New TV

[yendi]

Having caught up on Tivo viewing yesterday, I have to say that we're liking both The Unusuals and Harper's Island.

The former is Yet Another New York Crime Show, but it's quirky in a Hill Street Blues sort of way. Not as good as HSB, of course (I'm not sure any cop show has matched the first two seasons of HSB, ever. In fact, has any other show ever swept an entire acting nomination category like HSB did with Supporting Actor in '82?), but still some great characters. The cast -- including Harold Perrineau, Amber Tamblyn, and Adam Goldberg -- is great, and there are some wonderful bits of dialogue. They also swipe the Homicide: LotS "lie detector" bit, but I can forgive that if it doesn't happen again.

Harper's Island is essentially a very drawn-out horror flick, with enough time to develop characters and bring out motivations, instead of the usual rush. Since the "whodunnit" slasher usually falls short on the motivation front (Scream excepted), this is a nice touch. The cast -- including Gina Holden (so wonderful in Blood Ties, so much better than her material in Flash Gordon), Christopher Gorham (smartly starring on a limited series so his usual kiss of death can't take effect), Richard Burgi (Karl on Desperate Housewives), Katie Cassady (the lead in the Black Christmas remake) -- is solid, and helps carry things along nicely. Fans of both horror movies and large-scale murder mysteries (think And Then There Were None) would enjoy this one.

Of course, Castle remains a favorite (we haven't seen this week's ep, though), and returning mid-season shows like Law and Order: CI and In Plain Sight are also back. Yay!

Comments

[kradical.livejournal.com]

They also swipe the Homicide: LotS "lie detector" bit, but I can forgive that if it doesn't happen again.

That wasn't really a bit from Homicide as such. It was, in fact, an actual trick played on actual suspects by the actual Baltimore City Police's Homicide Unit in 1988 when David Simon was following them around and chronicling their lives in the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. It was used on Homicide, as was pretty much the entire book by the time the series ended, and it was also used on The Wire. (It's use on the latter was particularly amusing, as it was on the first episode of the show's final season, and one detective looks at the other and says, "How long we been pullin' this for? Twenty years?" The episode aired twenty years after Simon's sojourn with the Bawlmer Homicide Unit.)

[yendi]

Oh, I knew that Homicide took it from the real world (and from Simon's book); it's just that it's the sort of trick that loses its impact on each use, and Homicide was the first time I recall a show using it.