TV Review: Magic City

This article was first published at Blogcritics

There are times when imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and then there are times when it is something else entirely.  Consider the preview of Starz new series Magic City following the concluding episode of the second season of Spartacus.  Imagine what the series creators' might have been thinking.

We'll set the show in the past in a fancy beach resort.  We'll make the central figure a local big shot with a strong ethnic identity.  We'll give him connections to organized crime.  We'll make him the kind of guy who is willing to do whatever needs to be done to get what he wants. He'll have a strong   fatherly attachment to a morally corrupt young man.  We'll add some political and social issues.  We'll wedge in some racial tensions.  We'll make sure to find a way to use some of the glamorous stars from the world of entertainment.  And we'll call the series--Boardwalk. . . . Oh, wait a minute.

Well we could set in the '50's instead the '20's, and Miami is a lot more exotic than Atlantic City.  We can make the hero Jewish instead of Irish.  If he isn't a local politico, he has connections with the right people; indeed he has connections with the wrong people as well, and he is willing to use them. His young protégé can actually be his son. Labor unionization can stand in for prohibition, and we can throw in a champion black boxer to connect him to the racial divide. Then there's always the hot button issue of Cuba.  Instead of an Eddie Cantor imitator, we can use the voice and reputation of an even bigger star.  And we'll call the series--Magic City.

It is ironic that Magic City follows Spartacus, considering that it's not all that farfetched to wonder about that series' debt to the 2005 HBO series, Rome.  Spartacus, at least has something going for it.  It glories unapologetically in violence and sexuality.  It flaunts its defiance of good taste.  Besides it is a rip roaring good story with heroes worth  rooting for.  Magic City, if the preview is any indication, in spite of the story's Yiddish connection, doesn't have the Spartacus chutzpah.  There's sex and nudity, but it doesn't come close to the Roman debauchery depicted in Spartacus, and the violence is even less graphic. 

The opening episode spends so much time introducing most all of the series' characters that it doesn't manage to create any great interest in any of them or their problem.  Ike Evans played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan doesn't have the charisma one might expect from a big time operator.  Danny Huston as the ostensible villain of the piece doesn't come across as all that threatening.  Steven Strait, as one of the Evans sons, is handsome enough but one dimensional.  There are plenty of beautiful young actresses, but the first episode gives them little to do other than look beautiful. 

Unfortunately, the obvious comparisons with the material and the cast of Boardwalk Empire make Magic City look like a pale imitation.  One can only hope that as the series moves on things will improve.

Friday Night Lights: On the Page and On the Small Screen

Article first published as Friday Night Lights: On the Page and on the Small Screen on Blogcritics.

Just as Rick Perry has been haunting the announced Republican candidates in Iowa in preparation for his own entry into the campaign, Texas has been haunting me in the past week. Everywhere I look: Texas. I got through a marathon viewing of season four of Friday Night Lights only to discover that Netflix wasn't making season five available for instant viewing and the network was only making the final few episodes available on the net. Most of Mao's Last Dancer, a film I picked up earlier in the week takes place in Houston. One of the books I have been reading The Shooting Salvationist deals with a true crime and trial in Midland and Austin; and the other which I have just finished in my Friday Night Lights binge is the H. G. Bissinger book on which the TV series was based.

While that may be just about as much Texas in one week as any Northeasterner can reasonably be expected to suffer without some long term damage, I must confess that the TV series sucked me in with a passion. If George Bush's Texas was anathema, Coach Eric Taylor's was another thing altogether. Sure they were football crazy, but here in Steeler country that isn't necessarily something to be disparaged. And, although as the episodes progressed with romances—teen and adult, divorces, and abortions, the series began to take on something of a soap opera aura, it was still compelling enough to keep this viewer watching, and intrigued enough to check out the original source even though it was now over 20 years old.

It is interesting how much more critical of Texas football and the social environment in general Bissinger's book is compared to the TV series. It is not that the TV series shies away from the problems. Race, economic disparity, fundamentalism, educational issues—all these problems are dealt with in one way or another in the course of the series. Indeed in many respects these are issues that become even more important than the fanaticism about football that is the major focus of the book. It is not that the series sugar coats these problems. It treats them as seriously as they are treated in the book. The difference is that the series creates a fictional Dillon, peopled with characters who may have their faults but who have their good points as well. They are shown trying to deal with all sorts of problems, often problems not related to football. The real Odessa is a much starker place. The only people Bissinger is really concerned with are the football players and perhaps some of their family members. Moreover everything is seen as it is related to football. It is always the game that is front and center.

