I take offense to your rating ...
Question: I take offense to your rating of 0 for
October Road in your recent
Roush Review. Personally, I think it's a little harsh of you to rate the show a "0" because it's replacing
Men in Trees for a short period of time. I know you gave other reasons, but I'm not buying what you're selling, since you show blatant favoritism toward
Men in Trees. I watched the premiere of
October Road, and I thought it was a refreshing change of pace for a Thursday-night drama. I'm sure you would say (and probably have said) the same of
Men in Trees, but I tried watching that show and I couldn't make it to Episode 3. It was just too ridiculous for me. And before you go judging me for my choices in TV viewing, I do watch shows that you rave about like
Friday Night Lights, The Wire and
Grey's Anatomy (all on your top-10 list). Are you going to give
October Road another chance?
Answer: First off, I should probably take offense at the accusation that I gave
October Road a 0 rating merely because it was bumping
Men in Trees for a couple of weeks. I've lived through many mid-seasons with many mid-season shows getting tryouts in other shows' time slots, and even though I do prefer
Trees (an imperfect but very charming show, which did get better after the first month — and you slam
me for not giving a show "another chance"?), I don't know how that makes it "blatant favoritism." I know
Men in Trees will eventually return, and now that it has been picked up for next season (yay!), I see no special reason to fret. The only reason I gave
Road a 0 is because my editors wouldn't let me give it a -10. I have rarely seen a phonier show with a more clichéd setup and less appealing characters (poor Laura Prepon aside) than this piece of self-satisfied, overwritten corn. The dialogue is like overboiled, overarticulate leftovers from bad
Dawson's Creek episodes. I am not lying when I say that I was in actual migraine pain midway through the pilot, shouting and groaning at the screen after most of these lines of self-consciously precious dialogue. Several days passed before I could force myself to watch the second episode. Not as flagrantly awful as the pilot, but close. One of the few characters I like, the female bartender, tells a character, "The past is like a pimple on prom night," at which point I started hating her, too.
October Road is toxic, and I won't apologize for saying so. But I also won't judge anyone who chooses to kick back with it as their new romantic pastime. To each his/her own. Although I can't help resenting the fact that it's getting a free ride for its first two weeks on the back of original
Grey's Anatomy episodes and isn't being forced to go up against CBS' top-rated lineup the way
Men in Trees has had to do. (But there I go again with my blatant favoritism.) If the numbers hold up, I may grit my teeth and look at the third and fourth episodes ABC sent, just so I'm covered. But there is a limit to how much misery I'm willing to endure for this job.
Here's another observation on October Road from Nikki: "I realize that October Road has a lot of issues, but I have to say the music totally drove me crazy. Maybe I'm out of my mind, but if the central decade of the characters' lives was the '90s, why was so much of the music from the '70s and '80s? I mean, he leaves town, the big pivotal moment, to a Boston song (I can't remember which one exactly). The big air-band scene is to "The Boys Are Back in Town." The main character had a picture of Kurt Cobain, so why weren't they singing Nirvana? I'm a child of the '80s myself, so I actually liked the music, but I felt it really threw off the tone of the show. It's not a huge thing, but it really bothered me for some strange reason! Did you notice it at all?"
My only problem with the music is that it didn't entirely drown out the dialogue. From where I sit, October Road is a soundtrack (perhaps a poorly chosen one at that) in search of a show.
And this, finally, from MSS: "Isn't the 'new show' October Road disturbingly similar to the one that Eddie Cahill was in several years ago? It was called 'Glory Something-or-other.' Maybe that one had a somewhat mysterious twist, but basically the same driving plot: An author had written a book that described many of his friends, and they were offended. He comes back and tries to fit in, but he's rebuffed by many of the people who felt that he betrayed them. Am I wrong? Because if I'm right, then it's not exactly like October Road is the fresh new show that they're making it out to be. And it's supposed to be based on the creator's real life. So was he behind the Eddie Cahill show also, or is all this just a 'coincidence'?"
Coincidence, I imagine. Because who would purposely choose to revisit a dud like
Glory Days, which lasted all of two months on the WB in 2002 and is best remembered as the show that gave us a first look at Emily VanCamp? I would appreciate it if
October Road took even more pointers from
Glory Days, like maybe turning into a mystery series and killing off as many characters as possible.
