OK Talent But No Magic #TheFourBattleForStardom #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX

OK Talent But No Magic #TheFourBattleForStardom #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX

I’m going to try to keep this three-week roundup as short as I can because it is a reality show and I’m more judging it on the concept, but by this time you should know how well I do with keeping things short, especially because this sentence is running on longer than most Oscars broadcasts. At the same time, I have a lot to say about this show and very little to say about the show. Over the course of the next few months we are going to be bombarded with singing/talent competitions all vying to be the next new [insert your favorite competition show]. The question is: Will any of them be good, and how many of them will have the opportunity to stay around for longer than one of my run-on sentences? With some of them old (The Voice), some of them returning (American Idol) and some of them revamped from what they used to be (Showtime at the Apollo), who, in this competition of competitions, will win? Does The Four: Battle for Stardom (totally thought it was fame and not stardom) start the year off shining bright or will it last for but a flicker of time like that dreadful Boy Band singing competition from summer 2017? Let’s find out together.

The Four: Battle for Stardom is FOX’s regret over losing the bid for a revamped American Idol manifested into a semi-creative idea. (Note: At the time of writing this review, I was unaware that The Four was actually a foreign show brought to the US. How foolish of me. I should've known). So, the concept goes that FOX, in their all-knowing wisdom, searched the nation for a few weeks or months looking for the hottest, most market-ready, undiscovered singing talent this country has to offer. This search produced four “finalists” that they believe could be the next big thing. Ideally these four finalists would be the top four in any other singing competition. You follow?

Now that they have their four they are challenging viewers of the show to come and see if they can beat the Four by out-singing or out-rapping them on stage on TV (not live TV which I originally thought it would be). If they can outperform any of the Four, then they get to become part of the Four and will seemingly be in contention at the end of this season when the Four is narrowed down to just one, you follow?

That's the simple part. It gets a little convoluted and starts to lose me as a viewer when they set up the way that these challenges or “battles” between performers come about and are judged. Once you’re on the show, which I can only assume happens by you submitting a video to the contest, you are called to perform on a small stage in front of a live studio audience and four judges. The judging is where the show loses me. You have DJ Khaled, Meghan Trainor, Charlie Walk (a record label exec), and Diddy. Now, I’ll withhold talking about the judges for now and continue explaining the setup, but just know that the judges are not ideal. Oh, and the show is hosted by Fergie.

So, the judges are there because they are the ones who get to decide whether the new singers can challenge the Four or not. They do this by giving a simple yes or no vote that is translated into blue or red circles. The stage lights up and the new singer stands in the middle. The stage then forms one blue circle for each yes vote and a red circle for a no. My problem here is that there are no ties or debates that can affect the vote. For instance, you know how on American Idol you always needed a majority to go to Hollywood but not necessarily every judge? Here, it’s either all or nothing. They either all think you’re good enough or you don’t get to challenge. So if even one of the judges acts like a diva and doesn’t see what three others do, then it’s over for you. Now, to me that defeats the purpose of even having four judges. Frankly, why even have more than one? Or any at all? I fail to see what use, other than star power, the judges really serve here if their individual knowledge base and experience is not wholly appreciated and the singers fates are dictated solely by the one. It bugs me.

Fergie Is The Host, Y'all

Once a person makes it to the challenge round, they then can choose which of the four performers they want to challenge that night. No, it is not a free-for-all where you can challenge all of them and the best person wins. You choose ONE and perform against them. Do you have to perform the same song or at the same time as on The Voice? No. You perform your prepared song, they do the same and then it’s in the studio audiences’ hands. They vote and decide which of you will go into the Four. Here, I see yet another wasted opportunity, especially because the show is not shown live. When the audience votes the show doesn’t give you an on-screen tabulation of who is in the lead with the vote like you would see during a political vote. There are no percentages that you can watch and turn to your family to say, “Oooo, it’s close.” No. There’s a counter that says when the full vote has come in and then the screen lights up which person won. It’s just not dramatic enough, but I digress.

Sometimes the person from The Four stays, sometimes they go and a new Four is formed. Actually, a new Four is formed literally every episode thus far. And here’s the kicker, none of the original Four are still around, which really only makes you wonder how exhaustive this original search was. But even worse, once you are in a challenge that night, if you are part of the Four or become part of it, you cannot be challenged again that night. I repeat, you CANNOT be challenged again that night! Now, I know that there are plenty of people who are currently shrugging and saying, “So what,” about that idea, but think of it this way: say that they have an absolutely fire show one night and there are about four really good people on there that get to challenge. If there’s a fifth one that comes along, what do they do? More importantly, what if two really good singers have to go against each other because there is no one else left to challenge, even though one of the people currently sitting in the Four and who can’t be challenged would get absolutely smoked by this new challenger if they had to go against them? Basically, you are forced to keep weak talent while a much stronger talent gets sent home just because. The whole time I was watching it I thought, “Hmm? Is this really a good format?” The answer is no, not really, but it is made even worse by a few more things.

First, there is the audience bias. Every time we get a new one of these singing/talent competitions the question is always: How do we make it different enough from American Idol that it feels like our own thing, yet similar enough for it to draw viewers like AI’s early days? That question is always followed up closely with the “How do we do this Live” question. Because something that American Idol did perfectly, and that changed the entire landscape of TV, is that they managed to fit in a Live-performance component that also allowed for viewer interaction. You, as the couch potato you are, got to not just watch but help to decide the fate of the talent you saw. Granted, this was partially sullied by the whole Sanjaya debacle in which a large group of extremist ne’er-do-wells decided to vote through someone who clearly didn’t deserve to get as far as he did, but the system usually worked well. And people could debate all day but winners got chosen and were, for the most part, really good.

Here, on The Four, however, the judges have first choice as usual, but there is no development process here, meaning that this isn’t the third, fourth or fifth time the judges have heard this person. They’re experiencing these performers for the first time just as we are. That’s nice and all but when you are sitting at home and see these idiots choose someone to even challenge one of The Four that clearly doesn’t deserve it, you no longer feel you can trust the judges. For me, this show lost all credibility when Diddy not only chose, but argued vehemently for a rapper named Illakriss to do a challenge, even convincing the much more level-headed Charlie Walk to change his vote in favor of this dude. He was so terrible that he would’ve been one of the many laughed-at people that made it into the American Idol montage from the early days. It was clear that he was bad.

