TV nobody talks about ... for a reason
March tradition: Put duller shows on
Out with the old TV and in with the old TV. It’s March, after all, and despite so much profound change in televised content, this is still the month when networks begin to quietly unload whatever’s left of the current season. Most of it is that underwhelming yet serviceable kind of TV nobody ever talks about.
CBS’ exceedingly bland Instinct (premièred Sunday) is exactly the sort of show to not talk about, the perfect expression of formulaic, Marchlike mediocrity. Drawn from a James Patterson novel, it could just as easily be titled Don’t You Think Alan Cumming Should Have a Crime Drama on CBS?
Whether you do or don’t, he now does. Cumming stars here as Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a professor who wrote a bestselling guide to psychopathic behaviour.
When NYPD homicide detective Lizzie Needham ( Bojana Novakovic) shows up to one of his classes seeking his expertise for a current case, Reinhart demurs, saying he hasn’t got time to work with cops. Fine, Needham says, but she wants to know: How did he know that she’s a cop before she told him?
“Oh, come on,” he snaps. “The ‘ I- don’t- care- how- Il ook’ pantsuit, the humdrum flats, the almost total absence of makeup. And the slight dip in the your posture favouring your right side, probably due to the Sig P226 holster (on) your hip.”
Though the line is meant to impress upon viewers that Reinhart has superior powers of observation, it also shows how Instinct will be leaning heavily on Cumming’s powers of gay- tinged snark. There’s no need to keep viewers guessing anymore, even among CBS’ doddering demo: Cumming is gay in real life and so is his character.
Meanwhile, the professor’s book editor ( Whoopi G oldberg , occasionally) doesn’t like his new manuscript. It’s too theoretical, she whines — too academic. It needs more action, more blood. What it really needs is the kind of anecdotal stuff the professor can glean if he teams up with the NYPD.
The show not as complicated as it sounds; in fact, it’s unabashedly rote, following CBS’ house style to the letter, in which a pair of mismatched crime solvers lightly bicker and bumble their way to the arrest of a suspect. Attempts to mask Instinct’s shortcomings with Cumming’s dapper, devilish manner don’t help all that much.
ABC reveals a similar case of the March doldrums with two tepid new dramas from the factory known as Shondaland — the production company overseen by hitmaker Shonda Rhimes.
Rhimes recently signed a big deal with Netflix, which is rapidly on its way to throwing more TV spaghetti noodles against the wall than all three networks combined. That move might or might not be a good thing. Shondaland’s prowess certainly shows some fatigue in For the People, a legal drama that premièred on March 13, and in Station 19, a firefighter drama that premières next Thursday (March 22).
In creator ( and Scandal writer) Paul William Davies’ For the People, a group of eager young attorneys begin their first day at U. S. District Court in Manhattan, where half of them have been chosen to work as prosecutors and half to work as public defenders. These newbies are the cream of the crop, including BFFs Sandra Bell ( Girlboss’s Britt Robertson) and Allison Adams ( The Leftovers’s” Jasmin Savoy Brown), who work together as public defenders under the watchful eye of their boss, Jill Carlan (Hope Davis), who constantly reminds her team public defenders seldom see a win for their clients. Instead, they’re encouraged to bring back small victories in the form of plea deals and reduced sentences. For the People starts from the idea prosecutors aren’t as coldhearted as they seem, nor are public defenders as noble.
But what’s really interesting about the show is, well, nothing much. What’s mildly intriguing, at least in the first few episodes, is the chance to see a Shondaland series in its nascent moments of restraint, when the dialogue and plot still have a chance of resonating with reality.
Things are noticeably hotter, heavier and more Shonda- esque on Station 19, a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff about a station- house of exceptionally busy fire and rescue workers in Seattle.
Jaina Lee Ortiz ( Rosewood) stars as Andy Herrera, a committed firefighter who seems not at all committed to Jack Gibson (Friday Night Lights’s Grey Damon), a colleague who wants to marry her. One problem with that plan is that Andy’s secret affair with a police officer (Alberto Frezza) who was once her high school boyfriend.
Station 19’s captain ( Miguel Sandoval), who is also Andy’s father and mentor, is injured in the line of duty. He decides to make Andy and Jack co- captains in his stead, to the skepticism of the entire firehouse. On that note, viewers should feel much more comfortable on this saucier side of Shondaland, where workplace sex and relationships continue unabated by either humanresources departments or social-awareness movements.
The strongest feeling from these shows is a stultifying sense of been- there, donethat. In fact, that’s a defining characteristic of TV dramas so far in 2018. As quantity continues to squash quality, it’s starting to feel like March all year l ong. If Rhimes wants to make a meaningful impact at Netflix, it might be wise to slow down the conveyor belt.
UNLOAD WHATEVER’S LEFT OF THE CURRENT SEASON.