Pilot Review: K-Ville

K-Ville
FOX. Mondays at 9
Cast: Anthony Anderson, Cole Hauser, Tawny Cypress, Blake Shields, and John Carroll Lynch

I’ve got a serious problem with K-Ville. The big problem I have with K-Ville is the way it seemingly, well, exploits the events of Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know a lot of the show is about how the city was affected and is rebuilding but is still a place in need of a lot of aid, effort, and work. But honestly, the show feels so much more like a guilt trip than a love letter to a city that certainly needs one. It seems to use Katrina almost as a loophole. “What, the characters aren’t likeable at all? Show us in a poorly shot flashback their own traumatic experience.” “What, we haven’t expressed what a dire situation the city is in? Throw in a random and completely pointless shot of a broken down house or some graffiti about FEMA.” Not to sound like a complete and utter jackass, but we get that New Orleans is still a city in dire need of assistance. But that doesn’t give you creative license to make a crappy show.

And that’s the thing, even if the show wasn’t a guilt trip, it’s still pretty bad television. I mean, first of all, the tone is completely schizophrenic. One second, its light-hearted buddy cop show. Then, in the blink of an eye, depressing show about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But then, just as fast, oh look, it’s a shoot first, ask questions later cop show. Pick a tone, stay with it. Don’t give the viewers tonal seizures. And another thing, in your ads, at least make it seem like the genre it most is, the depressing show about the aftermath of Katrina. Instead, we’ve got a buddy comedy shoot-'em-up action ad. That’s just incorrect, and a lot of people are gonna be confused when they turn this on. Secondly, the writing and plot are just plain awful. The first episode deals with (SPOILER ALERT) some convoluted plan to stop the ninth ward from being rebuilt, because the mean white woman has something against the hoodlums who used to populate the area. I mean, even something more like profiteering would have been better. The way it is, it plays very racistly, claiming that the rich white folks are secretly plotting against the downtrodden black residents of the ninth ward. I almost expected the bad guys to say something along the lines of “If it weren’t for you darn cops, and your dog too” (That’d be a Scooby Doo reference, for anyone who was deprived of television as a child). I was just on the FOX message boards about the show, and apparently, it’s rife with inaccuracies too. So the dialogue and things that we’re aggravating in the first place don’t even work factually. Two strikes. Strike number three comes from the performances. Anthony Anderson, stick to comedies. You can’t handle being a tough guy (I know you were supposedly awesomely amazing as a toughie on The Shield, but you wouldn’t know it watching this). Cole Hauser, learn to speak in something other than a southern drawl monotone. Not every line has to be delivered the exact same way. Other people, do something that makes you seem like something more than animated cardboard cutouts placed around these two. Three strikes, you’re out K-Ville.

Rating: Not Worth Your Time

Pilot Review: Lipstick Jungle

Lipstick Jungle
NBC. Midseason
Cast: Brooke Shields, Kim Raver, Lindsay Price

And so my pilot hot streak ends. Lipstick Jungle is actually, believe it or not, an interesting show, but not for any sort of good reason. No, it’s interesting because it’s from Candace Bushnell, one of the major forces behind Sex and the City, a show that was pretty darn good and feminist in it’s portrayal of successful woman who are in (mostly) full control of both their personal lives and their careers. Now, just being a Candace Bushnell show isn’t what makes it interesting. What’s interesting about Lipstick Jungle is the fact that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is clearly trying to be Sex and the City-lite, and it is advertising itself as such, when, in reality, it is such a misogynistic show that I actually said aloud while watching it “This is aimed at women?”

Lipstick Jungle is about 3 women, Nico (Kim Raver), Wendy (Brooke Shields), and Victory (Lindsay Price), who are all incredibly powerful business women with vaguely preposterous names (Well, not Wendy and Nico is kind of mildly common in an Velvet Underground homage kind of way, but really, who names their child Victory? No offense to any Victorys out there). Wendy is a movie executive, Nico is a magazine publisher, and Victory (Seriously, her character’s parents must have hated her) is a fashion designer. The show is about these women being successful women. Only, and this is the funny misogynistic part, NONE OF THESE WOMEN SEEM TO BE ABLE TO BALANCE BEING POWERFUL WITH MAINTAINING A NORMAL HOME LIFE. Hell, some of these women don’t even seem to be good businesswomen (I’m looking at you person whose parents must have hated her).

