TV News and Reviews

This is shaping up to be quite the annoying week, isn’t it? After the pile-up on Monday, and then a big nothing on Tuesday, we’ve now got two hours of excellent competing television with Life and Law & Order on NBC against Lost and Life on Mars on ABC. Time to break out the recording devices for the L-shows.

Life ended its fall run with Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) getting shot point blank when he answered the front door. Unfortunately the suspense of what happens to him is kind of over with NBC running promos of the new Life episode with…well, Charlie Crews. Granted, we sort of knew if he got killed there wouldn’t be much of a show left. Still, I hate big cliffhangers that get answered by commercials instead of the actual program. There’s the mystery of who actually shot him, though, plus a new crime to solve this week with his partner Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi).

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If you’re not into quirky and amusing ex-con (wrongly convicted), Zen-inspired, fruit-eating redheaded police detectives solving crimes, then you can always turn over to <i>Lost</i> and watch your head explode over time traveling-islands, pre-determined destinies, and murderous sociopaths. All I keep thinking of is Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager saying “The past is the future, the future’s the past–the whole thing gives me a headache.” It’s been an okay sort of headache, though, with the characters we love banding together a bit more against the insanity of what’s going on around them. There’s a whole new arc to explore this season, and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting a few more answers to the ever-building twisty questions.

Following Lost is Life on Mars, a show both quirky and occasionally headache-inducing as we try to figure out if modern-day cop Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) time-traveled to 1973 or is simply hallucinating. Amidst the nostalgia trip of a cop show, we also have cryptic messages and phone calls from people who either seem to know more than they should or are a voice from the future. Occasionally the TV will switch over to something relevant only to Sam. It’s mind-boggling, but fun trying to figure how it’s going to play out. In the meantime, they’ve started establishing the 1970s characters more. Last week’s episode gave us a lot more insight into Lieutenant Hunt’s (Havey Keitel) personality, as we learn the truth behind his rivalry with another precinct. Lovely Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol) also keeps up the dance of sexual tension with Tyler, breaking our hearts with the unrequitedness of it.

Opposite that we have the far more straightforward cop/lawyer show Law & Order, which finally seems to have settled on the right casting choices after the shake-ups of recent years. I wasn’t sure how Anthony Anderson was going to work out, but he and Jeremy Sisto have settled into a comfortable partnership as Detectives Bernard and Lupo, respectively. Linus Roache (as Michael Cutter) is still duking it out with Sam Waterston (as Jack McCoy) for screen time, but he’s always a treat to watch. What I’ve noticed is that on the police side, S. Epatha Merkerson as Lieutenant Van Buren has been involved more in cases and taking an active role in some investigations. Somehow she doesn’t seem to intrude the same way on the detectives that ADA McCoy does on the lawyer side, though. I’m not sure yet if it’s a difference in the writing, the characters, or the actors. In any case, Law & Order is as strong as ever in its 19th season, still giving us compelling characters and exciting cases to work through each week.

Watch NBC, starting at 9/8c for Life, followed by Law & Order.

Watch ABC, starting at 9/8c for Lost, followed by Life on Mars.

Or start recording…

Argh. I adore Sam Waterston, I really do. His stint as ADA Jack McCoy on NBCs Law & Order has been amazing, and he was always a large part of why we tuned in. Waterston’s portrayal of McCoy’s dogged determination, willfulness, and snarkiness was pitch perfect and we the viewers enjoyed watching him get the bad guys week after week.

Now that he’s moved up to DA, they’ve brought in Linus Roache as Michael Cutter to fill his old slot. I adore Linus Roache. He’s a great actor, he’s great with the snark, and he’s handsome to boot. The problem is, each episode is a constant tug of war between Waterston and McCoy for screen time. Previous DAs were involved here and there in cases, offering sage advice or political maneuvering. But they seem to be trying too hard to maintain Waterston’s star status, inserting him into the plot much too often, and taking the bite away from Cutter.