But this bias extends to the entire in-studio audience. If American Idol taught us one thing it is that there are not only a swath of people in America who cannot actually sing but think they can, but that there are also just as many equally tone-deaf people who really do think these people can sing. I will never forget when Simon Cowell told someone they couldn’t sing and told them to go out onto the beach and find a handful of people who think he can sing and maybe Simon would change his no-vote, and the dude did. Those people really enjoyed the man's shrill singing voice. It astonished me. On The Four, yes, the audience has been good about picking people who sound impressive... so far. But if that Illakriss crap happens again, can we trust the small studio audience to pick the better singer/performer? We have no idea how homogeneous or heterogeneous these people’s choices in music are and America, so far, gets no say, save for those artists brave enough to come to challenge the performers on the show. Simply put, there’s not enough TV-audience engagement so far and there really isn’t enough of...

Drama. Yes, that is the crux of the next point. The next most important component of this show is the judges’ panel. I cannot stress this enough, American Idol was successful in its early incarnation because of four things: great singers, a jovial side that looked at terrible singers, the ability of the audience to interact with the show and the chemistry among the judges. Tons of shows have tried to duplicate these lightning-in-a-bottle ingredients and many have nearly succeeded but almost always fail on the judges’ chemistry. AI worked so well because, for one, while they were all big personalities, they fit each other. Paula was the biggest star pre-show. You could tell that they knew what they were talking about and had good experience. But here’s the kicker, you could also tell that they weren’t trying to be anything or anyone other than who they were. They felt authentic and because of that they also felt like even when they offended each other, they could apologize, forgive, and have a good laugh about it over a meal later that week. This authenticity to both themselves, the viewers and their fellow judges created real drama and empathy. But as soon as they started bringing in other judges to try playing a role of “the mean one” or “the nice one,” or tried to supplement people who knew what they were talking about from an executive perspective with big-name, current stars, the show started to flounder. And sink. And became more about the judges than the talent (let's not revisit that Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey year). And eventually ended. Granted, they’re coming back this spring, but so far all I'm hearing about this reboot is that they are trying the same things that were mistakes the last time they were on air.

The Four skipped right past the successful years in favor of The Voice route and went with stars. Meghan Trainor does not feel like she is on equal footing with the guys even though she is the current singer/star. Yes, DJ Khaled is a star, but he is still more in the background, behind the mixing board. And some people don’t even know that he produces music. The Walk guy is OK, but he doesn’t seem ready for TV, at least not with this group. The worst, though, is Diddy. I suspected this would be the case based on the adverts and yep, it’s the case. Diddy is too big of a personality.

Yes, Diddy. The D, the I, the D, the D, the Y, the D, the I, the D. It’s Diddy. Every time I watch this show I am reminded of two things: the fact that Diddy was a big enough personality to have his own reality show in the early 2000s which, if any of you remember, literally went into the comedy lexicon as an aughts-era-defining show. Making The Band is still talked about to this day in certain circles and it’s now-defunct groups each had their moments, however brief they may have been. But oddly enough, the show was never known for its amazing talent, but rather its over-the-top antics from its main producer, the music mogul himself, and the drama between group members. It showed a side of Diddy that, frankly, pissed a lot of people off.

Which leads me to the second thing I’m reminded of every time I see this show, an antecdote from behind the scenes of the 90s hit football movie Any Given Sunday, starring Al Pacino as a beleaguered NFL coach. At the time, Diddy (then known as Puff Daddy or Puffy) had been cast in the other lead role as the rising-star football player. It was going to be his first big foray into acting, and he was going to make one helluva splash with such a big role, and it was supposed to mint a new career for him. But, while still in pre-production, Diddy apparently felt that he knew more about how the film should go than the director, writers, and a few of the producers and was already acting like a diva who had been nominated for multiple Oscars. He was a star and wanted to be treated as such. But he was far from having the kind of star-actor clout that the film’s star-director did have. That director, Mr. Oliver Stone, after a few weeks of pre-production and going back and forth with Diddy came into the office with just a few weeks to go before principal shooting started and told the producers, “I just gave myself an early gift. I fired Puff Daddy!”

The role would eventually go to Jamie Foxx who would use that role as leverage to show that he could do dramatic roles different from his comedic roots, and we know how the rest of the story goes for him. What’s important, however, is that I, along with that particular production crew and many other fans of the film, am convinced that firing Diddy was the best thing they could've done. I don’t think that movie is even half as good with him in it. You see where I’m going with this?

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really loved the 90s-era Diddy. But as the years have gone on, it seems like Diddy turned from hopeful music exec who really just wants to make good music and inspire people, to some form of buffoonish caricature of the music industry's worst ills. You think a music executive is an abusive ass? Guess what? You think a music executive thinks they’re god? Guess what? You think a music executive is spiteful and vengeful and will destroy you if you don’t cater to their every whim? Guess what? He feels like Trump in blackface or Harvey Weinstein without all the allegations. But worst of all is that none of it seems genuine, which is actually kinda depressing seeing as how New Yorkers pride themselves on being authentic and being able to sniff out authenticity. Yet, Trump and Diddy not only existed but thrived in that environment.

Again, I say all of this because if Diddy felt more genuine, felt like he wasn’t playing a role for everyone, maybe this show would work or the overbearing nature of his personality would allow the other judges to breathe. But as it is, the other judges almost seem too timid around him to even share their real critiques of the artists. Again, going back to Illakriss, the dude’s two chosen songs were so whack that it’s amazing he even got on the show. And you can’t tell me that the other three judges, being in the industry for some years now, didn’t all want to give this young man a Sandman-at-the-Apollo/Beyonce’s-To-The-Left boot in the butt upon hearing him the first time. But they all gave him a chance under the instruction of Diddy. Yet, they didn’t give a chance to some other artists that actually could sing or rap but maybe didn’t have the stage presence that could be worked on. At least give them the chance to challenge if you’re doing it for weak talent. Granted, Diddy did apologize and say that in hindsight it was probably a bad idea to go with Illakriss, and I respect him for that, but the fact that it seems like they’ll be too afraid to actually make a firm stance and vote their conscience tells me that this show will never survive with Diddy on the panel. Worst of all, Meghan and Walk feel like his underlings, leaving DJ Khaled as the only one who is even close to Diddy’s equal. And I love Khaled, but he is far from assertive in this forum. I think he still wants to be liked too much for him to be effective as a judge in the spotlight. And that’s OK for him, but it won’t work for the show.

