Thu, June 9, 2005
The Inside—1:02 AM
I enjoyed the premiere of Fox's new FBI profiler show The Inside tonight. My interest was piqued by a snappy-looking promo spot which wrapped up with the show's title in the Alias font. It also seemed like an interesting concept and before long I found out it was created by Tim Minear, who co-created the delightful Wonderfalls and also worked on Firefly (and Angel, which is somewhat of a red flag for me, but – bygones). Honestly, once I saw that Peter Coyote was going to be in it, I practically pre-ordered the Inside DVD.
Coyote's excellent, the new girl is great, and I like the way the show is paced and written. It's certainly not perfect (this is network TV after all), but it's very good. And this is summer, people. It's a bit gorier than I'd like, but I suppose I can get by. I wish the announcer didn't derive such apparent glee from the "Due to extremely violent content, viewer discretion is advised" disclaimer. It frustrates me to no end that "viewer discretion advised" has become as meaningless as "Homeland Security Threat Level: Elevated" through repeated wolf-crying. After Janet, the networks decided to "clean up their act," and the way they did that was by producing the same content (or worse) but slapping absolutely everything with the VDA label. Even last weekend's Family Guy – discretion advised for (their words): "animated nudity." We all laughed when puppet fucking nearly got Team America an NC-17, but now we live in a country where we're being advised to shield our eyes from animated nudity.
Anyway, a chick's face getting cut off totally merits the discretion advisory. What bothers me is that Fox wears it like a badge of honor. Soon it'll be the new way shows are promoted. "This week's 24 merits triple-discretion! Be there!"
The Inside has a great opening sequence, though. Just like Boomtown – somehow these slick LA justice shows really tap into the neat title graphics.
"AC" — Thu, 6/9/05 10:28am
Might I also suggest revisiting the magnificent House if you haven't seen it already? It's like Law & Order in a hospital, only with better characters and Jennifer Morrison. Plus: another great title sequence.
Bee Boy — Thu, 6/9/05 10:56am
I do want to, but I'm loath to join in progress. I've heard wonderful things, maybe I should just watch a few and ignore that feeling that I'm missing out on the backstory.
Bee Boy — Sat, 7/16/05 1:10am
Still really loving The Inside, I think mostly because it has a really strong ensemble cast and the characters are richly written.
Plus, now they're turning the Peter Coyote character into Batman. Yum!