Thursday, July 29, 2010

Out of 'Sight'

So with In Plain Sight being renewed for not just one but two more seasons, I figure that gives me a decent excuse to ramble about the show and why I'm probably done watching it. (Edited to add: Christ, this is way longer than I ever thought it would be - I don't even care about this show that much, just thought it was an interesting case study of something not living up to its potential):



I had high hopes for In Plain Sight when it first came on, for a lot of reasons.  USA was riding high off of Burn Notice, which had taken the Monk template and plussed it by making it less comedic with more serialization and explosions (Psych went the other way - more comedy and even less real jeopardy, something I think has hurt the show as it's gone on, but that's a topic for another time).  The premise of a show following US Marshals was a fairly different spin on the generic cop genre back then (not so much anymore - US Marshals are all over the television landscape nowadays, with Timothy Olyphant in Justified setting the bar pretty damn high for quality), and a focus on witness protection seemed to promise stories that would be outside the standard cops & robbers procedural plots.  Having been one of the seven remaining people watching the The West Wing after Sorkin left, I had a good deal of affection for Mary McCormack, who was one of the only good things to come out of the debacle that was Season 5.  Her romance with Joshua Molina towards the end showed a good deal of charm and a light comedic touch to go with her dramatic chops, which is exactly what USA is looking to sell in their dramedys, and being pretty easy on the eyes didn't hurt either.  As a bonus, they threw in what looked to be a fun rapport with her partner and a steady paycheck for Paul Ben-Victor.  What's not to like?

So I went into the first season with high expectations, and a willingness to give the show some time if necessary.  After all, with so many good ingredients, I figured they couldn't go terribly wrong, and even the best shows have had to wander a bit before finding their footing.  And while they didn't go terribly wrong, they didn't go terribly right either.  In what I can only imagine was an effort to create a gruff-but-with-a-heart-of-gold character for McCormack, she and the producers overreached, resulting in a central character that was deeply unpleasant most of the time, yet still generally loved and kowtowed to by the other characters in the show.  This made for frustrating viewing, as I kept wanting Mary to be proven wrong or at least shown a reasonable opposing viewpoint, but the show always seemed to come down on her side.  The mythology of the show, involving Mary's tumultuous relationships with her family and dealing with the long-simmering aftermath of having their father leave for "mysterious" reasons, is particularly bad for showing Mary being wrong but being told she was right, and having both the characters and the plot developments affirm that.  You can do unlikable characters on TV - see: The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Dexter, etc - but you damn well have a boatload of charisma to help the audience wash down the bad parts.  Otherwise you end up with a show that's not fascinating, just frustrating.

The plots were a disappointment as well.  Despite the witness protection angle, too many of the first and second season episodes bent over backwards to center around clichéd murder mysteries or having to protect witnesses from certain death at the hands of one of the apparently hundreds of mobs scattered throughout southern Arizona.  The more unique and interesting questions about witness protection - how exactly do people start over?  is it a blessing or a curse?  confining or freeing?  - were tabled, likely because it's tough to reach a climax with those question where the guns-are-a-blazin and shit is blowing up.  They dipped in the melodrama bin a bit too often as well - Marshall was shot and Mary was tortured within the first 12 episodes, and Mary was shot as well by the end of the second year.  Characters kept having screaming matches that no reasonable person would have, or having tearful emotional breakdowns that always seemed out of character.

That's not to say everything was a flop.  Frederick Weller does some great, dry work as Mary's partner Marshall, and has a tendency to make me wish the show was centered around him.  Similarly, Nicole Hiltz's work as Mary's sister Brandi takes a thoroughly unpleasant character on paper and makes her surprisingly sympathetic through sheer force of actressin'.  It's even more impressive a feat when you see her directly juxtaposed against Lesley Ann Warren, who's shrill, needlessly hysterical performance as mother Jinx is one of the most grating characters on television.  Paul Ben-Victor can do the put-upon boss shtick he does here in his sleep, but that doesn't make it any less fun.  And the episodes that did put aside the shootouts and standoffs to focus on the unique aspects of the witness protection program often were particularly engaging - a first season highlight was an episode guest-starring Wendell Pierce (Bunk, from The Wire) as a doctor resentful of his daughter for getting him dragged into the program and taking away everything he had worked for professionally remains a powerful piece of storytelling, and one I hadn't seen before.

