So there I was last Saturday night, not really wanting to read any more, just kinda of lazy. You know what I mean, the kinda lazy where you don’t even have the energy to get up and put in a video that you need to watch (so you can return it to the video store or the library), the kind of lazy where you don’t even have the energy to get up the INTEREST to watch a video. The kind of lazy where you end up watching pieces of nothing all night and suddenly it’s 5 hours later and you haven’t done a thing.
Enter CBS.
They had a new show premiering - a two hour premiere, no less - called “The Bridge,” some sort of Cop show. CBS cop shows tend to be....what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh right: formulaic. And Saturday night? The Death-Night of Television? (I should have known something was up because no Network would try to premiere a show on Saturday night, not even in the summer.)
The odds of The Bridge NOT sucking were at least 20/1. More so. Yet, I found myself turning to CBS come 8:00. Why? Call it sheer perversity. it wasn’t a matter of If it would suck, but When, and How Much. Basically, I wanted to see how much suckery I could stand before I succumbed to yet another NCIS marathon or whatever USA deemed my night’s viewing.
The opening sequence was decent. Edgy, some implied violence. My eyebrows raised just a tad. Going in, the absolute ceiling I could hope for was the Gaping Mediocrity of The District, and The Bridge wouldn’t have the benefits of Mr. Craig T. Nelson.
Enter CBS.
They had a new show premiering - a two hour premiere, no less - called “The Bridge,” some sort of Cop show. CBS cop shows tend to be....what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh right: formulaic. And Saturday night? The Death-Night of Television? (I should have known something was up because no Network would try to premiere a show on Saturday night, not even in the summer.)
The odds of The Bridge NOT sucking were at least 20/1. More so. Yet, I found myself turning to CBS come 8:00. Why? Call it sheer perversity. it wasn’t a matter of If it would suck, but When, and How Much. Basically, I wanted to see how much suckery I could stand before I succumbed to yet another NCIS marathon or whatever USA deemed my night’s viewing.
The opening sequence was decent. Edgy, some implied violence. My eyebrows raised just a tad. Going in, the absolute ceiling I could hope for was the Gaping Mediocrity of The District, and The Bridge wouldn’t have the benefits of Mr. Craig T. Nelson.
(So glarey! Are Canadians really this scary? Um.....no)
Who I DID recognize was Aaron Douglas, the Chief Mechanic in Battlestar Galactica. It was like seeing an old friend. “Hey, there’s Tyrol from BG!” I told no one in particular. This made me stay awhile longer, to see Tyrol again, and also morbidly curious when The Bridge would start sucking.
In a Fairy Tale world I would get to the end, love, it, and be singing the praises. But c’mon. This is Saturday Night. Summer. CBS. On top of that - and it’s hard to believe I didn’t figure this out - The Bridge is not even an American show. It’s made in Canada. In fact, it already aired up there. CBS bought it to air here. (Talk about Sloppy Seconds....) Probably payed next-to-nothing for it. Which was likely a deal for both sides. (American Networks pay more for Dry Cleaning than most Canadian shows get for their budgets.)
Once it dawned on me I was watching a Canadian show I enjoyed it a little more, because Canadians are just adorable, especially when they playing cops and robbers. They’re all “Grrrrr” - but you know in their hearts they just want to say “Right on” and offer to be helpful. I missed their accents, and little language/behavior quirks, so for me The Bridge was fun on that level.
In a Fairy Tale world I would get to the end, love, it, and be singing the praises. But c’mon. This is Saturday Night. Summer. CBS. On top of that - and it’s hard to believe I didn’t figure this out - The Bridge is not even an American show. It’s made in Canada. In fact, it already aired up there. CBS bought it to air here. (Talk about Sloppy Seconds....) Probably payed next-to-nothing for it. Which was likely a deal for both sides. (American Networks pay more for Dry Cleaning than most Canadian shows get for their budgets.)
Once it dawned on me I was watching a Canadian show I enjoyed it a little more, because Canadians are just adorable, especially when they playing cops and robbers. They’re all “Grrrrr” - but you know in their hearts they just want to say “Right on” and offer to be helpful. I missed their accents, and little language/behavior quirks, so for me The Bridge was fun on that level.
(mmmmm...I wanna jump "Ona" her....)
Also, in the proud tradition of cop shows, there were some hotties. Most notably, Ona Grauer (who plays Abby St. James, and how great a name is that?) and Theresa Joy, who can play anything she wants.
(If I'm pulled over by her, I'm gonna confess to stealing her virtue....tonight)
There was a plot too, like you care. The most interesting part turned out to be whether the “Brass” would give a Police Funeral to a cop to suicided himself. I said yes, because cops understand the pressure, etc. (though I wasn’t mad at the show for putting that in there; standard TV melodrama), but my dad thought it was a legitimate plot point when I told him about it later.
So, where was I? Theresa Joy?
(Why's her hair like that? Windchill Factor. Canadians are obsessed with bragging about it.)
Wait, we covered here, but it never hurts to jump on her again, eh? (Little Canadian jargon there.)
Was The Bridge stellar programming? No, of course not. But it was legitimately not sucky for 38 minutes, and even interesting for the first hour. (The second hour got bogged down in the needed “Conflict” that would be miraculously resolved by the end, but again, I understand how TV works, and my gripe there would be more with TV than with The Bridge.)
Would I watch The Bridge again? Well, I ain’t planning my week around it. But the next time I find myself lazy on a Saturday night and notice it’s on, I might be tempted to sit there in the comforting cliche of CBS cops.
Was The Bridge stellar programming? No, of course not. But it was legitimately not sucky for 38 minutes, and even interesting for the first hour. (The second hour got bogged down in the needed “Conflict” that would be miraculously resolved by the end, but again, I understand how TV works, and my gripe there would be more with TV than with The Bridge.)
Would I watch The Bridge again? Well, I ain’t planning my week around it. But the next time I find myself lazy on a Saturday night and notice it’s on, I might be tempted to sit there in the comforting cliche of CBS cops.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment