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About meekthegeek

Writer, animal lover, environmentalist, pop culture fanatic, and Star Wars fan.

Clone High

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I’ve realized that, although I love animation, I have yet to write about any animated series on this blog (except for a couple of mentions in this entry on my favorite pilots).

I started thinking about why this is. There are a couple of characteristics that make animated series a little different from other series in the pilot department. Animated series tend to have more emphasis on the plot-per-episode than on a longer story arc. In other words, nothing much changes episode to episode. Bart Simpson has been in fourth grade for 20 years, for chrissake. So the pilot is not necessarily distinguishable from later episodes.

Also, animated series are often based on existing properties, like comic book or film characters, who don’t need a lot of introduction. There are some obvious exceptions to this, like Seth MacFarlane’s brain candy or earlier, Futurama (great pilot).

I couldn’t decide what animated series to start with, but then I happily discovered a little show from the creator of Scrubs, Bill Lawrence, called Clone High. There were 13 episodes, which aired during the 2002-03 season on MTV, and it still airs in Canada, according to www.clone-high.com.

It’s the first day back at a high school where all of the students are young, contemporary versions of historical figures. There’s Abraham Lincoln (Will Forte), Joan of Arc (Christa Miller, Mahatma Ghandi, John F. Kennedy (Chris Miller), Cleopatra (Nicole Sullivan), and—you gotta love this—two Elvises, one young/thin and the other old/fat. Already you know by the wackiness of the premise this show is going to be different, as well as irreverent. In the first moments we get a crude sexual joke from JFK, and a drug use bit from old/fat Elvis, and learn that Ghandi is a lech. The animation looks a bit like Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends with the sharp angles and bold outlines.

Each character falls into a high school social category. JFK is a handsome jock, Abe Lincoln is a gangly nerd, Joan of Arc is a down to earth do-gooder, Cleo is the popular chick, etc. There’s a love triangle: Joan likes Abe, who likes Cleopatra. (Who wouldn’t, right?)

The principal, Dr. Scudworth is pulling the strings. He is visited by someone from the military and we learn, in case it wasn’t obvious from the title, that the students are clones. They were created by the government, though we’re not yet told why. The pricipals office comes equipped with test tubes and other mad scientist paraphernalia. And he’s nuts.

There are lots of whimsical little details, like the diner where they hang out is called the Grassy Knoll. Van Gogh calls the school suicide hotline.

The episode plot has to do with Abe supplying a keg of non-alcoholic beer for the Big Party, but it appears the real story will be the aforementioned love triangle. We’re also told that Marilyn Manson will make an appearance next week. If the pilot is any indication, this show is funny, edgy, and has plenty of room for political commentary. I’m hooked, and can’t wait to watch the remaining episodes.

Memorable line: “Hey man, Ghandi’s anti-violence, not anti-comedy.”

Journeyman

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It’s 2007. A San Francisco reporter and loving family man is having a strange day. When Dan (Kevin McKidd) arrives at a restaurant to meet his wife for their anniversary dinner, a football game from 8 years earlier is playing on television. Then he wakes up in a cab, disoriented, but continues with his evening. The next morning, he wakes up in Golden Gate Park. He goes to his house to find a strange man living there. It’s 1987. His wife wakes up to find him missing, and his brother, a cop, hasn’t heard from him.

Time travel into the recent past is always fun, since we get to enjoy laughing about old music (10,000 Maniacs, anyone?), movies (Less Than Zero) and, of course, technology (giant, bricklike mobile phones). In Journeyman, however, the laughs are few, as eerie lighting and music build a sense of foreboding. Dan saves the life of a man about to let himself be hit by a streetcar. He continues to suspect that it’s all a dream. You can feel his fear when he returns to his wife to learn that he has been away for two days, and his wife’s as she wonders where he’s been.

