John Byrne talks about telly.
Suits you, sir!
Reviewed: Suits (Tuesday, Dave)
Pilots are notoriously tricky. Basically, they’re one-offs made to ultimately charm an audience and primarily convince the money men to green-light a season of shows. They can even change cast members - as happened recently in Zooey Deschenel’s New Girl (Fridays, Channel 4), which lost Daman Wayans Jr to a second season of the vastly superior Happy Endings.
Sometimes pilots are brilliant, but the show is awful (FlashForward), or the other way around (Bored to Death), or somewhere in between (the first six episodes of Glee were so brilliant they’ve carried the show ever since), so how should we judge the feature-length pilot of Suits?
Only time will tell whether it can keep it going, but it was certainly one of the most entertaining pilots I’ve seen in recent years. The story was a grabber right from the off; it wasn’t predictable (well, not too much), the 90 minutes flew by, and by the end you knew exactly what you were getting into: an old routine (legal drama) with a new twist (hardly any courtroom time). The Good Wife it ain’t; Boston Legal it ain’t; Damages, Ally McBeal... hey, this show is different. And it wears its sense of humour almost as well as Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) carries his suits.
Macht’s character is the self-serving centre of the universe in this show. As Harvey Specter, he plays one of New York City's top attorneys and an excellent closer/deal-maker. As Suits kicks off, Specter is promoted to senior partner at his firm, and is forced by company policy to hire an associate. Mike Ross (played by Patrick J Adams) is a brilliant college dropout with total recall, but whose circumstances prevented him from joining the legal profession. He makes a living out of sitting tests for other people, but in an effort to earn some big bucks he gets embroiled in a drug bust and ends up dodging the cops by crashing an interview for the job as Specter’s associate. Impressing Specter, he lands the job and suddenly we’ve got a double act to follow.
Sure, the premise is daft. How could anyone at a law firm pretend to have attended Harvard and not get found out on his first day? But, as is the case with a lot of American Summer TV shows (The Mentalist, Burn Notice, etc) you just have to go with the flow and enjoy the fun ride. This is not Mad Men or The Wire.
The supporting cast is pretty impressive: Rick Hoffman as Louis Litt, a junior partner-cum-office disciplinarian; Meghan Markle from Horrible Bosses as frosty-at-first paralegal Rachel Zane; Sarah Rafferty as Specter’s assistant Donna Paulsen; and former Firefly star Gina Torres as the firm’s boss, Jessica Pearson. Now it’s up to the writers to make it all work on weekly basis – and prove that the pilot’s not just a one-off.
Pick of the Week
CSI: NY (Wednesday, RTÉ Two)
He’ll be 57 on Saint Patrick’s Day, but CSI:NY lead Gary Sinise’s acting career shows no sign of slowing down after nearly 40 years in the business. It was way back in 1974 that he and two friends set up Chicago’s now legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he developed his acting and directing skills.
Since then he’s appeared in many movies including Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and The Green Mile. In 2004 he made the switch to the small screen, starring in the crime drama CSI: NY as Detective Mac Taylor. An accomplished musician, he co-founded a group called the Lt. Dan Band, named after Sinise's character in Forrest Gump.
CSI:NY enters its eighth season with a double episode this Wednesday on RTÉ Two, and the opener is quite a special one. Set on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Mac and the team recall some moments that have been indelibly burned in their mind since that fateful day. In the second of the night’s double bill, the team investigates if the efforts of a young man to get close to a rock star brought about his death.
New this week
Prisoners’ Wives (Tuesday, BBC ONE)
Jonas Armstrong (Robin Hood) and Emma Rigby (Holyoaks) head the cast in this promising new drama. Rigby plays Gemma, whose perfect life comes crashing down when armed police storm her house and arrest her husband, Steve (Armstrong), on suspicion of murder. Alone, scared and sliding into a completely unknown world, Gemma struggles to make sense of the confusing British judicial system. But she is absolutely certain of one thing - her husband’s innocence.
When Gemma visits Steve for the first time, she meets three other women: Francesca, a career criminal’s wife; Lou, a drug-dealing young mother; and Harriet, a visitor who mysteriously sits outside the prison and never goes inside. Each of the women have their own story and, of course, their own secrets. Gemma’s absolute belief in her husband’s innocence gradually turns to doubt and fear when she realises he has no alibi and the police investigation is gathering momentum. Gemma starts to think the unthinkable: could her ideal husband be a callous killer?
