The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, September 16, 2008 -5 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, September 16, 2008 -5 The gaping'Hole' in fall TV The new cast of "CSI: Roswell." Scientific failure N sei ste Wh Boston cal stc begin the sc certair beginn epic success tunate J.J. latest tries classic netwoi fails ti its gen "Fri tive sc out the expect netwo: rew paranormal harness the increasing popular- ity of the supernatural, "Fringe" ries falls back on falls victim to the flaws that doom so many shows to reruns on the reotypiCal norms Sci-Fi Channel. That said, many aspects of the show appeal to the By JAMIE BLOCK inner nerd in everyone. For the Daily "Fringe" is named after fringe science, which encompasses such en a flight from Germany to fields as teleportation, astral pro- goes through an electri- jection, telepathy and reanima- orm and passengers' faces tion, and follows FBI agent Olivia to melt, Dunham, played coldly by Anna ene could Torv ("Mistresses"). The story mly be the ** begins with a face-melting sci- ting of an entific cataclysm, which attracts television FnNge federal attention as a possible act s. Unfor- Tuesdays of bioterrorism. The pilot episode ly, while follows the search for the perpe- Abrams's trator, who also endangers the. project Fox life of Dunham's colleague and to bring lover, agent John Scott (Mark Val- science fiction to a major ley, "Boston Legal"). On the hunt, rk audience, a noble goal, it Dunham assembles the dysfunc- o match its competitors in tional team of cops and scientists re. that will handle the mutations nge" comes off as a deriva- and mysteries "Fringe" promises ience fiction thriller with- in its first season. e nuance or acting prowess The show features a cast that ed from an anticipated will excite nerds and non-nerds rk premiere. In trying to alike. Nerds may flock to Lance Reddick (a.k.a. Matthew Abad- don from "Lost"), who plays the sarcastically apathetic CIA agent Phillip Broyles. Swooning teens may be drawn to the eyes of Joshua Jackson (a.k.a. Pacey, "Dawson's Creek"), who plays the equally jaded genius-son-of-a- genius Peter Bishop. The homog- enous cast of principal characters is sadly accompanied by more derivative roles, such as the over- ly blunt police chief, the assistant who's just happy to be there and the clinically insane scientist. John Noble ("The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King"), the Australian actor who plays mad scientist Walter Bishop, succeeds in both his dramatic and comedic scenes, though, despite the stale writing. The show's dialogue is mostly predictable, with jokes being the most striking and memorable lines of the show. Dramatic scenes, par- ticularly those between Dunham and CIA stoic Broyles, are often so stilted that they're clearly just spouting their memorized lines. Luckily, the reluctant father and son team of Walter and Bishop provide some actual acting, not to mention most of the show's comic relief. The greatest disappointment of the show (except for the first scene) is that all the science is extremely cheesy, full of glow- ing lights, bubbling tubes, shiny machines and random scien- tific jargon strung together into complete nonsense. While this is enough to please many sci-fi addicts, Abrams could've made a greater effort to revitalize the sci-fi genre with a sense of real- ism, making it more accessible to a network audience. This must be what it's like to have a totally crappy Christmas. Like it must feel to wait patient- ly for months only to receive a few re-gifts and some trinkets from Japan, I'm feeling underwhelmed, disappointed _ and pessimistic about human- ity's prospects all at once. I can't say for certain if this analogy holds true, since my MICHAEL Christmases PASSMAN have gener- ally centered on Chinese food, but I've seen the "Home Alone" movies enough to make me something of an expert on the subject and pretty confident about this: The new fall TV season is barely underway, and it's already like the worst Christmas ever. Fall television is supposed to be an oasis in the desert for TV junkies. Summer television has always been an afterthought, but the advent of reality television has made the last ten or so summers especially poor and the contrast between fall and summer pro- gramming even more pronounced. So after barely getting by on a summer of "Seinfeld" reruns and only three of four "Undeclared" DVDs - seriously, if anyone knows where Disc 3 my "Undeclared" DVD set is I'll give you $15, no, $20 - the new fall television schedule arrived to rescue my DVR from "Conan" reruns. (Quick tangent: Why aren't single disc replacements for DVD box sets available? I'm not giving Judd Apatow $50 for 3 DVDs I already have and one my house- mates lost. Isn't this what eBay is for? Someone put me in touch with a venture capitalist; I want to make this happen.) Here's the problem: The new fall schedule is not good. Very, very not good. Granted, most television is generally deplorable, but the cur- rent network lineups are especially weak. What's unusual, though, is that the fault he: ers fortl Let's1 months. America Tina Fe' Manhat old peop without the TV' to ne shi months salaries back to' shaved f was just Excel the writ episode they als pilots of Love He strike et have the normal1 historic pilots at small pe Th didi W( the netv unusual cut shor even mo ordered but put: to howl ate. Thi well. Ex "Holi show fr version, humans wall. Th passing doors. ( pick, th themsel ing wall a techni illumin networks aren't solely at "THAT WALL NEVER STOOD A re; you can blame the writ- CHANCE," when especially, um, his one, too. substantial women aren't able to backtrack roughly 10 . fit through the wall. This is quality .The Writers Guild of shit, people. a had just gone on strike, On the other end of the spec- y was walking around trum is NBC's "Chuck," which no tan with a picket sign, one really liked but apparently ale were preparing for life wasn't bad enough for NBC to five different "CSI"s and replace with something