Honestly, I think that if the producers want this show to succeed, then the best thing for them would be to follow Oliver Stone’s example and have Diddy step down. Limit it to just the remaining three judges, get rid of the all-or-nothing judge vote, but keep the yay or nay circles so that people who do get one red circle know what the judge will be looking for going forward. Do this all live and incorporate an at-home voting component somehow. That may be having to have the contestants fly out a second time the next week to see if audiences thought they should be part of the new four or not. Something to get people more involved.

I don’t know what the ratings on this show are, maybe they’re actually really good, and they don’t need to make a single change. But from my perspective, this show will hardly last the tough competition that’s out there. I give this show a C-. I’d tell you to watch if you want to, but there are simply too many other good music competitions coming down the pike. The Four: Battle for Stardom airs on FOX Thursdays at 8/9c pm (two hour show). Catch it on FOXonDemand or Fox.com

What do you think? Have you heard of The Four? If not, do you think you’ll tune in for an episode? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too hard on it? Who has been your favorite contestant so far and why? The judges and audience keep going for Zhavia but I’m just not hearing it. Her look is different but her voice just seems OK to me. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Some stars are meant to burn bright and fast. Others shoot, staying but for a eye's brief flicker.”

P.S. Ooo, that's good. I like it. But is it the right quote for all post? Hmm? Two and a half years of blogging and I've finally written a quote I might like as my sign-off. I'll have to consider this more thoroughly. Until then, I'll come up with a better sign-off next time.

Amazon
Goodreads Author Page
Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows
Twitter@filmbooksbball

Is There Another Flight I Can Catch? No? You Sure? #LAtoVegas #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX

Is There Another Flight I Can Catch? No? You Sure? #LAtoVegas #3weekroundup #recap #review #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX 

Boy, I guess my brain is just taking its dear, sweet time with getting back into the groove of things after such a long layoff. There are literally only, like, four or five new mid-season shows I’ll be reviewing and this is the second, yet it feels like the 20^th. I’m already tired of watching new stuff, though that may be because I haven’t found a diamond in the rough yet. Still, my sluggish start to 2018 does not bode well for my upcoming projects this year, including season two of Extraordinary and the release of my mystery novel The Man On The Roof—look for those soon on Amazon Kindle. Anyway, we’re back with another new show (almost all the new shows are on FOX. Hmm? Interesting...) on FOX. Will this new half-hour comedy make a smooth landing into your heart or will it pull a Sully and have to crash-land in the Hudson before slowly sinking into the deep fridgid waters? Let’s find out together!

FOX’s LA to Vegas is an airplane workplace comedy about the pseudo-famous weekly flight from LA to Vegas. For those not in the know, there really are groups of people that hop onto a plane every weekend in LA and fly to Vegas, returning Sunday night. A respite for some, business for others. I guess an East Coast equivalent would be those yuppies and hipsters that drive from Manhattan to the Hamptons every weekend during the summer—hey, Bravo’s Summer House, you equally trashy Guido-less version of Jersey Shore. Because it’s a constant flight that happens every weekend and it’s very cheap and easier than driving, you get a lot of the same people on the flight every single week, so we will have both crew and passengers as regulars on the show. This is a fictionalized depiction of the drama that could happen amongst them all!

First, let me start by saying that ye should be not fooled ye weary viewer. Though the always classy and talented Dylan McDermott is put front and center in most of the advertising for this show, he is not exactly the star of the show. It doesn’t center around him, but rather the lead stewardess Ronnie, played by former soap star Kim Matula. I’ll talk more about this discrepancy later, just know that I had to get used to it. We open episode one with Ronnie fumbling out of an Uber while leaving a message for a DELTA HR person about a recently vacated flight attendant position on their LA to JFK flight, all while she sprints through the airport getting dressed into her current stewardess uniform. (Note: This is a single-cam, no laugh track, no studio audience kinda comedy for those who didn’t know). She manages to get fully dressed, get on the plane and start welcoming passengers while explaining to her co-worker her dreams of grand travels around the world. LA to JFK can eventually lead to JFK to London which can eventually lead to London to somewhere Asian, and before you know it she’ll have trotted more globe than those B-ball players from Harlem. If she can just get that Delta job and ditch this rinky-dink unnamed airline she works for now.

Ronnie at left, Bernard at right 

Her coworker is Bernard, played by Nathan Lee Graham. He is the fiery, sassy black gay dude that embodies the thick card-stock 90s-version of a gay man. He’s supposed to be funny and we all know it, but somehow the shtick feels dated. Again, I’ll address this more later but just know there’s something off about him. Anyway, he both commiserates with her while also giving her a “girl, bye,” about her seriously thinking she’s going to get her grubby paws on that Delta job—not that he wants it for himself, but no way she’s on the radar.

They break from their coworker powwow so that we can meet our first main-player passengers beginning with Artem. Played by the familiar character actor Peter Stormare (Armageddon, Bad Boys 2, Minority Report), Artem is supposed to be some West European (maybe Russian) sleazy gambler who will take a bet on anything and is superstitious like all gamblers. His gripe: some grown baby-man is sitting in his lucky seat on the plane. The baby-man is sitting with his fiance as they are flying to elope in order to piss off her parents (Artem won that bet. It was either piss off parents or she’s knocked-up). Ronnie gets them to move by offering free beer to someone else who will give up their seat and at first a pregnant woman stands up and it’s supposed to be super funny but... Eh!

Nichole

Through the pregnant woman and the couple we meet another one of our main-player passengers in Nichole (with a damn H!). Nichole is a scripper. She scrips. For a living. That’s some southern accent humor for you. If you don't get it, fine! Anyway, she works at the strip club Grapefroots where she earns a helluva lot of money over the weekends making it bounce and wobble from dem dollas. The pregnant girl works with her, though she doesn’t become a series regular. Nichole (with a damn H!) tells the bride-to-be that she can also make it drop and wiggle for green stacks because a girl that looks like her is built for the pole... or the lap, whichever. Nichole also makes a commission off of each girl she brings in, kinda like a stripper-recruitment pyramid scheme.

