First Look: 4 Pilots For 2007 Fall Season

[crimsonquill]

Well, Thanks to a friend of mine who sent me a DVD filled with pilots from the 2007 season... I'm giving you folks here my opinion if they will sink or swim. Shhhhhhhhh.. So just don't tell anyone that you heard it from me. Ok?  :unsure:

First up...

The Sara Conner Chronicles - FOX TV has picked up this series which features an all-new cast and is firmly placed between T2 and T3. So many internet folks who have heard of this pilot have worried that it would be impossible to take this franchise forward without Arnold or James Cameron anywhere near the project. I can officially sit here in my computer chair and tell you that from this pilot alone that Sara Conner's legacy shall be told with the same love that HEROES puts towards Superheroes. This series picks up a few years after T2 left off with John Conner reaching his high school years while hiding out with his mother as she builds her allies for the future Resistance. The twists and turns in this one hour pilot come from everywhere since you (the audience) have no idea who is the bad robot and who is the bodyguard until the action starts. While the credits were not added to this pilot it's pretty obvious that Stan Winston's FX shop is attached to the show and gave us the same movie quality we expect from a Terminator tie-in. My rating:  :thumbup:

Reaper - The CW network is looking for a hit comedy show to put along side the seventh season of Smallville and the third season of Supernatural and this might be it. Take the creator/writer of hits like "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls" and mix it up with the humor and directorial genius of Kevin Smith (who directs the pilot and produces the show). Okay, what is this show about? A teenager finds himself gifted with telekinetic powers on his 21st birthday and haunted by the presence of The Devil who seems to have a job for him to do. Apparently due to overcrowding in Hell there are demons and souls that are escaping and the Devil needs a bounty hunter to gather them up. The Kevin Smith humor and nods to so many supernatural series (Ghostbusters and Ghost Rider among them) make this show work well along with decent special FXs for the escaped souls who will not go back without a fight. My rating:  :lol:

Chuck - From the wild creative genius of McG (who gave us CW's Supernatural tv show and Charlie's Angels movies) we are thrown into the story of a simple salesman who is thrown into the world of a superspy when a whole harddrive full of top secret photos are subliminally uploaded into his subconsious memory. Taking a few elements from "John Doe" and "Mission Impossible" they find the right chemistry in taking a fresh comedy/action spin on the spy genre. This pilot also adds the star power of Adam Baldwin (as a CIA agent) and Seth Green (as a fellow Buy More salesperson and best friend). And I did love the tons of in-jokes on popular culture and generic store names. My rating:  :)

Pushing Daisies - From the director of The Addam's Family and Men In Black movies, Barry Sonnenfeld, comes the most amusing concept pilot of the whole year. ABC has bought this series which features a man with the gift to bring people back to life with two small catches - One, he can only bring them back for one minute or someone else takes their place. Two, once he brings someone to life and keeps them alive they never can touch again. It's a very interesting concept and shows some unique levels of storytelling in quite some time plus it's another story concept by the creators of "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls". My rating:  :D

And later tonight I take a look at the 5th pilot: BIONIC WOMAN!

- CrimsonQuill

[Ajax]

Not that Pushing Up Daisies and Reaper sound bad but can  I trade in these two series for a third season of Dead Like Me? >.<

Oh well, Reaper sounds funny and Pushing Up Daisies might be good, (though i think it might go over the heads of the general public and get canned).

[Silver Shocker]

Always nice to see more Seth Green, whether it's in a series I'm likely to watch or not.

[bredon7777]

Thanks for the idea, CQ.  I asked my friends the magic elves to get me some pilots, and they came through in a big way (Though sadly not on two of the series I'm most interested in -Moonlight and New Amsterdam).  I'll post full reviews soon but in capsule I was less impressed with Chuck and Reaper than you were, but blown away by Pushing Dasies.

[bredon7777]

Ok, here goes:

Series Name: Reaper
10 words or less pitch: Clerks III: This time, the job REALLY is Hell!

