Premiere Week Wrapup - part 1

Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip: Behind the scenes at a fading Saturday Nite Live type of show on a fictional network. Opens with the producer of the show doing a Peter Finch meltdown live on the air. While Network went for amusement and entertainment with their meltdown, Sorkin stages this as intense and troubling - Judd Hirsch pinning our ears back with his pent-up rage. Overall Studio 60 is very entertaining, classic Sorkin, large cast bouncing off each other and generating sparks. NBC, Mondays at 10p.

House: There has some suggestion that House has jumped the shark - particularly with the alien abduction episode. Total nonsense foisted by Insufferable Television Snobs because the show is catching on to a wider audience - they hate it when that happens. Fox, Tuesdays - still at 8p for now...

The Unit: Lotsa GI Joe testosterone on display here. I get tired of the super macho depiction of American fighting men as if that's the only type of male personality that can do this type of work. I think our experience in World War II puts that particular fantasy to rest.

Interestingly, in the years after WWII the military researched how the troops did under fire - discovering that only a small percentage of them actually engaged when under fire on the battlefield. There was a conscious decision to change basic training and recruitment to bring in and develop a more gruntish type of soldier just in time for Vietnam. It continues today. We can all see how well that has worked for us...

Smith: Good stuff - not fall-down great, but pretty good. Opened with the climax of the caper, flash-back one hour to the start of the caper, then flash-back three weeks to the planning of the caper to get a chance to meet all the characters. Then we get the entire caper, uncut with all the details. As rumored, the caper was great, the production values are pretty good but a little too much "enhancing the action" with shaky hand-held camera. Virginia Madsen - Liotta's wife - is just so suspicious of him but this criminal mastermind who can smell trouble coming from a mile away doesn't pick up on her frowny faces and cold kisses. Like I said - good, but not great. CBS, Tuesdays at 10p.

Jericho: Haven't watched it yet - stay tuned...

Kidnapped: Oh baby, this was great, very good. Highly recommended. To correct my earlier overview, the story does NOT take place in real time like 24, but this will be the one case for the season. They basically covered the first day on the first ep. Jeremy Sisto runs a shadowy busiess of retrieving rich kidnap victims without the distractions of worrying about catching and prosecuting the kidnappers - killing them if provoked is good enough as far as he is concerned. He really wants to keep the FBI out of the picture but of course that doesn't happen. Again, very highly recommended. NBC, Wednesdays at 10p.

Shark: Haven't watched it yet - stay tuned...



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