Night 4: You Say You Want a Revolution...

Welcome to Week 2 my InZayne Asylum!  (Seriously people, I'm running dry on bad nicknames.  Help me please!)  So we have a solid kickoff to our week of premieres.  Tonight's shows are as follows:

Bones:  The season premiere was a solid continuation of the finale from last season.
The Mob Doctor:  A pleasant surprise but I'm not sure how it'll play out.
Revolution:  Our first contender for Best New Show arrives.

We'll start with a quick rundown of Bones.  The show has had a rocky history with me over the last couple of years.  After the amazing ending of the 100th episode temporarily shutting down the will they/won't they aspect of the show, I began to lose interest.  The chemistry of the main characters didn't interest me anymore.  Then, the show killed one of the Squinterns (which thankfully freed him up to go on to an amazing and in my opinion Emmy-worthy performance on Alphas), the relationship was thrown back in motion going from 0-120 in about 15 minutes of episode time.  The caused Booth and Bones to fall into each others arms without any previous ramp up and apparently they had sex and Bones got knocked up.  Fantastic, you've fast-forwarded through all the interesting part and slapped us down in the middle of a pregnancy storyline.  Yes, this was partially due to Emily Deschanel getting pregnant but that's still no excuse for shoddy writing.  The part of the next season where she was pregnant was mediocre at best but the final episode before the maternity break had a decent setup for what seemed like a possible recurring villain.  I was right and this new villain was actually the focus of the last finale and tonight's premiere.  I think he's a solid foil for the heroes and has brought the show back an enjoyable level for me.  Will it always be first on the list of my busy Monday nights?  Probably not but I'll continue recording it and save it for a rainy day.

Next up, we have our first new series premiere of the week, The Mob Doctor.  This series stars Jordana Spiro who some of you will know from My Boys and others from a recurring guest role on Harry's Law.  I enjoyed My Boys so I was glad she got her own show again.  The premise is that her character, Grace, is a surgeon in Chicago who we discover quite quickly has ties to the mob.  I assumed that the Pilot would show us how she got mixed up with all of this in the first place but they chose to drop us in the middle of this arrangement.  She helps out criminals with medical problems under the radar and is doing it to work off her brother's debt with the mob.  A witness in a federal investigation collapses in court and is brought to her hospital.  She is then instructed to kill this witness for the mob or bad things would happen to her family.  I'll let you watch to find out if she did it or not but I'll state that I was surprised at how solid this show was.  I believe my initial prediction was that I would only make it through maybe a half hour of the show before moving on to other things.  However, the premise was interesting enough for me to stick around to see what happens.  What also didn't hurt was a solid cast.  Zach Gilford (Saracen from Friday Night Lights) and Zeljko Ivanek (Damages, Heroes, and many, many good things) helped elevate the quality of the show.  The plot took some predictable turns but also had a few surprises included killing a character I thought would play a large part in the show.  Overall, this was a solid pilot that had some good production values and an accomplished cast.  However, I'll have to reserve final judgement to see what the week to week of the show will look like, although the "This Season On..." preview looked promising.  If my DVR starts to get crowded, this show would probably get the axe from me but I think it has a chance to finish out its season.  It has promise and certainly won't be leaving a horse head in your bad at the end of the day.

And last but not least, Revolution.  This pilot had some of the best production value I've seen on a Pilot probably since LOST.  Now, it wasn't up to LOST level but it's got a lot of promise.  The premise is that in present day, an event occurs that knocks out all power sources in the entire world, Electricity, Combustion Engines, even Batteries.  Now, as someone beforehand pointed out to me, this phenomenon would mean that the basic laws of physics ceased to apply.  This is brought up immediately following the title card by one of the characters that "physics went insane, the world went insane, overnight and no one knows why".  Speaking of the title card, I was very amused to catch a stylistic similarity to Supernatural's title card, also created by Eric Kripke.  It's funny how these show runners have little quirks that the like.  Here's a link so you can see what I'm talking about: Supernatural Season 1 Title  Now, outside of a couple of well known character actors and two big names, Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad and the Magic Mirror in Once Upon a Time) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from LOST) the cast is made up of relative unknowns.   For the most part, they performed solidly.  The main girl could use a little work but if there's something I hope JJ Abrams contributed to this production was his ability to discover unknown female talent and turn them into something incredible.  Case in point: Jennifer Garner and Anna Torv.  On a side note: who all thinks their Mom is actually dead? ....................*crickets*..............that's what I thought.  I'm sorry but you don't recast a role with Elizabeth Mitchell if you're only planning to show her in flashbacks and claim she's dead in the present day in the first 10 minutes without showing me the body.

I really like the overall aesthetic of the world.  I thought they pulled off post-apocalyptic really well.  The shots of an overgrown Wrigley Field and other parts of Chicago did a good job of pulling you into the world.  The show has kind of a mish-mash of ideas from other shows, I Am Legend, Walking Dead, and Jericho to name a few, all thrown together into something that can hopefully do well.  As I've said repeatedly, I have faith in Eric Kripke as a showrunner.  Supernatural did take a solid half season to really find it footing and I'm hoping NBC gives it a chance.  One thing that I noticed was that I didn't have the same kind of detached feeling from these characters as I have from the other attempted LOST replacements like Flash Forward and The Event.  I think it will be relatively easy to become invested in the plight of these characters. 

The Pilot had a good story but it was definitely more of a setup for things to come.  I'm looking forward to seeing where Kripke takes us.  It's going to take something truly epic in horribleness for me to drop this show off my DVR.  I hope the ratings do well because I'd really like to see where this all goes.  There was one solid twist and a pretty great ending.  Unfortunately, I'd seen the ending at the end of the extended trailer.  I kind of wish I hadn't because I think that would have been a great moment otherwise.

Tonight was a very solid start to the week and I hope the quality continues.  Up tomorrow night, we've got the last chance I'm going to give The New Normal to show me something worth coming back for.  Also, we've got the 3rd episode of Go On and the second episode of Parenthood.  Get your tissues ready.

Good Night Everyone and Happy TV Watching!