Spoiler Free Review:  Maybe my expectations were too high because of Kevin Smith's involvement, but this was decidedly "Meh".  The premise (Slacker finds purpose in working for the Devil) is intriguing enough, but the pacing was off- the show dragged terribly.  The cast is adequate, though some of the characters seem unnecessary. (ADHD note: If they ever do a live action Megas XLR, the guy who plays Sock here MUST be cast as Coop).  On any other network, this would die a quick death; on the CW it may survive provided it gets much better, quickly.

But I know what you really want, so here come the spoilers:

The good:
[spoiler]
Sock. Ray Wise as the Devil; "I can be nice".  The Pop culture riffs (what else would you expect from Kevin Smith). Telekinitec powers are always cool.
[/spoiler]

The bad:
[spoiler]
The pacing for the first act drags terribly. I'd seriously consider editing it down to a 30 minute comedy and ditching most of the first act.  The character of Ben seems to exist solely to be hurt and give our protagonist motivation. The actress playing Andi, the love interest is extremely wooden.
[/spoiler]

The odd:
[spoiler]
The slacker in question doesn't even make a token effort to get his soul back? Something along the lines of "How many of these escaped souls do I have to capture before I get my soul back?"
[/spoiler]

Bottom Line: I'll tape it and watch it later; I wont go out of my way to watch it- unless it gets a lot better.  It'll get a full season order, but only because its on the CW

[bredon7777]

Next up...

Series Name: The Bionic Woman
10 words or less pitch: Alias 2.0 (Sydney gets Superpowers!)

Essential background information (on me, not the show): I started watching Alias during Buffy's mostly crappy sixth season, when she who must not be named thought it would be a great idea to remove most of what made Buffy great, and replace it with angsty, soap-operaish junk.  My needs were simple: I wanted to see a hot girl kick butt and not whine about how her life sucked while doing so (The fact that Jennifer Garner was willing to appear in a lot less wardrobe than SMG ever did may have played some part in this decision. I plead the fifth). Granted, I'd prefer monster butt to mortal butt, but I was more than willing to trade the monsters for the confidence (and lack of whining) that Sydney had that Buffy had lost.  In short, I wanted to see a girl who not only kicked butt, but thought that kicking butt was COOL.

That's what started me watching.  What kept me watching was Milo Rambaldi. 14th sensory seer, inventor, prophet, madman and all around cool guy. I was hooked. I had to know what his scheme was- how everything all came together- kept me glued to every episode till the very end.

Which brings me to:

Spoiler Free review: The main problem with this show- it's lack of a hook. There's some effort to set up recurring villians, but they fall flat.  The acting is generally competent, standouts being Michelle Ryan as the new Jamie Summers(She spells it Jayme, but I refuse to type that), and Jose Ferrer (whose character name I didn't catch, but he's the Oscar Goldman character).  I've only seen one episode, but it just wasn't compelling enough to get me psyched about coming back for more.  They need a real hook and fast- maybe Rambaldi had a brother?

Spoilers:
The Good:
[spoiler]
Michelle Ryan. Jose Ferrer.  The scene where Jamie Summers wins Jose Ferrer's respect with the simple declaration "I know what I'm capable of now."  "Sarah Corvis says hello". The rooftop fight sequence between the bionic women.  The fact that the bionic women now are Wolverine. The fact that Jamie's boyfriend's father appears to be psycho and was broken out of jail by the organization that, in trying to assassinate said boyfriend, caused the accident that made Jamie a candidate for bionic surgery in the firs place.
[/spoiler]

The bad:
[spoiler]
If I didn't know Katee Sackhoff (sp?) played Starbuck, I'd swear she played A Cylon in BSG- she's that robotic here.  Jamie's idiot boyfriend/university professor.  The anvil that he happens to be teaching a class dealing with "How much of yourself can you replace before you are no longer human."  The deaf, rebellious teenage sister.  The fact that the role has now been rewritten to give said deaf, rebellious teenage sister uber-hacker powers to make her more essential to the show. [/spoiler]

The odd
[spoiler]
I understand that you want to emphasize that Will (idiot boyfriend/professor)'s father is a narcisstic psychopath by having him name the nanites that give the new bionic women a healing factor after himself. Then you shouldnt have given him the last name of Anthro, because anthracite is a type of coal.  So when they talk about the anthrocites in their blood, I just have to giggle- ruins the serious mood they're striving for.
[/spoiler]

Bottom Line: Barring them developing a Rambaldi level hook, another tape and watch later.  It'll capture enough of the Heroes audience to get a full season order even if it doesn't have that hook, however.

