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New Shows: January 18 - 24, 2014

As many of us shiver through the arctic blast that this week has brought, the new shows continue to populate the airwaves. This week’s photo is a combination of a Flowers in the Attic reference and my fervent desire for a glimpse of spring.

The New Shows color code: red means don’t bother; blue means maybe; green means good; magenta means great.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18
Flowers in the Attic (Lifetime)
A rather blah telling of a story most of us already know, or at least the infamous parts. LaureMack wrote an excellent review of the movie that captures both the good and the bad of it.

Neal Brennan: Women and Black Dudes (Comedy Central)
The comic discusses race and gender and makes both pretty funny. While this was not gut busting hilarious, Brennan did make me chuckle more than once. Much better than many of the others I have watched for this column.

HitREcord on TV (Pivot)
The Moaning of Life (Science)
Mom’s Got Game (OWN)
My Gal Sunday (Hallmark)
Thrift Hunters (Spike)
We Movie Animals (National Geographic Wild)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 19
Looking (HBO)
A dramedy based on the lives and loves of three gay men in San Francisco. I thought this was slow, dull, and filled with characters with whom I failed to connect on any level. Other reviewers have promised that this series picks up if you stick with it for three or four episodes. I will not be doing so.

#RichKids of Beverly Hills (E!)
Castle Secrets and Legends (Travel)

MONDAY, JANUARY 20
Klondike (Discovery)
Discovery enters into the world of scripted drama with this six-hour miniseries set during the Alaskan gold rush. As you might expect from this channel, the cinematography is stunning with sweeping vistas of a cold, bleak country. The script itself is a bit cliched (our hero meets Jack London, falls in love with the prostitute with a heart of gold, and says things like ‘word up’), but the acting is, for the most part, not too bad. If you are looking for a winter escape that doesn’t demand too much from you, try this.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21
Are You the One? (MTV)
Hollywood Hillbillies (Reelz)
Horseplayers (Esquire)
Opposite Worlds (Syfy)

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22
Broad City (Comedy Central)
A comedy about two twenty-somethings trying to make it in the big city. While I appreciated the chances the writers were trying to take, the pilot fell flat. The girls are fun to watch and their friendship transcends all normal boundaries, but the situation was forced. So, unfortunately, were some of the jokes.

Wahlburgers (A&E)
Because the Wahlberg family needs more exposure to the public, here is a reality show about the family and their hamburger restaurant. While Donnie and Mark make appearances (and are the cash behind the restaurant), the show is more about Mom and brother Paul, neither of whom is all that interesting. Typical “reality” show that was obviously scripted.

Dark Rye (Pivot)
The Fashion Fund (Ovation)
Treasure King (Reelz)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23
Rake (Fox)
Greg Kinnear plays, well, Greg Kinnear in this story about an attorney with a gambling addiction, a failed marriage, and too many personal demons to count. But, in the pilot we also discover that Keegan Deane is a brilliant attorney who is not afraid to take on TPTB (in this case the LA mayor and police department), even while aware of the consequences for doing so. It’s too early to say how this will all play out, but I am going to stick around for another couple of episodes to see how it does.

The Fighters (Discovery)
The Greatest Event in Television History (Adult Swim)

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24
Mitt (Netflix)
Neflix’s first documentary follows Mitt Romney from 2006 through his loss in 2012. I am sure that we are meant to see this film as an inside view of a Presidential campaign. Instead, we are shown far too much footage of the Romney clan (channeling the Kennedys) telling their husband/father/father-in-law how perfect, how brilliant, how wonderfully American he is. If this isn’t the first volley into the 2016 campaign, I would love to know what this was for as I learned absolutely nothing about the man I didn’t already know.

Impostors (Investigation Discovery)

3 comments:

  1. I'm sort of curious about Rake. I keep seeing ads for it on Hulu and it looks funny.

    I am not curious about Mitt, which keeps getting promoed on the news shows I watch. I love a good documentary, but I prefer those that focus on things/situations/people that haven't had too much media coverage already. (for the record, I'm sure I'd be just as bored for a documentary about Obama)

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  2. Rake was originally a brilliant Australian series, with a lead with a lot of raffish charm. Sounds like they've wrecked it in translation. (Greg Kinnear?)

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  3. I liked the characters on Looking enought to keep um..looking. I think it will improve even more later.

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