As a TV critic there’s nothing more suspicious than the gift of a single screener (an advance copy of an episode of a TV show for review) that features a beloved guest star, a celebrity director, a big budget, and a tiny handful of vague loglines about the show’s premise.
That description might sound oddly specific, but for those reviewing TV for a living, and who receive a ton of pilot episodes at this time of the year, it’s all too familiar.
The single screener phenomenon is usually a signal the Network has placed all of its eggs in its pilot episode basket. You can guarantee that single episode will be structurally and technically perfect. It will positively shine. You’ll want to rave about it. The Network will want you to rave about it. However, the single screener offering is often sadly a sign the Network is unsure about the show. Like Poker players with a bad hand, they’re choosing to keep some cards close to their vest until the pilot has been reviewed and aired. Those cards are further episodes for review. The ones with just the regular cast, and the modest budget, and the regular directors. It might come as no surprise then to learn there’s often a disparity between that first rosy nugget and the remainder of the season. But by then you’ve written your glowing review and it’s too late to take it back now. Gotcha! Grr, thanks Networks!
Reviewing TV shows, particularly TV pilots, is still a tricky job even when you are given an honest number of episodes to consider in advance. Some shows that are marketed in a particular way, or set up a certain way, or just feel a certain way initially, can, 5-6 episodes later, feel like a very different show.
How well a show holds up depends on how closely it sticks to its opening premise. Or promise, if you will.
Now that the 2024/25 Broadcast season is officially in full swing, let’s take a look at some of Broadcast’s newest shows, and examine how their opening premise has held up after a month on air.
DOCTOR ODYSSEY (ABC)
Sporting an unapologetic logline “Big Deck Energy” ABC’s new medical drama marketed itself as provocative, sexy, and more than a little sudsy. However, a single big-budget screener of just one episode for review made some critics wonder if there was more to the show than just sun, sex, and soap. Some of us began imagining secret plotlines we felt sure would be revealed in episodes to come. However, four episodes into the Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson-starring procedural, it appears there is not.
So if you wondered if Jackson’s Dr. Max was lying in a Covid fever somewhere in New York while imagining the hyper-real Odyssey and all of its crew and passengers, or that Max was reliving moments from his life through rose-tinted glasses from a cosy corner of Heaven, you can relax and cast such thoughts (or indeed any thought) from your mind. Doctor Odyssey is just the sort of campy, sanitised, sex-ride it told you it was from the start.
Verdict: Stayed true to its opening premise.
MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN (FOX)
The pilot episode of Murder in a Small Town had everything. A sleepy, rain-soaked New England town. A world-weary Chief of Police, new to town and learning how to fit in. Secrets behind almost every door. And guest star James Cromwell as a killer we actually hoped would evade capture. The pilot thrummed with tension. Rossif Sutherland was wonderfully understated, and the first TV detective we’ve seen in years without a crime-solving gimmick. The pilot episode felt like Broadchurch, Mare of Easttown, The Killing, and other moody prestige crime dramas of the last decade.
However, subsequent episodes seem to have squandered that wonderful setup and aura with storylines that feel ripped from the fifth and sixth seasons of lesser cop procedurals. Townsfolk murder each other with very little provocation, and do very little to cover their tracks, leaving Alberg’s job looking less like impressive detective work and more like painting by numbers. Unremarkable guest stars inevitably turn out to be the obvious killers, and Kristin Kruek’s character Cassandra, who was billed as Alberg’s “Karl’s muse, foil and romantic interest,” feels rudderless. After a first episode we are still hungering for a return to form.
Verdict: Did not stay true to its opening premise.
RESCUE: HI-SURF (FOX)
Rescue: HI-Surf’s sexy marketing and gorgeous, athletic cast confused some viewers into thinking the show, focusing on the lives of a group of lifeguards on a stretch of golden beach, was going to be another Baywatch. And when we put it like that, we’re not surprised at that initial misunderstanding ourselves.
But FOX’s latest series is more like its previous stable of first responder dramas 9-1-1, and 9-1-1: Lone Star. Having a collection of episodes to review in advance helped us understand what the show was aiming for here too. The cast and crew work with the elements to bring each new rescue of the week to life in dramatic form. (We spoke to cinematographer Anka Malatynska about it here.)
Set and filmed in Hawaii with Hawaiian actors and crew, Rescue: HI-Surf has a very particular feel. And the show doesn’t shy away from Hawaiian issues either — over-tourism, property prices that force locals out of the market, and climate change all get a mention. But if you’re wondering if all of that leaves any time for action, then think again. The show really likes to cram those accidents in! A typical episode will feature at least 2-3 rescues of local and visiting idiots who really should have known better.
Verdict: Stayed true to its opening premise, even if we were confused about what that was.
BRILLIANT MINDS (NBC)
Kinda almost nearly based on the work of British neurologist Oliver Sachs Zachary Quinto is Dr. Oliver Wolf, a dedicated doctor with face-blindness. Face-blindness, or Prosopagnosia, as it’s actually called is his crime and illness-solving gimmick. This debilitating condition has taught Wolf how to treat the person behind the illness. (My big sister suffers from face-blindness. It makes her impossible to watch a TV show with because she can’t keep track of any of the characters. She has yet to solve any medical mysteries. There’s still time, Lousie!).
Grumpy Wolf struggles with a traumatic past and a present day cadre of interns who all want to learn from the best. Each episode is strictly procedural (it’s probably the most procedural new show on air this season, bar NCIS: Origins), with each week presenting Wolf and his crew with a case most other doctor’s would throw up their hands in defeat at.
Our early notes from NBC mentioned that “To have a gay lead, who is also a doctor and hero, on a big NBC drama is an exciting opportunity.”
We concur, doctors. However, after five episodes the show seems reluctant to show Dr. Wolf’s romantic life, instead hinting at the possibility through a series of snarky exchanges between Wolf and Dr Nichols (Teddy Sears). Is this a slow burn romance, or just a Network with cold feet?
Verdict: Mostly stayed true to its opening premise.
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