Before Ronnie completed her quest to get the couple to move to new seats in order to satisfy Artem (the couple doesn’t care where they sit, so long as they stay together—awww! Young love is so sweet and stupid), she also ran into our third main-player passenger, the very British Colin. Colin is played by actor Ed Weeks who I guess may be new to the US market. I’m sure he’s been being British in other things but I haven’t seen him in anything I can remember, and I’ve clearly seen a lot of crap. Colin is both irritatingly proper and charmingly sarcastic, making it a very odd but mildly satisfying love interest for our long-suffering Ronnie to get internationally dirty on a domestic flight with. Ronnie and Bernard at first stand at front and wonder about who he is and why he’s traveling back and forth to Vegas every weekend because he doesn’t seem like the gambling or stripping type. His fictional, fantasized options: a failing spy, somebody in WITSEC or something else. In reality, he’s a professor at some college, but that still doesn’t explain why he’s flying back and forth which is later revealed.

Moving on, we finally round out the main cast with our cockpit heroes (Boom! Just gave you a perfect name for another comedy show and/or movie. You’re welcome, Hollywood) Alan, the co-pilot played by Amir Talai, and Captain Dave played by McDermott, finally! Alan is given little to nothing to do on the first couple of episodes and may never be given more than 10 lines on each episode. He exists almost solely to sit next to Captain Dave, look like a doofus, act like a dingus, and play beta-male to Captain Dave’s clear alpha sensibilities. He and Captain Dave have been going number one and two together for some time now, as evidenced by his lack of laughter at Dave’s overplayed joke about the flight from LA to Lost Wages! Yeah, it’s that bad. The stick belongs to Dave. The yoke belongs to Dave. Alan does not get to touch either and that is how it will always be.

Alan at left, Captain Dave at right

Captain Dave is a four-time divorced non-ladies-man ladies’ man that all the women want to be with simply so that they get experience in knowing the type of guy that they don’t want to be with. Almost every one of his ex-wives cheated on him, seemingly because he couldn’t get them to climactic heights on a frequent enough occasion, or because his ego was too big and other things not big enough. Still, does that stop him? Well, yeah, it probably stops him from doing a lot of things, but not from flying the pond-hopper that is LA to Vegas on a weekend-ly basis. Granted, he has to have a few drinks to fly or to do just about anything in his life, but he’s always good to go and always sorta-professional. A bevy of bad jokes, filled to the brim with alcohol, and a sweat of jubilant desperation always filming his body, Captain Dave is everybody’s bad uncle but in a plane captain’s uniform.

The flight filled with potential syphilis carriers finally takes off toward Vegas. It isn’t long into the flight before Ronnie learns that a fellow stewardess—some Asian chick—has already landed the Delta job behind her back. With her dreams crushed, Ronnie quits mid-flight and goes to sit down in the seat next to the professor who not only heard her and Bernard’s theorizing about who he is and what he does, but also logically explains how he thinks she made a terrible mistake because now she will have to pay for her flight back to LA and is in no better possession for a national flight than before. His logic infuriates her. So much so that they hurriedly scamper to the bathroom to make things super awkward and get a little strange and wet, which they do in a PG-13 sorta way. After there mile-high make out, they de-board never to see each other again... until the return flight on Sunday night. It’s only then revealed why he goes back and forth from LA to Vegas: he is married and has a young son. And Ronnie feels like an absolute peach about the situation.

While Ronnie is losing her shiznit on the Brit, Captain Dave is trying to find a bit of weekend glory as his life has dive-bombed in a most miserable way. He had hoped to flaunt his captain-of-the-air power by officiating an on-board wedding for that eloping couple in the same way a boat captain can marry off anyone at sea, but Ronnie informs him he has no such power. Then, on the return flight he manages to leg-lock that very same young, dumb baby-man when the guy comes back complaining about the flight and the passengers on it who convinced his girl that she wasn’t actually in love with him anymore—Nichole (with a damn H!) totally got that pyramid-scheme bonus. Captain Dave sneaks up from behind and subdues the kid who has threatened to do something really mean to the plane. Ronnie un-quits her job (never made it official) and commits to suffering in hopes of that one day. One day! And the Brit confesses that he has been separated from his wife because they went through a quickie Vegas wedding after a few Hangover-esque nights of wild times that accidentally produced a baby. He is in no way in love with that woman. Ronnie feels a little better about their in-air slobfest.

Episode two is about Captain Dave being chosen as one of the top 10 pilots to watch out for by some flyboy magazine, which he hopes really sticks it to his rival. But as the time draws near for him to do the photo shoot for the zine, he comes down with a severe case of the yips and, assumingly like in all of his past four failed marriages, can’t quite perform. The plane is up in the air and cruising on autopilot but no way in hell is he gonna be able to land this bird.

Meanwhile, Ronnie and Bernard are suffering through their own crisis. After handing out a coupon for Grapefroots to her seatmate, Nichole discovers that the old man has died on her shoulder. Per airline and FAA rules and regulations, a person cannot be legally pronounced dead until on the ground. Ronnie and Bernard don’t want to freak-out the passengers, so they (Nichole helps) try to pretend the man is just sleeping until doofus Alan comes out from the cockpit and mistakes the old white dead guy for another old white alive guy and announces that there is a dead guy onboard. And who wants to ride around with a dead guy? So Nichole has to enlist the help of British bloke Colin to help her carry the body to the front for no apparent reason other than to set up the pratfall of Alan when he is summoned to the front to land the plan. Alan trips over the dead guy and smacks into the cockpit door, knocking himself out. So Ronnie has to go into the cockpit and convince Captain Dave that he can land the plane, and simultaneously she has to explain why she failed to show up for a date with Colin after their misunderstanding got understood. Her explanation: She just couldn’t because he scared her with all of his overbearing, polite Britishness. But carrying a dead body together changed things and once the captain does land the plane, she is totally ready for a real relationship. And now Colin agrees with her that they shouldn’t be in a relationship, and she’s lost her chance. It’s DELTA’s LA to JFK all over again!

