This Bitch

No, No, & No: @CodeBlackCBS

Code Black (2015) Poster

Code Black (Weds, 10p/9c, CBS) refers to “an influx of patients so great, there aren’t enough resources to treat them. The average ER is in code black five times per year. Angels Memorial Hospital in LA is in code black 300 times per year.” Well of course it fucking is, who wants to watch a hospital that goes code black like once a season?! Come on. But regardless, this premise is already rolling my eye.

In one promo that I saw, Marcia Gay Harden (who I have loved since The First Wives Club and she KILLED on The Newsroom) says something to the effect of “your instincts have to be sharper than your scalpels.” Strike one. That is some lazy fucking writing. In the first presumably tense scene of life-saving, Marcia and co. are working on a gun-shot victim (black guy, surprise!) who sustained a single gun shot wound to the neck. Guess what kind of car they pulled him out of?! An Escalade! After some medical whatever, Marcia tells her underlings that she wants some cold saline and asks her charges if they know what she is doing. Blondie (Bonnie Somerville) chimes in with some gibberish about replacing his blood with the saline, “cold infusion” and more or less putting the guy in stasis while they repair the artery. Then, Marcia says this: “We are going to kill him to save him.” Who’s eyes just rolled down the fucking street? Mine. Mind you, I am one commercial break into this mess. Strike two.

From what I can tell, Dr. Leanne Rorish (Harden) is a hard ass and the hospital brass like her because she makes good doctors out of her residents. She uses unorthodox procedures and plays by her own rules. A female character that plays by her own rules?! No, surely not! Her biggest opponent is Dr. Neal Hudson (Raza Jaffrey, that hot as fuck Pakistani intelligence officer that was working with Carrie). He’s hot in a military outfit, and he’s even hotter in scrubs.

But unfortunately, some trite story lines ensue: one resident second guessed his abilities, another was bitter that she couldn’t demonstrate her abilities, Blondie was forced to deliver a baby in an ambulance while getting instructions over the phone from Leanne & Neal performing all manner of procedures back in the ER, and lastly, a little girl (young Amanda from Revenge) loses her father, who was an organ donor, ends her guess stint listening to her father’s heart beating in another little’s girl’s chest. I half expected Frank Gallagher to stumble in saying that he had some of her father’s organs and he needed money. Regardless of that side fantasy, strike three. As far as I am concerned, Code Black is a code blue with a signed DNR.

Grade: D.

@Grandfathered

Grandfathered (2015) Poster

Grandfathered (Tues., 8/7c, FOX) is not breaking any new ground here with its flimsy premise.

GHB enthusiast John Stamos plays a restaurant owner/toxic bachelor who finds out that he has a son and a grandchild all at once. The comedy that will ensure pretty much writes itself, so I am sure you can brace yourself for: diaper shenanigans, vomit play, dating mishaps, using the baby to score single-mom pussy, etc. Are you as bored as I am? I’ll get to the The Grinder in a minute. I will say that I watched Grandfathered and The Grinder on the same night (yes, they air on the same night, DVR), and I was actually more amused by Grandfathered. Or maybe I was just tickled with the line where John is correcting one of his servers and says, “It’s pronounced beef ‘carpaccio’ not beef ‘crapaccino’.” What can I say, sometimes I am easily amused! Tune in once at the very least to see how John is aging like a fine wine.

I’ll watch a couple more of these, but I am pretty sure this will fall squarely into the #onelessshow pile. Especially since there was already some serious stunt casting in the pilot as Deion Sanders, Bob Saget, Lil’ Wayne, and Don fucking Rickles all show up. C’mon now, the creators of stunt casting (Will & Grace) didn’t start doing that until 3 or 4 seasons in. This does not bode well.