Soon, our traveler is off again. He is in a car accident and disappears from the scene. (Something similar happened this season on Fringe.) He always seems to stay in San Francisco, although he pops up in various locations. There is no immediately visible pattern. People seem to be the unifying factors: Neil, the guy whose life he saved and Olivia (Moon Bloodgood), an ex-girlfriend.

Little details are introduced gradually, leaving the viewer to enjoy the mystery as it unfolds. In a show where the main character doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s more fun if the audience is just as lost. We’re also learning the character’s past. His wife used to date his brother. His girlfriend died in a plane crash. You share his frustration in the fact that he never knows when he will pop back in time, or where (when) he will land. And think what it would be like if you had to exist pre-internet now that you’re dependent on it for so many things.

The pilot brings more questions than answers; like, what if Dan talks to himself in the past? Or prevents the conception of his son? And if he sleeps with his old girlfriend, is that cheating?

This is the kind of stuff that will keep a viewer watching. You would think. Apparently, not too many people did keep watching, though, as the show only lasted 13 episodes.

The pilot comes to a satisfying conclusion. We learn, if not why Dan has been selected for this mission, at least what this group of journeys was meant to accomplish. He causes the death of the guy who he first saved, preventing that guy from killing his son, who grows up to save eight lives in a bus crash. So it looks like he is going to be evening out the balance between life and death, and possibly, finding out what really happened to Olivia. There’s a kind of feel-good ending where Dan promises his wife, “I’ll always come home.” The line sets the stage for a series of similar adventures.

My Name is Earl

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The a simple premise: a hillbilly criminal (Jason Lee) decides to turn his karma around by righting the wrongs he’s committed in his 30-odd years. There is a lot of back story to tell us how he got here, though. The first thing that strikes me about the pilot is that the creators communicate a ton of information in very concise packages. Having voiceover by the protagonist helps, of course, but in under ten minutes we have a picture of Earl’s whole life up to the present moment. For example, a quick close-up of Joy’s belly, and Earl looking over at it from his position before the porcelain god, tells us all we need to know about their marriage.

We’re introduced to lot of colorful characters; there’s Earl’s ex-wife, Joy (Jaime Pressly), his brother, Randy (Ethan Suplee), Randy’s love internet, Catalina (Nadine Velazquez), Joy’s old/new man, Darnell (Eddie Steeples), an old schoolmate, Kenny, and a couple of kids with questionable parentage. They’re so white trash, the jokes spawn like microorganisms. They’ve never even heard the word karma until Carson Daly explains it, and they figure he made it up. Yet, by the time it’s all over, we’ve come to like a guy who, as he describes, you would wait to exit a convenience store before you and your family go in.

Earl’s transgressions range from robbery to “harmed and possibly killed people with second-hand smoke.” We get a little commentary on gay issues, since the first person Earl chooses to help is a closeted gay man who has never had the confidence, thanks to Earl’s childhood taunting, to come out. It all brings us to a feel-good ending that is at once funny and slightly bizarre. Rob Bass and DJ Easy Rock are an unlikely unifier. The ending is so quirkily sweet, it’s almost a tear-jerker.

So we get a great one-off story as well as a great set-up with potential for many seasons to come. Each actor shines in his or her own way, with great costuming and tons of hilarious and character-revealing one-liners. They’re stereotypes, sure, but we want to revel in their mistakes and hope for their futures; except maybe Joy’s. She’s such a bitch.

Reaper

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reaper_headerThe guy’s soul is owned by the devil. What more could you need to know?

Reaper fits squarely into the dramedy category, shows that follow an hour-long drama formula, but heavy on laughs (Bones, Ugly Betty). It was highly anticipated by the ComicCon set in 2007, thanks to having Kevin Smith on board as director of the pilot.