Coaches in the book, for example, are much more callous than those on TV. Coach Taylor as played by Kyle Chandler is hard on his players but he cares for them deeply. He will go out on a limb for them; he is there for them when they need him. He is there for them even when they don't want him there. Coach Gaines, Odessa's Permian coach, is hard on his players, but once they can no longer help his team, he has no interest them. If he has any interest in anything beyond football we never hear anything about it. Coach Taylor has a home life; Coach Gaines only exists on the field and in the locker room. Gaines never really emerges as a human being.

It is by humanizing characters that the TV series takes a truly interesting sociological study and turns it into a work of dramatic art. It is by giving the coach a wife that has more to worry about than fans complaining that she stands in their way during the game. It is by giving him a teen age daughter with a mind of her own, and then adding a new born to deal with. Moreover, it is by making their problems just as important as his. And what is true for the coach, is just as true for most of the other characters on the show.

While traces of the characters in book seem to find their way into some of those in the series—the introverted under sized quarterback, the rowdy hard drinking running back with his string of girls, the black star looking for a scholarship to a major college, these are only traces. Over the weeks of the series, they develop; they become rounded individuals. Quality drama depends on character. It is in the careful development of character that the TV series excels. Bissinger is less interested in drama, not that he excludes it, he pumps the football games for all they're worth; his concern sociological reportage. What he wants is just enough drama to make his point. Obviously the book and the series are doing two different things, and they are both doing them well.

Friday Night Lights: Hello, Goodbye

Article first published as TV Review: Friday Night Lights - Hello, Goodbye on Blogcritics.

Perhaps like me, now that it has broadcast what is supposed to be its last show and been nominated for an Emmy, you have finally got around to taking a look at the critically acclaimed TV drama, Friday Night Lights. Sure, there were people who had been heaping praise upon it for years, but since I've just finished watching the fourth season of The Wire, you can see how it might take awhile for that praise to make a dent. Finally, in conjunction with the show's imminent demise, and a valedictory revisit with Peter Berg its creator and two of its stars on Fresh Air, I figured it was time to see what all the noise was about.

Luckily video of the show is readily available in a number of places on the net, and I have now, in less than two days, gotten through the ninth episode of the first season, and let me tell you those praise heaping critics know what they're talking about. This show is great television. It is addictive—once you get hooked, you're stuck for the ride. Plot lines are emotionally satisfying. Characters are complex. Besides, the writers are big on cliff hangers. It's hard to wait for the next episode, and that's the nice thing about watching on line. You don't have to wait a week for the next fix.

So what is all the hoopla about. It's kind of late in the game for a synopsis. Suffice it to say, the show, set in the small Texas town of Dillon, focuses on a high school football team and its central role in the town's social life. Major characters are the coach and his family and players, but it is the town, its citizens and the stakes they have the team and the Friday night game that give the show its power. Football is king, but football is a trope that stands for anything that dominates the culture of a community and binds together all social elements. There is plenty of football, but as many others have pointed out, this is less a show about football than it is about human problems and interactions. It just happens that these particular humans are obsessed with a game.

The acting is superb. Kyle Chandler plays the coach, Eric Taylor, with convincing restraint. Connie Britton reeks with Southern charm and strength of will as his wife. The young actors (too many to mention) that make up the team, the cheerleaders and the student body are varied and convincing as they work through the turmoil of youth. If at times the townsfolk are pushy smarmy stereotypes, they are nonetheless played with conviction. The writing is smart, and the photography is exciting. This is a show that has everything going for it.

And yet . . . . and yet, it has never been a ratings success. Of course, there have been plenty of attempts to explain the show's lack of mass appeal. Viewers, especially the ladies, think it's about football, and weekends with the Big Ten and the NFL are football enough. Viewers, especially the men, discover very quickly that there is less football than they expected. Once viewers get an idea, it's hard to change their mind. Scheduling, if not plain bad taste, may have been the problem.

Still it managed a decent run, and there is a good deal of buzz suggesting that this current demise might not be fatal. In a recent interview on NPR, Berg admitted that there were talks in the works about a future for the show. He wouldn't say what that future might be, but it would seem there is hope. A variety of sites on the net have indicated that Berg has confirmed that a feature length movie is in the works. One can only hope. In the meantime, there are still four and three quarters of its five seasons waiting for me to watch.