But it’s not just that these women can’t seem to balance the two well. It’s that she show flaunts their failure at it. Some spoilers are coming, so watch out. Right as Wendy actually shows some business acumen and closes a necessary deal, she receives a text message from her husband saying that he wants a divorce. So, basically, right as she achieves business success, her family falls apart. Nico, who seems to be the strongest businesswoman and the most sensible about home life and is also, interestingly enough, the one who the others say is the biggest bitch of the three, basically starts an extramarital affair at her big launch party (Granted, this does show her as being in control of her own sexuality, but she breaks down crying over it later, because it shows she’s a bad wife). Oh, and when Victory botches a business deal in Japan, her new billionaire boyfriend comes to her rescue and sends her a private jet to fly her back to the US and into his arms. So basically, when these women are successful at their jobs, they botch their home lives, and when these women botch their jobs, they seem to have success in romance. Because, apparently, the show doesn’t believe women can achieve both.

The performances here seem slapdash at best, which is disappointing to me because I’ve always thought Kim Raver is a decent enough actress and I actually like Lindsay Price. But no one here shines, partially because they all seem to be caricatures of the archetypal woman who can achieve success at work or success at home but not both. This may also just be because the writing and dialogue is so poor as well. Really, there’s no element of this show that comes across as particularly good. The only compliment I have for it is that it’s better than Cavemen, which is really not saying much. All of this comes together to garner…

Rating: Not Worth Your Time

Goodbye, Leggy Blonde and Flight Of The Conchords

Last night saw the season finale of my favorite show of the summer that’s not half-inhabited by strippers (Rock of Love, please never end), HBO’s very very funny Flight of the Conchords. Conchords’ first season contained so much good and so little bad (except for the tour episode, but I’m calling that a fluke) that I couldn’t help but feel a little let down by the finale for not bringing the absolute A-est game they had. Which is not to say it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t great, as most Conchords episodes have been.

For one thing, where were the songs? Yes, we were treated to snippets of “The Humans Are Dead”, but we never even heard the binary solo. In fact, the only song was the laughably bad “Doggie Bounce”, which didn’t even feature the boys, but rather Todd Barry and Demitry Martin, both boys’ former bandmates. I mean, I get that the song was supposed to be terrible, but with a season of such great music, you couldn’t have saved one of your own really good songs for the finale? Also, with the Crazy Dogggz being so wildly successful as to wrest both diehard fan Mel and manager Murray away from them, I can’t help but wonder how the boys will fare next season, or how they will manage to take away all of Murray’s new found wealth and self-esteem. Because, as much as I love Bret and Jemaine, the show would not be the same without Mel’s hilarious stalkerish tendencies and Murray’s naivete.

But how can I be angry at a show that features not one, but two extended angry dances? Bret’s first angry dance, after Jemaine fires him from the band in favor of Todd, is so freaking hilarious that it almost makes up for the lack of music. But not quite, because, as much as I love Bret’s rocking out music from 80’s power montages (complete with Eugene Mirman playing saxophone in the background), it’s not quite as good as a majority of their songs. I’ve always though Bret is the underrated member of the band, with the majority finding Jemaine funnier, it’s good to see him be able to shine on his own. And that’s proven to me by the fact that the dance involving both Jemaine and Bret is nowhere near as good as Bret’s solo. Sabra from So You Think You Can Dance, watch out, because I have a new favorite dancer of the summer.

But really, even with this weak-ish finale, Flight of the Conchords was the funniest show of the summer, and will definitely be required viewing when it returns. So with that, I will leave you with some changed lyrics to one of my favorite songs “Goodbye, Leggy Blonde” to wish the boys farewell for the fall.

Goodbye. Goodbye-e-i. Conchords
Every day I look around my HBO
There you were your music making me laugh, and I’d fall down to the floor.
Conchords Goodbye, goodbye.
Now that you are gone I’ll have to watch your clips on Youtube here
Wish you knew how much I loved your accents and your hair (it’s hard to rhyme)
Conchords goodbye, goodbye.

Ooh Conchords you got it going on
Wanna see you singing your song song song
See you singing it all day long
(Mumble mumble mumble) Panties on. (I just thought that last line needed to be left as is)

Goodbye.