I remember watching Charlie Rose a couple of years back when they had on Tom Shales of The Washington Post to talk about the upcoming TV season. "What do you think of this new Mad Men show?" Rose asked Shales. "Oh, I don't watch AMC," Shales said dismissively and Charlie Rose laughed. Of course we know who had the last laugh: with Mad Men and then Breaking Bad AMC have produced two of the most original shows of the 2000's which impressed first, a cult audience, then the critics, then the Emmy Awards and then a mass audience. Mad Men season 4 I think has picked up a bit from the gloomy season 3 (except for that rushed and rather silly finale) and Breaking Bad has been consistently brilliant from the getgo. Even HBO has been on the defensive in the face of AMC quality product....
AMC's new show Rubicon however wasn't quite in the same league as either Mad or Bad. It was an homage to the slow burn conspiracy movies of the 70's like The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor but crucially those films where meant to be watched in a single 2 hour sitting. Rubicon draw out those ideas over an entire season. Its pace was glacial. Slow packing can be tolerated on, say, Mad Men where your eyes can feast on the suits, Joan, the Danish Modern furniture etc. but on Rubicon there are no Joans, the central lead is a depressive introvert, the other staff are also introverted and the interiors are dimly lit. There wasn't much of a story to Rubicon and what there was was eked out in tedious increments. I think we were supposed to be impressed by how brilliant everyone was but if they're so brilliant why did they say and do such obvious things. The crack intel analysts of Rubicon seem to have gotten most of their information about the world from reading Tom Friedman in The New York Times.
...
I'm speaking of Rubicon in the past tense because I'm assuming it won't be picked up for a second season. I don't know who the show runner was but he or she made a mistake when they decided to focus on the characters and not a hard driving twisty fast paced story - the characters, I'm afraid, just weren't interesting enough.
16 comments:
Rubicon changed showrunners partway through the first season and this interview is maybe a little telling.
I did think it was funny when they actually mentioned Three Days of the Condor in one scene. I was hoping one of the smarty-pants would say something about it being based on a book called Six Days of the Condor.
And the lead wasn't the only depressed characters. I was surprised that all four members of the "team" he led were either single or trying to hid the breakdowns in their personal lives.
Well, I guess i was just surprised that the fact none of them could carry on a relationship was never used for anything other easy sympathy.
John
Twenty Days of the Condor might have been more appropriate.
That interview was interesting. I wonder why they thought it would be a good idea to have half a dozen low talking, depressed introverts sitting in a dimly lit room for much of the show.
I filed that interview away in my mind under "what to say when you've got a disaster on your hands through absolutely no fault of your own". He was pretty gracious about it all, I thought.
Unlike you, though, I am not sure it won't be renewed. Unfortunately.
Interesting that in your picture, James Badge Dale is carrying exactly the same quizzical expression that he used throughout The Pacific. Not that I'm saying he's limited, of course ...
Seana
I cant see how they can. Of course I'm not a clever Hollywood creative type.
David
I was surprised the character didn't inherit a bassett hound at some point. I really saw that coming but alas it did not.
Well, I'm probably wrong. But sometimes I notice that low energy shows that just kind of keep giving the same thing week after week after week have more longevity than shows that have to be new and interesting all the time. Call me cynical. No, don't bother.
Dale is appealing. I hate to think that he's part of the problem, but perhaps he is too inward to be a leading man.
Critics can never go wrong praising Mad Men or Breaking Bad, even though those shows are established and in no danger of disappearing. But the best new show of the year, Terriers, has gotten no press. If it doesn't come back and with FNL turning off the lights after this season I just may have to start reading books again.
As for Rubicon, I hope we get another season. It wasn't great but it was watchable. I liked Arliss Howard.
See what I'm talking about, Adrian?
Matt, what network is Terriers on? I will need a FNL replacement myself.
Matt
Donal Logue's new show, right? Dont know much about it but DL is always good.
Seana
Its those awful middling comedies that make me crazy. Dharma and Greg is always playing somewhere in the world.
So I guess maybe this is a sim hell after all.
Seana it's on FX. I haven't watched it yet but I read a good review and I've also liked Donal Logue's work so I've got every episode recorded. Should be a fun few days of TV watching soon!
Not having cable I haven't heard of the other shows, but speaking of Mad Men, I'm halfway through season 2. I can't figure out why I like the show. For some reason though, I keep getting the disc and watching. I even stopped getting the disc and went to other things only to discover I missed it. I think you guys might just be a bad influence.
Yeah, Logue is terrific as the lead - as is his real-life twin, Karina, who plays his character's eccentric sister.
FX. Great. I'll see if On Demand has stacked some of Terriers up.
Glenna, you're only just now figuring out that we're a bad influence? I'm surprised that I've even been able to draw the line at rugby.
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