Mid Season Replacement Shows

by Marko Peric

Every year after Christmas the networks trot out their hopeful new hits to fill the vacancies left by the failures from the fall. These midseason replacement shows tend to be far more spread out than the late September/early October fall launches, with debuts coming from early January through late March. Some great shows have been launched in this winter period, shows like Deep Space Nine, Futurama, and The Family Guy. At the same time, some total dogs have also arisen in the same period. I'm going to rate some of this years crop now.

Imagine That (NBC/CTV Tuesday Evening): The first post-Christmas show this year, it was also the first to be cancelled. NBC stomped on Hank Azaria's show faster than one would crush a earwig that ventured across the kitchen floor, killing Imagine That after only two episodes. I feel bad that Hank Azaria, who is a talented and funny actor, only saw two episodes of his show make it to air, but the show was pretty Bad.

Tom Stone: (CBC Monday Evening): The CBC promoted this heavily during the Olympics, and did a two hour debut the Monday after the games ended, which I had the misfortune to watch. Tom Stone is a highly polished and professional looking show for an entirely Canadian production. It looks rather good. But it's not. The plot is way, way too byzantine. As for the characters, none are particularly sympathetic. Or even at all sympathetic. Or even interesting. When a show has no endearing characters and a plot that features more poorly explained complexities than a scientific calculator with a Cyrillic manual, the end result is rather Ugly.

The Job: (ABC/Global Tuesday Night): Here's the thing. This was actually a midseason replacement last year. ABC ran six episodes last March/April, then shelved it. They brought it back in January, and now it looks like it might be going back on the shelf again. This really shouldn't be surprising. ABC is the network that killed the best show on television, Sports Night, because they didn't know what to make of it, and The Job isn't all that different. Denis Leary plays a New York cop who's a bad husband and a worse father, and even a bad adulterer. According to the premise of the show, he's a very good cop. Thing is, the cops on the show never seem to do a lot of police work. It's like those college shows where no one ever goes to class. Of course, there are plenty of police shows about police stuff, so there's plenty of room for a police show that isn't. Especially one that's clever, twisted, intended for adults, and generally Good.

That '80s Show: (Fox/CTV Wednesday Evening): In the last few years the sitcom laugh track has been slowly dying a well deserved death. It started with inventive and creative shows like the aforementioned Sports Night and Made in Canada, and has moved into the mainstream. Two of the shows reviewed in this very article (The Job and Watching Ellie are comedies (albeit unconventional ones) without laugh tracks. Where have the laugh tracks gone? Probably to the premiere of That '80s Show, which had the loudest laugh track I've ever heard. That said, I thought this show was going to stink. I was expecting that. It didn't. For the second and later episodes they cut back on the laugh track and the superabundant self-conscious 1980s references, and actually now it's a Good show.

Watching Ellie: (NBC/CTV Tuesday Evening): Sometimes gimmicks can be a good thing. The brief fantasy sequences on Scrubs are great. The use of split screen views and real time on 24 is cool. But putting a 22 minute show in real time with a constant count down that remains in the corner of the screen throughout the show is a bit much. It's not like there's any sense of urgency to the show. There's nothing at stake. It's not like 24 or Nick of Time where there's an assassination plot and family members in danger. It's a no-laugh -track unconventional sitcom starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her cleavage. Julia plays a lounge singer with a mildly messed up life and well, her cleavage plays the lounge singer's cleavage. Yes, that's right, I used the word cleavage three times in the last two sentences, which is not nearly as many times as it was used in the debut episode (her actual cleavage, not the word). But that's not the biggest problem with the show. It's not funny. Not at all funny. So let's review. We have an unnecessary gimmick that does nothing to improve a show which isn't funny. You bet your bottom dollar I'm calling this Bad.