When I first read the description for Homecoming (on Amazon), I wasn’t sold. A drama about a case worker helping veterans readjust to home life. There weren’t a lot of details in what I saw, and I couldn’t see where the show could go…they can beef up the honour, sure, but what kind of drama could they have that people would actually want to watch? Because PTSD flashbacks aren’t exactly “must see” TV week-in and week-out. Maybe it could take a Touched-by-an-Angel, wholesome viewing storyline, but even that would seem false if everybody’s life is suddenly better in 60 minutes. It also didn’t seem gritty enough for Amazon.

Imagine my surprise to watch the first episode and to find out the main star is, wait for it, Julia Roberts. I mean, holy crap on a stick. That is a BIG get for a show. And on that basis alone, I’d be willing to upgrade it from CANCELLATION to RENEWAL. Everybody wants to work with Julia Roberts.

But I watched the premiere / first episode called “Mandatory” and I won’t be watching anymore. I have almost no idea what the show’s about, and while I don’t mind a “slow to build” storyline, this one is almost glacial.

As near as I can figure out, Julia plays an administrator of a mental health facility for returning soldiers. She has been hired as the “point person” to run the facility, but the guy behind her is a used car salesman trying to do business with the Department of Defense. At first, she just seems inept, new to the job, not really sure of herself. She walks the first patient through “intake”, notes that he’s there voluntarily, and that there are really only three mandatory elements to the “process” — he eats his meals there, he attends some workshops, and he has regular check-in sessions with her. It isn’t clear if she has a therapeutic background, but she does seem to legitimately care about trying to help them. Meanwhile, the guy running the business side is basically flying by the seat of his pants to get everything up and running, using a converted office building, etc., and oh, by the way, did he remember to ask her to do background checks on the food services people? The businessman/owner is really anxious about an upcoming presentation to DOD, and that they will “have the data” that she will gather from the soldiers.

The soldiers are in rough shape, very much the PTSD issues you would expect, along with general transition issues. But that isn’t enough to hold attention, as I mentioned, so there’s a time jump…it is four years later, she’s working as a waitress, and an auditor has come to investigate allegations that the program didn’t run smoothly, which makes her VERY nervous and defensive.

Obviously something happened, and with some of the content of one of the sessions with the lead patient, you could see how it could have been something severe. These soldiers are scary dudes with issues and she’s poking around in their heads.

But it’s not enough. I don’t care about Julia (gasp!) or her character, there’s just not enough there to see why I would care. She was a doctor, now she’s a waitress, she was trying to help, now she doesn’t want to…it’s not enough. I didn’t see enough of any of the patients or the businessman or anyone else either.

Maybe there’s a fabulous mystery to unravel, but I’ll never know. I’m out.

ABC has their new show called “The Rookie” and I was prepared to love this show based on the little I knew about it. A 40 year old hero from a bank robbery decides to become a cop and join the LAPD. Hence he is their oldest rookie. It doesn’t scream hit to me, but with Nathan Filion aka Rick Castle playing the lead, I was in like Flynn to give it a shot.

The show unrolls, at first, exactly like I thought it would. There’s an opening “event”, in this case a bank robbery at the bank where the main character, John Nolan, is putting his divorce decree in a safety deposit box. He’s a good guy, and the divorce was amicable — they even stayed together 2 extra years so their son could go off to college first. He’s just a little lost now, wondering who he is and what he wants to do with his life. As he’s exiting the bank, two bank robbers come in and start robbing the place. One assaults the bank manager, John’s friend, and John reacts, drawing the attention of one of the robbers. Just as the robber is about to see the bank manager hit a silent alarm, John distracts him to get his attention back on him, and in the process, gets pistol-whipped. Then John sees cops pull up across the road, and to distract the robber, he draws his attention again. Just as the robber is about to shoot him, the cops save the day. Fast forward nine months and Nolan is joining the LAPD as the oldest rookie.

At this point, the story could go a lot of different ways. First, it could be a comedy of errors and blunders as he stumbles through being a rookie. It could even be an actual comedy. But it’s not, it’s a drama.

