“Work It” is a new “high concept” situation comedy from ABC. “High concept” means the opposite of what it sounds like. It’s not an idea that is complex or high brow. Rather, it describes a concept that can be easily and appealingly communicated in a few words or one sentence. The high concept for “Work It” would be something like: “Two unemployed men dress as women to find jobs.” It’s a potentially funny premise that was successful (in a slightly different version) for Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari on “Bosom Buddies” from 1980-1982. Three decades later men dressing as women is still high concept but “Work It” is not making it work.

Lee Standish (Ben Koldyke), a former top salesman has been unemployed for a year. After he overhears that a pharmaceutical company is hiring female sales staff, he impersonates a woman and is hired when he shows impressive knowledge of the company’s products. His best friend Angel Ortiz (Amaury Nolasco) also gets a job at the company. But Lee is a guy’s guy which means that he and his friends make lame jokes about women and the chore of having to have sex that involves “cuddling” and “listening.” When he wants to celebrate his new job he offers to take his wife to the local bar to have a beer with his friends. She says no and he announces that he’ll wake her for sex when he gets home. So Lee is insensitive and clueless. This set-up is deliberate because Lee and Angel, now forced to live their work lives as women, will learn things to help them be better men.

I might be able to get through the silly weekly gender lesson if “Work It” moved past predictable jokes and seen it all before characterizations of women. Then again, probably not because “Work It” is not fun or funny. In the Pilot, Lee has lunch with his female colleagues and whips out a giant sandwich. Seeing his co-workers horrified expressions, he throws the sandwich away but not before removing once lettuce leaf and happily devouring it. Get it? Women don’t eat! The characterizations of Lee’s colleagues are equally unoriginal. They include a blonde, flighty woman who (surprise!) likes to party, a socially awkward woman who is needy and insecure and an icy, ambitious “mean girl.” There’s also a montage of Lee trying on his wife’s clothes, make-up and shoes and figuring out what to do with his man parts. A visit to a make-up counter and an ace bandage solve his problems.

“Work It” undoubtedly sees itself as a timely and humorous commentary on the current economic climate. Times are tough. Jobs are scarce. What if you had to dress as the opposite sex to find a job? This is Lee and Angel’s dilemma and it’s not an uninteresting question but if the show wants viewers to care about and laugh at the answer it needs to give it without recycling sexist comedy.

Technorati Tags: abc, drag, work it

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When you write about television, the end of the year means looking back and yes, making “best of” and “worst of” lists. This year had some big highs: “Game of Thrones,” Bryan Cranston’s outstanding performance as Walter White on “Breaking Bad” (more on that next week), any scene on “Good Wife” featuring Eli Gold, the end (finally!) of Kate Gosselin’s fifteen minutes of fame and some bigger lows: Tim Allen’s disappointing return to series TV, the entire last season of “Entourage,” killing off TV’s best husband on “The Big C” (I’m still trying to forgive you Showtime).

But for part one of this year’s list, I want to focus on characters that drove me crazy because frankly, I need to vent. This is not a list of “love to hate them” characters like the delightfully vicious Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe) on “Revenge.” This is a catalog of the characters that I really, actually hate. The ones who annoy me to the point that upon seeing them in a scene, I swear that I will abandon the show forever.

Declan Porter (Connor Paolo), “Revenge.” Where do I start? Maybe with the cliché chip on the shoulder/son of a regular guy/dating a rich girl thing. In the over the top, bubbly Dom Perignon world that is “Revenge,” Declan is skim milk. Here’s hoping season two finds him leaving to seek his fortune. I’d also accept him stealing his brother’s boat and sailing away to wherever it is that bad TV characters go never to be heard from again.

The tension on “The X-Factor.” Okay, I know this is a reality show and the bickering between Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid and Nicole Scherzinger wasn’t technically a character but it might as well have been for as much as it appeared at the judges’ table. Their criticism turned into an ego contest and a not so subtle attempt to create drama. Cowell has made a career out of being prickly but the snide comments and eye-rolling between him and Reid and Scherzinger was a distraction solved only by the DVR’s fast forward button.

Dr. Max Bergman (Masi Oka), “Hawaii Five-O.” This character is just puzzling. Here’s my problem. Max. Speaks. Like. This. All. The. Time. His clipped pronunciation with varying degrees of slowing down and speeding up words is meant to be, um, fun? If an actor is going to impersonate the now routine eccentric coroner character, please see Ducky on “NCIS.” Otherwise, Please. Stop. Now.

The ex-husbands on “I Hate My Teenage Daughter.” This one is simple. They enter a scene, drop a one-liner and exit. The one liners are not funny.

Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride), “The Walking Dead.” Sophia’s mom did chores (chores!) and got weepy while other characters risked their lives to search for her young daughter in a world of killer zombies. I was rooting for the undead. Seriously.

Technorati Tags: hawaii five o, revenge, walking dead

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I like reality shows that feature creative people competing against one another. It doesn’t matter if it’s chefs, fashion designers, or interior decorators. I’m always impressed when an amateur cook can take a protein and a starch and turn it into a stunning meal. I love when a decorator creates a warm room from an empty space and a designer cuts and sews a few meters of fabric into an actual piece of clothing. Because this is reality TV, all these transformations have to happen in a short amount of time so the idea that they happen at all always feels a little magical.

Creative thinking is an interior process but what reality shows that feature creative industries do is include the viewer in the action of imagining. This demystifies artistic fields. After witnessing the process of making fabric or food or a space come to life, the transformation, while still impressive, is less mysterious and therefore less foreign to our life experience. The one area where this may not be the case is art. For many people, contemporary and abstract art is inaccessible. Its often conceptual nature is sometimes difficult to embrace. “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” works hard to change this.

Now in its second season, the series is a competition among artists who work in different mediums. Their challenges have included depicting the idea of motion, turning kitsch objects into high value art, creating a piece based on a newspaper headline and transforming parts of a disassembled Fiat into something worth hanging in a gallery space. Similar to “Project Runway,” the series has a mentor who makes a studio visit to assess the artists’ work and expert judges.

The series also has its share of reality TV drama. There have been a few tears and lots of anxiety about finding a creative spark. Many of the contestants have interesting back stories that are shared through family photo montages. The stories are a deliberate and successful way to personalize the contestants, particularly those who come too close to the cliché of the tortured artist. When one starts to potentially lose the audience with her fascination with dark objects, she tells the story of getting in a car accident and what it has meant for her life and work. The story not only makes her relatable but gives her projects a new and perhaps more understandable dimension.

The show’s combination of imagination and reality makes it fun to watch. The judges don’t give critiques that require an art degree to understand while the host is as know for her quirky fashion choices as she is for her signature send-off line: “Your work of art didn’t work for us.” What does work for us as an audience is the series’ ability to bring art to the masses while including the masses in the process of creation and evaluation.

Technorati Tags: art, artist, great, work

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One of the most powerful effects of media and television in particular, is its contribution to socialization processes. We become accustomed to characters when we see them over and over on TV and they enter our consciousness in specific ways. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the attacks of September 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, TV’s Muslims have more often than not entered our consciousness as enemies of the West. On series television, there are very few representations of Muslim characters that don’t have sinister intentions or aren’t caught up in terrorist plots. On shows including “24,” “NCIS” and “Sleeper Cell,” Muslim characters are more likely to commit an act of violence while Islam is often depicted as a challenge to Western values and a threat to the West’s economic and political interests. “All American Muslim,” a new reality show on TLC, offers its own challenge by trying to give television viewers a new perspective.

Featuring five families living in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the most concentrated community of Arabs outside the Middle East, “All American Muslim” wants to shift the distorted television representations of Muslim men and women. The participants include a football coach, a deputy sheriff, an event planner and a respiratory therapist. Footage of their lives is cut with a group discussion where several of the show’s participants give opinions on the episode’s themes. They form a sort of panel on issues ranging from adoption to drinking. These talks are meant to inform viewers on the finer points of Islam but also to invoke a sense of community diversity since the participants don’t always agree.

However, the show’s primary message, implicit in its title, is to demonstrate how the Muslim families of Dearborn, Michigan are the same as any other family living in America. Where the show is weakest is when it relies on symbols to relay its message. The football coach, the ambitious businesswoman and the woman who loves country music are depicted as examples of what it means to be “all-American” simply by their occupations and interests.

For the series to meet its goal of changing perceptions, it needs to allow these participants to move past symbolic patriotism and “I’m just like you because I love my family” testimonials. Sophisticated viewers interested in learning more about Islam and Muslim life will be disappointed with such simplistic representations. Where the show is strongest is when it recognizes that the idea of being “all-American” is an elusive one and what unites us is the small, shared struggles. In the first few episodes, it introduces one woman’s battle with infertility, generational differences between a daughter and her mother, the fight to be treated equally in business and the effort to fit into a family with traditions unlike your own. If it continues to elaborate on these issues, “All American Muslim” has a good opportunity to effect change.

