Friday, January 22, 2010

First Impressions: The Deep End


The cast of The Deep end

There are shows that are so bad they are entertaining (see Mercy or some of VH1’s Celebreality) and then there are ones that are just plain bad. The Deep End falls clearly into the latter category. It is hard to tell if the writers are morons are they expect the viewing public to be so. For instance there is plot point where a legal assistant is having problems with her boyfriend while simultaneously the boss’ wife thinks he is cheating on her. Then there is a “duh, duh, duh” moment at the end that the boss and the assistant were the couple even though anyone with a double digit IQ could have figured that out in the first act. Writing this bad is usually reserved for shows on The CW.

The bad writing is exasperated by the writers don’t seem to know if they want to be a drama or comedy and cannot to either very well and have horrible pacing trying to combine the two. Just the pacing in general was painful to watch as there are more than a few moments where I sit there wondering if I missed a scene or two as the plots just jump weirdly. But the most egregious writing problem was they made Dr. Harold Abbott completely unlikeable. That is something I never want to happen (please note he was also on the far superior Eli Stone which ABC dumped to air this crap).

The shame of it is, most of the cast is likeable headlined by Tina Majorino (Water World) as the push over of the new first year lawyers. Matt Long (Sydney White) is your Captain American of the group, Ben Lawson is your horny British dude, and the moderately attractive Leah Pipes (Sorority Row) as, well, the writers really didn’t define her character very well. All of them managed to almost get fired in the first episode and there was a fifth first year that showed up for half a minute and disappeared. And in the span of their first week four of them managed to sleep with each other (but not at the same time). But really, Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains cannot start soon enough.

The Deep Ends airs Thursdays at 8:00 on ABC. You can stream episodes on Hulu.

2 comments:

  1. Someone who has a clue about the law needs to oversee the scripts. On the last episiode there was a 16 year old that was sexting and they were saying he could be in prison for 30 years. C'mon even if some judge threw the book at him he would be in juvie until he was 21... and hardly likely under the circumstances. In the same episode the two lawyers and their client were surprised when a health insurer tried to subrogate by attaching a settlement. Any first-year ambulance chaser would be aware that could happen and structure the settlement accordingly. Instead there was this very hokey work-around. If these writers were doing ER you'd see people dying of head colds and doctors would be forgetting there are antibiotics. C'mon, het real!

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  2. And that is why I stopped watching after one episode.

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