Toob Talk

My first thought, as I rolled my eyes at the show descriptoion was, “Great, another lawyer show with quirky characters.”

And so it was with great trepidation that I tuned in to the first episode of Dirty Sexy Money.

Now that it’s over, I can honestly say that not only was I pleasantly surprised, but I may just have to tune in next week–and every week after–just to see what they come up with next.

It’s the top-notch actors that really make this show worthwhile. Donald Sutherland’s presence alone adds a bit of class to the show, regardless of how lost and intermittently vile his character (the patriarch of New York’s richest and most famous family, the Darlings) is. Jill Clayburgh as the matriarch of that family is the perfect compliment to Sutherland. And Peter Krause is cast perfectly as their diametric opposite–their new family lawyer.

Krause plays Nick George, the son of the Darling’s recently deceased (in a plane crash) family lawyer. George, like his father, is a lawyer. Unlike his father, he is determined to be a good family man. After seeing how working for the Darling’s destroyed his parent’s marriage and knowing full well how difficult the job was on him as a young boy, George doesn’t want to put his own wife and young daughter through similar problems. Instead he runs a private practice that does as much charity work as possible.

But when Tripp Darling (Sutherland) offers him the job as family lawyer and tacks on an extra ten million dollars a year for George’s charity work, he reluctantly agrees.

The next 24 hours of his life are chock full of utter mayhem.

And we all get to go along for the crazy, disjointed, engaging and, ultimately, heart-warming ride.

Gorge is a man of integrity and virtue among a gaggle of self-important, self-indulgent, holier-than-thou, spoiled rich people. He is destined to be the conscience of the dysfunctional Darling family. If he can stand it.

Every character in this ensemble is quirky in a good way. They all have just enough implied depth that they stand out from the caricatures that they almost are. Each one, even in the space of an hour-long pilot episode shows a little bit of humanity.

Plus, the mayhem is fun. The best and worst thing about it is that what happens is nothing we haven’t seen on the news a thousand times before. It is familiar.

As I said, this show surprised me. I’m hooked and look forward to the expanding circle of mystery that was introduced in the final act. A bold move, since the basics of the show are more than enough to keep things interesting. If done well, it will make Dirty Sexy Money a true gem on television. If they’re writers aren’t up to the challenge, though, the show will quickly descend into a muddled mess that even Sutherland and Krause won’t be able to save.

Here’s hoping for the former.

Another busy night for me and my DVRs.

We know from last week that the only thing worth watching at 8 p.m. is Kid Nation. Fox’s Back To You will be recorded, just because I feel generous and am willing to give it another chance.

It’s at 9 p.m. when things get a little tricky. Ghost Hunters returns for the second half of its season on the SciFi Channel, the new Bionic Woman premiers on NBC, and Private Practice opens on ABC. I’m not expecting a lot from the Grey’s spin-off, but I’ll give it a chance before I write it off completely.

The 10 p.m. hour sees another stacked set of shows: Life on NBC and Dirty Sexy Money on ABC. I don’t think either of them will make my “must see” list, but I’m curious about the quality and tone of the shows. For those with some nostalgia rolling around, SciFi will be starting up the re-broadcast of Haunted, starring a pre-Lost Matthew Fox as a police detective who can see dead people.

Of all the networks, NBC seems to be a bit ahead of this technology curve. At least for the upcoming fall season. They’ve made three of the pilots for new shows available in a few different ways. I watched them on my cable system’s On Demand system the other day.

We see remakes all the time on the big screen. It doesn’t happen quite as often on the small one. At least not outright ones that aren’t Superman.

Why? Probably because there’s no way to avoid comparison with the original and TV executives are even more fickle than movie studios. The new Battlestar Galactica caught a heck of a lot of flack (even from me) before it hit its stride five hours into the series. It has since blown away just about everything else on TV.

The Bionic Woman is a remake (some would say “re-visioning” in order to avoid the negative connotation) of one of my staple shows growing up. The original was action-packed, light and fun, just like so many other shows of the late 1970s and early 80s. A lot has changed since then. This new version embraces those changes fully.

No longer is Jaime Sommers a tennis player injured in a sky-diving accident. Now she’s a bar tender, barely making ends meet as she tries to finish college and take care of her younger sister. The high point in her life is her (slightly older) boyfriend, Will, a surgeon working for a private company. It’s that last connection that comes in handy when their car is demolished by a tractor trailer.

Jamie is brought into the program Will heads. In order to save her life, he rebuilds her with a combination of high-tech mechanical prosthetics and nanotechnology. This leads to her getting the trademark bionic legs, arm, and eye. The super hearing kicks in a little later.

The big problem is, she’s not the first person to undergo the procedure. Sarah Corvus (played by Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff) was the first, but ran into some… difficulties.

Without question this show has more grit than the original ever thought of having. It’s got a very human edge, to it, as well. Much like the new Galactica took some key points from its previous incarnation, the new Bionic Woman has kept true to the core idea but made it something more.

This is a show to watch this season. If it does well–which I think it will–who knows what other super heroes of the 70s we’ll get to see next. In an odd twist of irony, maybe a new version of The Six Million Dollar Man will spin off of Bionic Woman.