Weeds – Season 4, Episode 1 – “Mother Thinks the Birds are After Her” & Secret Diary of a Call Girl – Season 1, Episode 1

Season premiere night is always exciting, especially when you’ve got two premieres back to back.  I think Showtime has found a great natural pairing for its Monday night hour of female driven dramedies: At 10, we’ve got Weeds, the show created by a woman about a woman trying miserably to hold her family together while successfully maneuvering her way through the great green world of weed.  At 10:30, we’ve got British import (yes, the show was wholly snatched from the UK, where this full season 1 has already aired) Secret Diary of a Call Girl, another show by a woman about a woman trying miserably to hold her life together while successfully maneuvering her way through the titillating world of hookery and whoredom.  Sounds like an hour of television girls and guys alike can enjoy, right?

Wrong.  At least, there’s great potential to be wrong.  I never like to judge a new series too quickly, nor a new season of a hold-over show, but both premieres have me a bit nervous.  Let’s look at them both, one at a time, and draw some conclusions about what we might be able to expect over the next 8-12 weeks.

Weeds – “Mother Thinks the Birds are After Her”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!  Again, its too early to count this show out yet, but after last year’s disappointing season, last night’s premiere was not the auspicious beginning for which I was hoping, despite the fact that it was Showtime’s most watched season premiere ever.  Picking up where last season left off, we find the Botwin clan on the run to Judah’s grandmother’s house in SoCal, Celia Hodes in prison, and the two sole remaining comedic characters, Dean and Doug, still blazin up in alleyways.  This episode had essentially two story lines: the A line, following Nancy, Andy and the kids, and the B line, following Celia, Doug, Dean and Isabelle.  Let’s break down each:

The A Line — Nancy Botwin has official crossed into Michael Scott territory.  I think Nancy has reached the point where she is completely unrealistic and incredibly unbelievable.  This would be semi-fine if Weeds were an openly over-the-top comedy like The Office is, but Weeds seems unable to decide on a comfortable tone.  Is it a crazy, purposefully unrealistic show going for laughs, like in the outrageous season 2 finale?  Is it a serious family drama like last season’s second to last episode (where Shane goes nuts and Silas gets beat up) would have us believe?  Or has the series just been scrambling to capture the beautiful balance of comedy and drama that seasons 1 and 2 so expertly explored?

Unfortunately, I think its the latter, and with the Botwin’s move down south, the possibilities for dramedy balance seem greatly diminished, in both the comedy and meaningful drama departments.  All of the humor has been relegated to Doug, Dean, and Sanjay; Nancy is all crazy, no funny.  I still have hope for Andy, though last night he was all serious, no smiles.  Silas might as well not exist (dude hasn’t had an interesting story line since middle of season 2).  Shane is full of untapped potential (his speech denouncing Celia’s drug offensive still ranks as one of the three best scenes of the entire series), but he’s been serious underutilized.  Lupita is gone, Helia and Conrad are gone, the PTA is gone, Abumchuck is gone– comedic opportunities are looking mighty thin.  The introduction of Albert Brooks as Nancy’s father-in-law is a nice touch and a great piece of casting, but we’ll have to see if Brooks’s talents are fully utilized.  

In terms of drama, where are the family dynamics?  Where are the explosive clashes between the rebellious Silas and his wacko mama?  Where are the poignant moments, like when Nancy broke down with guilt while waiting at a red light after getting demolished by that drug dealer on the hood of her car (one of the all-time great television sex scenes).  And this is Weeds fundamental problem: all of the drama has come from plot, none of it from character.  Truly affecting drama is easy: the stuff that hits us hardest is the stuff that grows organically from the personalities on-screen.  Last season, and last night’s episode, all the drama came from writer-contrived plot: crazy scenarios the writers throw at our heros.  This stuff can be entertaining, but it isn’t truly great television.  

The B Line — Amazing.  Celia sings like a bird, throwing everyone under the bus, but karma ensures she ends up behind bars instead of Nancy.  In what was clearly the best scene of the episode, Sanjay, Dean and Doug brilliantly deflect all blame away from Nancy and place the entire operation squarely on Celia’s humungous shoulders (I’m not usually one to make superficial comments about the actors, but Elizabeth Perkins, good God.  She’s got the wrinkles and poundage of Horton the Elephant, for crying out loud.  I wouldn’t care if she’d been that way all along, but girl looks like she put on 5 stone and aged 30 years).  Dean, Doug and Sanjay were reliably hilarious, with even Isabelle getting a few nice zingers in there.  My only complaint is this: with Nancy down south, how do you keep these guys organically involved?  Is the whole gang going to move down south?  Hell, they better, or we going to be stuck with an A line and a B line that the writers have to force together all season, rather than a nice integrated whole.  