[Courtnall6]

Did they give Jayme Summers the bionic ear or eye?

If it's the bionic eye...I will refuse to watch it.

The Sarah Conner chronicles is a bad idea. A better show would have been to focus on John Conner starting the rebellion against the machines.

[bredon7777]

Did they give Jayme Summers the bionic ear or eye?

If it's the bionic eye...I will refuse to watch it.

The Sarah Conner chronicles is a bad idea. A better show would have been to focus on John Conner starting the rebellion against the machines.

To answer your question...[spoiler]It's both. The ear, and the eye. [/spoiler]

[Courtnall6]

Sigh...even worse.

[bredon7777]

Next up: Chuck

10 words or less plot summary: It's Reaper, but with spies.


Spoiler Free review: No, seriously, it is.  20 something slacker has a life changing (found out his soul has been sold to the devil; gets an encoded email from an old classmate) experience on his birthday. This experience gives him a new side job (collecting escaped souls; saving the world) that his friends agree to help with, and gives him the necessary perspective to grow into a better man.  In addition, this experience gives him a little something the audience at home can go "cool" at (telekentic powers; a smoking hot secret agent babe that kicks butt)

Spoilers:
The Good:
[spoiler] See above re:smoking hot secret agent babe.  Adam Baldwin.  Yes, that's really about it. Oh wait- while it's somewhat anvilicious, the revalation that hot secret agent was the gf of the guy who stole Chuck's college gf was nicely symmetrical.
[/spoiler]

The Bad:
[spoiler]
Where to begin.  Ok- usually I'd be all about going on a journey where a loveable loser becomes a hero.  Heck, I'm one of the biggest Hiro fans there is, and I was on board with every step of his journey.  But Chuck is no Hiro- the key word in the phrase "loveable loser" is loveable.  Chuck is a whiny, emo idiot who I just really wanted to slap.  Add to that a supporting cast that wastes the usually funny Seth Green and is for the most part made up of characters you are supposed to love to hate, but for the most part will just wind up hating; a completely ridiculous premise- there's no REASON for spy dude to send coded email to Chuck; not to mention that I know a little something about encoding images and I kept SCREAMING at the screen "IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!".  The idea that the government would work with Chuck instead of simply killing him. [/spoiler]

The odd:
[spoiler]
The amount of naked old man butt in the pilot. Who at NBC thought that showing the backsides of a bunch of senior citizens was a good idea !?!
[/spoiler]


Bottom line: AVOID.  NBC is giving this a hell of a push, which is a shame since it's just not good enough to justify it.  ABC's "Cavemen" will save it from being the first cancellation of the new season, but my money is on it being one of the first five.  The only plus is I don't expect it to hurt Heroes any.

[termanator fan]

I loved the terminator movies, and have to say I was a bit worried about how this series would turn out. I love where they are going with this. I hope there are more episodes to come. I love Brian Austin Green as Kyle's brother. I agree that Sara and John both seem a bit week but hopefully it will pick up, I want to see more, and I want twists and I want ACTION! I want to know more and let's turn up the heat on this show. I am freaking out I want to know what will happen next. I hope they don't wait to long to put out new episodes people will forget the intensities.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Dead things should stay dead.

(In other words, the last post was from LAST FALL so a new thread would have been better.)

[bredon7777]

Actually, I'm kinda glad someone brought it back so I can say that Chuck evolved into a show that was not only worth watching, but one of the best on television.  Yes, the pilot was abysmal, but it got better, so ignore my original advice to avoid.