Watch Roache in action:

Roache and Waterston play well off of each other, and I don’t mind the bit of rivalry they have going. I think I’d just rather it was one way or the other. I’d have been happier if Cutter had come on in the assistant position to McCoy and have McCoy grooming him for the ADA spot. That would have offered a different twist to the typical male ADA/sexy female assistant formula Law & Order has had going for so long. But Waterston’s age is a factor (as is Roache’s), and it was getting to the point where McCoy really did need to advance. And that’s fine, but he unfortunately needs to slip into the background more often and let Cutter take the lead.

Law & Order needs a hero ADA, someone we can get behind. But if we always feel like Cutter is being spoon fed by McCoy, and McCoy gets all the good ideas, then McCoy is still the hero–but he isn’t the one the majority of the story is following. I think it just confuses the arc of the plots. It also seems like Waterston is overacting the bits that he’s on, trying to make them larger than they are, and that makes it more jarring to me, too. It’s like the seams are showing on the plot.

I still enjoy Law & Order, but I feel like it’s one step shy of where it could be. The show runners went to the trouble of getting a fine actor like Roache…so they should do something with him. Let him have the run of the second half of the show, as he should, without having to check in with McCoy every five minutes.

Law & Order airs on NBC Wedneday nights, 10/9c.

Life was obviously written from/for the male viewpoint this week. The story centered around a murdered “Badge Bunny”–one of a group of women who are obsessed with policemen and pretty much act as their geisha girls. Sensational enough, but then they have to have Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) “interviewing” them by having them all over to his house to make out with him and swim naked in his pool. Yeah, okay. I realize they painted him as something of a womanizer last year, but the whole scenario just rang false. The best part of the episode was watching Detective Reese (Sarah Shahi) seethe every time she came near this vapid pack of police fangirls. You could just feel the disgust rolling off of her. She at least gave us the female point of view we could identify with, amidst a man’s fantasy playground episode.

As for Law & Order, I’ve been meaning to give a shout-out to one of the newer cast members, Linus Roache. A talented Brit, I’ve been longing to see more of him ever since his compelling turn in Chronicles of Riddick. He has a great face, with a sort of permanent melancholy/world weariness that he’s able to project, and large soulful eyes. It was a delight to discover that he’d be appearing on my TV screen every week. As you’ll see in the interview below, he knows well the challenges of stepping into Sam Waterston’s shoes:

The problem seems to be that the show writers aren’t entirely sure what to do with his character Michael Cutter, as opposed to Jack McCoy (Waterston). I was very excited when he was first introduced and Cutter had a bit of a fan worship going for McCoy, but seemed to have less of that cutthroat edge McCoy is famous for. I liked that about him, that he was maybe going to have some lines he wouldn’t cross and it would set up a good balance between he and McCoy. Then a few episodes in, they decided he was going to be more fanatical than McCoy and take more risks. The writers seemed to be flipping their characters, pushing McCoy into the more political role and making Cutter the wild card. Perhaps the showrunnerss felt that viewers were used to a get-the-win-at-all-costs ADA and needed Cutter to be that guy.

Certainly, as Roache suggests, McCoy was a non-political guy who ended up in a position he said he’d never be in. We expect his character to change, so it’s not totally off the mark that he’d consider taking the PR route occasionally. I just think it would have been nice to have Cutter carve out his own niche, and while he has his moments, sometimes it feels like he’s being constantly overshadowed. Waterston’s such a Law & Order fixture that I feel like he’s in the episodes a lot more than previous DAs, and Roache doesn’t get as much of a chance to take center stage. I also would have appreciated a more sensitive edge, which Roache is so good at, rather than the cooler angle they started going for.

Law & Order definitely needed a shake-up, and with the four newest castmembers they’ve managed to create a different dynamic. The Law & Order formula is still intact, but we’ve got some new personalities to work out and explore. That helps make the show worth tuning in for.

Watch Life and Law & Order on Wednesdays on NBC, starting at 9pm Eastern/8pm Central.