vague title doesn’t tell you anything, although it’s perfectly in keeping with the trend of not-really-descriptive single-word dramas on the alphabet network, this one involves a team in New York City called the Conviction Integrity Unit. Basically, they investigate people who are in jail and claim to be innocent, which would be a daunting task for anyone, given that most prisoners claim they didn’t do the crime. Can they right the world and find justice?

In short, I don’t think so. CONVICTION has one of the weakest pilots I’ve seen this year. Besides being more of a cop show than lawyer show (the difference is the focus is more on gathering evidence than battling it out in a court room, and in my opinion, lawyer shows are almost always better), it’s also a very weak cop show.

The initial installment finds the team gathering evidence on an eight-year-old case. Yet, the experiments they do and the questions they ask are at such a basic level one wonders why they couldn’t just look at the notes from the original file to get their answers. The case is ridiculously fresh and well-remembered for everyone involved, including the detective who screwed it up in the first place. And when our heroes close in on the truth, there is a very clumsy attempt to cover it up.

Look, I know and expect that the CIU people are going to find innocence more often than not; that’s the type of show this is. But they should at least have to work for it. Given the format, how little time they have to pick new cases in the huge stacks of paperwork they receive, and their five-day timeline on all investigations, the premise is hokey, completely unrealistic, and it’s handled in a very elementary way. The last pilot I remember being structured this badly was CSI: Cyber, which thankfully was put out of its misery relatively quickly.

Adding insult to injury is that there are some really great actors in the show. Shawn Ashmore from The X-Men films and The Following plays Sam, the man who should be running the crew but who has been forced to take a back seat. Emily Kinney, a veteran of the excellent series The Walking Dead, is the fresh-faced newbie, Tess, who doesn’t shy away from pig corpses. Manny Montana, who was great in Graceland, is a former prisoner fighting for those locked up because he knows how bad jail can be. Eddie Cahill (CSI: NY) is great as the slimy politician, Conner Wallace, who puts together the team and flirts with the lead. And Merrin Dungey (Alias) is in it, too.

Leading the group is Hayley Atwell, fresh off her brilliant run as Agent Carter, stuck in the confusing role of Hayes Morrison. She is blackmailed by Wallace into taking this job she doesn’t want, but then seems to enjoy with little shown to change her mind. Is she a party girl who wants to keep living a wild life? Or is she a brilliant legal mind who really gets into helping people? I can’t tell, and I don’t think the show can, either. There’s also a convoluted backstory between Hayes and her no-longer-together parents, one of whom used to be the President of the United States. Yeah.

The one good thing I can say about CONVICTION is that the exterior shots in the streets of New York are cool. They may get One World Trade Center in the background a little too often, but at least we can feel the city in the presentation. Well, for those shots anyway. Most of the series is filmed in Toronto, but I give them credit for getting in those key city views.

Anyway, CONVICTION premieres Monday, October 3^rd at 10/9c, and if quality counts, it’ll be off the air before Christmas.

CBS "Heads" Back UNDER THE DOME

Article originally written for Seat42F.

CBS’s Stephen King series, UNDER THE DOME, returned last night with a season premiere penned by the horror master himself. “Heads Will Roll” picks up right where season one ended, with Barbie’s (Mike Vogel) head in a noose and the dome glowing with a bright, white light. From there, the episode introduces several new characters, says goodbye to a couple of main players, and forces Big Jim (Dean Norris) to take a long, hard look at himself. It’s a pretty solid hour.

Big Jim is the villain of the piece, of course, but it seems like “Heads Will Roll” sets him on the road to redemption. As a magnetic force renders most of the citizens unconscious, Jim is plagued by hallucinations of Dodee (Jolene Purdy), whom he killed, and Linda (Natalie Martinez), the first casualty of the premiere. It’s like his own version of A Christmas Carol, and confronted with his failings, Big Jim decides he should end himself, which he almost goes through with until Julia (Rachelle Lefevre) stops him.

Can Big Jim eventually be one of the good guys? The dynamics of UNDER THE DOME are often flimsy, changing on a whim. After all, how many times has Angie (Britt Robertson) seemingly forgiven Junior (Alexander Koch) after he kidnaps her? However, the situation is tense and stress levels are high, which does make it easier to overlook misdeeds. Big Jim has made quite a few blunders in the eyes of our heroes, but most of the townsfolk don’t hate him, so if he works to be the leader they want, which he seems serious about when he gives now-homeless Norrie (Mackenzie Lintz) and Carolyn (Aisha Hinds) a key to his house, we could end up liking him.

With arcs like this, UNDER THE DOME strives to be a serious character piece, meaty drama with layered players. The problem is, it’s just not. It takes shortcuts and allows inconsistencies that hurt the overall impression. For instance, moments before Julia saves Big Jim, she’s ready and willing to be the tool that kills him. How can she shift so suddenly? The writers definitely seemed more concerned with the actions of those on screen than the motivations behind them. And even the actions, such as the dome magnetically pulling metal to it, aren’t the most consistently thought out, with items flying willy-nilly, rather than in a logical pattern, making it more dangerous, but less believable.

Which is not to say UNDER THE DOME is a bad show. I find it quite enjoyable, and there are some genuine surprises, such as Linda being squashed and Angie getting hacked to pieces. I am curious as to what is going on, and I’m engaged with who might die next. It’s just more in the genre of summer popcorn than serious drama.

The deaths do seem a bit arbitrary, which makes it hard to predict who might go next. Angie is one of the four kids who communication with the dome, so she doesn’t seem expendable, but’s she taken out, nonetheless. Plus, she runs the diner after the owner is previously killed, so that leaves a crucial gap in the town. Linda is the last real law enforcement officer left, again, making her seem safe, but she’s replaced by Phil (Nicholas Strong) by the end of the episode, Big Jim’s lackey, for now. The show does not worry about preserving a structure, and is willing to create more conflict by removing those that don’t seem replaceable, bold moves.

To help keep the population up, we are introduced to Sam Verdreaux (Eddie Cahill, CSI: NY), who initially makes a pretty boring corner of a love triangle with Julie and Barbie, but gets more interesting when we learn he’s Junior’s uncle and acts shifty. There’s also Rebecca Pine (Karla Crome), a science teacher, who might finally give us insight on the (uneven) mechanics of the dome, and Melanie Cross (Grace Victoria Cox), a crazy girl. This new blood should keep the story humming along nicely.

More interesting is the reveal of Junior’s mother, Pauline (Sherry Stringfield), outside of the dome. We haven’t really seen how the rest of the world is reacting to the events in Chester’s Mill, and she not only potentially provides a window to the larger universe, but also has strange connections to the dome itself. I, like many viewers, had assumed she was dead. To learn she’s elsewhere only deepens the mystery.

Overall, “Heads Will Roll” is one of the better installments of UNDER THE DOME, with everything from action to self-reflection, to a cameo by King himself. Season two is off to a good start.

UNDER THE DOME airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.