Grade: C-

 

 

2014 Wrap-up

The-Flash-The-CW-OctoberMarry-Me

The Flash is a pleasant diversion, but not pleasant enough for me to keep watching it. Flash himself, Barry Allen, is played by Grant Gustin. He is real cute. He was the guy from Dalton (Sebastian Smythe) that was trying to steal Blaine away from Curt on Glee. In the best scene, Blaine’s all “I have a boyfriend” and Sebastian fired back “I don’t care if you don’t care” while giving come hither eyes. He’s so cute. But this show is mediocre at best. I am wondering why Tom Cavanaugh is here. He looks fantastic. Ed hasn’t aged a day. Jesse L. Martin, on the other hand, looks bored as fuck. He left all that good Dick Wolf Law & Order money to land on The CW to do what? To play a fucking cop.

John Wesley Shipp, who was Barry Allen on the 1990 series of the same name, shows up at Barry’s dad. Shipp is also looks pretty good. I was in 9th grade in 1990 and my dad I loved Shipp’s Flash. That show was a fun romp. Why Amazon thinks the only season of it should be more than $40 is beyond me.

The Arrow shows up for a hot minute, and what a hot minute it was. Both of the Amell boys? Meow. But Jesse Martin’s daughter on the show is a mystery. I can’t figure out if she is in high school or college. She was writing a dissertation on something, but then basically asked her dad for permission to go to the mall or some shit with Barry. I don’t get it. Pretty quickly we find out that she is fucking her dad’s partner, so I going with she is in high school. Right?!

THE GRADE: C

Marry Me stars Casey Wilson (Penny of Happy Endings fame) and Ken Marino (of anything his friends put him in fame), and I love them. I thought they could do no wrong. Until this. It’s not their fault though, you can only do so much with a script. Anyway, the show started out promising. In the pilot, Casey’s Annie and Ken’s Jake have just returned home to Chicago after a vacation some place beachy. The conversation quickly turns to how Jake missed probably the best opportunity to propose to her. What started as a breezy, just back from vacay conversation, devolved into a fucking tirade on Annie’s part to beat the band. She started going OFF. She was throwing everybody under the bus: Jake, their friends (Dennah, Gil, Kay), she called Jake’s mom a bitch, and then she just went on and on. Oh by the way, she does all this ranting in the kitchen, with her back to Jake the entire time. Meanwhile, Jake is on one knee with the ring ready. All his attempts to get her to shut her fucking mouth were futile, she just kept spewing. When she finally turns around, there’s Jake still in position, then out from random places in their apartment come Dennah, Gil, Myrna (Jake’s mom, a still looking amazing Jo Beth Williams), and Annie’s dads Kevin (Tim Meadows & Dan Bucatinsky). You don’t know right away that Kay is in the apartment too, but I won’t ruin that for you.

Then episode, after episode, it turned into a cloying, sap fest that turned my stomach and rolled my eye. I have since stopped watching the show, but the last episode I watched had Natasha Leggero guest starring as Dennah’s new cop boyfriend’s (Rob Riggle) partner, Laguna Mattata. I am not kidding. Gil, the loveable fat guy, was like “You’re name is Laguna Mattata?!” to which she says something like “yeah, gotta problem with that civilian?!” Gil then says, “No, its cute in a female authority figure with a gun kind of way” and she responds with “You’re cute too, in an adorable human shield kind of way.” That… cracked me up. But the show is garbage. Don’t. Bother.

THE GRADE: D

Stalker starred Nikita (Maggie Q) and Shelby’s husband Jackson (Dylan McDermott) as some kind of cops. I can’t even be bothered to look it up. We watched one episode I think, maybe 2. In an early scene, there is a male assailant coming for this bitch in an M-class Mercedes SUV. I am pretty sure he had been stalking her and it was about to come to its tragic end. That’s all fine. What I can’t get past is this: if someone pours gasoline on the hood/front end of your SUV and ignites it, your fuel tank AT THE REAR OF THE VEHICLE, is not going to explode. Ever. Hers did, so I quit. This shit was cancelled anyway.

THE GRADE: F

#Gotham

4GothamCity-610x343

THE CAST

Ben McKenzie is Gotham Police Detective James Gordon, who sounds alot like Ryan Atwood doing his best Christian Bale impression.