Episode three finally introduces us to Captain Dave’s nemesis. Upon coming into work with an injured wrist that he claimed he hurt while trying to lift an armoire off of someone, Dave suffers through Bernard calling it into the airline. They quickly send a replacement in Captain Steve, a man who flies international (LA to Canada) and who is married to a model (a catalogue model an internet catalogue model). Dave hates him because he finished at the top of their flight school and beat him out for multiple routes in their time as professional pilots. So the last thing he wants to see is this man take another win by doing a better job than he ever could. At first the crew are enamored by him. Ronnie thinks he’s a hunk of a man, ditto Bernard and even Alan thinks he’s cool. In fact, they could get used to flying with him, and Steve brags about maybe taking over LA to Vegas for an easier workload. They’d at least never have to check Dave’s hair for grays anymore or baby him about his terrible jokes and drinking. But when Steve cracks the whip and insists that they are terrible at their jobs.

Bernard and Ronnie then unite with Dave in operation: Get Steve Off LA to Vegas. Riding as a passenger, Dave tells Steve to ease up on his crew but Steve ain’t hearin’ it and says that he’ll have them fired if he takes over. Dave then turns on the plan when he learns that he can take over Steve’s international flights if Steve takes his LA to Vegas. Still, Ronnie and Bernard are like family, so he sticks up for them again only for Steve to reveal that he was never serious about taking over LA to Vegas. Hell, the dude flies international. International! So, all is saved as far as flights go.

Left to Right: Captain Dave, Ronnie, Colin

On the ground, Colin struggles to throw his son a really cool Vegas birthday party but is thwarted when the place he booked was previously used by an anti-vaccine parent and now has a super-virus or something. Ronnie hooks him up with Artem who knows people in Vegas. Artem takes him to a nice indoor playhouse of sorts only for the budget to balloon to a few thousand dollars. So Colin and Artem end up at Grapefroots where Nichole (with a damn H!) welcomes them to throw the party on Sunday because it is a dead day anyway. The kids have fun sliding down the pole, have condom-balloon animals and even get to pet a man dressed as a dog who is the slave to his dominatrix mistress. It’s the best b-day party ever!

What’s my score? I give this a C. This show is dumb, OK? Like, seriously dumb. It reminds me of a defunct show from about ten or 15 years ago called The Loop where the comedy elicits more head shakes and “this is stupid” comments than actual laughs, yet I liked The Loop. This? Eh! Take it or leave it. I don’t think it’s as smart as Brooklyn-9-9 but I don’t watch that either. And it’s definitely no New Girl. The funny thing is that every situation, so far, has been pretty realistic. Can I believe that a pilot would get the yips, a guy would die in flight, an eloping couple would break up and the girl would run off to be a stripper? Yes. It’s all happened before. Yet, there is something so very inauthentic/unfunny about the show. I think that it fails to properly balance or even have some kind of emotional weight to any of the episodes. One of the reasons why most comedies in the past were successful was because they had at least one “aww” moment either per episode or per every two episodes. That moment when the audience stops, the plot slows and a real connection is made between the characters and the viewers, either exploring some kind of meaningful topic or hitting on something revealing about the characters. But with most single-cam shows of the last decade, they fail to do this unless they are strictly about families. Even then it’s difficult. With the exception of Seinfeld which never had to have an aww moment, many of today’s comedies go strictly for the laughs without establishing any personal connection. Such is the problem with this show.

Have you ever been watching a comedy or any kind of movie and thought, “Wow! This seems like it should be good and I should be more into it but I’m just not.” The jokes could even be funny or the action pretty good but you just don’t feel a thing? That’s sorta this show. And it’s really no more epitomized than by the character of Bernard. It’s rare that after spending a few weeks/episodes with a show (or a movie) that I can’t figure out what it is that either I or some other viewers won’t/don’t like about something, yet here I am with Bernard. I can’t figure out if I don’t like the actor, don’t like the way he’s playing the character, don’t like the way the character is written or just don’t like the dialogue for the character but something is painfully off about him to me. This is not a Seth MacFarlane/Orville problem where if you get rid of him the entire show becomes exponentially better, but Bernard currently doesn’t feel like he fits with the rest of the cast. Don’t get me wrong, some of the lines they’ve written for him are quite funny if not new, but they don’t make me want to laugh. It’s almost as if every line he says he knows is funny, but he doesn’t want you to laugh because he’ll then feel laughed at. I don’t know, it just feels strange. It doesn’t fit with everyone else.

Speaking of casting, I have to say that I was a little disappointed when I realized that McDermott really wasn’t the full-on lead. Again, you can usually tell who the star of a show is by who they open up on and whose private life is explored more. Ronnie gets both the opening shot and gets all the questions about her private life explored on a continual loop for the first three episodes. You have all the answers to her major questions by the end of episode four (yes, I watched four eps instead of just three but only covered three per my usual): she’s single, she wants to travel the world, she’s socially open to dating but kinda has a crush on British guy which is really complicated, she is nosy and thinks she’s a do-gooder, she once had an affair with a married man and et cetera. McDermott you hardly know anything about except that he is a lush with ex-wives who thinks he’s better than he is. Does he have kids? Why did he move to LA? What does he do when in Vegas? Who knows. Again, not hating because the woman who plays Ronnie is quite charming and good, but for those tuning in solely for McDermott (me at first), temper your expectations. You get him, but he’s more of a co-lead. Funny enough, this is a real tricky way to get women to top-line network shows. I digress.

Should you be watching? Eh! Probably not. It’s certainly not a family comedy and chances are good that if you’re single, you’re probably too busy with work or other shows that you feel a lot more comfortable with on Tuesday nights—a night with a glut of comedy already, with NBC’s reality game shows and ABC’s two-hour laugh block. It’s ultimately a forgettable show that tries but doesn’t try hard enough to exploit its novel idea. I’ve called many a show and movie forgettable before and some have turned out to be good or stick around longer than I hypothesized they would, but I would say that this one does not supply you with any joke or comedic setup that you’ll be talking about the next day at work or tweeting about with your buddies that aren’t currently already watching the show. Sorry, but I’d expect a lot more from producers Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Oh, did I bury the lede there? Oh well! LA to Vegas airs on FOX Tuesdays at 9:00pm, right before The Mick. You can catch up with the first four episodes on FOXonDemand or at FOX.com now.

