Remakes Spark a Déjà View Vibe
And the wannabe hits just keep on coming. The fall rollout continues in full force this week, especially on Thursday night, where three new network series based on shows from England and Australia finally arrive after months of retooling—in the case of
Life on Mars, involving a complete reshoot. But network TV isn’t all that’s keeping us busy. USA Network has molded its beach-book miniseries
The Starter Wife into a weekly page-turner, while PBS’
Masterpiece continues on its yearlong roll with a terrific political thriller.
Life on Mars
Airs Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC (also online via video.tvguide.com)
Previously on: BBC America. How’s the remake? Surprisingly good, considering the buzz after the show switched producers. This captures the original series’ vibe nicely, as modern-day detective Sam Tyler (the appealing Jason O’Mara) is hit by a car and wakes up in ultragritty “Serpico”-era 1973 Manhattan, where his new boss (Harvey Keitel, a crusty casting coup) leads with his fists and CSI-style forensics are decades away. It’s a fascinating mix of bare-knuckled procedural, time-warp comedy and surreal fantasy. (Is Sam crazy, dreaming or dead?) Fellow cop Michael Imperioli’s bushy mustache is a must-see all by itself. My score: 8
Kath & Kim
Airs Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC (also online via video.tvguide.com)
Previously on: Sundance Channel. How’s the remake? Dreadful. Worse even than those awful Olympics promos. What seemed outrageous in the original Australian sitcom comes off as vulgar, forced wackiness that’s deeply unpleasant and desperately unfunny. Overplaying in Saturday Night Live mode, Molly Shannon mugs and sashays as Kath, a perky suburbanite who’s miffed when her grown psycho-brat daughter moves back in. As pouty princess Kim, the sullen Selma Blair sucks the energy out of each scene, making me think I’d lost the ability to ever laugh again. This isn’t chemistry. It’s tragedy. My score (0–10): 1
The Starter Wife
Airs Premiere: Friday, 10/10, 9/8c, USA Network (also online via video.tvguide.com)
Previously on: USA Network, summer 2007. How’s the redo? As a weekly series, this predictable but agreeable comedy-soap about spurned Hollywood wife Molly (Debra Messing, her neurotic sitcom mojo intact) is less heavy-handed than the starter miniseries. Elaborate movie-parody fantasies frame Molly’s story as she swears off men, then instantly joins a writing class led by handsome Hart Bochner. He thinks her snarky journal entries may make her famous, but they could land her in hot water. (Guess which happens.) Stealing the show again: the hilariously prickly Judy Davis as her reformed-alcoholic best friend. My score: 6
Eleventh Hour
Airs Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS
Previously on: BBC America. How’s the remake? A bit generic, despite the creepy particulars of this series’ science-based mysteries—think a more mainstream Fringe. But Rufus Sewell (John Adams) brings welcome eccentric flourishes to the role of FBI science adviser Dr. Jacob Hood, who can shift in a blink from his facade of charming absentminded professor to a fierce warrior opposing those who abuse science for criminal, often disturbing, purposes. An episode involving 11-year-old boys dying of puzzling heart attacks gave me the creeps for days. As I watch Hood pursue his squirrelly scientific curiosity, I find myself thinking: Here’s a show CSI’s Gil Grissom might actually enjoy. My score: 7
The Last Enemy
Airs Sundays through 11/2, PBS (check tvguide.com)
Previously on: This grim five-part Masterpiece Contemporary miniseries will strike a chord in anyone who’s read Orwell. Does it stack up? Does it ever. This paranoid nail-biter of high-tech intrigue and bleak social commentary is set in a spooky London where nothing’s private from government Big Brother. When an antiseptically aloof math whiz returns home for his humanitarian brother’s funeral, he is quickly plunged into a world of conspiracy, forced to get his hands dirty to get to the bottom of a mystery involving a killer virus. Robert Carlyle is electrifying (if at times indecipherable) as the lethal rogue agent who takes our baffled hero under his wing. My score: 9