Donal Logue is Jim’s partner, Harvey Bullock, and he needs to turn it down a notch.

David Mazouz is young Bruce Wayne.

Sean Pertwee is the Wayne’s butler, Alfred. Forget about the Alfred’s you know (Michael Gough, Michael Caine). This guy is a dick.

Robin Lord Taylor is freak show Oswald Cobblepot.

Erin Richards is Jim’s girlfriend Barbara Keane. She has nothing to offer other than her vagina… to other women.

Camren Bicondova is Selina Kyle (who will ransack her own place at the mere mention of new Gotham Lady perfume), and she is serving Emily Rosshirt realness!

Cory Michael Smith is Edward Nygma, and it seems he will not be bringing Jim Carrey-style buffoonery to the role.

Jada Pinkett Smith plays (created just for this) nightclub owner/gangstress Fish Mooney. As Linda James would say, she has really “grown into her features.”

THE PREMISE

Gotham is the story of Commissioner Gordon’s rise to power in the years before Batman comes on the scene. Fox seems to think that we care about a Gotham City with no Batman. What’s next? The story of Lois Lane getting her journalism degree on Metropolis?

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

Jada Pinkett Smith.

For two reasons. One, to see what she has done to her face, and two, to see her occasional zingers and other outrageous behavior. In one episode, she is auditioning women to become her secret weapon, and she narrows it down to two. At night, she takes them down to the docks (or some shady dock-like area) and tells them that she likes them both but can’t decide. She starts to walk away, when the chick on the left figures it out and asks Fish, “You want us to fight for it?!” Fish grins, turns around, and just shrugs as if to say, “I don’t care” or “If you say so.” Then left-side chick lunges at the other and the next thing you know, she is slamming the other girl’s head repeatedly against the ground. She stands up bloody mouthed, wipes some away and says, “When do I start?” YAS!

But then fast forward to left-side chick sitting at the bar at Fish’s place lamenting about how bored she is. She just wants some excitement, so Fish slaps her across the face and says something like, “Was that exciting?” Fish is probably going to end up being the villain to reckon with on Gotham. But…

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T

Gotham needs work. Alot of it.

The acting on the show is fine. The writing, however, is not. It is atrocious. Bullock seems to be a kind of dirty cop. He is lazy as fuck and would rather be drinking than doing his job (wouldn’t you?). Gordon gives in to bouts of deep Christian Bale-style growling. I know at some point, he is going to yell at Bullock about how he just shit in the cop car. Alfred, the Wayne’s beloved butler, is the opposite of that here. He is an asshole. He treats Bruce like that kid isn’t his boss. He yells and rants. The kid just lost his parents! And now has more money than he knows what to do with! Cut him slack and find him a cave to play in.

There is also a timeline issue. Bruce Wayne’s parents have just been murdered, making him very young. Selina Kyle is a street urchin, but also around the same age… somewhere between 9 & 12. But Edward Nygma and Oswald Cobblepot (who is giving me Stefon’s older brother about 4 years into a meth addiction) are both grown-ass men. By the time Batman hits the scene, they’ll both be card-carrying members of AARP. How is that going to work out? I get that this can’t be like Muppet Babies with all the Batman villains existing as children too. I mean, seeing Joker as a kid could be fun, and it certainly couldn’t hurt the show. But you know when they finally cast the Joker, they’re going straight to Bethenny Frankel.

THE GRADE: C-

#Scorpion

Scorpion_(TV_Series)

THE CAST

There are only 3 people in the cast that I have seen in something else. Robert Patrick (Alcide’s dad, T-1000), Eddie Kaye Thomas (the guy who fucked Stifler’s mom), and Katherine McPhee (American Idol, Smash). As for the rest of the cast, apparently “nothing” cancelled.

THE PREMISE

A group of geniuses is assembled to thwart the threat of the week.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

Don’t. Even. Fucking. Bother.

AND HERE’S WHY

Scorpion should be a brand of toilet paper, because all I want to do is wipe my ass with this show.

