What’s this show called … Rescue Me?

I’m not sure why, but Rescue Me never managed to interest me enough to try it. Even last season, knowing that Michael J. Fox, who I’m a huge fan of, was doing a guest arc, I never even did a TiVo search for the show. I don’t know why.

Which could help explain why I was confused to see all of those promos before the season six premiere featuring Derek Jeter and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” … what did Denis Leary’s critical darling have to do with New York? Right….

I was kind of excited to watch the show. While I took the challenge of this column on because I don’t shy away from voicing my opinion, I’ve held out the hope — since the beginning — that I’d find a new series to watch that had managed to pass me by the first time around. And sitting down to watch this episode of Rescue Me, I felt as if this could be the first one.

My excitement only grew with the opening image of Leary’s Tommy Gavin, standing outside a storefront in a leather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans, smoking a cigarette. “The second coming (first, really) of David Duchovny’s Hank Moody!” I thought to myself. And then Leary started to speak, and the illusion dissolved.

I say speak, and not act, because if that was good acting then I don’t know what’s become of the profession. I’m sure that I’m going to enrage a lot of people (just shy of two million, according to Brett), but Leary is miserable as an actor. Just miserable.

At least here. I loved him as Diego in Ice Age, and I have enjoyed him in various movie roles throughout the years. But I couldn’t figure out how he’d landed the lead role on this series, even knowing that he co-created the show.

A show which, by the way, is really enjoyable as an ensemble piece. Any scene involving his brother firemen, or Chief Sidney Feinberg (Jerry Adler), was great. I really like Larenz Tate (Bart, AKA Black Shawn), and Franco’s (Daniel Sunjata) relationship with Tommy’ family was pretty amusing. And Terry Serpico (Cousin Eddie) is on the show too? Awesome!

There’s an obviously appealing side to the show — firefighters are one of many groups of people known more for what they do, as a group, then who they are as individuals. It’s great to understand that they risk their lives everyday in order to save ours, but to really appreciate what they’re risking we need to see their lives and meet their families. And Rescue Me has assembled a great group of guys to get to know, at least as far as I could tell in one episode.

But Leary’s miserable. And every scene he was in made me feel as if I was watching an early rehearsal in the production process. Maybe that’s what his character’s supposed to be like, but even if that’s the case it doesn’t mean that I should enjoy it.

And I say this not because I felt lost in a sea of story. I appreciate the fact that the beginning of season six seems to be a turning point in many respects — Tommy (not) giving up drinking. The firehouse in danger of closing. Damien (Michael Zegen) finding himself as a firefighter. Colleen’s (Natalie Distler) drinking. While I wasn’t into everything that I just mentioned, the show itself was really rather good.

Except for Leary. And the fact of the matter is that he’s obviously unavoidable. And that’s a shame. I couldn’t guarantee that I’d become a regular viewer after trying it again, if the circumstances were different, but I can tell you for a fact that Leary’s performance, or lack thereof, is the reason why I’ll never know.

Was that Lt. Virginia Cooper (Patti D’Arbanville), from New York Undercover, walking around with a bloody face in the background? Nice.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jul 12, 2010 @ 15:30 EST5EDT