new. Like world was getting ready a number of shows that debuted ut down. But after a few last fall only to be cut shortby of throwing away their the strike, "Chuck" still exists the Guild agreed to come because it can. It seems to have work, and Letterman made sense for the networks to his beard and everything suck a little more out of their swell. strike-shortened shows and hope pt it wasn't. Because while everyone forgot how much they ers weren't writing new never, ever wanted to watch a s of the "Ghost Whisperer," show like "Chuck." o weren't writing or selling And that's about it. Granted, new, less terrible Jennifer the season is just beginning and a ewitt vehicles. So when the number of shows have yetto debut, nded, the networks didn't butthe fall is almost entirely void e resources to conduct their of buzz-worthy new programming. pilot season, in which they In the past couple years, "Studio 60 ally commission a pool of on the Sunset Strip," "Friday Night nd move forward with a Lights" and "Pushing Daises" were ercentage of them. Instead, anticipated properties entering the fall, and though their quality level varied wildly, they at leastbrought e writers strike some excitement to the fall season. This year, J.J. Abrams's "Fringe" more harm than had some potential, but it debuted on Fox last week and seems to be e first thought. nothing more than the "X-Files" with fewer internet porn addicts and more Mighty Ducks. NBC has works brought back an a revitalized "Knight Rider" set ly high number of shows to debut in the coming weeks, but t by the strike, imported that will probably only appeal to ire reality shows and the type of person who gets excited a smaller number of pilots, whenthey're in a car with OnStar. more stock in them, similar And sure, "The Office" and "30 HBO and Showtime oper- Rock" are comingback, and "Lost" s strategy hasn't worked will be consistently blowing my . hibit A: "Hole in the Wall." mind by early next year, but network e in the Wall" is atelevision television's prospects are pretty om Japan. In the American dark outside of that. For an industry which is obviously on Fox, built on shallow hype, it's doinga jump through holes in a poor job of making me excited about tat is the show - people anything newthis fall. through non-traditional Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm Well, if you want to nit- going to go put a hole through my e contestants position wall. ves to slide through mov- s, but that's really just cality.) It also features ating commentary like Passman really, really wants "Cavemen" back. E-mail him at passman@michigandaily.com. Jeezy gets political By KIMBERLY CHOU DailyArts Writer It's campaign season, so even non-hip-hop heads should have noticed the last track, "Mr. Pres- ident," on Young Jeezy's The Recession. Over sweeping, "Hail to the Chief"-style strings, Jeezy raps "My president is black / My Lambo's blue / And I'll be god- damned if my on e rims ain't too." The Recession The track Def lam isn't as overtly political as Nas's "Black President" (which echoes its "Yes we can / Change the world" hook with a sample of an Obama speech), but it's a digest- ible statement of support that marries social change and materi- alism. The chorus repeats the "My president is black" refrain, fol- lowed by "My momma ain't home and daddy still in jail / Tryin' a make a plate / Anybody seen the scale?", then "My money's light green and my Jordans light gray / And they love to see white / Now how much you tryn' a say?" (For a campaign that's been looking for the support of the hip-hop com- munity, thank God this isn't the song that calls Hillary Clinton an irrelevant bitch.) Jeezy's growl and trademark boasts still ground the body of the album, his third, but could it be that Jeezy's brand of crack rap has gained an extra consciousness? Jeezy's lyrics address his person- al politics more than before; the album's introduction opens with newscasters warning about the economic downturn, until those voices are overtaken by a woman's frustrated rant about the rising cost of living. But don't worry that the soapbox oratory outweighs Jeezy's regular fare; rhymes about cash and blow still dominate. Reassurance that we just have to keep on keeping on when "Bush tryn' a punish us ... you get more time for selling dope than murder / in this crazy world" translates neatly into Jeezyian terms: Money may be slow, but the world keeps turning just as his rims keep spin- ning. But forget the new conscious- ness for a moment. Even the rhymes about slinging on the street's are sharper than before, and the album (produced by DJ Toomp, Kanye West and Drumma Boy, amongothers) packagesthem into controlled, punchy numbers: "Circulate," with bright trum- pet calls and hiccupy verses, and "Word Play," where he addresses haters over a soaring soul line. Built on rifle-shot snare, "Everything" slouches dirge-like toward an ending that - for bet- ter or worse - becomes a vehicle for guest-star Anthony Hamil- ton. At a time when it seems the majority of big-label rappers lean heavily on guest contribu- tors, Jeezy keeps a relatively low Crack rap to electoral rap. guest list, featuring Hamilton, Lil Boosie, Nas, Trey Songz and West, which allows Jeezy to carry his own weight. The Recession's first single, "Put On," simply pops with the West-on-Autotune guest verse; West doesn't commandeer the track as he's prone to doing. The Recession slows down when the braggadocio-heavy schtick turns to filler, like the lazy, ques- tionable chorus of "Amazin' ": "Cuz bitch I'm amazin' / Look what I'm blazin / Eyes so low / Yeah I look like an Asian." The stormy "By the Way" tires with heavy-handed repetitions of the title phrase, rescued somewhatby rising, video-game synths. Although Jeezy's execution of up-by-your-boot straps crack rap was always consistent - raw, though carefully produced, with a heaviness perfect for blasting in the car in hot weather - The Recession's stronger political bent demonstrates dimensions at which his previous work only hinted.