Technorati Tags: all american muslim, islam, tlc

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After a recent overseas trip, the 18 hour time difference meant that while most of you were probably sleeping I was awake watching infomercials on how to achieve a super model’s complexion and tone my abs with a series of bands and pulleys. I knew I was in trouble when I started to believe that I too could have Alyssa Milano hair if only I called and ordered the haircare system she was touting. So in an effort to stop being jet lag crazy and save myself money, I turned to the network websites where I hoped that watching a prime time repeat or two or six would put me to sleep. I settled into ABC’s “Boston Med,” a reality show that features the doctors and patients of three Boston area hospitals and the medical conditions that impact their lives. In my sleep deprived state I randomly chose an episode that I soon realized was about a face transplant. (Word of advice: Do not watch real medical procedures that involve removing faces as a sleep aide). While the episode didn’t help my insomnia, it did remind me that reality television has the potential to inspire.

I’m pretty sure most of you would agree that reality TV is rarely an inspiring experience. Sure, it can teach us things like avoiding the Jersey Shore and women who call themselves “real housewives”. It’s certainly entertaining. Who doesn’t like to watch a house or island full of competitive people play games where they scribble answers on index cards or figure out how to untie endless knots? We might even pick up new skills from our reality TV viewing—learning to fillet a whole salmon, managing a marketing campaign or making a shelter out of branches and leaves when stranded in a forest. But when was the last time a reality show made you think: I am proud to be part of this viewing experience?

What I took away from my late night viewing of doctors, nurses, patients and families is that reality television can defy belief and amaze us in ways that don’t involve shamelessness and stupidity. The journey of the face transplant patient, the donor’s family and the doctors and nurses involved in the life-altering procedure was filled with profound sadness, courage, skill and hope. The real doctors were more captivating than most actors who earnestly yell out medical phrases in a tense scene on “Grey’s Anatomy.” The families were more admirable and dignified than most reality TV participants who cry over a heartbreak or passionately argue why they shouldn’t be fired. The face transplant episode of “Boston Med” not only reminds us of the outstanding things of which we are capable but the level of storytelling that reality television is able to reach when it chooses. During the transplant, a nurse was watching from an outer room. She turns to her colleague and says: “I’m honored to be a part of this.” I thought: I’m honored to watch it.

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Re: The power of the gown.

Kim Kardashian’s recent divorce announcement after her 72 day marriage was an entertainment news bonanza. CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight” spent a long segment searching for “klues,” (Yes, they spelled it with a “k”) that the marriage was doomed before it began by going over scenes from E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” The host argued that surely it was a sign when Kim and soon to be ex-husband Kris Humphries fought about changing her name, not to mention the time that sister Khloe warned her the relationship was moving too fast. I guess Kim missed the “klues.”

No matter what you think of the televised Kardashian wedding spectacular and its equally spectacular crash and burn, the media coverage it generated benefited from the powerful idea that a wedding is one day where a woman’s fantasies and dreams come true. This dream has a big platform in reality television shows that feature wedding planners, lavish weddings, budget weddings, weddings planned by grooms and most importantly, wedding dresses.

While the reception space, flowers and food are all part of the dream, the wedding dress is conceptualized as a once in a lifetime opportunity for a woman to be the absolute center of attention. For some, the fantasy dress is all about sequins or lace or chiffon. For the women on TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress,” it’s all about buying a gown from Kleinfeld’s, a New York based bridal boutique.

“Say Yes to the Dress” follows brides to be through their Kleinfeld’s dress fittings. The behind the scenes style of the series, literally being given access to the dressing room of a bride, gives it voyeuristic appeal but why watch someone you don’t know try on wedding dresses? Part of the fun is the drama created by the personalities of the brides. There are demanding, know it all ones who swat away dresses like flies and flighty, indecisive ones who fear they may never, ever find their dream dress. The women come in all shapes and sizes and choose gowns that hug every curve or resemble floating cream puffs. Some spend thousands. Others spend tens of thousands. Judging the women’s choices is a big part of the viewing experience. There are plenty of: “What is she thinking?” and “That dress costs how much?” moments.

The show’s true appeal however, lies in the transformative power of the gown. There’s no makeover element so the reveal is all about the power the women on the show and the viewer give to the white dress. The client enters the dressing room as a regular woman but exits it as BRIDE. No flowers, cake or groom required. For that moment it’s all about her and whether we approve of her dress choice or not, we celebrate along with her. In that hour we take part in the fantasy and sometimes, the television version is better than real life. Just ask Kim.

Technorati Tags: humphries, kardashian, kleinfelds

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Re: It’s the thought that counts.

