Because my daughter and wife are wonderful, I’ve had time to actually catch up on the new TV season, as well as read a few books, and see a few movies.
The rant about movies I’ll save for later, but the new books and TV shows deserve a couple of comments.
First, the books:
Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley — I wish I liked this more. Not least because Christopher Buckley proved he’s no lock-step right-winger this week, and because, along with P.J. O’ Rourke, he’s one of the few conservatives who’s funny on purpose. Maybe it’s unfair to compare everything Buckley does with Thank You For Smoking, which is one of the best political satires in the past 20 years, as well as a smart, layered piece of fiction. But even if I weren’t grading on that steep a curve, Courtship still disappoints. It seems like Buckley skipped whole chapters. It reads more like a movie treatment than a book in places. And while there are reliably funny moments and lines, it’s about as deep as a wading pool. It’s also short, which makes me wonder if this was rushed to print. It’s better than Buckley’s last effort, Boomsday, but that’s damning with faint praise. Buckley can do a lot better, and even if this is enjoyable enough, that’s not enough.
The Better Mousetrap by Tom Holt: Holt, one of those British authors who doesn’t seem to get the following he should here in the states, returns to the world of J.W. Wells, sorcerers for hire, and its former employees. Holt is brilliant at mixing the fantastic and the mundane — Jane, his heroine, slays dragons and monsters for corporate clients, but quails at the thought of filling out invoices. However, you have to be almost as steeped in the lore of Holt’s series of books as the author to keep track of all the characters. Don’t start here. Go back to the beginning, The Portable Door, and catch up.
TV. Ah, TV. Mother, teacher, secret lover, as Homer Simpson said.
Fringe: I really don’t know why I don’t like this more. Perhaps it’s because, as Leslie said, “You’ve already seen it, 14 years ago, when it was called The X-Files.” One side effect of the resurgence in sci-fi and horror: it’s hard to find new ground in the paranormal/weird science department, and it’s particularly hard to find ways to get it past network censors. I love that J.J. Abrams has gone back to the store of ’70s super-science for the lore of the series — I suspect he read some of the same weird paperbacks I did as a kid — but the actual drama isn’t dramatic enough.
Life on Mars: My favorite new show, so far. And apparently, I’m not alone. A remake of the BBC series about a cop who takes a knock on the head and wakes up in 1973. I never thought anyone would be nostalgic for the ’70s, least of all me. But apparently I’m in good company. The time-travel wasn’t nearly as interesting to me as the details. The fact that TV used to shut down at 2 in the morning. That you’d have to use a pay phone. That you could hear Bowie and the Stones without having to listen to an oldies station. The performances, especially from Harvey Keitel, Gretchen Mol and the star Jason O’Mara, are all good, but it’s the production values and script that really sold this for me. (I should note, I never saw the BBC original, which is, according to everyone, better. It sat on my TiVo for months; just never got around to it.)
Eleventh Hour: Another BBC retread, with better acting than every other paranormal/mystery/crime series out there. But it suffered from premiering after Fringe — a cloning storyline that wasn’t half as scary as Fringe’s take — and some scenes so stupid they stole any credibility from the good ones that came before. The protagonist, Jacob Hood, is supposed to be so frighteningly smart the FBI assigns him his own bodyguard.
(Minor digression here. Hood’s bodyguard, Rachel, is played by a 105-pound blonde, Marley Shelton. Shelton’s good. Truly. She sells the hell out of her role, so her badass FBI agent is more believable than Anna Torv’s on Fringe. But the whole Trinity/Buffy archetype has apparently convinced TV execs that that bad guys get stomped easily by borderline-anorexic, model-level gorgeous women. See also: Chuck, Sanctuary.)
However, in the premiere, Hood (played by Rufus Sewell) fails to ask basic questions, never thinks to check a missing woman’s apartment while searching for her, and doesn’t come up with anything more impressive than the leaps of deduction made on Law & Order. The fault isn’t Sewell’s — he plays the character well, imparting the right mix of computer mind and human soul. It’s in the script. The show doesn’t know if it’s The X-Files or CSI: Weird Crap. There’s no sense of urgency — Hood and his bodyguard stroll almost everywhere — and the stakes aren’t world-ending. It’s frustrating to see so much talent go to waste. It stays on the Season Pass Manager, but the writing better get much smarter, much faster.
(Again, haven’t seen the original, but it’s on my TiVo now.)
Sanctuary: Not much to say about this one, except the intro did everything right, where Heroes did everything wrong. Cops enter an apartment. They’re warned not to go into the bedroom. They do anyway, and something horrible happens. Predictable, right? But the writers got the details. They thought it through. The cops do what TV cops never do — they draw their guns, and they call for backup, and they’re not idiots. They still get lunched, of course. But it was nice to see someone pay attention to the little things. Unfortunately, from there the show descended further and further into silliness — Jack the Ripper? Seriously? — mangling what was otherwise an interesting premise.
