About a Boy pilot review

Nick Hornby, the author filmic inspiration (if you're not a book reader*) of "High Fidelity" "Fever Pitch" and "About a Boy" is like a wittier 21st century version of Douglas Sirk. Most of his characters seem to exist unapolagetically outside conventional society. We have people on suicide watch ("Long Way Down"), late bloomers whose idiosyncratic obsessions take the place of normal relationships ("High Fidelity" and "Fever Pitch") and "About a Boy" which is about a guy whose life exists entirely in terms of leisure and running mundane errands as shown in this clip from the 2002 filmic adaptation:

He lives off the royalties of a song his dad wrote so he never meaningfully earned any income and sees human relationships in curiously absent ways. He has some interest in dating and makes the admittedly foolish mistake of thinking single mothers are low-effort and high-reward. His plan to meet single mothers backfires when his first date results in a hanger-on and her son who get the whole gang in trouble on an outing to the park. Although his dating scheme is foiled, he ends up  forming an unconventional but meaningful friendship with the 11-year-old kid and that's how we have our titular story.

The American TV adaptation's pilot features most of the movie and book's plot in the opening episode which is somewhat of a necessity and not much of a concern because there's a lot more fun to be had. David Walton plays the lead and it's disappointing that he doesn't present us with a character significantly different from his California sun-dried womanizer in "Bent." Hugh Grant is by no means a great actor but he bought a sort of aimless whimsical charm to the role. In the film (and book) his lies to the eventual love interestish character about his child were fairly minimal and he makes an honest effort top backtrack on his lies. Walton is unapologetic and, frankly, quite sleazy. There's no middle ground in terms of whether to root for or against him. 

The degree to which the character (ok I'm just going to look it up) Will contributes to society is also changed here. Instead of the son of a song writer who sits around collecting royalties, Will at some point did something to earn money himself. He's a musician who's suffering from the dismantlement of his band but wrote a hit song once and lives on the royalties. The con about this is that as an ex-musician Will is considerably more cliched whereas Hugh Grant's Will was truly a unique creation. On the other hand, this scenario provides something more for Will to strive for in terms of his maturation: Reclaiming his friends and former band mates in addition to the regular sitcomey stuff (dating, career, etc.).

One clear strength of the TV show is the relationship between Fiona and Will which was relatively unexplored in the film. Toni Collette is a highly underrated gem who always brings something to whatever film she's in but she was underused in the 2002 film. Minnie Driver, one of those actresses who was famous some time ago but you can't remember if they're even still alive, has the potential for a great career reinvention here with a solid character role on TV. 

As for Dakota, the object of Will's desire in the first episode, she was only intended as a plot device to get Will and Markus together but it might be interested to see her pop up again. I certainly wouldn't wish to see a romantic relationship blossom between the two but I'd want to see her pop up at some inopportune moment and make his life miserable.

It's hard to say if it's going to be a good show, but the source material is good enough that it's worth sticking around.

*I'm really not a book reader. I just like Nick Hornby novels

Bunheads and TV History's Biggest 2nd Episode Curveball

Bunheads caught my attention because it was free on itunes. At first glance, it looked female-centered and slightly tween-oriented. I initially thought this wasn't too far off from the Gilmore Girls demographic which wasn't my cup of tea.  [Ed. update: It turns out show runner Amy Sherman also created Gilmore Girls]

But, again, it was free and the female lead was somewhat charming as Brett's love interest on Flight of the Concords. 

Good thing I jumped at the beat, because I found the show to be surprisingly interesting.  It's one of those love stories where the girl finds the boy repulsive at first but is gradually won over. Only in this case, this all happens within the first two acts and the girl already drunkenly married the guy before she got around to being convinced he was right for her.  

The girl in this case (Sutton Foster) is Michelle. She's a Vegas showgirl who once aspired to be a dancer. The guy is the wonderful Alan Ruck. It is rare to have a series where a couple falls in love after they get married and that's an interesting twist. It also helps that Alan Ruck and Sutton Foster are able leads and sold the moments.  

Following a great pilot episode, we fast-forward to Episode 2 and 

ALAN RUCK DIES!!!

What?!

What were they thinking?? For one, I have trouble buying a coincidence of the magnitude that a woman marries someone who dies the next day. For another, the pilot introduces the premise of the show. If you get anyone on board your show enough to want to tune into week 2, how can you then destroy the entire premise and make it a different show without risking losing that audience? Lastly, this is triply bad because it was a good premise they initially had, Alan Ruck is a great actor, and his character was a good character. I could see them killing off the romantic comedy equivalent of a red-shirt ensign but Alan Ruck?? 

And one episode in? Could they not have waited a few more episodes? Killing off a character can be a very unexpected twist, but not Episode 2. It would have made a good season finale, for example. 

The focus shifts to a sort of small-town comedy a la "Northern Exposure" or "Local Hero" and is also about a woman finding herself. The relationship shifts to Michelle and a mother-in-law played by Kelly Bishop who are strangely bonded by legal circumstances and the sharing of a loved one for 24 hours. The show also centers around four perky high school girls who are ballet students of the mother-in-law. Some of the show's most entertaining moments come from the quartet because they have such clashing personalities but they are practically glued to the hip. I'm not sure why but I think co-dependent pseudo-families of people are at the center of good TV (see It's Always Sunny, Cheers).

As is, the show still works past Episode Two but I maintain it's a bad move and would have been a better show. 

Getting "Bent": A look at NBC's promising Spring pilot

"Bent" is a sitcom about a womanizing half-baked handyman repairing the home of a high-strung lawyer in sunny California. The high-strung lawyer is played by Amanda Peet who sells the content self-assured woman so well, she could potentially be her own TV show genre. You could almost say "It's a show about a handyman and Amanda Peet" when pitching a sitcom and a network executive would know exactly how to picture that

You could call the show a romantic comedy (and coincidentally that's what the show IS being called) but there's nothing to indicate that the two leads will get together other than our expectations of what should happen in a sitcom if a) the two principal characters are male and female b) within 20 years of each other in age and c) neither character is hideously ugly.

In the pilot episode, Amanda Peet fires the handsome womanizing contractor when he canoodles (60% of the artistry in blogging is finding the best, most appropriate euphemism for sex) the maid. It was a moment in which Amanda Peete's character really established herself as she stood up and said "you're fired" to him.

For the handsome handyman guy (yes, I should look up the character's name or even the actor's name, I suppose), it should have been a big "oh sh--, what have I done" moment before moving onto someone else where the series should ideally start with another contractor who'd hire him with a tempting maid that he'd be making actual effort to resist.

Unfortunately, the plot loses me when she agrees to rehire him. I realize that this was a necessary move so that we'd have an episode two.

But this was the wrong course of action. I'm not suggesting that if it were a real life situation but that's what is truest to the characters.

I understand how this guy's narrative arc is to meet a woman different from him who challenges him but I don't see any glue that would keep them together past the length of the contractor job. Even worse I can't buy that he would even be in her life for said contracting job because a) she fired him and b) his firing was the most buyable moment of the episode and it already cheapened her character to have her relent because he kidnapped her daughter (really not the kind of thing to go over well with an alpha-mom like her) and taught her to play the piano.

I thought maybe they'd get stuck together because the competing contractor would all of a sudden drop out with the work half-done, and she'd be stuck in an emergency and actually need him. Then the balance of each person's needs would shift to the point where there we might get something interesting.

I'm not in any way, shape or form a screenwriter, and I could have already plotted out that episode better than the professionals did so I'd say that's a horrible start.


On a side note, I think it was moderately awesome that they had a character named "Screwsie"