When great TV shows disappoint

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:11:00 +0000

As regular readers know, I sometimes fall head-over-heels in love with promising new shows, and when they deliver a problematic or outright bad episode, it's disillusioning. I tell myself it's the nature of the beast -- that it's hard to make just one great half-hour or hour-long episode, let alone 10 or 12 or 26 in a row. The law of averages has to catch up eventually. But that doesn't change the fact that a show that once seemed to have excellent judgment suddenly made what felt like out-of-character or flat-out stupid choices. A botch-job episode can make you wonder if you were right to like the show in the first place. At its most misjudged and tone-deaf, a bad episode of an otherwise terrific series can emphasize flaws you were previously inclined to overlook. It can even make you second-guess the things you praised in the past.

I'll give you two recent examples, then pose a few questions and open the floor for readers to share their own experiences. I'll place the examples within self-contained sections, so that you can easily skip them if you're afraid of spoilers.

Example No. 1: "Boss"

Kelsey Grammer’s “Boss”: Cable’s greatest performance?

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:30:00 +0000

As a victory over typecasting alone, Kelsey Grammer's performance on "Boss" is impressive. The actor spent 20 years on two network shows playing just one character, metrosexual fussbudget Frasier Crane. But when you watch him play Tom Kane on "Boss" (Starz, Fridays, 10 p.m./9 central) -- a Chicago mayor plotting the downfall of political foes while secretly medicating a potentially deadly neurological disorder -- that past association never enters the picture. Grammer carries himself not like a lightweight impersonating a heavyweight, but as the real thing -- a deal-maker and arm-twister, a gangster who ruins lives with a pen instead of a gun, and a man who systematically alienated the people he should be leaning on during the darkest period of his life.

Salon.com > Boss

When great TV shows disappoint

Kelsey Grammer’s “Boss”: Cable’s greatest performance?