A Gifted Man might be a gift

     CBS's newest Friday night drama is A Gifted Man. The titular guy is Michael Holt (Patrick Wilson, Watchmen, Phantom of the Opera), a very talented and successful brain surgeon. Michael is visited by ex-wife, Anna (Jennifer Ehle, The King's Speech), only to learn that she died two weeks ago. Michael's sister, Christina (Julie Benz, Angel, Dexter) is excited, knowing that Michael was a better person than with Anna, and definitely buying the whole "visited by the dead" thing. Michael asks Christina's friend (Pablo Schreiber, Weeds, The Wire) to extract Anna. But as Anna pushes Michael to help those in need at her clinic, Michael decides to let her stay.
 
     A Gifted Man brings to mind the too-quickly-canceled drama Eli Stone. Both involve messages from the supernatural world pushing the main character to be a better person, even though their life is going quite well up til then. There are major differences between the two, to be sure, so this new series cannot be called a copy. But for fans still mourning the loss of Eli, this might just be the best they're going to get.

     It's not that Michael is a terrible person, exactly. He's just a bit of a jerk, and is just now realizing that maybe replacing living a life with living a career is a mistake. As such, he soon begins helping patients from Anna's clinic. To what extent Michael will go remains to be seen. He does not seem anxious to quit his own practice, probably a good thing, considering that is what is making him all the money. But maybe he can start funneling some of the profit, or his seemingly large salary, into avenues to assist the less fortunate. It's likely to be a slow process. Otherwise, A Gifted Man would be a movie instead of a television show. But there is plenty of room to grow.

     All of this means A Gifted Man will not be a standard procedural. It is on CBS, so there are sure to be elements. Michael may end up helping a new patient every week. But there are also bound to be many other elements. Considering it wasn't too long that Ghost Whisperer occupied the same slot, and it was allowed to be character driven, this bodes well for A Gifted Man.

     Wilson is a gifted actor, and handle the plot very well. Ehle doesn't seem to be as good, but perhaps the qualities that can appear weaknesses to some, will be chalked up by others as her talking from the "other side." It will be interesting to see how Schreiber's character fits into the fix, perhaps helping Anna and Michael connect and better communicate will be his mission.

     The only real regret going into this is that Margo Martindale is locked into a main character role as a secretary. Just coming off her Emmy-winning, layered performance on Justified, this definitely seems like a step backwards. Surely, her talents are far above this level. However, since only the "Pilot" had aired, it is possible that there something much deeper planned for her, as unlikely as that might seem.

     The fifth main character, Kate (Rachelle Lefevre, Off the Map, Twilight), will join the cast next week. Watch A Gifted Man Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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Television Interrupted

     One of my biggest pet peeves is when television stations do not allow us to watch an episode of a show, or the air time moves in some unpredictable, last minute way, and the DVR of your choice records the correct time, but the wrong show.  For us fans who carefully record each and every installment, missing an episode of a television show, especially a serial one, where each plot hinges on last week's action, it is a huge disappointment, and often a major source of frustration.  Here are the biggest offenders and what can be done:

     Power Outages - this is the most forgivable event, of course, as it is something not really under human control.  However, my beef is how certain networks take these instances into account.  ABC and NBC usually have their episodes online, for free by the next day, and keep them up for a good, long while.  Fox, on the other hand, can make you wait up to eight days to catch up on House, after the next week's episode has aired!  CBS is the worst offender, as practically none of their shows are online.  And if you miss a cable program, without resorting to illegal downloading, you are often out of luck.  Solution: Every network should take a page from ABC and NBC and post their stuff.  Or allow you to get it on demand, free of charge from your cable company or TiVo if it is missed.

     Other Weather Related Events - The most extreme was during one bad storm, an hour of weather coverage replaced Ghost Whisperer, and due to copyright laws, it was not allowed to be rerun, even though thousands of people didn't have it available in their area.  Ridiculous!  The most common problem, though, is the damn school and business closing, or even weather alert scrolls.  They have gotten bigger and bigger.  Here in Lexington, there is much blank space beneath the words as the words take up on some HD channels, plus it stretches the picture to a weird aspect ratio.  Most people have internet these days, so they're not as necessary.  Solution: Run scrolls small and see through at the VERY BOTTOM of the screen please!  And for goodness sakes, do not run them the entire prime time!  Twice or thrice an hour should be enough.  And if you are one of the few without a web connection, well... First of all, join us in 2010 and GET ONE! Or turn on your radio.

     Sports Games - I am not talking about a huge event like the Superbowl.  A normal Sunday NFL game can cause my American Dad or Brothers & Sisters to be pushed back and missed.  Because the TiVo only updates programming about once a day, it's not current enough to catch the mistake.  In the city that I live, Lexington, Kentucky, this week and last, The New Adventures of Old Christine is airing at 1:37am so that some stupid basketball game can be shown!  Two weeks ago, Saturday Night Live was pushed back 30 minutes, and it's supposed to go LIVE at 11:30pm!  Solution: Quit airing sports games over our shows!  Either cut off the broadcast at a given time, or schedule more time and just fill it in with post-game coverage if it ends early.  If it happened once or twice, it would be ok, but this happens WAY too often to be excusable.  Or get the DVR technology more up to date and adaptable.  For now, I just set my season passes of the aforementioned shows to run an extra hour.  An annoyance, but one that has come in handy.

     Bottom line, the weather and sports are not nearly as important to me, and many, many other television watchers as our shows.  If a tornado is heading for us, let us know.  Other than that, stay out of our broadcasts!

Yes, Virginia gets a no

     CBS showed a new Christmas special this past Friday night called Yes, Virginia, inspired by the true story of a little girl name Virginia who wrote to ask the New York Sun  if the jolly old elf really existed.  It has been adapted many times before, with a variety of results, but the latest certainly falls into the shallow end of the pool.

     To be fair, the animation wasn't bad, and a good voice cast was recruited.  Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) portrayed the father, while Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer) was the mother and Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, The DaVinci Code) was the newspaper editor.  It also had a good message and was loosely based on a part of Americana history.

     But unfortunately, it had many flaws.  Each character was flat and uninspired.  While Virginia could have had depth, instead the viewer had to rely on the Believe Meter on the tower to tell how she really felt.  The bully girl switched opinions as soon as the letter was printed, but didn't seem to feel any point of view with conviction.  The newspaper editor, too, had not only an inexplicable change of heart, but read the reply editorial with such a lack of emotion, it almost warranted turning the television off, not what I expect from a well-known movie star.  Harris and Hewitt, great personalities in their own right, were largely wasted on a few, very short scenes.  Did they just do the parts to support their network?  The story didn't flow well.  It kind of wandered until it had to end because time was up.  Also, what should have been a central character, known only as Scraggly Santa (Michael Buscemi), was largely ignored and forgotten before the end.  His important to Virginia should have obvious, but his once scene where he got to save the day played very dull and uninspired.

     I am not down on Christmas specials.  I love a great many of them, and would highly recommend Disney's Prep & Landing that aired last week.  But this one was only sub par, and will soon be forgotten.