As in all shows with supernatural settings, we need some rules for how this world works. But first, we start with our protagonist, Sam (Bret Harrison) getting up and getting ready for work in the morning…to the song “Devil’s Haircut.” Nice. His sweet, upper middle class parents wish him a happy birthday, but they seem a little distressed. His jerky brother (who pulled a shark jump vanishing act later in the series but looks like he could really be Bret Harrison’s brother) gives us the 4-1-1: “The guy’s 21, lives with his parents, and wears an apron for a living. There’s no happy in that birthday.” Sam’s mom defends him with, “College made him sleepy.”

I won’t try to document every funny line in this thing, because there are just too many. Sam’s best friend, Sock (Tyler Labine), is your basic slacker clown character. Sam is in the friend zone with the beautiful Andi. Goofy co-worker Ben rounds out the merry band of losers. They all work at a home improvement big box store called The Workbench.

Even before we get to the hocus pocus, we’ve got a solid basis for a funny buddy show. Despite the restraints of network TV, the show’s tone smacks of Kevin Smith; in the midst of adventure, this bunch of co-workers shares glib observations on life, always maintaining their slacker posture. And I’d swear Tyler Labine studied at the Silent Bob School of Acting.  There are so many fun little moments; the Devil drinks orange juice out of the carton. Sock wraps his hand in duct tape for no apparent reason and gleefully declares, “tape hand”! And my favorite touch – the mysterious vessel that Sam must use to catch an escaped soul is a Dirt Devil.

The plot of the show is that Sam’s parents agreed that their firstborn would be indentured to the Devil as of his 21st birthday, working to recapture damned souls who have escaped from Hell. In this episode, the soul is a departed arsonist repeating his crimes. The Workbench makes for the perfect headquarters for demon busting, as hardware comes in awful handy when battling Hell’s esapees.

One unpredictable moment is Sock’s complete and immediate acceptance of Sam’s devil gig. Instead of disbelief or horror, Socks expresses only enthusiasm. The Devil doesn’t seem to have any restrictions on who Sam can share his work with, which does away with the lone hero idea in many superhero shows.

The Devil (Ray Wise) is the icing on the cake. There are no red horns or tail here, but the guy just looks like a bastard. And you see him having an absolute blast being evil.  He’s like a cat who enjoys batting his prey (Sam) around just to mess with it. He is truly scary, dancing between humor and meanness; he heartily enjoys watching a guy get shredded by a zamboni.

You could say Reaper jumped the shark in its second episode, based simply on the fact that it changed directors. It changed direction numerous times, introducing new characters and plot twists all the time, always giving off the scent of a show on the verge of cancellation. Still, the pilot stands out as a purely entertaining 44 minutes of television.

Gilmore Girls

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Despite being off the air for two years now, Gilmore Girls still has a strong following, with reruns airing on ABC Family, and plenty of discussion in the blogosphere. This highly successful show must have started off on the right foot, right?

The pilot is thin on actual plot. It’s the kind of pilot that focuses on setting up a world in which a show will take place. I’d say the writers’ intention here was simply to train the audience in how to listen to these characters speak. The rapid fire dialogue filled with nonstop, sometimes obscure, pop culture references, is what makes someone either love or hate this show. When Rory, the cute, 16-year-old protagonist meets a guy, Dean (Jared Padalecki, now on Supernatural), she interrupts her own incessant babbling to say, “I never talk this much.” Already, only a few minutes into this pilot, we know that can’t possibly be true.

The opening scene in which Rory (Alexis Bledel) and her also cute mother, Lorelei (Lauren Graham) sit at the diner discussing a scattershot array of topics heavily weighted toward lip gloss, leaves me feeling a little empty. They come off as vapid girly-girls. Soon enough, though, we find out that Rory reads a lot of classic literature—a character trait that seems forced at this stage. The diner is run by a less-than-friendly guy in a ball cap named Luke who, it is hinted, has the hots for Lorelei. Lorelei is immediately portrayed as the “best friend” type of mom, acting as a pal to her daughter and letting her indulge a caffeine addiction. We see her limits, though, when she runs a flirtatious adult male away from Rory.