What do you think? Have you heard of LA to Vegas? If not, do you think you’ll tune in for an episode or two now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too harsh on it? Is it your new favorite show? And what crazy shenanigans do you want to see happen to the crew and passengers of the flights? And when will Colin and Ronnie hook up again? Let me know in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking. If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Do you fly often?”

'No, I... don't have wings.'

P.S. That's a little Airplane humor for you. See, the sneaky part about it is that it's not an actual quote from the Airplane films. Sure, I could've used the most quoted quote from the overly quotable film, but I didn't. So... yeah. I'll think of a better sign-off next time.

Amazon
Goodreads Author Page
Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows
Twitter@filmbooksbball

A Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy #911 #3weekroundup #review #recap #FOX

A Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy #911 #3weekroundup #review #recap #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX 

It’s unbelievable how time flies. Just a few minutes ago I was on vacation and now I’m here, writing this stupid post about one of FOX’s new shows and debating whether I’m going to do a post on their new reality competition The Four (not all that great of a show; Diddy’s too overbearing). You’ll have to excuse me as I haven’t written (read: typed) a single word since a week before Christmas, save for the occasional Twitter post. I’ve taken notes about some of my upcoming projects on pieces of scratch paper and bills that God knows I’m never even gonna open (the problem goes away if you ignore it long enough, I swear), so I have been keeping up with pseudo-writing, but nothing substantial. Frankly, I’ve got a lot of writing to do this year and hardly enough time to do it. And because I decided to take an extra week of vacation due to an illness (first time I’ve been really, truly, ultra-sick in eight years), I am trying to shake off the brain fog and yips that come from being out of practice. OK, so what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, FOX’s new show 9-1-1. So, is this new show about first responders a heartbeat away from brilliance or is it ready for the cancellation body bag? Let’s find out together!

FOX’s 9-1-1 is the latest production from the studio’s beloved producer Ryan Murphy (and cohorts) that takes a look at all the dramatic and emotional goings-on that all first responders must go through on a daily basis. A show packed with a few heavyweight TV stars, it focuses not just on cops or firefighters but on the full gamut of individuals tasked with the job of saving our lives and keeping the peace. The first episode opens with a voice-over from TV and Murphy-productions veteran Connie Britton (Nashville, American Horror Story season 1, Friday Night Lights) who gives a rundown on what she sees as the two emergencies that people must deal with on a daily basis. The first is the emergency (read: immediacy) of everyday life. Connie’s character Abby Clark is a 40-something recently dumped single woman who has to take care of her Alzheimer's-stricken mother in her medium-sized apartment. No kids, hardly any prospects for the future and still crushing for her ex-boyfriend, she has to somehow find a way to make it through each day without losing her shiznit.

Abby; Connie Britton Is Looking Really Good These Days

The second emergency is an actual emergency and “is the kind you call [her] about.” Things like car crashes, fires, etc. She is a 911 operator (for the remainder of this, I will only use the hyphens when referring to the show as a whole) for LA county. We take her first call—a young boy who hit his head in the pool and currently isn’t breathing—and meet our main team of firefighters.

Our firefighters/EMTs are led by Peter Krause (most recently of ABC’s The Catch; also Six Feet Under) who plays Bobby Nash, a middle-aged recovering alcoholic who had dropped so low at one point that he lost his family and his job as a firefighter, but who now goes to weekly confessions at his preferred Catholic church. The job, which he loves, drove him to drink but it also drove him to stop drinking because of said love. He’s an all-or-nothing guy with a good head and an understanding heart, and he is the captain of his squad.

Next we have Hen played by Aisha Hinds who has appeared in a ton of stuff and is usually the bald black chick. Here she plays the bald black chick firefighter. In the first three episodes little about her is really explored save for the fact that she feels comfortable enough to give men around her unsolicited advice while not playing into the stereotype of the bossy black woman.

We also have Howie “Chimney” Han played by Kenneth Choi who we later learn is playing into the exact love-archetype laid out for Asian-American men. While he is trusted by his captain, there are limitations to what he can. He is set-up as a possible joke-sponge for future episodes.

And finally we have Evan “Buck” Buckley played by Oliver Stark, king of Winterfell—the north remembers. He is literally the young buck of the team and, yes, you guessed it, is written as the overly rambunctious know-it-all millennial who just wants to use his status as an LA firefighter to get laid often! Awash in a severe hero complex, he wants to one day be the old guy with all the coolest stories that the young women and the kids love to hear. And yes, that means that Captain Bobby both sees a little of himself in Buck and sets up a father-figure dynamic between them that the show will profitably plunge for the duration of its existence.

Back to their first rescue, we see the team respond to the downed swimmer and work to save his life as the boy continues to turn blue. It is here where Abby reminds us that as soon as help arrives in-person, usually the callers hang up the phone before the 911 operator knows the outcome of the call. To her, it’s like reading a really good story and then having the last few pages ripped out. Unfortunately for her, on the calls where they do stay on the line the outcome is not so hot. Where Bobby and his team are able to save the swimmer, Bobby’s attempts to stop a suicidal young woman/junkie from jumping to her death prove meaningless as he watches the girl plummet through the sky. Abby heard that.

Hey, yo, Bobby!

Losses are a possible everyday occurrence for Bobby, but ones with such a visceral connection cause him to go to the church where he talks about the drinking history. That was his coping mechanism. Now he journals all the deaths.

Buck’s “coping” mech is getting laid. He takes the firetruck for a breezy spin around the city before sinking into something young and brunette and spinning back to the firehouse where he must hear about Chimney’s girl problems. Chimney is an embellisher who tells his girlfriend fanciful stories about his job that aren’t always true, to make himself sound more heroic. We later learn that she does seem to have some sort of hero fetish. Anyway, we see Buck get a warning about using the truck for extracurriculars.

Abby takes a call from a guy who sounds like a stoner, who tells her that he thinks someone flushed a baby down the toilet because he can hear it crying in the wall. The team goes to the apartment complex only to confirm the insane hypothesis and introduce us to our final main character Police Officer Athena Grant, played by Angela Bassett. Working the beat, Athena is there to do preliminary investigative work on how a baby could’ve gotten into a toilet pipe and prevent higher levels from flushing. While the team saws the baby out, Athena discovers an immigrant father and his young daughter trying to hide her afterbirth bleeding. It turns out that the girl gave birth to an unwanted baby and threw it down the open toilet pipe of an unfinished apartment upstairs. They rescue the preemie who comes out elongated and in need of NICU care immediately. The mother also needs care which leads to Buck getting angry that the girl could treat her child like that and refusing to let the girl ride in the same ambulance as the baby. He and Athena get into it about age and rank and cops vs. firefighters and, frankly, I thought it was a rather stupid argument, but they wrote it, so...

