Friday, November 04, 2005

Not Quite Over There

Since my show Over There is over for the season and, actually, for the rest of time (it's been officially "dropped", which I find highly distressing as I will no longer get any Eric Palladino as Sgt. Chris "Scream" Silas), I'm filling in the blank with NBC's E-Ring.

I'd watched the pilot and set the TiVo to record all subsequent episodes even though the pilot pretty much sucked. The only other episode I watched - one where the main character Mjr. JT Tisnewski found himself wounded on the Iranian side of the Iran/Iraq border - was not too bad. At least, it was good enough that I'm still TiVoing and watching when the urge hits.

Thing is, although Benjamin Bratt is a nice enough looking guy, he's got such strange facial bonestructure that I can't ever watch him without thinking how wide his jaw is.

Too, Dennis Hopper, who plays Bratt's boss Col. McNulty, is such a one-note actor in my opinion. He's gotten a lot better since the excrutiatingly painful pilot, but whenever I see him or hear him it's like he's channeling Howard Payne from Speed or Shooter from Hoosiers. He's far too famous and specific of an actor for me to ever be able to forget who he is and believe him in any particular role.

What I like most is watching a show that depicts a former Special Ops soldier. Every week is an hour long character study of how such a guy walks and talks and carries himself. To that degree, Bratt is doing an excellent job exuding the type of self-assuredness I imagine former Spec Ops guys must have. When they show flashbacks of JT on past missions, he really looks the part of grungy covert operator. He's got the part nailed down tight.

Like last night, when JT told some big wig CIA dude who was either directly or indirectly responsible for the shooting of a CIA agent who so happened to be JT's girlfriend that once he found out who was responsible, someone was going to die, he said it with such quiet certainty that I got chills. And had no doubt that he meant what he said. He's the type of character that walks the walk in addition to talking the talk.

No, the show will never be as good as Over There. But I've got to get my war-mongering television fix from someplace.

I'll be out of town until late Monday most likely with no access to internet connection. So if I'm MIA a few days, see ya on Tuesday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They dropped Over There??!!!
1) I'm glad to know that you watched that show too.
2) It's good that they dropped it because I was hooked! It was a well told intriguing story every week, and thus cost me an hour every week. Now I'm down to just West Wing, which doesn't cost me any time because I'd be watching football on Sunday nights anyway.