So, we are introduced to the quaint New England town of Star’s Hollow, Connecticut, which looks like the next studio lot tour could wander through the background at any moment. There’s the diner—we know it’s important since the episode both begins and ends there—and there’s a very busy inn, where Lorelei works, and naturally, a public school. We find out quickly that everybody knows everybody. Having a new kid in school, in this case Dean, is always a handy device for introducing characters and locations.

The most interesting character is Rory’s Korean best friend, Lane, whose parents are already planning her betrothal to a fiscally promising young man, and who changes clothes on her way to school so her mother doesn’t see her in a Woodstock T-shirt. Her ultra-conservative mother and Lorelei’s friend Sookie are both funny characters, but fall into the common pilot trap of making everyone a stereotype.

The same is true of Lorelei’s parents, rich socialites who live half an hour away, and who have been largely estranged from their offspring. Snarkiness appears to be matrilineal. It is all Lorelei can do to swallow her pride and ask them for the money to send Rory to a private school. I have to wonder, why private school? Star’s Hollow doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of place where metal detectors or drug dogs are de riguer in the high school, and Lorelei is portrayed as a strong, down-to-earth type for whom public school should be good enough. If growing up Gilmore didn’t lead to the life she wanted for herself, why does she want it for her daughter? But, we have to accept the lure of private school to care whether Lorelei can come to an agreement with her parents, and whether Rory can tear herself from her new crush. And, I know teenage girls are fickle—I was one—but she’s really so in love with a guy she talked to for 20 minutes that she is ready to change her whole life’s plan and jeopardize her best pals relationship with her mother?

The whole thing ends with a sickeningly cute exchange.

Luke: You do not want to grow up to be like your mom.

Rory: Sorry. Too late.

Based on this pilot, I hate this show. I watched the last couple of seasons, and found it pretty entertaining. The more mature version of Rory was interesting, her success in college enviable. The teenybopper version, however, and her teenybopper-past-her-expiration-date mom were just annoying. Sorry, fans, I know you are plentiful, but this pilot promises just another teen drama about nothing.

The Oprah Winfrey Show

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Since Oprah recently announced that she will end her powerhouse talkshow for good in 2011, I thought it might be fun to track down the “pilot” episode. (I don’t know if it’s called a pilot for a talk show.) The closest I have come, so far, is an entry on imdb. It recalls that the guests that day, September 8, 1986, were Charlene Blaine, Chris McWatt, and Seka.

Who?

Charlene Blaine, has been working continuously on such highly successful shows as The Love Boat: The Next Wave (will have to dig up that pilot), but in 1986 it looks like she had appeared on one episode of Magnum P.I., as “Bed Race Girl.” The website http://www.famouswhy.com has a blank entry for her. Famous why, indeed. Chris McWatt has exactly 3 acting credits listed. And Seka…. Could possibly by Seka Mirkovic, who appeared a single film in 1973.

Was Oprah that lame? Did her show actually go from a showcase of unknowns to arguably the launch pad for the campaign of our current President? Really, I’m asking. I don’t remember. I was in elementary school.

To her, I suppose, credit, she was responsible for Liberace’s last public appearance, in December 1986. Maybe her roster improved quickly as she caught on with the public.

Oprah has a DVD box set available called The Oprah Winfrey Show: 20th Anniversary Collection, but there is no mention in the description of the premiere episode. If anyone has this, or knows where to find the pilot please let me know!

Veronica Mars

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This is hard for me to believe, but I had never seen the pilot episode of Veronica Mars in its entirety until today. I started watching in prime time with episode 1.2—with a healthy dose of cynicism—when I was assigned to write about it for a local paper and interview Enrico Colantoni. I had written it off in advance as another Dawson’s Creek-type teen drama. But I fell in love. VM ended up being the first show I can remember that I made sure not to miss, and re-watched episodes, and talked about to friends and co-workers. I worked as an extra on it twice, and an episode was taped where I work. I love this show. And I love pilots. So I have no logical explanation for why I’ve never seen episode 1.1 until now. I write about it with full knowledge of who killed Lily, and all the other secrets that will be revealed, which makes the early hints that much more exciting.