With our journey ended at the hospital, we follow Officer Athena home where we learn that she and her husband are going through drama on account of him finally admitting he's gay. He tells the kids, precipitating an argument about the proper time to tell them. She thought it was too soon for them to handle that, and that he lied to her. Her husband counters with something about how she knew the truth the whole time but didn’t want to admit it.

As we dig farther into the personal lives of our mains, we see Abby’s mother is so unwell that she has an at-home nurse that ain’t worth a hill of beans and who is quickly replaced. Abby goes back to work and takes a call about a huge snake being wrapped around some woman’s neck and the team goes to the girl’s place to find it filled with uncaged snakes—some illegal—that look dangerous. Unable to pry the snake from around the woman’s neck, Buck cuts the snake’s head off and receives a lecture from his older superiors. But at least he’ll get to bang snake lady. In fact, he does bang her on a rooftop after taking the firetruck on a spin once again. That three-strikes system goes out the window when Bobby finds him up there midday and fires him for being an idiot.

So, while Buck brainstorms with Hen on how to get his job back, a give-me lands in his lap when a little girl calls 911 about a break-in. The girl tells Abby that the house is new, and she doesn’t know her address yet but that she can hear two men rummaging around downstairs. They call mom but she left her cell at home. So Abby makes a dispatch call to the nearest cop (Officer Athena) and tells her to look for a house with a young girl’s bike in the driveway. But even knowing the neighborhood that could take too long, so Athena gets an idea.

She calls her girl Hen who is busy on a car crash call and asks for help. Hen shoots that call to Buck who drives the firetruck to Athena’s rescue. The plan: drive around with sirens blaring in the firetruck to see if they can sonar the girl’s specific location. Yes, I used sonar as a verb. This way, the burglars won’t suspect the cops and won’t elevate the danger.

Well, the plan works until the girl goes downstairs and tries to sneak away. The burglars get her and grab the phone from her. Abby talks them down from killing the girl and tells them that the cops are on their way, but she’ll help them escape if they leave the girl unharmed. They fall for that and end up wandering out into the arms of Athena. But the “mastermind” burglar won’t give up easily and escapes onto his motorcycle. He is about to run over and gun down Athena when Buck shoots him with the fire hose. The kid is reunited with her mother, the day is saved and Buck keeps his job... for now.

Left to Right: Bobby, Buck, Hen, Officer Grant

Episode two sees Buck realizing the weightiness of both Bobby’s words and of his job as he suffers through his first lost save-e. A roller coaster malfunction sees a black guy treated like every black guy in a horror film pre-Get Out. His overweight surviving buddy is left to dangle in the upside-down roller coaster while Buck tries to strap a harness onto him, so that he and the other passengers can be safely lowered off the stalled ride. Unfortunately the big fella freaks and says that he can’t extend his hand out to the safety harness, then plummets to his death. While Buck deals with that, we learn throughout the episode that the guy previously had suicidal tendencies and that his black friend had convinced him to get out and start living again only after the big man had been locked away in his apartment for a few months. So even though it was Buck’s job to save the dude regardless, it wasn’t fully his fault. Still, he gets told by Bobby and Chimney that he’ll never forget the look on the man’s face as he fell those few stories. Even Officer Athena comes by to give her two cents about the badges and the uniforms they wear and how taking them off at the end of the day is supposed to be symbolic for letting go of the day’s drama.

Meanwhile, Abby is still suffering through her mother’s suffering. Luckily, things start to look up when she gets a new nurse who is patient and much more caring than the previous lady. This woman’s caring reminds her of how loving people can be and causes her feelings for Buck to surface. On episode one she talked to Buck during that home invasion and he told her that the kid was safe, the burglars caught and the cop unharmed. She made an instant connection with him because she finally got the end of a good story. Seeing him on TV after the roller coaster thing makes her want to reach out to him even though he looks a little too young for her. She risks her job by calling him later in the episode on his private line and chatting with him about how tough the job is and it seems like they’re making a true connection.

Meanwhile, Officer Athena and her husband are still arguing but try not to let their frustrations play out in front of the kids. They continue to attend couples counseling where she finally admits that she did know something but ignored the signs because she wanted children so badly and was aging quickly. She says she is willing to live a celibate life if he is, and then he drops the bomb that he met someone. Interestingly enough, earlier in the day she, Hen and Chimney got a call about some dangerous devil-dogs that attacked this man in a house. She gets the dogs some food and distracts them with that while the man climbs off the counter and flirts with Athena. Hen plays like her sista and asks why she gave no response to the man’s overtures. She wasn't into it. But as it turns out the man was actually a burglar and the dogs were trying to guard against him. They just let a burglar go. She eventually finds him later in the episode and brings him down.

Back to the EMTs and we learn two things: the kid (Buck) is suffering through a bout of the yips, and they deal with a lot of suicides in LA. After some therapy where he sexes up his therapist, and a refusal to climb the ladder to save a precariously hung scaffold worker, Buck has to rappel out of an apartment window and thrust-kick a guy back into his apartment and off of the ledge from which he’s about to jump due to his cheating girlfriend. The day saved, everything is right and everyone goes home. But only upon returning home does Officer Athena realize that her sick daughter (the eldest) has actually OD’d on something.

We pick up episode three with a bounce-house emergency. An idiot dad goes to play in one of those dangerous outdoor bouncy houses at his child’s B-day party. As it so happens, the house is right above a cliff on a windy day. Yeah, that happens. And yes, the dad is thrown out of the house. Chimney complains that he never gets to do anything cool because he must stay on-ground to work the wench while the others rappel down the side of the cliff to secure the kids and dad. There’ a bunch of cut-scenes back and forth to the wench to make it seem like Chimney’s job is so dramatic but it definitely isn’t.