Second, it could go with the very traditional “story of the week”, the tried and true formula of Castle, Blue Bloods, pretty much every other procedural out there. But he’s a rookie, not a detective. So, no.

Third, it could focus on him as he learns the job, totally about him being a surprise superstar. Nope, not the way they went.

Fourth, it could focus on him as he struggles to learn the job, a “lesson of the week” type approach. This is kind of the premise, but they threw in two twists I wasn’t expecting.

John isn’t the only rookie — there are three in total, John, Jackson, and Lucy. And they are all assigned training officers. Plus the TOs have a boss who hates John, and that boss has a boss who likes the idea of John’s potential positive press. And so it is a LOT like Rookie Blue from a few years ago. No Missy, but that’s a good thing in my books.

But what I wasn’t expecting was the extra support. That’s John plus seven other key regulars, and while I assume Nathan Filion pulled in some big money, it was the other cast members that I was surprised by in terms of their pedigree.

Okay, I’ll start with Nathan on Team 1. I like him a lot. He was great on Castle, loved the show. However, while I watched Firefly, I’m more enamoured with his short-lived show after Firefly — Drive. So I was going to give this one a good try, even if the pilot was slow. Nope, I liked it, we’re all good. His training officer, Talia Bishop, is played by Afton Williamson, and I have only seen her in guest star roles, none of her larger series roles. She’s good, appropriately tough, and sits well in the role as a strong training officer.

Team 2 is a combination of rookie Lucy Chen, played by Melissa O’Neil who I loved on Dark Matter, and training officer Tim Bradford, played by Eric Winter who is a bit hit and miss for me (okay on Mentalist, meh on Rosewood).

Team 3 is rookie Jackson West, a gung-ho, squared away, energetic rookie played by Titus Makin Jr. (a few guest star roles that I’ve seen, but nothing memorable) and training officer Angela Lopez, played by Alyssa Diaz (some guest star roles that I’ve seen, a bunch of others that I haven’t).

At this point, I was just happy to see Filion supported by O’Neil. Then we meet the boss of the TOs that hates John…Sgt Wade Grey, played by Richard T. Jones. Jones was one of the few highlights on Wisdom of the Crowd, and I liked him all the way back to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or even farther back to Judging Amy. He makes a great cop, so happy to have him. And since he’s set up as a source of conflict for John, he’ll be around regularly. Watching, waiting to pounce.

But he has a boss too. A Captain Zoe Andersen, played by Mercedes Mason. I’ve seen her around in shows — NCIS: LA, 666 Park Avenue, even Castle. And I always like seeing her. She doesn’t have a big part in the pilot, so hard to tell for the future, but I’ll count her as a plus.

Actually, I’m counting all of them as a plus. I thought it was going to be mostly just Nathan Filion, newbie. But the story was a bit deeper than I expected in the opening, albeit not very strongly written, but it’s got some potential meat lined up for future EPs. I’m in. My original prediction was RENEWAL, and I’m sticking with that prediction. And I’ll be watching.

I got turned around somehow on the show Legacies. Not completely, just a little. I assumed it was more Buffy-ish i.e. lots of mortals trying to figure supernatural stuff out that was happening around them. I didn’t realize it was going to be following a triple threat — part witch, part vampire, part werewolf. Or, as one character calls her, a unicorn.

Here’s the premise. There’s a Hogwart’s-like school, or Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Children-like, if you prefer, where witches, vampires and werewolves learn to control their darker sides so they can blend in with the human population without killing them all. A budding werewolf is welcomed to the school, and when the school tries to mesmer his friend to forget everything, it doesn’t work. And the story begins.

I got turned around somewhere, as I said, as I thought it would be more Buffy-ish, but I also worried it was going to be like The Vampire Diaries (its original source material). I had watched a couple of episodes, but I had trouble dealing with the semi-permanent teen angst in the episodes I saw. So I was surprised to see that it was more immature angst, easily dismissed in the cast. I didn’t hate it to be honest. It’s hard to know which characters are going to be big, but there’s a bit of a hint, and so I’ll focus on them.