Right away, the theme gritty song, “We Used to be Friends,” grabs you. (Hated when they remixed it for Season 3.) Veronica gives us a succinct and color introduction to Neptune, the town where she lives. It’s populated with the over-privileged and those who work for them.

She’s tenacious: She alone steps forward to help a boy who’s been taped, naked, to a flagpole in front of the high school. She’s smart: She demonstrates thorough understanding of the assigned reading even though she’s dozing in English class. She’s a smartass: When cops come to search her locker, she’s comfortable telling their dog to back off. She’s bitter: Her family isn’t rich and important like the others in town. The bitterness continues as Veronica explains how she used to be in with the cool crowd. Now it looks like her only friend is the new kid, Wallace—the one she freed from the flagpole. There a couple of blue-tinged flashbacks to reveal what her life used to be like, full of parties and BFFs.

After life at school, we see life at work; Veronica’s dad’s P.I. office. Her dad, Keith used to be the town’s Sheriff. (There are lots of “used-to-bes,” in keeping with the theme song.) Currently, V. is trailing Jake Kane on assignment from his suspicious wife. Veronica used to date their son Duncan, and her best friend was their daughter Lily. Lily was murdered, Keith accused Mr. Kane but couldn’t prove anything, was removed from office by recall, and V.’s mom left them. To add insult to injury, people believe it was Keith who leaked a video of the crime scene all over the internet.

The new sheriff immediately found evidence incriminating a Kane employee, and the matter was put to uneasy rest. Also, Lily’s boyfriend, the rich, spoiled bad boy Logan Echolls really, really hates V. In another subplot, V. reveals that she lost her virginity while roofied at some party the year before. This won’t be unraveled until the end of Season 2, but clues are revealed in several episodes along the way. I love when a show asks for a viewer’s long term commitment for payoff.

But wait, there’s more. V.’s mom appears to be shacking up with Jake Kane. The Veronica-Wallace friendship is a little sappy, but it lets the audience see that V. still has a heart, and gives us a look at her mad P.I. skills and twisted sense of humor. She ends up with the local biker gang in her camp, defending her from Logan. It’s a delightfully tangled web. Every little detail will come back in later episodes. Of course, you don’t know that. But the kicker: Keith is still investigating Lily’s murder. That alone lets us know there are plenty of juicy revelations to look forward to.

V. leaves us with this declaration: “I will find out what really happened.” Rest assured, she will.

Weird note: I once saw the first 10 minutes or so of this episode online (in French) and the scene where V. is camped outside the Camelot Motel in her car was the cold open. Here there is no cold open, and that scene takes place mid-episode. Hm.

Here’s an article I wrote about this show early in its run, including an interview with Enrico Colantoni.

UPDATE 8/14/10: For a more thorough analysis of this blog then you probably ever dreamed of, check out this blog.

Pushing Daisies

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Pushing Daisies KeyartWe know in an instant that Pushing Daisies is going to be an unusual show. The first image we see is of an endless field of bright yellow flowers capped by an impossibly blue sky. A narrator with a deep, storyteller voice tells us that the little boy and his dog running through the flowers are Ned and Digby, along with their ages, down to the minute.

Digby is dramatically run down by a truck, but when Ned touches him, more with curiosity than sadness, the dog jumps up fully alive. Ned, we are told, has the ability to bring dead things back to life. Now pay attention. His mom is struck dead by on the kitchen floor by an aneurysm. Ned brings her back to life. Exactly one minute later, the man across the street drops dead. The dead guy’s daughter is Chuck, the apple of Ned’s eye. When Ned hugs his mom good night, she dies. Again. It’s a complicated gift, and if you missed this first three minutes, I doubt you would make much sense out of the show later on. One touch brings someone back to life, a second kills them. If the person is kept alive for more than one minute, someone nearby dies is his stead.

