Failing WATER

Article first published as FALLING WATER Review on Seat42F.

Following the critically acclaimed, ratings-challenged Mr. Robot, USA seeks to copy that, um, I guess you could call it success, with the new, trippy FALLING WATER. (That was not a knock on Mr. Robot, which I love, but a musing as to why a network wants to replicate a show that almost no one is watching.) Like Mr. Robot, FALLING WATER is high-concept drama that blurs the lines of reality and attempts to build a mysterious mythology that will spark much debate and predictions. But it is definitely a whole different show in a lot of ways.

As episode one begins, we meet three separate protagonists, each with their own pain. Tess (Lizzie Brochere, Versailles, American Horror Story: Asylum) is a trend-spotter who believes she may have had a child, though most people think she’s crazy. Burton (David Ajala, Black Box, The Dark Knight) is a fixer who has lost the woman he loves (Anna Wood, Reckless). Taka (Will Yun Lee, Hawaii Five-0) is a cop whose mother (Jodi Long, Sullivan & Son) is in a coma.

The connections between this trio are not immediately apparent, but it isn’t long before it’s explained to us. They are having very vivid dreams, or rather, pieces of the same dream, and if their experiences are combined, they could herald a very real danger.

To this end, the cast includes Bill Boerg (Zak Orth, Revolution, Wet Hot American Summer) and Woody Hammond (Kai Lennox, Legit, Beginners). Woody is bad news, jumping between dreams, and definitely seems like he can’t be trusted. Bill may be no less noble, a tech guy clearly wanting to profit based on his dream research, but at least he’s offering to help Tess in exchange for her assistance. So these are our shady peeps who pull the threads together.

Unfortunately, they don’t pull them together all that well. I’m not complaining about either character, or any of the cast; they all do a pretty good job, it seems to me, at least in episode one. Instead, my problem is that the series is boring, confusing, and I have no confidence that it is going anywhere neat. Granted, I’ve only viewed one episode, and plenty of great shows have poor pilots. It would just take a lot to come back from this one.

I give the series credit for not going procedural. I mean, they have a cop as one of the main characters, so I expected them to do so, but the plot seems completely serial instead. But it’s more a lack of cohesiveness and engagement that hurts it. We don’t get to know any of the characters very well before we’re distracted by all the dream stuff. And the dream stuff isn’t obvious, with viewers sometimes left wondering if what they’re seeing is reality or not.

Don’t get me wrong, on paper this sounds like a show I’d be totally into. I dig a cool premise that tells a new tale. Sure, it has similarities to Mr. Robot and Netflix’s Sense8, but FALLING WATER is far from a copy of either. Tess’s career of being the reclusive woman who sees patterns before anyone else makes sense for someone who sees the world a little more than the rest of us, and I can even extend a similar trait to the cop, as even though I’m burnt out on cop shows, it makes sense to use one here.

However, the execution leaves much to be desired, seeming more messy than anything, and not well thought or mapped out. I don’t know where things are going, and because of the haphazard way elements are introduced, I’m not sure the writers do either. More importantly, I don’t care to find out because I’m not drawn to any of the characters, who all seem like they could be bad people. (They could also be good people, it’s just not clear.) Even the title isn’t explained.

That’s just too much confusion for a series that doesn’t seem, on its face, worth the effort. There has to be some hook to bring people back, and there’s not in this one.

FALLING WATER premieres Thursday at 10/9c on USA.

Come on down to Sullivan & Son

TBS's newest comedy is Sullivan & Son, which kicked off with two episodes this week. The "Pilot" begins when Steve Sullivan (Steve Byrne) visits his hometown for his father, Jack's (Dan Lauria, The Wonder Years), retirement party. Though Steve is an attorney in the big city, he decides that he can't let his father sell the bar, which is an institution in the neighborhood, to a stranger. So he gives up his career and fiance to move home and take over.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Sullivan & Son. Let's start with the positives. First, there is a ton of charm to this series, oozing out every pore. It's been awhile since a sitcom was really about a community brought together, like this one is. There is family and surrogate family, the bar serving as a gathering place for friends and neighbors.

The acting is also pretty decent. The cast is staffed with a bunch of terrific performers, including Christine Ebersole (Royal Pains), Brian Doyle-Murray (Groundhog Day, The Middle), Jodi Long (Eli Stone), Vivian Bang (Yes Man), Owen Benjamin (Pretend Time), Valerie Azlynn, and comedians Roy Wood Jr. and Ahmed Ahmed. Each has already developed a well defined character, and the group chemistry is absolutely delightful. They are totally believable as a gang of people who just love spending all of their time hanging out together.

The individuals relate to each other well outside of the larger group, too. In the second episode, "The Bribe," Steve butts heads with his Korean mother, Ok Cha (Long). She wants to continue to pay off the health inspector, but now that Steve is running things, he refuses, wanting to go by the book. This results in him getting shut down and, after running an illegal backroom bar, arrested. The scene where Steve and Ok Cha confront each other in jail, neither backing down, but coming to an understanding anyway, is a great picture of an authentic, though not necessarily typical, mother / son relationship.

The stereotypes played upon aren't a bother either. Sure, Ok Cha is stubborn and cheap, which viewers are told is standard for Koreans. However, these adjectives do actually apply to Ok Cha, and no one tries to attribute them to her children (unless they deserve it), so while it may seem couched in a slight bit of racism, it's actually handled just fine.

Now, the negatives. Why is Steve's bar packed before 3 p.m. on a Tuesday? The characters kind of poke fun at this conceit, but that doesn't make up for the fact that it's a silly thing. I mean, perhaps if it was just Steve's friends at the bar, it might be excusable. But wider shots reveal plenty of other patrons. This does not make sense.

Also, while the characters in Sullivan & Son are said to do nothing but drink all the time, none of them are too pathetic. No one looks unwashed or smelly or in need of counseling. Even Owen (Benjamin), who is unemployed, seems to be doing just fine. Carol (Ebersole), the bar floozy, isn't ravaged by disease of a hard life style. It just doesn't hold up at all that these are the types of people that spend all day, every day consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

Then, some of the humor is ridiculous. Owen suddenly gets smart just by giving up alcohol for a few days, though he really has no motivation to do so, since everyone else continues to drink. Susan (Bang) gets a gun to hit her mother with. Someone needing a tow waits by their car all week. These occurrences aren't that funny to begin with, and pull the viewer out of the fantasy world the show presents.

Overall, Sullivan & Son has heart, but the concept could use some work, and the humor is uneven. A few tweaks and this could be a really fine show. Tipping the other way could ruin it. I'll watch for now and see which, if either, happens.

Sullivan & Son airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on TBS.

Check out my new website, JeromeWetzel.com.  If you like my reviews, please follow me on Twitter! Article first published on TheTVKing