Before I rip this shit to pieces, I’ll give you some background. So, back in the day (I mean, the ’90’s), a little kid wanted space shuttle blueprints to decorate his bedroom wall, so he hacked into NASA to get them. The FBI frowns on that kind of shit, so they over-converged on his house with multiple vehicles and 3 Blackhawk helicopters and snatched his little ass up. He was forced to help the government with something, and they used his genius for not what they said they were going to do, so he presumably threw a tantrum (based on his ideology of course) and deuced out. Fast-forward to now. Walter (Elyes Gabel) is an eccentric genius with issues.

Eventually he reunites with his previous government handler, Homeland Security Agent Cabe Gallo (Patrick, who needs to put down the issue of People he is reading, and slowly back out of his plastic surgeon’s office) and a bunch of “I don’t wanna, you betrayed me” type conversations ensue. Oh, and let me just say this. First of all, the dialogue is terrible. But something was said a couple times in the first seven minutes of the pilot that was giving me Gladiator-in-a-suit-style night terrors. The phrase reeking havoc on my psyche is “a million miles from normal.” They’re all geniuses and weird, and a million miles from normal. My eyes just rolled right out of my fucking head.

I keep referring to geniuses but have only mentioned the one. So, you already know circumstances require the assembly of a team, and Walker is the HGIC. Toby Curtis (Thomas) is an expert behaviorist who can read anyone. He is also a gambling addict. Happy Quinn (Jadyn Wong) is a mechanical expert. She is also Asian, which is fine, but when she speaks, a very unexpected accent comes out. I can’t place it, and I hate it. Sylvester Dodd (Ari Stidham) is a human calculator… and a big fat pussy. More on that in a minute. In the pilot, they all have to deal with a system outage at LAX but they are dealing with it from a diner in like Long Beach or Burbank. There is a waitress at the diner, Paige (McPhee), who has a genius son who doesn’t speak but sets up elaborate chess moves using salt & pepper shakers. Because she isn’t an awkward, socially inept genius (BURN!), she “translates” everyday shit for the nerds and they help her understand her brilliant son (who, of course, is a million miles from normal). Are your eyes still in your head?

Here is the type of shit you have to endure in the first three episodes. Remember the issue at LAX? To finally resolve that issue, they have to take a laptop to the tarmac, plug into a Cat5 cable (because Wi-Fi won’t cut it) that is dangling from an actively landing (but can’t actually land) 747 and upload something before the plane hits the ground. They achieve this with a Ferrari. The laws of physics go out the fucking window, and apparently that runway was 5,000 miles long. In the second episode, the daughter of the Governor of CA has been “bio-hacked” with a designer virus specific to her DNA and it’s poised to finish her ass. The investigation leads them to a pharmaceutical company’s research facility. Chubbs Sylvester is selected as the only one who can go in there and retrieve whatever files they need to save the daughter and other victims. Chubbs is scared of germs and things, so he has no interest in potentially being near deadly viruses right? But he goes in, gets to the file room. Now security is on the way, and their approach is blocking his egress from the file room. But, there is one other way out! You guessed it… through the BioHazard lab! Please show me any place where the FILE ROOM is directly adjacent to the fucking BIOHAZARD LAB. You know there isn’t a decontamination airlock between the two. Unprofessional girl.

Everything about this show is terrible. If you are enjoying this show, or any of the two scenarios I just described above, then I don’t know how you got this far in LIFE. This shit is GARBAGE. This is also allegedly based on a true story, and if so, I want to meet all of the people involved. They can’t be enjoying this betrayal portrayal. OH, I almost forgot to mention what sent me over the edge! The last straw came in the third episode. I don’t remember what the fuck was going on, but the team needed a piece of hardware that wasn’t immediately available. They find it overseas (where all the crucial shit is), and someone informs the group that “it is being overnighted from Berlin” to which Paige’s simple diner ass has the gall to ask, “Can we get it sooner?” THE SHIT IS BEING OVERNIGHTED FROM BERLIN. Bye, Felicia.

THE GRADE: F.

