Program: In Plain Sight
Network: USA
Creator: David Maples
Cast: Mary McCormack, Fred Weller, Nichole Hiltz, Lesley Ann Warren, Paul Ben-Victor, Todd Warren, Christian de la Fuente

I eagerly anticipated the arrival of In Plain Sight form the first commercial I saw. USA has earned big props with me for their original programming. The Big Four could learn a lot from shows like Monk, Psych, and Burn Notice. Perhaps my expectations were raised a bit high from those three shows, but, after the first five episodes, I am torn about In Plain Sight. I want to like it, but I think, in general, it suffers a bit with an identity crisis.

The concept is fairly straight forward. Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack) and Marshall Mann (Fred Weller) are US Marshals assigned to the Witness Protection Program. They handle the lives of the guilty and the innocent alike who have agreed to work with the US Government in exchange for protection from whoever it is that wants them dead. As a matter of course, this means changing identities for the subjects, and the inability of the Marshals to reveal what it is they do to anyone, even their own families.

On the surface, the concept seems to lend itself quite well to episodic television, and there would seem to be a great fit for the comedy-drama angle that USA has become so very good at. Unlike Burn Notice, however, In Plain Sight seems to be really struggling with itself as it hunts for just the right blend of comedy and drama. Where Burn Notice flows from moment to moment seamlessly, In Plain Sight seems to arm wrestle with itself to see which form will have dominance on a scene by scene basis, and the outcome is usually determined by which actor takes the lead in the scene.

McCormack seems to really struggle with the deeper moments her character faces. She (she being her character, Mary Shannon) has some intimacy issues that drive the people around her nuts, yet McCormack doesn’t seem to be able to really hook into the more serious moments with her family and boyfriend. About the only emotions she plays consistently well are anger and bitterness, and she seems to be embroiled in one or the other about 70% of the time. It makes for some painfully slow television in between the action scenes.

Weller on the other hand plays the transitions from comedy to drama extremely well. When he takes the lead in a scene, which isn’t nearly often enough, the scene almost always succeeds behind his characterization. He is, without a doubt, carrying the show on his shoulders at the moment, and the writers seem to have rewarded him already by increasing not only his presence on camera, but his importance to the lead character, Mary Shannon.

If In Plain Sight can find its groove, it could easily be another Burn Notice (which is, perhaps, the best TV had to offer on any station in the past year, and why I compare to it so readily). As it stands, it’s average fare at best, and certainly not up to the standards that USA has come to be known for. For now, though, I’ll keep watching, as the episodes have grown progressively stronger since the pilot. It’s the potential I am tuning in for more than anything else, and as long as that potential appears to be slowly materializing, I think the production team is on the right track.

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Program: New Amsterdam

Network: Fox

Creators: Christian Taylor and Allan Loeb

Primary Cast: Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Zuleikha Robinson, Alexie Gilmore, Stephen Henderson, Susan Misner

A mid-season debut that has a bit of promise. That assumes, of course, that you can ignore the fact that it is yet another cop show in a sea of cop shows. That fact alone will likely doom it to be cancelled, as the competition in the cop show field is dominated by the various CSI’s and Law and Orders, although Fox has not yet given any indication one way or the other about its future (that I have seen, anyway. They may well have announced its cancellation by now and I just missed it. I don’t pay much attention to that kind of thing). The final scheduled episode is Monday the 14^th (tomorrow).

What makes this show different than the other cop shows is that it blends a bit of genre into the realistic cop-drama with an immortal lead detective. Sounds rather Highlander-ish, but it goes a bit further in that. See, John Amsterdam (Waldau), brilliant NYC detective, was born back in the 1600s in Holland. After traveling to the New World, he saves the life of a young native girl and is stabbed through the heart doing so. The girl and her mother, a kind of mystic or shaman, bring him back to life. A life that will not end until he finds his one true soul mate (annoyingly referred to as “the one” - /blanch). Adding in another twist is John’s desire to throw in the towel. At times the only reason he seems interested in finding “the one” (/belch) is so he can finally die. 350-something years is quite enough, thank you very much.

Unsurprising, each episode uses a flashback of something in John’s past. Not the most original idea, and one that will grow very old, very quickly. See, if you are continually telling me what happened rather than what is happening, then you are telling me the wrong story. The writers mix it up well though, and rather than making the past the focus of each story, they limit it, attempting to account for the influences that still affect John’s thinking. What is most enjoyable is that they don’t use the obvious “big moments” of the last 350 years. They are more personal than that for John, and very, very well done. As a matter of fact, I think the flashbacks are probably the best part of the show right now. They are certainly the most carefully developed and researched, and are tremendously interesting (I especially liked the appearance of Thoreau in the Civil War flashback – extremely well done).

