Stay Tuned #1: It's A Smallville World After All

Welcome to the first issue of Stay Tuned, my latest Timedrop Publications side project that covers the world of television. As the title suggests, I'll be touching on two new shows this season that feature stars of the WB/CW hit Smallville. I'll have it out to you faster than a speeding bullet....

First, I have to talk about NBC's foray into the realm of supernatural medical dramas, Saving Hope. Hope is co-produced by and stars Smallville's Erica Durance as the chief medical resident of Hope Zion Hospital, where patients have out-of-body experiences on a daily basis, including her husband (Michael Shanks, Stargate SG-1), who is in a coma following the car accident that opened the series.

It's your basic Grey's Anatomy wannabe, with multiple patients requiring surgery each week and at most three doctors handling it all, unless they're busy sleeping with interns half their age.

The out-of-body stuff doesn't bother me that much--it's actually what gives the series most of its personality. What I find horribly distracting are all the unnecessary lens flares. It's supposed to be a signature of the series, but when I should be focusing on dialogue, I instead find myself willing the actors to stand in front of the hospital's many light fixtures so I don't have to contend with the blue halos obscuring their faces half the time.

I seriously hope (LOL, Hope) America's Fourth-Place Network has a decent hit on their hands for once, because A Gifted Man didn't work out so well for CBS, and they're Number One.

C+

Continuing the Smallville jag, we come to A&E's wilderness procedural, Longmire. Based on Craig Johnson's mystery novel series of the same name, Longmire stars Cassidy Freeman (Mercy from Smallville), Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica), and Lou Diamond Phillips (winner of Rachel VS Guy: Celebrity Cookoff). The man to watch in this though is Longmire himself, Aussie soap star Robert Taylor, who at one time surrounded himself with such unknowns as Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, reviewed here), Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, reviewed here), Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck), Chris Hemsworth (Thor, reviewed here), Simon Baker (The Mentalist), Guy Pearce (Seeking Justice, reviewed here), and Naomi Watts (The Ring). He brings an old gunslinger's disgruntled sharpness to titular county sherriff Walt Longmire, an unexpected but necessary quality to anyone of crime-solving stature.

Furthermore, the series' location (Absaroka County, Wyoming) keeps things interesting with crimes that range from the usual meth and prostitution to cultural obscurities like missing Mennonites and reservation enforcers who dress like Dog Soldiers getting arrested for assault.

With plots like these and guest stars like Dexter's Peter Weller (AKA: Robocop), who also directed his feature episode, I expect Longmire to stick around beyond its recently acquired second season.

A

Next time on Stay Tuned, FX has the Louie. And some Anger Management issues. But it's all Brand X to me. So...you know the rest (it's in the title, Ticketholders!).