#MysteriesofLaura

mysteries of laura

THE CAST

Debra Messing is playing Stacey, Grace, and Laura. Ol’ girl has no range, but I love her. Plus every time I see her, I think of the story she told on Ellen about seeing Barbra Streisand in concert. “DEBRA??! DEBRA MESSING ARE YOU HERE????”

Josh Lucas is here inexplicably. Are Stealth 2, Sweet Home Alabama 2, and Poseidon 2 not happening?

Max Jenkins I do not recall seeing in anything. Turns out he has 11 credits, one of which is (sassy gay I am sure) Receptionist on 30 Rock.

Laz Alonso has 55 credits. I couldn’t name one, but I’d guess one of the Fast and Furious movies.

Enrico Colantoni, fresh off his turn as Gianni Versace in the Lifetime masterpiece House of Versace, plays the Captain.

THE PREMISE

A lady cop juggles her job and her two hellions.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

Because it’s watchable.

Grace is pretending to be Laura Diamond, who despite her name is not a stripper. She is a NYC homicide detective with two rambunctious twin boys, and an ex-husband (Lucas) who won’t sign the divorce papers. The ex-husband is also a cop, and very quickly becomes Laura’s boss. Laura is a fucking slob. Her Volvo wagon is full of trash. Her kids are hellions, but they bring a few LOLs. At one point, Grace is standing in a room on the phone wearing a bra and some Spanx, and one son says, “Mommy, are you Batman or Superman?” Trust, it’s funny. In the second episode, a little Asian kid tells her what the fuck is up. She is in a park eating a pretzel, she drops it, picks it back up and continues to eat it. The little Asian kid yells “GROSS!” and she’s all, “5 second rule.” That is fucking gross.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T

Because it’s just watchable.

If Grace had ever pulled a gun on Will (or Karen), wouldn’t you have just rolled your eyes and changed the channel? Exactly. In the pilot, Laura is chasing some suspect, and she pulls her gun and shoots the guy. First of all, she is pointing the gun at the same angle as Audrina’s eyes when she’s looking at the ceiling. She isn’t hitting shit at that angle. Secondly, why is it cop shows always have the one cop that can get away with all kinds of shit? Do you think that Melissa McCarthy’s character in The Heat would be able to keep her job considering the way she treats her damn boss? Hell no. Laura is one of those. But like I said, the shit is surprisingly watchable. I may not finish the whole season, but I am watching. While I watch, I will be daydreaming about a new vehicle for Megan Mullally. How about a talk show called Karen?! It can come on right after Pam.

THE GRADE: C+

 

 

#selfieABC

selfie

THE CAST

Karen Gillan, an actress I don’t know from a hole in the ground, sometimes looks like she is trying to serve Christina Hendricks realness while sounding like a foreigner doing an American accent with a dick in her mouth.

John Cho, who has clearly blown through all his Star Trek money, probably should have signed on for Harold & Kumar 4 rather than this.

David Harewood shows us all how it’s done career-wise by transitioning from a sharply written and acted breakout hit on premium cable (Homeland) to poorly conceived and hideously executed flop sweat on the #whatever broadcast network.

Natasha Henstridge making a bold career choice that’s right up there with her previous roles in top-notch fare like She Spies, Species I-III, Homeboys in Outer Space, and Chilly Dogs.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who plays a character named Charmonique. So you know what her role is in this.

THE PREMISE

20-something nightmare Eliza Dooley is embarrassed by a viral video of herself, so she enlists the help of the top marketing person at work to help rehabilitate her image.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO US?

This is the worst piece of shit show that I have seen in recent memory. It premiered this week on ABC, but I actually watched it last week using the Watch ABC app on my iPad. I was so traumatized by what I saw, that I retreated to a safe place and screamed for an adult. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Eliza is vapid, self-centered, and everything you would expect her to be. Henry (Cho) is stern, doesn’t get her generation, yakkety schmakkety. They both work at Kinder Kare Pharmaceuticals (so cute in its irony!). Henry is the marketing whiz that was able to rebrand some drug they make that causes… Wait. You know what? I can’t with this show. It is so fucking terrible, I can’t even continue. I queued the episode up on my iPad so I could figure out what the drug caused. After sitting through 7 advertisements, I became enraged. Fuck this show, and if you like it, fuck you too.

