How we love the New Year. Tabula rasa. Resolutions. New TV. There's a plethora of new weight-loss shows including ABC's My Diet Is Better than Yours and NBC's Biggest Loser: Temptation Nation. Plus, every third commercial is Oprah for Weight Watchers telling us, "Honey chile," this is the year for our best bodies. Just when we thought Oprah would be our role model for women in their 60s who are still overweight but great-looking.
If losing weight via TV fat shaming isn't what you want �" and seriously, who does? �" make some different resolutions with your TV viewing. One TV resolution we're making this year is not to give shows more than two episodes before moving on if they are, well, crap. There's so much really fabulous TV, there's no reason to tolerate TV you don't actually love. Remember that when you are tempted to watch whatever is on because someone left the remote somewhere else.
Another resolution we are trying to make is to ditch long-running series (we emphasize long-running) that have consistently ignored LGBT characters and/or storylines. This is slightly more difficult, as some shows we think are ace (we're looking at you, Homeland ) have had a sketchy relationship with gay characters (remember Dr. Graham, the gay pedophile surgeon? Yeah, that) and we are still watching.
Others we love (The Big Bang Theory ) but can't understand why they have never had a gay character when they are primed for one. In the case of the multi-Emmy-winning Big Bang Theory, couldn't out gay star and Emmy winner Jim Parsons have suggested it at some point in the show's nine seasons? But more importantly, why is this show so lacking in diversity beyond Kunal Nayyar's character, Raj?
Going with these two resolutions, we may not be watching another episode of CBS' new sitcom Angel from Hell, which debuted on Jan. 7. We want to love this show because it stars out lesbian Jane Lynch (Glee ), who can be funny as hell. Also in the cast is Kyle Bornheimer (Worst Week), one of the best and most undersung comic actors out there. A scene between the two of them in the debut is genius comedic banter. We wanted more.
But the rest? Not so funny. There are good bits, but the writing is weak and can we say quotidian? So worth a look, but it may not hold up. Following the pitch-perfect Mom, whose season premiere featured a tour de force performance by guest star Linda Lavin, who at nearly 80 is still one of the best comic actresses on any screen, it was a let-down.
We hadn't set the bar very high for Jennifer Lopez's new drama series because, well, we've seen her movies. We were wrong. The first five minutes of the premiere of NBC's ultra-hyped Shades of Blue are shockingly good. The only distraction is Jennifer Lopez's beauty. Because no matter how they dress her down, sweat her up, screw with her hair, minimize her make-up, she is drop-dead gorgeous. Super-model gorgeous. Probably the most beautiful woman on TV today. That takes a few minutes to let go of. Fortunately, the show takes her fairly quickly to a boxing ring in an attempt to make her look unattractive. Instead we get the best rough-trade sex scene you'll see on network (straight sex, but the guy is as hot as she is, and she leaves clothed while he's left in a towel and his tats).
Shades of Blue is The Shield with a soupcon of Homicide: Life on the Streets, without the super-saturated color, jump cuts or video-realism elements. Which is fine, because we loved The Shield and Homicide, and Homicide's Barry Levinson is both an executive producer and director here. We kinda fell in love with Lopez's character, Det. Harlee Santos, in those first five minutes. Santos' moral lines get blurred, and we're still thinking about how quickly her reflexes kick in. She's gritty, she's real, it's probably the best acting Lopez has ever done, and the show works because we know, from real life, that cops can be a little violent. Lines do get blurred, so when she gets in trouble and explains that there are really bad cops out there and she's not one of them, we know she's right. Because: Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, just to name a few victims of the other cops.
There's a scene near the end of the first episode where Sia's "Chandelier" is playing and Santos is driving and the camera stays on Lopez's face and it's good. Really good. Also in the cast, the fabulous Ray Liotta, Warren Kole and Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos ). Kole is creepy as hell as the FBI agent who has Santos in his sights. There's more than a hint of white vs. Latina there that is an important element of this story. Shades of Blue is dark, the acting is superb, and Lopez is definitely the star. Well worth watching.
While Lopez was debuting in SOB, she was playing opposite herself in the premiere of American Idol: Farewell Season. The 15th season of the iconic show got a Twitter tirade from one of the show's most famous non-winners, Clay Aiken, for being "boring," but sour grapes. This may be the best group of judges (lack of drama aside) in the show's history.
If you're looking for a good gay storyline, there actually is one you can DVR. London Spy debuts Jan 21 on BBC America. Do. Not. Miss. It. This is a superb drama in which everything is pitch-perfect. The only thing wrong is that it's a limited series. Created and written by openly gay author Tom Rob Smith, this series is a gay story, and we do not get many of those. The cast includes a series of Oscar winners and nominees, including the great Charlotte Rampling, Jim Broadbent and the star, Ben Whishaw.
BBC America describes the plot: "London Spy begins as the story of two young men. Danny (Whishaw), gregarious, hedonistic, and romantic, falls in love with the asocial, enigmatic, brilliant Alex (Edward Holcroft). Just as they discover how perfect they are for each other, Alex disappears." Alex is not all he seems to be, and the Secret Intelligence Service is involved. We don't want to spoil anything for you here, so we won't say more except do watch it. It's bloody good. And the men are luscious.
Speaking of mysteries, even the White House has been drawn into the controversy over Netflix's latest series Making a Murderer, which began streaming on Dec. 18. Written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, MAM is described by Netflix as recounting "the story of Steven Avery, a man who was imprisoned for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen, and who was later exonerated, only to be subsequently accused and convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach. The series was filmed over the course of 10 years."
