Four new series are added to the 2011 Fall TV lineup Thursday night: Person of Interest on CBS, Whitney and Prime Suspect on NBC, and, last but least, Charlie's Angels on ABC. You won't find any of them in Thursday's Best Bets, though -- and here, briefly, is why not...
Person of Interest. Premiering at 9 p.m. ET, this CBS drama series has the best pedigree of the bunch, and behind-the-scenes people I'd like to see succeed going in. Its producer is J.J. Abrams, the inventive storyteller who helped craft such pliable TV structures as Alias and Lost, and its creator is Jonathan Nolan, who gave us the memorably inventive story structure of the film Memento.
But Abrams was the marquee name attached last season to Undercovers, which never lived up to, much less surpassed, its glossy spy-couple premise. In Person of Interest, the cast is strong, the premise weak. Michael Emerson from Lost plays a rich computer programmer who built a super-computer capable of synthesizing randomly collected information into leads about crimes yet to be committed, and James Caviezel plays an ex-CIA agent recruited to follow these ambiguous leads.
However, the Minority Report-type stop-the-crime-before-it-happens gimmick isn't sold well enough, or believable enough -- and without it, the rest of Person of Interest feels like just another CBS procedural, and holds little Interest.
Whitney. This NBC comedy stars Whitney Cummings, who tries a little too hard -- a LOT too hard -- in this 9:30 p.m. ET NBC addition to its Thursday lineup. She's a writer and the show's creator as well as its star, and the general danger, when hyphenates star in their own comedies, is that no one around them dares to speak up when the script, or the performance, isn't what it should be.
In this comedy, though it has moments where both the writing and Cummings shine through, there's way too much of not-quite, and a lot of not-even-close.
Prime Suspect. I've gotten in loud, long, vocal arguments with Mike Donovan, another TVWW contributor, about this 10 p.m. NBC series, which he likes, and by which I'm very disappointed. I dislike it because it's based on, and using the same name as, the brilliant British series starring Helen Mirren, yet either ignores, dilutes or ruins just about every element that made that drama such a groundbreaking, captivating cop show. And I love Maria Bello, so this rant excludes her.
Call this new series anything BUT Prime Suspect -- call it Jane, call it Woman With a Badge, call it whatever you like -- and I might enjoy it a little more and resent it a lot less. Mike thinks I'm stupid to take TV that seriously.
But if you're going to remake a show because that show is great, the remake had better be comparable. Otherwise, you've got another Americanized Cracker on your hands. Which, in this case, we do.
Please, please, seek out the original. Acorn Media has just re-released the first two seasons of Mirren's Prime Suspect. Season 1 guest stars Ralph Fiennes and Tom Wilkinson, and that's just for starters. You can also order the entire series in a heavily discounted box set, or order any season individually. Order them HERE.
Charlie's Angels. On the other hand, call this ABC series, which premieres Thursday night at 8 ET on ABC, anything other than Charlie's Angels, and I'd be just as bored. What a horrible mess this is.
Everything done in the name of deepening or refreshing or updating this series has made it worse. The three leading ladies don't even seem right for their roles, but their roles aren't right to begin with. If this isn't the worst new scripted series of the fall, I'd hate to see what is.
And I mean that literally.
I'd HATE to see whatever's worse than this new Charlie's Angels.
For a full rundown of these and other new fall TV series, from myself and our merry band of TVWW writers (some of whom just threw in their two cents today), click HERE.
And be patient. When it comes to the new fall TV series, the best IS yet to come.
Honest.