cliffnotes on 3 more pilots

Undercovers: I’m a little disappointed in one of my heroes, J.J. Abrams. I expect either high tech, amazing levels, great depth of character and/or humongous twists and turns. But this show, as sweet as it is, tries to be a lot of things all at once and kind of comes up short. I am glad we are seeing more diversity in prime time, but that in itself is not a hook. This is “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” but without the conflict of them being against each other. In fact, there’s little conflict at all. And the spy stuff is pretty basic. It’s a little slick, but it feels like a CSI type show was watered down for NBC. The married couple’s sweet, hot and has some nice banter but it’s just not enough. I’m feeling a little “Lost” here. I believe I stated my worries and while this show is sweet, cute and a bit slick, I don’t think I’ll stay tuned. I give it a B-.

The Event: Before, during and after watching this pilot, I kept having one thought in my head: “They cancelled Flashforward but put this on?” I thought Flashforward was cancelled because the networks didn’t want to pay a huge amount of money for a huge puzzle/event type of show. I was already into the characters, plots and cool premise of Flashforward. Now I have new people to get used to and watch another show throw a lot of high tech puzzle pieces into my head that I had to balance. I did it with “Lost” because the characters and storytelling was so rich. The Event feels like Flashforward and it also feels like V. It’s fun, I’ll try it again because it does set up mysteries and I want to unravel them. But for now, I liked Flashforward more. I give The Event a B+.

Sh-t My Dad Says: Oh I wanted to hate this. I wanted to know that you can’t make a show from a Twitter feed. I wondered how a string of foul thoughts could make for an actual show. Then I saw Mutchnik & Kohan, the creators of “Will & Grace” and I knew I was in trouble. While I can’t quite say I get the exact different point of view of William Shatner’s character and grumpy dad + out of work son living together is yet another incarnation of the “Odd Couple”, it had a bit of heart and a lot of good zingers. I’ll try it again and see how it makes its mark. I give it a B+.