Wednesday Night Without Reality - 
by J-Unit
I would guess that most people who come to read TVgasm love their reality TV, and obviously I am no exception. The summer months used to be the only time networks would take a chance on reality in primetime, but after Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Apprentice, and The Bachelor(ette), reality is now a year-round staple. It is easy to get saturated if you are looking to find alternatives. While I enjoy both Beauty and the Geek and Dancing with the Stars on Wednesday nights, there may be some of you out there that are looking for something different.
Thanks to the power of DirecTivo, I was able to record the new FOX crime drama The Inside while I watched Evander Holyfield on the other channel. I am a fan of the Law and Order franchise, but never really got into many other cop shows (the remake of Kojak was a huge joke this past year, btw). But The Inside had something different that was enough to get me to sample an episode: it is produced by Tim Minear. For those of you who don't know, Minear also produced Firefly, a series that I loved and one that died thanks to sucky FOX promotion. And if that wasn't enough, the first episode features a girl getting killed in the same house The Dude rented in The Big Lebowski. That's good stuff.
Well, it has happened again. Minear has a great show in The Inside, which centers around an FBI unit that investigates the most difficult and bizarre crimes in Los Angeles (besides the kidnap and brainwashing of Katie Holmes, that is). For more information on the show and how it was brought back from the death normally saved for shitty pilots, read Jonathan Last's piece at The Weekly Standard. I won't have time to recap this show this summer, but I wanted to get the word out because FOX is once again doing a horrible job at marketing this show. I know "great scripted drama" and "summer viewing" don't usually go well together, but The Inside is well worth giving it a try. The Inside airs Wednesdays at 9PM Eastern on FOX.
Comments
J-unit, this may be a product of the fact that I'm at work and read this post quickly, but it sounds like you say the pilot of this show was "shitty" but was somehow saved but then you say it's a good show worth checking out. So is it that the pilot was bad but now the show is good?
Posted by: Ashes | June 16, 2005 8:58 AM(#1 of 8)
Ashes,
I should have clarified my sentence there. There are many television shows that never see air time that still have pilots. These are versions that network executives see before they decide to broadcast a show or kill the production. The original network pilot for The Inside was very shitty, as the article I linked to states.
I would not have watched this show in its original form of a "One-hour drama will revolve around a 23-year-old woman who poses as a 16-year-old high school student in order to investigate a drug ring". Studio executives hired Minear to fix the show, and that's what he did. All of this happened over the span of a couple of years before the show finally aired last week. The pilot that made it to broadcast was very good.
Posted by: J-Unit | June 16, 2005 9:11 AM(#2 of 8)
I liked this show the first time I saw it, when it was called "Millennium."
Posted by: Papercuts! | June 16, 2005 9:39 AM(#3 of 8)
I don't remember Frank Black ever arriving minutes after the real killer sodomized the lead suspect. "Millennium" was damn grim. But not that grim.
Posted by: Lady J | June 16, 2005 9:44 AM(#4 of 8)
Speaking of TiVo...
Since most of the TV I watch is on the TiVo, I miss all of the ads for new shows and dont know about lots of them until the recap appears on tvgasm.
Perhaps tvgasm could have a “TiVo Recommendations” page or something to give us TiVo users the heads-up when a new cool show is coming on? I’m missing too much TV here.
Posted by: ToniFerrari | June 16, 2005 10:58 AM(#5 of 8)
Not only did Tim Minear produce Firefly, he also produced Wonderfalls, another brilliant Fox show cancelled after only 4 episodes and very little publicity. The full 13 episodes produced are on DVD and I highly recommend them.
That being said, I was disappointed by the pilot for The Inside. It just seemed to be trying too hard to be edgy and manufacture tension among the leads. Sadly, Adam Baldwin and Katie Finneran, who are both excellent actors, only got about 5 lines each. Most of the scenes focused on the model-esque main character who was not very interesting or a good actress. I'm not going to spoil the ending, but I thought it was incredibly improbable. But, I will give the show a few more episodes to see if it gets better.
Posted by: lain | June 16, 2005 2:29 PM(#6 of 8)
I liked it, but i agree, it was trying to hard to be gross, too over the top, thumbs down...
Posted by: smithie | June 17, 2005 1:54 PM(#7 of 8)
"Trying too hard" is definitely the best 3 word summary. It's full of the usual cliches, and the unlikely scenarios that always pay off etc..
Posted by: DelphiGuy | June 22, 2005 11:36 PM(#8 of 8)