Fast forward to present day. Ned (the adorable Lee Pace) owns a pie shop. Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), a customer and a private investigator, has recruited Ned to help him investigate murders. It’s a big—and refreshing—leap from the normal cop-with-an-unusual-partner show. Kristen Chenoweth plays the pixie-like waitress Olive, who has a thing for Ned.

Soon, we see Ned and Emerson in action, as Ned sets his watch alarm for one minute and wakes a dead guy to find out how he got that way. Bam, the mystery is solved, and the audience has a sense of how the show will go.

Things become more complicated, however, when the next murder victim turns out to be Chuck (Anna Friel, kind of a British Zooey Deschanel–that’s a good thing), Ned’s childhood crush. He wakes her; she’s spunky, she’s charming, and reveals that the two of them were each other’s first kiss. Awww… Ned can’t bring himself to re-kill her, so after a minute, she is stuck between life and death for good. What really sucks is Ned has found the love of his life and he can’t touch her. Great dramatic tension, if difficult to believe.

The rest of the pilot (titled “Pie-lette”) involves solving Chuck’s murder, and protecting her aunts, Vivian and Lillian, from the killer. The aunt’s back story is that they are former synchronized swimming stars until one lost an eye, and now they are agoraphobics with a penchant for cheese.

To love this show requires buying fully into the premise. You have to treat it like the beautiful storybook that it is and not over-think reality. The characters talk at Gilmore Girls speed, and plays on words fly back and forth like ping-pong balls. Every detail matters. There is a sort of 1950s aesthetic in both the language and the look. Color in this show is a character in itself. Everywhere there are brighter-than-life hues, from the bulbous cherry red lamps in the pie shop to Olive’s floral print wallpaper and matching pajamas.

As with creator Bryan Fuller’s other shows, Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, not enough people apparently got it. It was, however, nominated for several Emmys, winning for Directing, Editing, Music Composition (2008), Art Direction, Make-up, Costumes, and Best Supporting Actress—Kristen Chenoweth (2009). Honestly, it was one of those impossible to sustain premises, much like in the aforementioned shows, that couldn’t work forever. But the Pie-lette is delicious.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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“Welcome to the Hellmouth”

There have been numerous articles in the last few years declaring that geeks are now cool. Shows like Big Bang Theory and Glee are held up as proof of this trend. It’s not the Marcia Bradys or the Mike Seavers we want to root for anymore. We love outcasts and braniacs. ComicCon isn’t just for Trekkers anymore. When did the tide turn? My first answer would be with Veronica Mars. But thinking back, there was Freaks and Geeks—short-lived as it was. But, wait. Even before that, there was Buffy. She may have been the original cool social reject; it helped that she was hot.

So imagine it’s 1997. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a campy film starring Kristy Swanson that you may remember from earlier in the decade. Joss Whedon is not a name you hear regularly, if at all (did you know he was a writer on Toy Story?), and you’ve certainly never heard of a Whedonverse.

The stage, complete with eerie horror movie music, is set when a horny teenage couple break into the high school, apparently to get it on, but—oops—the perky blond chick is a vampire who changes and brutally kills the guy. (Sucks to be that actor. Congratulations, you landed a part in what promises to be a hit teen drama. But you die in the first two minutes.)

For those not familiar with slayerism, the opening credits and voiceover give the gist; in every generation, there is a chosen one, etc., etc. Here, Buffy is the fresh-faced Sarah Michelle Gellar, known mainly as a soap actress.

