The Riches Review by Matt Roush
You always want to give FX bonus points for originality. Having delivered bold new twists on the crime drama (
The Shield), the medical drama (
Nip/Tuck) and the firefighter-hero drama (
Rescue Me), this maverick network now sets its sights on the family drama. The results are mixed, but you'd never confuse the Riches of
The Riches (Monday, March 12, at 10 pm/ET) for a typical TV family. They're not even really the Riches, wherein lies the setup.
British actors Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver are Wayne and Dahlia Malloy, Louisiana grifters from a secret Gypsy Traveller society. They have three kids who act as accomplices on their circuit of nomadic thieving. Life changes forever for the Malloys when they steal from the clan's coffers and go on the lam, and then assume the identity of a wealthy couple — the actual Riches — who die in a car wreck.
When the Malloys trade in their RV for the Riches' gated-community mansion in the ultimate scam, the culture clash is almost as jolting as the show's inconsistent juggling of tones from humor and drama to suburban satire, much of which falls flat. The Riches is intriguing but not exactly compelling.
Still, Izzard is a strong leading man, unleashing a theatrical flair as Wayne takes on the role of a lifetime, trying to pass as a real-estate lawyer. Meanwhile, parolee Dahlia struggles with addictions as she puts up a domestic front for the neighbors (who include the marvelous scene-stealer Margo Martindale). The kids, who've never even attended a regular school, also have adjustment problems, especially little Sam, a boy who's comfier in girls' clothes.
The Riches is hard to believe and not much easier to embrace. Like so much on FX, it's certainly different. But this time, will that be enough to succeed?
Miami Viceroy
Note to Donnie Wahlberg and Jason Gedrick: We'll always have Boomtown. These fine actors are wasted in the underwritten true-crime mishmash of the glossy A&E movie Kings of South Beach (March 12, 9 pm/ET), about the fall of club kingpin Chris Troiano (Gedrick). With more attention paid to recreating the glam disco milieu than to developing character, it's tough to care what happens to him or to his confidant (Wahlberg), whose own motivation is transparently familiar to anyone who ever saw Wiseguy.
Roush Rave
I love Christine Campbell (Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus) with all of her selfish, frazzled, divorced-parent neuroses, and am tickled to welcome back The New Adventures of Old Christine from hiatus with back-to-back episodes this week. For my money, it's the best of CBS' hit comedies. In the first and funnier episode, a sleep-deprived Christine rekindles an old romance under the influence of pills that mask a wicked mean streak. ("I guess way down deep I'm a sweetheart. Way, way down.") It doesn't end well — because how much fun would that be? It does, however, end with a roar.