Danielle Rose Russell is the triple hybrid lead, Hope, and she’s pretty compelling. I didn’t see her in The Originals but she is both bright and cheery, despite her tortured soul role, and she’s fun to watch. Aria Shahghasemi plays the unmesmered “human”, Landon, and outside of his small part in the TV series Unforgettable, there’s nothing I’ve seen him in. Yet he seems eminently familiar as a young, almost tortured artist who knows too much. Again, compelling to watch, but I’d like to know his story pretty fast, otherwise it will get old. Kaylee Bryant sparkles as daughter #1 of the headmaster, and while I haven’t seen her in anything before, she does a decent job of playing the broken-hearted witch. Daughter #2, played by Jenny Boyd, is a bit all over the map, and it’s hard to tell if she’s intentionally that way or just bad acting. Peyton Smith plays the new werewolf, but it is TOTALLY confusing as he seems totally okay knowing that he’s a werewolf (of only a month?) and that there are witches and vampires too, oh my. They are friends with a vampire kid named M.G., played by Quincy Fouse of Logan-fame. All of them are watchable, but only the lead and Kaylee really shine.

The only really experienced player in the group is the headmaster, played by Matt Davis. He played the same character (Alaric) on The Originals as well as the Vampire Diaries. I don’t remember him that well from the few episodes that I have seen, but at least he’s not into the angst-love-fest. And with so many EPs under his belt, it was obvious he was comfortable with his character.

I originally predicted RENEWAL and I’ll stick with that prediction.

Okay, I’ll accept that someone somewhere thinks Lena Dunham is a god. So I can see if she turns something in, a network might want to make a series with her.  Jennifer Garner is popular, has a bit of a Disney comedy vibe going; David Tennant is awesome; Juliette Lewis can be amazing. Throwing them together is star-studded gold, right?

Holy crap, this shows blow chunks on the only level it has which is annoying. When I read the premise, i.e. mid-life crisis, high-strung wife, camping trip with cast, I immediately thought, “Umm, how about about cancelled?”. Now that I’ve watched the premiere, and knowing it is on HBO, cancelled isn’t really a “thing” in their parlance (the whole series premieres at once in this case), but omg it’s bad.

Garner and Tennant play a married couple, and Garner is some sort of uber uptight alpha-organizer who has organized a trip for four couples to a camping ground in the middle of nowhere where the campground sets up the tents for them, provides an open-air cooking centre with water, etc., to facilitate meals, and gives them a wide-open setup.

I could see the premise playing out if the four couples like each other, but Garner gets along with basically none of them, and it’s impossible to see why any of them would show up. One of them is a good friend of Tennant’s, so at least that is something, but the other two are just plain odd to show up. Maybe there’s some hidden plot, but honestly, it makes no sense. They know what she’s like, and she’s both bitchy and anal.

If the couples were somehow likable, or at least some semblance of wanting to see each other, you might get it, but it’s just plain bizarre. And while there are lots of shows out there with hard-to-believe premises, this one is hard to overcome for a very simple reason — I can’t figure out why they came because I can’t figure out any reason to watch any of them. I didn’t smile once the whole episode, all I wanted to do was stop it and move on.

Maybe someone likes this crap, but it is the worst show I’ve seen in years.

I really wanted to hate the CW’s new show, “All-American”. First of all, it’s on the CW, which isn’t all bad of course, but it’s a show about teens, so you know they’re going to jack the teen drama/angst. Second, I’ve seen the show, haven’t I? It’s about high school football and it was called Friday Night Lights. I’m sure it already ran its run.

But I watched the first episode and it’s not bad. Loosely based on a true story of a kid from a rough neighbourhood getting recruited to play football for a high school in Beverly Hills. Sure, recruiting high school athletes is against the rules, but well, there are always ways around rules, right?

The first episode has all the expected clichés. Rough neighbourhood for his home life, complete with gang shootings. The star isn’t interested in leaving to play football in another high school because he’s living with his family, etc. But he gets in one little fight and his mother gets scared, and sends him to live with his uncle and auntie in Bel Air. Oh, wait, different show.

