MediaBlarg
Detective TV
by Greg Schwartz
Well, I've fallen down on my goal to try and keep this weekly... didn't take too long for that... I can almost aim for quarterly... ugh...
Anyway, it's not that I haven't been a media consumer for the past couple of months, it's more that I haven't been inspired to write anything about anything. My own online journal (not on Blogger, but on LiveJournal) hasn't even been updated in a while. And no, I'm not posting a link to it on purpose, at least for the moment.
Anyway, enough about that...
There are three TV dramas I feel like talking about this time around: The Dead Zone, Monk, and The Wire. Now, all three are on cable (at least until ABC picked up Monk recently...), so, chances are, they're not getting the audiences they deserve. All three are also "detective" shows of some degree. Let me go in order and start with The Dead Zone.
The Dead Zone airs on USA and the Sci-Fi channel at various times (I know it's on Sundays at 10pm ET/PT on USA, but it also repeats many times during the week on both Sci-Fi and USA, so I usually catch it on the late Thursday showing). The show is based on characters from the Stephen King novel of the same name, but the creators have made some changes that enable the series to go off in different directions than the book took. If you've seen the movie (which is very good), then you probably know the basic plot: A car accident puts Johnny Smith into a coma, and, when he awakes, he has the power to see the future (and, sometimes, the past and present) just by making physical contact with a person (or, as is quite common in the series, an object handled by a person). The other characters in the show are: Johnny's former girlfriend/fiance, Sara, who has married the town sheriff, Walt (a change from the book), while Johnny was in the coma; Johnny's physical therapist, Bruce; and Dana, a reporter who's being set up as a love interest. If you want more background, check out the official site at: http://usanetwork.com/series/thedeadzone/.
Now, I can't say I like everything about this series. It can be cheesy at times, a bit melodramatic, and somewhat uneven, but many shows experience that the first season while they're still finding their groove. I have to say, though, that the show has been getting better and better. I'm not going to rehash plots (you can read synopses on the site if you're interested in that), but the show is best when Johnny is discovering and dealing with new layers to his powers, such as the episode a couple of weeks ago where he was exposed to a mind-altering drug that had a variety of side effects specific to his condition. My favorite episode so far, though, was last week's, where Johnny himself was caught in a bank robbery. He "saw" the hostage situation ending badly, so his mission became finding a way to get a desirable outcome, by making a series of little changes to events until he was successful. Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised by this series: the characters are well-acted (did I mention Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny works extremely well), the production values are impressive (the jumps into Johnny's visions are handled nicely), and the storylines are getting quite creative.
Now, on the other hand, the storylines on Monk are by far the weakest part of the show. For the most part, the stories are fairly basic whodunits, much like the kind that sustained Murder, She Wrote for all those years. What makes Monk stand out are the characters and performances. Tony Shalhoub plays Adrian Monk with an amazing amount of depth. What first appears to be a one-note character (a detective with an obsessive-compulsive disorder) is given a lot more thought and care by Shalhoub. Again, I don't want to go too much into a synopsis of the show (the Monk web site is at: http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk ), but the other people in Monk's life are his personal nurse, Sharona (another wonderfully layered character, played by Bitty Schram), and his former boss, Captain Stottlemeyer (who hasn't been given much screen time or development yet, played by Ted Levine). The show essentially revolves around Monk using his disorder to solve cases, but the best part of the show is just watching Shalhoub embody this character every week. You just have to watch it to appreciate it.
New episodes of The Dead Zone and Monk are being pre-empted for a couple of weeks by the US Open which is airing on USA, but USA says they will air repeats at various times during this time. And I still think ABC is airing episodes of Monk on Tuesdays at 9pm ET/PT.
Which brings us to The Wire on HBO. HBO really has a knack for interesting programming, and The Wire has not disappointed. Of course, the only problem is that on HBO, the shows always end too soon... The Wire is on it's 12th episode now out of a 13-episode season. If it returns (there seems to be some doubt at the moment as to whether this is a one-season, self-contained story, or whether the creators have planned for further seasons...), it probably won't be until mid next year. The up-side to this is that you will probably be able to catch up with this entire season sometime soon in a re-airing. The (basic) synopsis of the show is: a group of detectives try to build a case against the leading drug organization in Baltimore. The show follows both the detectives and the dealers (from the street dealers all the way to the top of the organization). It's very methodical and very engaging; after a couple of episodes, you'll be hooked. You can check out more on The Wire's (woefully under-developed) web site at: http://www.hbo.com/thewire/.
As I almost expect from HBO now, the show is high quality drama. The characters are well-acted and well-developed, the plots are well-thought-out (it appears that the creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, have written out the entire story of the season well ahead of time; they receive at least story credit, and sometimes teleplay credit for each episode), and HBO doesn't have to have hardened cops and drug dealers use the word "friggin." If HBO gets around to re-airing the series soon, I recommend checking it out. And if you don't have HBO: what're you waiting for? The Sopranos starts up again September 15!
posted by Greg Schwartz | 7:55 PM
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