Wisconsin native Avery served 18 years for the sexual assault of Beerntsen. But DNA analysis cleared Avery when it was linked to another man. Avery was released after the DNA evidence was presented. He then filed a $36 million lawsuit over his 18-year imprisonment. Almost immediately after filing that lawsuit, Avery was arrested for the murder of Halbach, a photographer who was last seen on the Avery family property. Did he do it? And if he did, is the state of Wisconsin liable for turning Avery into a murderer while he was imprisoned for nearly two decades for a crime he didn't commit? Where does culpability lie?
Netflix has promoted this series like no other, and released the first episode on YouTube the same day the first season was released on Netflix. The buzz has been massive. MAM challenges everything you might think about what justice is, and whether "Did they do it?" has as much relevance as how the justice system works (or doesn't). This documentary series is worth watching, but be forewarned: You will want someone with whom to debate the concept of the moral compass after viewing.
A petition to pardon Avery and his cousin Brendan Dassey (also convicted in the Halbach murder, also featured in the series) was started Dec. 20 on the We the People website operated by the federal government. We the People features citizen-created petitions, with the White House addressing those that reach a threshold of at least 100,000 signatures within 30 days. As of Jan. 8, the petition had reached more than 129,000 signatures, and the White House issued an official response: "Under the Constitution, only federal criminal convictions, such as those adjudicated in the United States District Courts, may be pardoned by the President. In addition, the President's pardon power extends to convictions adjudicated in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and military court-martial proceedings. However, the President cannot pardon a state criminal offense."
A separate change.org petition to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had garnered 358,913 signatures by Jan. 8, of 500,000 needed to present the petition to the governor. It's still online if you want to sign.
Crime scene
ABC's American Crime debuted Jan. 6, and it's brilliant. Season 2 is more understated than the first season of this anthology series created by Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley, but no less compelling, if less violent. The same leads propel season 2 forward: Regina King, Timothy Hutton, Felicity Huffman, Lili Taylor. Several newcomers (all teens, including lead Connor Jessup as Taylor Blaine) are very strong indeed.
This season the topic is rape. The victim is male. The perpetrators are classmates: boys on the basketball team at the prestigious Leyland School, where Blaine is a scholarship student whose working-class single mother Anne (Lili Taylor) has done everything conceivable to get her boy off the streets of Indianapolis and into classes with the best of the best.
As season 1 focused on race, season 2 focuses on class, although there are also intense racial elements to the story and the cast is half people of color, because when we are behind the camera we are in the story. Blaine's girlfriend is Latina. The boys who raped him are white and black. But class divides are at the core of everything, as we see in a fantastic scene with Regina King as she sits in her gorgeous home and talks about the low-class status of her son's girlfriend, who we know is anything but. King won an Emmy for her performance in American Crime last season. Taylor will be fighting her for it this season.
Ridley has taken some risks here in making the victim a boy. No one thinks boys are victims unless the perpetrator is an older man: a priest, a coach or a teacher. This storyline mirrors the 2012 Steubenville rape case, where the 14-year-old victim was portrayed as a slut, and the boys who were convicted were portrayed as victims whose "lives would be ruined."
Because Taylor is a scholarship student and photos of him near-naked and obviously drunk and/or drugged are sent via text throughout the student body, he's suspended for his "bad behavior." Anne is furious with her son and we feel her frustration, but we know the truth. When Taylor finally reveals what happened to his mother, she grabs him fiercely, protectively, and we know she will do everything in her power to get him justice.
The casting here is perfection. Hutton is the "boys will be boys" coach who doesn't believe his team would ever do anything wrong. Yet in a different scene we saw him videotaping a cheerleader twerking a player. It looks predatory/pedophilic to us. Later we discover he is the girl's father.
One of the most riveting scenes is between Anne and Evy Dominguez, Taylor's girlfriend who caretakes two seriously ill parents, including a mother bedridden and hooked up to IVs and oxygen. Angelique Rivera plays Evy. Watch her. This girl is a star. Anne and Evy sit across from each other in a booth in a deserted diner. Anne demands to see the pictures while Evy explains how both she and Taylor were being dissed for their clothes and their phones (yes, in the world of the latest, thinnest iPhone, Evy's phone is too thick). She's angry. We see her simmering rage at the classism.
Anne isn't interested in these details. She spins through the photos, which are nearly pornographic (the school had refused to show them to her). She blames Evy and her son for whatever happened. Evy gets up and walks out. The power of this series cannot be understated. There are other shows dealing with race, class and misogyny on TV right now, but nothing this deep, nothing where the stories are this interwoven, layered, and compelling. Ridley isn't lecturing his audience. He's parting a curtain here, a curtain there. He doesn't beat us over the head with the fact that Anne works in a laundromat. We just see her there, with Taylor. Right after we've seen Regina King's Terri LaCroix sitting cross-legged on her gorgeous off-white sectional sofa in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows, rich-people privacy and diffuse sunlight counterpuntal to the darkness of the laundromat. If you missed the opening episodes, catch up at ABC.com. You want to see this.
Also stay tuned for Angie Tribeca, which premieres on TBS on Jan. 17; Billions, which debuts on Showtime on Jan. 17; Mercy Street, also on Jan. 17 on PBS; season 2 of Agent Carter on ABC Jan.19; The X-Files, which returns after a 14-year hiatus on Jan. 24 on Fox; and Lucifer, which premieres on Fox Jan. 25.
So for the best of the best, the newest of the new, and more from the reality show that is Washington, we invite you to stay tuned.