THE GRADE: F

 

 

 

#MarriedFX

Married-FX

THE CAST

Nat Faxon plays pretty much the same character Nat always plays.

Judy Greer is a delight, if you are watching Arrested Development. Here she is dependable, and just ok.

Brett Gelman is everywhere these days… also playing pretty much the same type of bearded crazy.

Jenny Slate so far can do no wrong in my eyes.

Paul Reiser is now a silver fox.

THE PREMISE

Russ and Lina Bowman (Faxon, Greer) are married with 3 kids and renting in Los Angeles. He works at a copy store (sort of) and she doesn’t work. They both go to extraordinary lengths to keep their marriage afloat.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

If you are die-hard fans of either Nat Faxon or Judy Greer, then by all means.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T

The show is fine, but it is just that. Fine. They aren’t really breaking any ground here. If you’re a couple with kids, you’ll be staring into the future so I hope there’s booze in your house! They are mostly miserable, they’re drinking and drugging whenever they can, and living day-to-day just trying to make it through. It really isn’t funny, it is passably enjoyable. The only comedy occurs when Jess (Slate) is onscreen. She is married to Shep (Reiser) but swears she’s not a gold-digger. She loves damaged men, not that Shep is damaged though. When AJ (Gelman) goes to rehab, she visits him everyday. Not because she gives a shit about AJ (which she does), but she is more interested in making connections with the addicts there then making the whole experience about herself. She is a dream, but she is underutilized in such a way that does not lend itself to you watching an entire season of this. Nor do I see this being able to sustain itself over multiple seasons. If I were Russ, I would turn to Lina, look her in the eye and tell her so earnestly to get her shit, get her kids, and get out.

The show that comes on after this is far superior. It’s called You’re the Worst.

THE GRADE: C.

#TheStrain

The Strain

THE CAST

Corey Stoll definitely looks better bald (House of Cards), but I still would.

Mia Maestro is a name that I feel like I should know, but I don’t. Even though I have seen four of her movies.

Sean Astin serving Samwise Gamgee realness.

David Bradley doesn’t have a cat, but he is NOT THE ONE as a pawn shop owner/dude that knows what the fuck is going on.

THE PREMISE

FX says “A thriller that tells the story of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of the Center for Disease Control Canary Team in New York City. He and his team are called upon to investigate a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism. As the strain spreads, Eph, his team, and an assembly of everyday New Yorkers, wage war for the fate of humanity itself. ”

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

Guillermo del Toro is behind this, so I was on board from the get go.

This show is gruesome in the most awesome way. Other than that, I don’t really have much to say. I am watching to see where the show is going. It kind of has a vibe that makes me feel like at some point, Victor from Underworld is going to show up.

I’VE CHANGED MY MIND

The previous section was written on Aug 2, after having watched only an episode or two. It is now Sep 30 (sorry for the long hiatus, I have a day job bro), and the season is nearly over. That being said, The Strain is ludicrous in almost every way. It is gruesome, which did start out cool, but devolved into a silly plot device so that Guillermo could gorge himself on second-tier television special effects. The vampires on this show fire a giant sucker appendage out of their mouths (that kind of unfurls like the opening of a nasty flower) to suck blood from people. They are full of disgusting worms that actually carry the “virus”. They are Walking Dead slow when they walk, and can’t seem to aim their people sucker very well. Like it’s spring-loaded and the can’t control its trajectory. Fucking dumb. They put Peter Russo in one of John Travolta’s old lace fronts and it looks terrible. Mr. Filch looks older than ever, but like Russell Crowe’s son, he’s not the one. He carries a serious sword, he survived the Holocaust, and he knows one of the vampire higher-ups.