Most medical shows are all about doctor drama. Sure, there are the quirky patients who provide comic relief and the brain tumor/high-risk pregnancy/child with cancer patients who pack an emotional punch. But mostly, series including “House,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice,” “Hart of Dixie,” “Nurse Jackie” and “Royal Pains” focus on relationships between doctors, nurses and patients. It’s a successful formula because it applies universal themes of life, death, love, hate, power and weakness to a profession we have all experienced, making it feel relatable. It’s television’s way of saying, “Doctors are people too.”

That’s not to say that television’s doctors are well-rounded people. They are often egotistical and narcissistic. Michael Holt, the latest addition to TV’s doctor roster, is no exception. Played by Patrick Wilson, Holt is a talented and successful surgeon who treats wealthy clients in his privately owned medical facility. He is focused, ambitious and direct. His suits are beautifully tailored, his apartment is tastefully modern, he drinks a health shake every morning — handed to him by his efficient personal assistant Rita (Margo Martindale) as soon as he steps off the elevator to his office. Holt is a typical over-achieving doctor character. Then he has dinner with his ex-wife Anna, who happens to be dead.

Anna (Jennifer Ehle) dies when she gets hit by a car, a fact Holt learns when he calls her office the day after their dinner. Her ghostly introduction is meant to play on the idea of a man who is “gifted” in more ways than being a skillful surgeon but all it really does is add a distracting gimmick to a predictable medical drama. Anna’s appearances lead Holt to get involved with the low-income family clinic she ran before her death. These relationships, unsurprisingly, make him slowly start to question his life of detached privilege. He does his best to resist helping but somehow manages to save a disadvantaged child or working class patient with no insurance while also performing amazing surgical feats on his primary clients. The only drama is guessing how many episodes it will take before he fails to maintain the balance and a patient suffers for it.

While there is nothing wrong with injecting a unique angle into a familiar genre, it needs to serve the story in a creative and satisfying way. “House” does this brilliantly with its science fiction take on medical cases but more importantly, with a drug addicted, mostly unsympathetic main character. “Hart of Dixie” and “Royal Pains” are fish out of water stories. “Grey’s Anatomy” is basically a romance novel set in a hospital. Each show adds a small twist that mostly enhances rather than distracts from its primary patient/doctor narrative. Despite the possibilities that a ghost might bring to a story, in the case of “A Gifted Man,” it’s not a gift to see dead people.

Technorati Tags: a gifted man, patrick wilson

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Re: “Last Man Standing”

In “Home Improvement,” Tim Allen played a father of three boys and the host of a DIY show. He was a guys’ guy whose love of working on cars and riding his lawnmower was underscored by his signature grunt–a not so subtle sign of his approval of all things masculine. In “Last Man Standing,” Allen treads familiar territory playing Mike, father of three girls and a catalog photographer for an outdoor lifestyle business. When his boss decides to sideline the catalog in favor of the company’s online presence, Mike is put in charge of increasing web sales. He starts an online video segment where his angry rants bemoaning the loss of tough, rugged, ‘real’ men become an internet sensation. Mike is, you guessed it, a man’s man.

The central premise is that in his dealings with his family and the wider world, Mike is comically under siege in a society that no longer shares his values. The trick to making this type of character work is not to shape them as one-dimensional cliches who rattle off predictable jokes. Unfortunately, the show does a poor job of avoiding these pitfalls.

How do we know Mike is manly? Because in the opening scene of the pilot, he returns home from a trip to Alaska with his version of dinner-a giant salmon fresh from the catch-which he dumps onto his family’s kitchen table, right on top of the welcome home poster his daughters are making for him.

In case we missed this sign of Mike’s masculinity, the writers give us a few other chances. Mike is easily distracted when the words bacon and sausage are used in conversation. He refuses to leave his grandson at preschool after the director tells him that one of the kids has two dads who are making flax and pumpkin muffins and later, all the children will be building a mosque out of pillows. He hates that his middle daughter has a boyfriend named Travis but approves that one of his young employees is named Kyle because Kyle with a “K” kicks butt. When Kyle tells him that his name comes from his mother’s maiden name, Mike throws up his hands at the hopeless state of today’s male. In the second episode, he scoffs at the family’s decision to baby proof the house, expressing his belief that children learn from getting bruises and scar tissue.

It’s a credit to Allen’s comic timing that he survives the stark limitations of this disappointing series. The not so subtle jokes about homosexuals and immigrants in the first two episodes are not just unfunny but offensive. Creating a situation comedy around a character who feels he is a dying breed has potential but only when the character has depth. In the pilot, Mike asks: “What happened to men?” If this show is providing the answer, it’s a dismal one.

