Ever since I started writing this column, my wife has agreed to watch almost every show that I’ve covered right alongside me. But with The Closer we encountered a first: this time I was watching her show with her. I was still free to make my rude and insulting comments (assuming I would ever do such a thing, which I most certainly would not), but now I was guaranteed a withering look, at best, in response. But like I told her, if your stupid show doesn’t force me to belittle it, I won’t. So that’s kind of on her … and Kyra Sedgwick.
Last week’s episode began in a manner very reminiscent to the only other episode of the show I’ve ever seen — a season two episode entitled “To Protect & to Serve,” where Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and Flynn (Anthony John Denison) found a dead body on their way to a Dodgers game. Preferring not to waste their box seats, the goofy pair chose to attend the game before dealing with the body, which subsequently disappeared.
I was sure Provenza was going to walk right out of that bathroom, sleep with the flight attendant, and then call headquarters.
Instead, the body in the tub kicked off a rather “eh” mystery of following the murder victims and the drugs to the killer. Well, killers. But we barely even saw the mastermind at the end who’d come up with a brilliant way of bringing cocaine into the country: having it put into little packets, tagged with stickers, and stuck in with the rest of the coffee paraphernalia on international flights. That’s awesome, and deserved more consideration than it got.
I sincerely hope that there’s no real trailer park out there for flight crews to live in. What a depressing thought. To work in an industry known as glitzy and glamorous, traveling to exotic places around the world, only to find that you have no better option than a trailer to call home, because “what’s the point?” That’s terrible.
A good start by guest Kyle Secor (Captain Wheeler) lost me when Brenda (Sedgwick) brought her highly touted interrogation skills to bear on him. “I assume you must like a lot of cheese,” or whatever. Nice.
The apparently ongoing office space gag was funny, once it was explained to me, and there were definitely laughs to be found elsewhere. I was surprised, however, that Chief Pope (J.K. Simmons) was as dismissive of Brenda’s application to be chief (seriously, there’s no way either of them aren’t many, many layers removed from that office) as he seemed to be. My impression of their relationship was that he had brought her in, nurtured her, and that he trusted her fully (most of the time). To see him trivialize her so was odd, and I don’t even watch the show.
Nor do I plan to start. I just wasn’t moved. The Closer differentiates itself by virtue of its writing and its acting. And, of course, because Sedgwick is fantastic. All so I’ve heard and read. But what I saw was not so much bad, as boring. Provenza and Flynn aren’t as much impish as they are highly undeserving of their guns and shields, Sergeant Gabriel (Corey Reynolds), who I enjoyed the last time, is more of a background player now, and Brenda was … well, she was kind of grating. Maybe it was the terrible Southern accent, or her trademark naive mask, but I didn’t see what I’m led to believe exists in her.
To each their own I suppose.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Aug 09, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
Has there been even one show that you found yourself enjoying? Do you even enjoy the ones you do cover? Just curious.
*POST AUTHOR*
While I have disliked a number of the shows I’ve covered for the column, most were just not for me. There’s a difference between finding something bad and just not getting excited by it.
However, it’s a little tricky when you’re talking about shows that are already in existence, and that I’ve therefore likely passed on already for various reasons. There’s a greater chance that I’m predisposed to not finding them to my taste. That being said, the point of the column is my experience with shows that are new to me. It’s no different than trying a new food that you’ve never shown an interest in before … chances are there’s a reason for that, but the point is the experience.
There isn’t a single show I cover that I didn’t want to cover, meaning I enjoyed every show I picked up at the time that I picked it up. I don’t watch TV so I can have a bad time. That doesn’t mean my reviews should be dripping with nothing but praise; where’s the authenticity in that if it isn’t perfect? And it also doesn’t mean that shows don’t take bad turns … shouldn’t we be vocal about that when it happens?
I have to defend Aryeh here. His analysis of this episode is correct.
But like I said before, it’s basically the problem of the format “What’s this show called…”
Any show that builds on previous shows is doomed to get a bad review in this format.
It really reminds you of any bad review process. Within the rules of the process, he does everything right, but it’s the ridiculous process itself that has to be criticized.
This episode is ridiculous and boring only if you never watched an episode of “The Closer” before. No doubt about it.
*POST AUTHOR*
The support is appreciated; thanks! :)
But I still believe that the theory behind the “format being flawed” goes against the entire idea of growing an audience for a show, which is what everyone in TV is aiming to do. If “Any show that builds on previous shows is doomed to get a bad review in this format,” it would also get a bad review from someone trying it for the first time with the hopes of adding the show to what they watch. At the very least it has to be intriguing enough to bring the new viewer back again so that they can begin to get steeped in the show’s lore, and get addicted to it. From your own review of the episode in question the writers would have failed their basic mission.