Summer TV Roundup, Week One


For the most part the regular season is over and the shows of summer are beginning to debut. In these weekly posts I look at the pilot and second episodes of new shows.

Thursday Nights:
Wayward Pines, Thursdays at 9 p.m. on FOX (Premiered May 14)
About: This long-gestating series finally debuts on Thursday after being part of the last two FOX Upfront presentations. This limited series — it has just 10 episodes — is based on the novel "Pines" by Blake Crouch. It has a good cast, including Matt Dillion, Juliette Lewis, Terrence Howard, and Melissa Leo, and a creepy vibe. FOX made the pilot available early, and it sets the stage for what's to come. This series has drawn comparisons to "Twin Peaks," and it definitely has the weird, culty vibe. I was fascinated by the pilot, even though I wasn't totally sure what was going on. This seems like the kind of interesting gamble that is perfect for FOX this summer, and as a bonus it gets four weeks of regular season "Bones" episodes as a lead-in.
Pilot Grade: B-

Streaming Series:
Grace & Frankie, Now Streaming on Netflix (Premiered May 8)
About: This is the latest comedy from Marta Kauffman, co-creator of "Friends." But this is a wildly different show. It re-unites Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as a pair of women who don't have much in common that are thrown together as their lives are thrown into disarray. Their husbands — lawyers and business partners (played by Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, respectively) — tell the ladies over dinner that they are gay, in love with each other, and planning to get married. Now Tomlin and Fonda have to find a way forward, and have to find a way to deal with each other's clashing styles. The first two episodes had some amusing moments, but overall I expected more from this series. It has a talented cast and a unique premise, but I wasn't sold on the first two episodes. More importantly, this doesn't feel like the kind of show that you really want to binge watch, which is typically the appeal of Netflix.
Pilot Grade: C
Second Episode: C-

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