And when he gets to the new school, you can expect he’ll have trouble fitting in. Except he doesn’t. Everyone’s super nice at the start, all the hottest and most popular kids befriend him, WTF? Then a couple of the jocks get jealous of his confident ways and want him gone, there’s a mini-crisis, and he has to decide — does he want a better life or not? Cuz “THIS IS YOUR TICKET OUT!” (surprisingly not shouted in actual dialogue but equally thick and heavy as presented).

I know, it sounds horrible.

And yet.

Spencer is the main character, and is played by Daniel Ezra. He’s decent, has an intensity about him, and while I haven’t seen him in anything before, he has a good guy vibe to him. His mother, Grace, is played by Karimah Westbrook, and I’ve never seen her work before either. Her role isn’t huge, but she has a decent set of scenes with Spencer, and they mostly work. Not too emotional, not underplayed, just normal stuff. There’s a small plot problem from early scenes to the ending scene, but that’s not a big issue with her acting, just the plot. Jalyn Hall plays his little brother, and while he’s decent, he is WAY too serious in most of the scenes. I don’t know how old the character is supposed to be, but he comes off more like a streetwise 80-year-old. Spencer’s home world is fleshed out by his home girl, Bre-Z who is actively encouraging Spencer to take his shot. Never wavering, full support. Hard to get a handle on her character though.

The Beverly Hills world is a different story. Like with Friday Night Lights, the coach is all important, and he’s played by Taye Diggs. I watched the WHOLE EPISODE and never realized it was Diggs. He seems way smaller than I remember him, almost thin and petite in some of the scenes. Not like an ex-NFL player. I think I first saw him on Ally McBeal back in the day. Then next on West Wing with a small role as a Secret Service agent. I vaguely remember him making a small splash on Will and Grace, but don’t think I was watching it at the time. And then he was hosting Day Break, the TV series framed like Groundhog Day where each day he woke up to relive the day he was framed for the murder of a State Attorney. I loved the premise, and the show died. I saw that he was on Private Practice but had no interest in the show, and seeing him with his shirt off wasn’t a draw for me. 🙂 I was delighted to see him when he popped up on Rosewood a couple of years ago, but had trouble placing him. Now, here he is again, and I had no idea it was him. And a small kicker — I didn’t like him that much. I found him all over the place for the character, shifting from warm and wise to fast-talking and smooth to pretending to be harsh as coach. He isn’t horrible, but he’s not good either.

The family around him is almost bizarre. Michael Evans Behling is the QB, Jordan, and also the coach’s son. His acting is a bit wooden, but it’s more the writing of his character, hard to get a handle on him — good guy, bad guy, anyone’s guess. His wife, Laura, is played by Monet Mazur, and while I didn’t love her as Castle’s wife Gina a few years ago, she does alright here. Except she’s a hotshot attorney, perhaps a do-gooder, perhaps nice, perhaps a bimbo trophy wife, not entirely clear. Samantha Logan plays sister Olivia who actually has some presence and depth, and potentially is a love interest for Spencer (who, ** spoiler alert **, may or may not be her half-brother).

Yet Olivia is completely eclipsed by Greta Onieogou as popular rich girl Leila. Maybe nice, maybe scheming bitch, hard to say. She does set him up for a nasty trick, but claims afterwards she had no idea. I liked her back when she was on Heroes Reborn (as Aly) but her role then pales in comparison to her star-studded display here. She steals every scene she’s in, and it is easy to see why Spencer would notice her and not pay much attention to Olivia. Cody Christian plays jealous rival Asher, but if the first episode is anything to go on, he’s written as a complete lightweight. Rounding out the school crowd is Jordan Belfi as the principal. He has a pretty limited role in the first episode, more administrator angst to gently say “win or else” to the coach and “oh no, what have you done”, which is about the same role he played on Castle and The Mentalist.

And yet.

It works okay. Not “And the Emmy goes to…” quality but it doesn’t suck, like I expected it to do. I didn’t even mind the teen drama in the background. And the surprise is that I’m willing to try another episode. I might not stick around, but I’ll give it a go. And I’ll even upgrade it’s potential for the year from CANCELLED to RENEWED. It’s a bit of a flyer, more of a bubble show I would think, but willing to give it a shot.