Despite this decidedly negative review, there is hope.  Those Scenes showed some wild drug smuggling up ahead for our matriarch, which should be fun to get mixed up in.  Plus, we’ve got Albert Brooks in the mix now, some Jewish identity issues for Andy, and the relocation thing can’t be easy for the kids.  But if this show hopes to regain any of its former glory, it needs to get the whole crew back together down South and work from emotion, not plot, character, not complications.  

Grade: B-

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Secret Diary of a Call Girl – Episode 1.1

Like Weeds before it, Secret Diary of a Call Girl felt a little uneven to me, yet it also felt like a series with enormous potential.  There were elements I really liked, some I really really didn’t like, but on the whole, I was intrigued and will definitely be giving the series my requisite 3 episode watch (if I’m not hooked after episode 3, its a goner).  In no particular order, my reflection’s on the episode and series potential:

1. Billie Piper is sssssssmokin hot.  I can’t imagine a better lead for this show– she’s gorgeous, sweet yet spunky, smart yet relatable, and has the hottest British accent I’ve ever heard.  In fact, I’m ready to dub her as Hottest British Actress Currently on Television/Film (can anyone think of someone better?  Let me know.) With her at the helm, I’ve got to give this show the benefit of the doubt.  Not only does her sexuality, bluntness and professionalism appeal to men, but her sensitivity, insecurity, and intellect also appeal to women.  The only question is…

2. Are we looking at a show that’s more Californication or more Sex and the City?   Remember, this series is written by a woman, based on a memoir based on a blog based on the real life of a London call girl, who goes by the name Belle Du Jour (her blog is excellent, by the way. Definitely worth checking out).  I have to expect that despite its sexual nature, at its core, the show is go all SATC on us and use the sexual stuff as part of a larger, more female-oriented, emotional narrative.  If this is the case, kudos to Call Girl if they can capture the female audience the way SATC did.  But if this is going to be a show without any sexuality simple for the sake of being sexy, it’s going to have a tough time holding on to the boys.

3. The premise is awesome.  Belle Du Jour, as her book and blog will attest, is a cool chick.  She’s witty, she loves sex and money, and like any other girl, wants to be loved (or does she?!!).  There’s not been a show I can think of that has ever tried to tell a story like this, and I always appreciate a series that tries to do something new.  Always.  But on the same token, does this format allow room for growth?  I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know (have any readers read the memoir?  Do we have some juicy adventures ahead of us, or more of the same?)

4. Hey Call Girl, Zach Morris called and he wants his direct camera address back.  Is this 1994?  Who approved that device?  It’s so tacky!  I mean, there’s a reason Sex and the City abandoned it after the first season.  Not only is it old-fashioned, but its basically the opposite of what every writing teacher repeats again and again: show, don’t tell.  There’s no bigger “show me” cop out than a direct camera address, which literally has the main character stop and tell you information.  Maybe it was a one time thing. Or maybe Belle Du Jour really loves Mr. Belding.

5. Dudes on the show– We had a weird hairy Scottish dude with a farm fetish, a nice guy named Ben, and a hypersensitive girlie man who sort of looked like Ben and whose name may or may not have also been Ben.  This is how they appeal to the male audience?  Give us SOMEBODY to relate to!  Ben seemed like a cool enough dude, but he had maybe 3 lines.  This aspect MUST change if the series hopes to ensnare the male viewers who already watch Weeds because you know no dude is going to turn on the television just to watch a show with the words “Secret” “Diary” and “Girl” in it.  

6. This is a British show.  Can you think of a single other British show to do well over here?  The only series that comes close is the American version of The Office, and that was greatly altered from the original.  This show is, frame for frame, exactly like the British version.  I think its a risky move, but one that should pay dividends, as the series’ placement in London adds another level to the show’s tone.  Just like New York is to Sex and the City, Miami is to Dexter, and Baltimore is to The Wire, the unique flavor of London adds a great deal of depth to the series’ character, tone, and style.  

All in all, this is definitely a series to keep an eye, especially for the ladies.  Its only been one episode, and with its sleek style, sick location, a killer lead, I’m ready to hop into bed with Call Girl, at least for a few more weeks.

Grade: B