Buffy’s mom drops her off at her new school in fictitious Sunnydale, CA, where she has apparently transferred following the events of the film. And wouldn’t you know it? Sunnydale is smack on top of the Hellmouth, a portal to all things occult. On Buffy’s very first day, a body turns up in a locker with telltale bite marks on its neck. But we’ll get back to that…

In addition to introducing Hellmouth-adjacent life, the pilot takes as its storyline a typical teenage tale; Buffy’s attempt to fit in with the cool crowd, only to find that she is destined to walk among the outcasts. She approaches her new school with hope for normalcy, but nevertheless carries a sharpened wooden stake in her bag. (“Pepper spray is just so passé.”)

She first befriends the self-centered beauty queen Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), who picks on the brainy Willow (Alyson Hannigan). Meanwhile, charmingly awkward Xander (Nicholas Brendon) can’t keep his eyes off of Buffy. Willow likes Xander. Mr. Giles (Anthony Head), new librarian in the apparently deserted school library, seems to already know all about Buffy’s slaying ways. So she goes to him when she learns about the locker body.

Vampires live under the city and are gearing up for some huge revolt, called The Harvest. So Buffy’s going to have a busy sophomore year, what with cheerleading, homework, and ass-kicking.

Oh, and I did I mention there is a dark and mysterious, and ridiculously hot guy trailing Buffy around town? We don’t get a name, or much information at all, except that he knows what’s up with the Harvest.

So the pilot gets us off and running with plenty of action, love triangleism, and more on the mysterious guy (who will, of course, be introduced later in the series as Angel), to look forward to. It’s a bit dark, often funny, and has enough eye candy to get addictive. And this is all despite the fact that, objectively speaking, it’s kind of bad. The acting, the dialogue… but stuff can be bad and still plenty entertaining. Just look at the original Star Wars.

For added fun, there is an unaired version of Welcome to the Hellmouth floating around the ‘net.

Memorable quote: (Said all SoCal bitchy) “God, what is your childhood trauma?”

Knights of Prosperity

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You can’t help but be drawn in by a show that is just plain weird. A guy wakes up. He gets ready for work in his dump of an apartment, accompanied by the music of Journey. He’s a middle-aged high school dropout who works as a janitor. In the show’s first minutes, he is spurred to better his life by witnessing his co-worker’s undignified demise while cleaning a urinal. And, somehow, by the first commercial break, he has assembled a group of ragtag wannabe thieves to rob Mick Jagger.

It’s like, really? This is a premise for a show? They have T-shirts. They have binoculars. They have an intern. It’s a little reminiscent of the geeks in Office Space trying to get into the embezzlement racket.

The show stars Donal Logue, who is not a household name, but recognizable from a role in the terrible Grounded for Life, and redeemed by roles in some good indie films like The Tao of Steve.

Comedic pilots seem to work well when they move fast, throwing information and characters at you so that you can’t blink lest you miss something. Knights does that. We meet a Middle Eastern cab driver who used to be a lawyer, a big black dude with a broken heart, a wise-cracking New Yorker stereotype, and a hot Latina who invites herself into the group.

The goal, in this episode, is not to complete the robbery. It is to complete phase one of Operation Dick Mick, which is to obtain the key to his luxury Manhattan apartment. Ostensibly, each subsequent episode will lead our antiheroes to another phase of the plan until they succeed (or fail?) at the final heist. Then what? Next year, they’ll rob the Kardashians? Only nine episodes ever aired—and I’ve only seen this one—so I don’t know. (Though it was rumored they would later target Kelly Ripa and Ray Romano.) Apparently the show was originally titled Let’s Rob Mick Jagger, but perhaps that was too limiting??

I can’t say the pilot left me dying to see what happens next. It felt more like a predictable screwball heist movie than a series—the kind of thing you might commit to for 90 minutes but not 22 half-hour episodes. But it’s different, which is why I’ve taken the time to write about it. Oh, and there’s a Star Wars reference. Always good.

Memorable quote: “We’re like Robin Hood. We’re stealing from the rich to give to the poor—us.”