What the show lacks is that kind of attention to the John’s present day. Instead, the focus on the cop-crap and the budding love interest of someone who may or may not be “the one” (/puke). They have a tremendous amount of potential to explore some really interesting stuff if they just let John lose a bit of the “in control” and “master detective” aspects of his character. Perhaps the single thing that stands out to me at the moment is memory. I have issues remembering what happened last week, and this guy remembers details from 300 years ago like he’s recalling a shopping list. How many memories can a 350 year old brain hold? How fragmented can those memories be? How difficult is it to recall them, especially with such accuracy? The cop stuff isn’t interesting. The fact that he’s 350 years old and wants to die… that’s where the story is.

So, all in all, it has potential, and I like it. I hope that Fox gives it another chance, and I hope that they slowly bend it away from the annoying cop-centric plot arc.

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Program: Canterbury’s Law

Network: Fox

Creator: Dave Erickson

Primary Cast: Julianna Margulies, Ben Shenkman, Keith Robinson, Trieste Kelly Dunn, James McCaffrey, Terry Kinney, Aidan Quinn

For some reason, I like Julianna Margulies. Always have. From ER to The Mists of Avalon, I have enjoyed most everything I have seen her in.

Until now.

That sounds harsher than it should, perhaps. There is nothing inherently wrong with Canterbury’s Law. Unless, of course, you are like me and see the same old lawyer drama repackaged with a female lead as inherently wrong. It’s Shark in a skirt (and I’m not overly fond of Shark, either). There’s nothing new here, and nothing worth spending an hour a week of my precious time with. I gave it three episodes to show me something that sets it apart from the rest of the TV lawyer schlock. It failed, I moved on.

The sad thing is, everything is in place for them to do something interesting. The writing and acting is good, the production values are high… but rather than take a risk and try going with something fresh (a la Eli Stone), they break out the lawyer-drama-schtick, right down to the repressed personal issues that affect both home life and work life, and the requisite bad guy DA who has it in for the head of the firm (Canterbury). Regardless of how well written it is, it’s predictable. Yes, predictable… 4 episodes old, and I can say it’s predictable. The only flag they haven’t yet waved is the “woman struggling to make it in a man’s world” but it’s there, lurking in the background in the form of the conflict between the DA (Terry Kinney) and Margulies, so I have to believe it will come out within the next few episodes.

In the end, if you are a fan of lawyer dramas, you’ll probably like Canterbury’s Law. It’s more of the same old tried and true stuff that’s been on prime time TV for the last decade. Unfortunately, there’s just far to much “been there, done that” in this entire genre for a “new” series to ever feel… well… new. Which undoubtedly means it will be around for a few seasons and take up valuable prime-time space. Pity, that.

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Program: Eli Stone

Network: ABC

Creators: Greg Berlanti & Marc Guggenheim

Primary Cast: Johnny Lee Miller, Natasha Henstridge, Laura Benati, James Saito, Victor Garber

Eli Stone is a lawyer, and a damn good one. There’s only one small problem. He’s a prophet who has visions of people who need his help. Either that, or he is hallucinating because of that pesky little inoperable brain aneurysm he inherited from his father.

Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone) is curiously charming as he tries to figure out exactly what is happening to him. His visions take him on an emotional ride. Memories of his father assail him, who shared a similar condition but was unable to cope with it and turned to alcohol in order to still the visions. Not wanting to put hisfiancé through what his father put him through, he walks out on their engagement in order to save her the pain his own mother faced each and every day.

This strong, engaging through line connects the episodes and allows the characters and their relationships to evolve, but make no mistake… though there is an ongoing plot (including a potential love triangle… ooo drama!), this show is about the visions Eli has and how he struggles to interpret their meaning. So far, they have all pointed him in the direction of a specific case to take on, and this, I think, will likely grow old after a while and be a rather severe limitation for the show’s longevity. But for now, with the veritable wasteland that is network TV, this mid-season launch is a breath of fresh air. There are few shows on TV that I actually pay attention to, even in the best of times, so it’s nice to find something that isn’t a reality-based embarrassment show or the 97^th spin-off of CSI or Law and Order.

I’m not sure why I started watching this. I don’t have much time for TV, and record everything because Prime Time for TV is also Prime Time for grading and writing my thesis. But something about it caught my eye so I tossed it on the DVR’s record list. What a surprise! I was sold the moment Eli had his first vision… George Michael singing and dancing on the coffee table in his living room. This quirky, schticky little show has me laughing out loud each and every episode. And that is enough to keep me coming back to it each week.

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Now playing: David Sanborn - Over and Over

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