Couch Potato: Lowered expectations
By Casey Gillis on Jan. 19, 2010
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I had high hopes for ABC’s latest, “The Deep End.”
The previews certainly make it look entertaining, right? Kind of like “Grey’s Anatomy” set in a courtroom, with office hook-ups, beautiful people and lots of drama.
Well, there are hook-ups. And beautiful people. Drama, too.
But I didn’t find myself really, truly caring about many of the characters, like I do on “Grey’s” or other shows like it (what stings the most is that ABC already had a great legal dramedy in “Eli Stone,” which execs canceled last year).
The show, which premieres at 8 p.m. tonight, is about a group of first-year associates navigating the rough waters as the “grunts, doormats and newbies” at a high-profile law firm.
My favorite so far is Addy (former child actress Tina Majorino, whom you’ll recognize from movies like “Corrina, Corrina” and “Napoleon Dynamite” and TV shows like “Big Love” and “Veronica Mars”), a hard worker who tends to get walked all over because she’s too nice.
“You and Robert bat me back and forth like a ping-pong ball,” she tells partner Susan at one point. “Maybe it’s because I’m small or I’m polite. Or because I’m still figuring out make-up.”
Majorino is a great actress and fits the character’s fast-talking, endearing ways to a tee. If the writers knew what they were doing, they’d refocus the show around Addy, who is much more interesting than her cohorts.
They include the idealistic Dylan (the very cute Matt Long, he of the baby blue eyes and dimples), whose first assignment is a seemingly impossible pro bono case; Beth (Leah Pipes), a tough cookie who has issues with her hard-to-please lawyer father, who tells her that she’s weak and unreliable (ouch); Liam (Aussie actor Ben Lawson), a shameless lady’s man whose indiscretions often land him in hot water with clients; and Malcolm (Mehcad Brooks, “True Blood”), the group’s newest member, who we don’t know much about yet.
The firm’s partners — Cliff (Billy Zane), also known as the Prince of Darkness for his ruthless ways; Susan (Nicole Ari Parker), Cliff’s wife; and Hart Sterling (Clancy Brown), the firm’s namesake, who has just returned after a three-year break following the death of his wife — aren’t much better.
Now that Hart is back, he and Cliff, who was in charge while he was away, are mired in a power struggle for control of the firm, a storyline that isn’t terribly interesting. It didn’t help that most of the trio’s scenes were pretty stiff and badly acted.
“You want to know what I see,” Susan says to the boys during one of their fights. “An unstoppable force and an immovable object in the midst of a mallet measuring contest.”
Is this supposed to pass for clever dialogue?
The show was also very predictable. You just knew Dylan was going to help that sympathetic single mom in her custody battle and that Addy was going to eventually find her backbone and stand up for herself.
In the end, this is one deep end not worth diving into.
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