JUNE TV EXTRAVAGANZA

 

THE FOSTERS

 

**1/2 (out of ****)

 

The Fosters is a tough pilot to review, if for no other reason than it’s on ABC Family. That logo sits there, in the corner of your TV screen, shrugging at you, as if to say “Come on, what do you want? We’re ABC Family.” It’s a good point, logo, and a hard question to answer. I’m not sure what to expect from you. What I hope from you is that you don’t make me barf all over the place, and if that’s the criteria I’m going for, then The Fosters may pass.

 

It’s by no means good, but it’s nice to only slightly be able to see the strings, as opposed to appearing to be in 3-D, with giant arrows pointing at them. Teri Polo (Meet the Parents) stars as an ex-straight, currently lesbian cop who, with her partner, winds up adopting everything that moves, to the point where there are 7 people living under this roof. They aren’t the Brady Bunch, as you can tell when Polo tells her partner “We aren’t the Brady Bunch.” And that’s the kind of show this is.

 

The show can be impressive, however, but mostly when it’s not trying to be impressive at all. It has it’s “For Your Consideration” moments (what ABC Family show with this premise wouldn’t), but it uses them pretty sparingly. It has to, because it’s much too important for the show to skate past the fact that the leads are two lesbians in an interracial couple. It likes that it doesn’t make a big deal about it, and although that might seem a little bit cocky, it helps to smooth some of the other stuff over. As this show moves along after the pilot, it will have to come up with different scandalous topics to tackle. The success of this show will entirely rest on if it feels organic, or if it just feels like a laundry list.

 

 

MISTRESSES

*1/2 (out of ****)

 

In our endless search for the next Sex and the City (no one is actually looking), Mistresses is the latest show to try SATC Plus, with the Plus here being that all four girls are cheating sluts. Or they deal with cheating sluts. Or they’re both. It’s a decent idea for a gimmick, and is botched here in every way possible. Based on a (probably better) UK show of the same name, Mistresses stars Alyssa Milano, Sun from Lost, and two other chicks as they get through life doing whatever the fuck girls in these kinds of shows do. Here’s the typical daily agenda:

 

1)      Do something stupid

2)      Say something stupid

3)      Talk about your job for 30 seconds to prove to everyone you have one

4)      See a different girl do something stupid, decide what to do about it

5)      Meet the girls for drinks!

 

Instead of all of this, or any of this, being fun for us, it just seems fun for them. Fun for the actors, fun the characters, terribly tedious for us. If this show was half as daring as it thought it was, it would have to be on HBO. Or at least Spike. BARF.

 

TWISTED

**1/2 (out of ****)

 

A group of 3 BFF 5 year olds are shattered when the one male of the group kills his aunt with a red jump rope. Fast forward to present day, when the murderer is coming back to school, and the two girls of the group, one now a nerd and the other popular (natch), have to deal with his return. Believe it or not, Twisted is more successful at nailing its tone than American Horror Story, and a billion times better than Hemlock Grove. A murdering child is a potentially touchy situation, or at least one that might be easy to exploit, but the show does a pretty good job at showing Danny, the murderer, as just another misunderstood youth, as opposed to a monster, or a product of his family, or a product of video games, or all of the other boring things they could have done with him. The show starts to unravel a bit as it switches its focus, becoming less concerned with telling its central story, and more concerned about planting seeds for current and future mysteries. They range in size, from Danny being overly interested in a girl’s necklace, to that same girl getting murdered, but the point is the same: to keep the kids who watch this shit from changing the channel. I even fell trap to it, internally making fun of the last fifteen minutes, only to find myself wondering when the second episode was on. Between this and The Fosters, ABCF will probably not get enough credit for giving its audience, which usually laps up garbage like a drunk raccoon, a couple of halfway decent shows.

 

 

KING AND MAXWELL

*1/2 (out of ****)

 

I thought that when something became a trope, or a well-known source of satire, you had to stop doing it. TNT, and basic cable in general, didn’t get the memo that everyone is on to their way of creating shows (come up with two wacky characters, name the characters, name the show after the characters), so now we have King and Maxwell, which might as well be a MadTV skit making fun of those same basic cable shows. It’s about two private eyes, and one is Rebecca Romijn. They walk around the screen saying and doing things. It’s farttastic. Extra points taken away for the show not even coming up with two names that go well together. King? Maxwell? I’ve never seen Franklin and Bash, but I’d sure as shit rather say it.

 

 

DEON COLE’S BLACK BOX

** (out of ****)

 

Deon Cole is black. If you don’t believe me, watch the show. He spends twenty minutes a week making sure you will remember.

 

 

-Ryan Haley