New shows: Jericho, Justice, Kidnapped

Posted by Maggie September 21st, 2006 at 10:35am In General

Straight up: none of these shows were that great. There's no Lost or 24 among them, hard as they may try. There were moments of fun, and some of them have good ideas or great actors, but I'm relieved that my Wednesday nights will not be consumed like this in the future.

Jericho (CBS). The show starts with the word Jericho in a staticky font on a black background, while beeping noises play. Wait a second. Where have I seen this before?

Skeet Ulrich arrives back in town, mysteriously, after a five year mysterious absence, which he "explains" by stealing jokes from Grosse Pointe Blank. He wants his grandpa's money for mysterious reasons, but he can't have it, because his dad is a hardass and his brother is a suck-up and soon the world is ending anyway. The thing you need to know about Skeet: he's a budget Johnny Depp, and his teeth. Are. ENORMOUS.

I like the premise, but the pilot had a lot of aw-shucks, I just love this godforsaken small town so damn much. That's not really scary; just annoying and cheaply written. If you're the type of person who likes worrying about a nuclear holocaust, you're better off reading this book. If you really want to know what Skeet has been doing and you have a great deal of patience, along with a high tolerance for emergency tracheotomies done with juicebox staws, this show's for you.

Justice (Fox). Victor Garber is the House of lawyers. He's a fancy defense lawyer surrounded by other fancy defense lawyers, but he's the meanest and best of them all. At the end of the show, they reveal what actually happened. The show is shot in a very jerky hand-held style with tons of CGI effects that add absolutely nothing to the story. That's pretty much all you need to know.

The thing is, I have no problem with Victor Garber being the House of lawyers. But I didn't see all that much evidence of Victor Garber being funny or mean, at all. What I saw was a lot of running around and slamming papers down emphatically, and people being brilliant and troubled and ethically dubious blah blah blah. Also, I had to change the channel because the show's constant jiggling was giving me a headache. So my verdict: no.

Kidnapped (NBC). This one was my favorite of the night, though it had its moments of suckiness. Timothy Hutton's son has been kidnapped. Jeremy Sisto finds kidnapped kids (and, side note, what?? Can that really be a full time job? We're not in South America, here). Delroy Lindo was thisclose to retiring from the FBI, but now it's personal, or something. Lot of stuff going on. Lots of opportunities to reveal deep dark secrets. Lots of time to wonder what's wrong with the kid and why isn't he taking his medicine.

I've always liked poor, constantly miscast Timothy Hutton, ever since seeing Ordinary People. Apparently the writers of this show have a thing for Ordinary People, too, because they gave his character the same name he had in his breakout role, Conrad. He's good as the sleazy-yet-worried dad. And Jeremy Sisto can't help being charming even when he's not supposed to be a people person.

Mom: You're not good with people, are you?
Jeremy Sisto: No. I'm just good at finding them.

That line is so bad that it gets to horribleness and then comes back around to being good again. Or my other favorite, when his partner finds him looking at the son's copy of Buddhist Epistemology:

Partner: Don't tell me you've read it.
Sisto: No. Not that translation.

I'll probably watch at least a couple more episodes, and not only because I blog-stalk noted New York character actor James Urbaniak.