The HVIC is called The Master, not to be confused with the Scientology movie of the same name. The Master is BUSTED. I can’t wait to see his episode of Botched, because someone fucked his shit all up. The master gives me the lovechild of The Viceroy from Star Trek: Nemesis and Jocelyn Wildenstein. Sounds hot right? Nope. You kill The Master, you kill them all. At this point in the show, they think they know where The Master is. I could care less at this point, but I will finish the show. A second season seems impossible to sustain story-wise, and I don’t remember if FX hit the renewal button on this and I can’t be bothered to look it up.

When some crazy shit like that is going down, why do people always think they can save their loved ones? You can’t. In fact, once you turn into one of these creatures, the first thing you do is go after your loved ones. ‘They kill the ones they love most first.” If you didn’t roll your eyes after that, then there’s no helping you.

The Strain could have been so much better.

THE GRADE: C-

#Extant

Extant

THE CAST

Halle Berry decides to take television by storm… with the help of Steven “How Much Money Do I Need” Spielberg.

Goran Visnjic isn’t as hot as we was when was on ER, and certainly isn’t as hot as we was in that Madonna video.

Hiroyuki Sanada knows Revenge is a dish best served cold, so he bounced off that shit show.

Pierce Gagnon is that little kid who screamed his way through his performance in Looper while destroying people at the sub-atomic level.

Grace Gummer is Meryl Streep’s daughter, who looks exactly like her sister Mamie Gummer (who kills it whenever she is on The Good Wife).

Camryn Manheim looking the bomb. I miss The Practice.

Brad Beyer was the straight roommate in Trick.

THE PREMISE

Halle Berry is an astronaut who recently returned from a 13-month solo mission in space and finds out she is pregnant.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING

It’s Halle Berry! You know, the Academy Award-winning actress from such high brow titles as Movie 43, Catwoman, and B.A.P.S. No, she’s not the reason.

But here’s the thing. We need to discuss Movie 43 for a minute. First of all, I can’t believe she even did it. Have you seen it? There’s a TON of people in it (Dennis Quaid, Elizabeth Banks, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Seth MacFarlane, Common, Greg Kinnear, Naomi Watts, Liev Shrieber, Anna Faris, Chris Pratt, Kieran Culkin, Emma Stone, Richard Gere, Jack McBrayer, Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Bobby Cannavale, Kristen Bell, Leslie Bibb, Gerard Butler, Jonny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, Snooki, etc.). It is all a series of vignette’s, and Halle’s vignette is her and Steven Merchant locked in an escalating game of Truth or Dare (like GOB and Bride of GOB) that ends in plastic surgery. That is all that I will say, but the end result is fucking gold. Sorry for that… back to EXTANT.

The premise of the show is somewhat interesting. So THE PREMISE happened to Molly (Berry) . Her husband, John, is a robotics genius that has invented robot children called Humanics. Their son, Ethan (Gagnon), is a Humanic, because Molly is barren. While she’s on the space station, her only company is the talking computer HAL, MUTH-UR, Dreadnaught, BEN. At some point, the lights go out and [scary space stuff] then Molly’s ex appears. It wasn’t Gabriel Aubry, we could never get that lucky. Long story short, bitch is knocked up inexplicably (Molly’s ex hasn’t touched her from what we have seen). Basically, this is A.I.: Artificial Intelligence meets Weird Science via Sanctum. Here is the problem though…

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T

Halle Berry has no chemistry with her co-stars. NONE. The director asked her to bring her half of the chemistry, and she was like, “My half is ZERO.” She’s still not Dutch.

I feel like Halle shoots all of her scenes alone on green screen, while everyone else shoots on set then get added in post-production. I have never seen anything like it. It certainly brings a weird energy (or lack thereof) to almost every scene. It is almost distracting. Spielberg needs to explain to her that special effects cannot create on-screen chemistry. Just ask Jar-Jar. Hopefully, she is forced to come on set with everyone else. I mean, how long would you want to have a conversation with a tennis ball (or whatever is acting as her stand-in)? Halle, you didn’t get Gravity. Time to move the fuck on… to the set.

THE GRADE: B