Technorati Tags: last man standing, tim allen

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Re: Adding (a little) something new to situation comedy

Ever since “Friends” set a high standard for situation comedies featuring the ’singles as dysfunctional family’ concept, new additions to the formula (see: “How I Met Your Mother” and “Big Bang Theory”) have tried with varying degrees of success to meet that benchmark. How “New Girl” fits into the legacy established by “Friends” will depend upon how much viewers like the character of Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel).

Jess’ off-beat personality is established the minute we meet her in the pilot episode. Deciding to spice up her relationship, she returns home early from a business trip and surprises her boyfriend with an impromptu striptease. It’s a cute and clumsy attempt as she tries to sing a sexy song and ends up knocking over a plant. The woman that her boyfriend is sleeping with pops out of the bedroom just as she unveils herself. Heartbroken, Jess answers an ad seeking a roommate and moves in with single guys Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and Winston (Lamorne Morris replacing Damon Wayans, Jr. as Coach).

Jess spends her first week in her new apartment on the couch crying over her breakup and watching “Dirty Dancing.” The guys decide that the best way to get their sofa back (and to stop her singing the movie’s theme song) is to help her find a date. At the bar where Nick works, she approaches one guy with a cringe-worthy “Hey Sailor” line but eventually sets up a dinner with one of Schmidt’s friends. Later, her best friend CeCe (Hannah Simone) who is a model, literally takes the sexy black dress off her back for Jess to wear on her date. She shows it to the guys who appreciatively ooh and aah and then she bursts into a series of strange dance moves.

The male characters in “New Girl” don’t offer anything unique to the format but they have chemistry. Nick is sweet but directionless, Schmidt is a delusional Casanova and Winston masks his insecurity with a macho swagger. Their humor doesn’t always work but when it hits the mark, it can be laugh out loud funny. A scene in the pilot where Schmidt, in front of CeCe, does a random monologue on drinking tea made me laugh every time I watched it.

Jess is not a “new girl” in terms of how she will change. Rather, it is her unselfconscious approach to life and relationships that will contribute something new to her roommates’ lives. For example, in the first episode, she teaches Nick a valuable lesson about self-respect. While the dysfunctional family dynamics are expected, what “New Girl” brings to the genre is a refreshing characterization of a single woman. You may or may not like Jess’ goofiness but what is very likable about this series is the idea that a woman can be comfortable with herself.

Technorati Tags: new girl, zooey deschanel

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Re: Recreating the romance of the jet age.

There are two things that are almost guaranteed when I’m on a flight: 1) A fellow passenger will block the aisle trying to shove a ‘how is that regulation size?’ carry-on in an overhead compartment. 2) It will feel like I have aged an entire year before the sea of people ahead of me exit the aircraft. On a recent trip, I watched a flight attendant watch a man who was having a difficult time fitting his luggage into its assigned space. She was standing next to him. She looked bored and a little sleepy and did not at any time during the struggle offer her assistance. Did I mention she was standing next to him?

I thought of these travel experiences as I watched the pilot episode of ABC’s new period drama “Pan Am.” Set in the days when air travel was something people dressed up for, the series focuses on a group of Pan Am employees who proudly represent the jet age. The glamorous flight attendants wear white gloves and jaunty blue hats. They are welcoming, helpful and warm. Since this is air travel, 1960’s style, we learn that they are all under 30, lose their jobs once they get married, have to participate in weigh-ins and will be grounded if they fail to wear a girdle. In one scene, they walk or rather, strut through the terminal like supermodels. The camera then pans to a little girl staring at these beautiful, confident women. The scene is meant to underscore an earlier point made by the co-pilot who says that these women are a “new breed” who are “taking flight.” It’s not a subtle point but the characters, particularly Maggie, played by Christina Ricci at her wry and witty best, are both likeable and relatable.

The flight attendants’ passion for their jobs in “Pan Am” is matched by the enthusiasm of the show’s pilots. The young captain is in love with the plane as much as he is with saying : “This is your captain speaking.” He’s also in love with flight attendant Bridget, (Annabelle Wallis) whose mysterious failure to appear for her shift sets the stage for the series’ major plot.

“Pan Am” tries to balance its 1960’s nostalgia with 1960’s cold war intrigue but again, the effort isn’t subtle. A flashback scene where the crew is involved in the evacuation of Cuban exiles feels like the writers are shouting: “Hey! See the connection here? Air travel is historically important!” Still, the nostalgia of actual “friendly skies” helped along by great costumes and sets will only take the drama so far so it needs this larger context. Like all good stories, it also needs a crisis. The first episode delivers this but it remains to be seen whether the female characters will develop enough psychological complexity to make them more than beautiful women seeking adventure.

Technorati Tags: christina ricci, pan am

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