Meanwhile, we pick back up with Athena’s 911 call. She and her husband go to the hospital where it’s revealed that the girl took some of Athena’s leftover pain meds from her dental work last year. She survives, but two big things come from this: Athena’s husband’s boyfriend/date arrives at the hospital with her husband, letting her know just how over her sham-marriage is, and the girl admits that she was being bullied at school which is why she took the pills. BUT she did NOT want to die... supposedly. In any case, Child Protective Services comes to talk to her about what happened and why she’s in the hospital because they have to by law.

Meanwhile, remember that stereotypical Asian male thing I referenced earlier? Well, Chimney is playing that to a tee. See, he tries impressing this white or Latina(?) woman by cooking and telling her the heroic embellishments about him rappelling down the cliff. Frankly, she is as regular looking as Wonder bread, especially knowing the kind of women they have in LA. There are models and wannabe-models on every corner. But he likes this girl. So much, in fact, that he proposes to her and she turns him down flat. Yep, Asian dudes never get the girl and that’s both in movies as well as in real-life statistics, which biasly show that black women and Asian men are the least sexually-desired groups worldwide. He gets so pissed that he goes out on a late-night drive to zoom away his frustrations. Some idiot drives in front of him, and he sees something in the middle of a busy highway and bam! He crashes and has to make a 911 call.

Is It Racist That This Is The Only Good Picture I Could Find Of Chimney?

Another crew comes, but he only wants Bobby and his crew to touch him. What’s wrong? A long pipe of rebar has speared through his skull making him into a human unicorn. They manage to cut it down far enough to pry him out of the car and get him to the hospital where they slide it out in surgery, but they then put him in a coma to see if his brain has been thoroughly damaged or not. Bobby tries to get his girlfriend to at least go to the hospital to see him but that skank even refuses that because she doesn’t want to be saddled with a possible cripple for the next few months or years. The episode ends with Chimney sorta waking or at least conscious enough to react to what his visiting team is talking about. All is well.

What’s my grade? I give it a solid B. OK, so this is not as genre-defining as many of Ryan Murphy’s other works. In fact, when I’m considering everything else that he’s had a hand in developing for the last 15 or so years—Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Feud, Scream Queens—this is undeniably the most pedestrian, bland show of all of them. You’re not going to find potentially award-winning writing like on ACS, Feud or Nip/Tuck. You will not find biting or over-the-top satirical plotting and characters like in Scream Queens, AHS or Glee. And you definitely won’t find film-quality cinematography or artistic compositions like in ACS or Feud. But what you will find is an interesting look into a part of the first responder's jobs that you rarely see. With FX’s past show Rescue Me or NBC’s current Chicago Fire you mostly get firefighters being... well, firefighters. They either hung in the clubhouse or had the heavy gear on. Same with most cop shows which are about detectives and not beat cops which are two very different positions. And even medical shows tend to only show you the aftermath of a much crazier scene in the field. This, however, is like the before and in-between of all of those shows. I almost wish that they did something like what NBC has with its “Chicago” franchise and had multiple shows that rounded out the entire story of people. But I can accept this show for what it is. Even still, I see potential for a great many fissures going forward.

First off, as I was trying to say, this show is basically the legwork for those other traditional servicemen shows. So most of the stories will stop at the hospital doors if they ever get that far. Also, you’re not going to see some hard-hitting police work like you would on SWAT or Law and Order. This’ll be CIP stuff: drug-dealing on corners, people actively getting robbed, etc. So where most crime procedurals focus on the mystery of what happened and if justice will be served, this show is all adrenaline rush, baby! That can be good, but it can also get repetitive fast! Again, only three episodes have aired so far, and we’ve already seen a suicidal girl jump off a crane, a suicidal big man willingly fall to his death off of a roller coaster and a pissed-off pseudo-suicidal boyfriend threaten to jump off of a balcony. And that’s not even counting the faux-suicide overdose of Athena’s daughter. I most certainly get that it’s a huge issue from personal experience, but if the main emergency is always going to deal with someone threatening/wanting to kill themselves then it could get old and predictable.

Also, so far, the characters do not pop off the screen. They’re not wholly memorable nor offending. While I give a lot of positive points for their stories being highly relatable, they also haven’t trod any new ground like, say, Rescue Me did when it first came out so many years ago. The depiction of firefighters post-911 as not only being pissed about all the hero worship they received after the World Trade Center but almost showing them in an anti-hero light was jarring and riveting and kept the show going for a number of seasons. Here, there is no bite. It almost feels like while the adrenaline rush is good for that hour, there’s nothing to look forward to as soon as the credits roll.

It’s rather hard for me to critique this kind of work because, unlike Scream Queens or AHS or ACS or almost any of the other Ryan Murphy-produced shows that have come, this one is so inoffensive in every way. Ultimately it may suffer from its lack of forceful... je ne sais quoi. It’s a feel-good show that challenges nothing, makes a statement about nothing, wastes the talents of its considerably talented cast, has a point-and-shoot kind of film style and tastes like a lick of vanilla in a sea of nothing but vanilla ice cream.

Should you be watching? This ain’t a hard question for you to answer. If you aren’t pretentious about what you watch and want the jolt of OMG every week, then tune in. If you want a peek into the lives of first responders, then tune in. If you like easy characters that are going to give you a good chuckle now and then, or if you like seeing servicemen and women in some kind of uniform, then check it out. Again, I gave it a B, FOX has already renewed it, and I have enjoyed watching it every week and will continue doing so for the remainder of the season, so take that for what it is. But this’ll probably never get anywhere close to any awards and I doubt if it’ll be the talk-of-the-town come May. Check out 9-1-1 on FOX or FOXonDemand. New episodes air every Wednesday at 9/8c pm.

What do you think? Have you heard of FOX’s 9-1-1? If not, do you think you’ll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? What did you think? Am I being too hard on it and it’s your new favorite show? Do you think that Abby and Buck will hook up at some point during the season? And what kind of private life do you really think Bobby has? Let me know in the comments below.

Coming Soon

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Do you know the number for 9-1-1?” 

'Dude, really?”

P.S. “Michael, nooooo! You promised not to use that joke in then title of this post.” I know but it was so easy and I couldn't think of a good sign-off. I'm so ashamed (weeps bitterly into his barbecue Pringles). I'll think of a better sign-off next time.

Amazon

Goodreads Author Page
Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows
Twitter@filmbooksbball