Inside Men (Thursday, BBC ONE)
More new drama from the Beeb. Steven Mackintosh (Luther) stars as John Coniston, the manager of a cash-counting house who finds himself in the middle of his worst nightmare: an armed robbery. His family are taken hostage and the gang force him to open the safe at gunpoint. Coniston has been trained for this moment, but that doesn’t mean he can cope with the real thing.
Ending this week
The Crusades (Wednesday, BBC TWO)
In the concluding episode of this fascinating and compelling three-part documentary, Dr Thomas Asbridge reveals that the holy wars were not decided on the much fought-over hallowed ground of Jerusalem, but in neighbouring Egypt. Drawing on eyewitness chronicles and the latest archaeological evidence, Asbridge argues that it was a fearsome slave-warrior from the Russian Steppes – now forgotten in the Western world – who finally sealed the fate of the crusades. And, most controversially of all, Asbridge challenges the popular misconception that the medieval crusades sparked a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West that continues to the present day.
Documentary of the week
Terror at Sea: the Sinking of the Concordia (Tuesday, Channel 4)
The recent capsizing of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Italian coast caught the world’s imagination. Piecing together the evidence, this special one-off documentary explores how and why it went down.
Using CGI and testimonials to recreate a minute-by-minute account of the timeline to tragedy, Terror at Sea: the Sinking of the Concordia also features exclusive interviews with survivors, rescuers and world-renowned experts. Using images of the wreck and footage captured by people on board that night, the horror of the sinking will be recounted and analysed, in an attempt to get to the truth of the disaster.
Repeat of the week
The Singing Detective (Thursday, BBC 4)
Michael Gambon, Patrick Malahide and Joanne Whalley star in this repeat of a 1986 miniseries written by the legendary Dennis Potter. Mystery writer Philip E Marlow is suffering writer's block and is hospitalised with a skin and joint disease that’s cing lesions and sores over his entire body, and partially cripples his hands and feet. As a result of constant pain, a fever caused by the condition, and his refusal to take medication, Marlow slips into a fantasy world involving his Chandleresque novel, also called The Singing Detective, an escapist adventure about a detective who sings at a dance hall. It’s tough going, but The Singing Detective is widely regarded as one of the great TV shows.
Guest stars of the week
The ridiculously versatile John Barrowman guests as a con artist in Friday’s Hustle (BBC ONE)...
Crime writer Patricia Cornwell stars as herself in Criminal Minds (Friday, Sky Living)...
Graham Norton (Friday, BBC ONE) has a couple of Hollywood’s finest in for the evening as Reese Witherspoon and Viggo Mortensen pay him a visit...
Another Hollywood star, Michelle Williams, is by far the most intriguing guest on Wednesday’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC TWO)...
On Saturday’s The Jonathan Ross Show (UTV), Wossie is joined by David Beckham, Keira Knightley and Kevin Bridges.
Casting Couch Corner
Who’s heading to what show
They’ve been rather busy at Sky and the news show just keep on coming. Next up is Parents, a Sky One comedy starring Sally Phillips, Tom Conti and Susie Blake about a married couple with teenage children who are forced to move in with their parents . . .
Upstairs Downstairs is returning to BBC ONE with several new faces. Alex Kingston joins the cast as Hallam’s aunt, Dr Blanche Mottershead; Laura Haddock swaps The Inbetweeeners’ Movie for a role as nursery maid Beryl Ballard. Going in the other direction, Ellen Atkins – who had played Hallam’s mother – will no longer feature, while illness means veteran of the original Upstairs Downstairs, Jean Marsh, will only appear briefly...
Sat Nav
Satellite Highlights
The Almighty Johnsons (Thursday, Syfy)
This is an odd-but-interesting sci-fi comedy-drama from New Zealand about four brothers who appear to be typical Joe Soaps, but are really incarnations of Norse gods trying to recover their powers. Sounds mental!
The Good Wife (Thursday, More4)
Whatever they’ve put in Julianna Margulies’ coffee, she’s playing Alicia with a lot more sexiness this season. Maybe it’s down to her new relationship with Will? Anyway, this week Alicia is asked to give up a pro bono case when the firm gets into financial problems.
How the Brits Rocked America (Friday, BBC FOUR)
It’s the midpoint of this three-parter about the various British musical invasions of the United States of America. With the 1960s gone, a new breed of rock bands and acts are successfully crossing the Atlantic, including Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
John Byrne