My initial goodwill towards the show, combined with my faith in the component parts and the sparks of life listed above kept me watching the show for the first two seasons, but the dismal second season finale - where Mary getting shot in the line of duty brought out all the worst/hackiest aspects of the show's writing and acting, as well as a cheap "will the lead actress of our show die?!?!" cliffhanger - made me take it off the TiLoh, which takes some doing.  I would have dropped it completely had it not been for a change in showrunner over the break, who touted a retooling of the show, paring down the cast and focusing less on the family drama and more on WitSec-specific storylines.  Having John MacNamara behind the scenes and addressing the exact problems I saw intrigued me, so I figured I'd see what he could do.

I can't say MacNamara wasn't true to his word.  The first several episodes bent over backwards to write out Mary's fiancee, reduce the prominence of her mother and sister, and move the WitSec plots to the forefront.  All good in theory, but the results left a lot to be desired.  The lack of a family-based B-plot meant that there had to be two work-based storylines a week, which resulted in splitting up the Mary/Marshal dynamic most episodes, which is one of the show's strengths (though as a plus it also gave Paul Ben-Victor a plotline of his own on occasion, which is never a wrong move).  Mostly though the new dynamic meant that more weight was placed on the guest cast, the show rising and falling with their abilities week to week.  This is fine when you've got folks like Steven Weber or Laura San Giacomo - old pros who know have charisma and some gravitas - but with lesser personalities, it drags the show down.  And more often than not, they didn't have the caliber of guests that they needed.  The season never amounted to much of anything, and I'm at a loss to remember much of anything about it, much less any truly funny or emotional moments.

So at this point, after waiting and waiting for them to fit the pieces together in a satisfying way for three seasons, I think I'm out (which doesn't take most people three years to decide, but I'm indecisive like that).  They're either happy with the show as is or have no desire to continue tweaking at this point, and if they're pulling in ratings that can get them two more seasons in a single renewal, I can't say they're completely wrong.  But I can say it's not something I want to watch, and I'm done playing "If only they did this".  Best of luck to the actors, and I look forward to seeing what most of them do next, but you're down a viewer for the next two seasons.

Anybody else love/hate/are indifferent to In Plain Sight?

2 comments:

  1. Really have to say, I'm surprised/impressed/dumbfounded that it has taken you three seasons to come to this conclusion. And also,ugh god, TWO MORE SEASONS?? This is not Glee, and that is a WHOLE other discussion.

    I do enjoy the idea of the WitSec angle and, like you, wished they focused FAR FAR less on the family and more on the relocatees...relocated?...relocated.

    Now, granted I dropped it after season 1, so if the Brandi character has improved good for her, cause she made me want to smack her around in the beginning.

    Also, I felt that the whole "bad at family and relationships yet totally steller at her job which nothing but other peoples family and relationships" was a cheesy cop out from the beginning for the Mary character. There has to be a better way to get the "fucked up but with a heart of gold" quality across.

    Fred Weller and Paul Ben-Victor are the main highlights to the show. No argument there. And while I didn't mind the Bobby D character, especially he and Fred Weller's interaction, he was understandably cut, in what shall refer to as IPS:part deaux.

    The Mary character aggravates me most simply because of the horrid horrid horrid way they made her. She is the most spoiled character on the show. And no matter how good you are at your job, no boss would put up with that. And I know, it's tv, but when I can't suspend my reality for a 40 min show, what does that tell you?

    I think the biggest flaw with IPS is that USA found their thing, and this show, I feel, was a rush job to get a new character out. Now they are trying to fix too many issues at one time, duct tape will not fix these leaks.

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  2. Hahaha, but tell me how you really feel ; ) Yeah, it's not a good show. Reading what I wrote, I came across as easier on it because I spent so much time trying to explain the reasons behind my dislike than actually being frustrated.

    I stuck with it mainly out of affection for the actors and the hope that someone would look at it and say "wait, if we take this out and move this over here, then we've got something great" which obviously didn't happen.

    I don't think it's always crazy to give a show some time to figure itself out, particularly if you have reason for some faith in the show (actors, writers, showrunners, whatever). Plenty of shows take a while to find their footing before changing track significantly - Cougar Town this past season changed a lot between the first batch of episodes and the remainder of the season, and I stuck around for that because I liked the actors and the showrunner, and I'm glad I did. Penny Cannnnnn!

    Also, lots of shows, especially cable shows, shoot an entire season before it airs, so there's no chance of a course correction mid-season. I guess I held out hope that they saw both potential and problems in season one and then would fix it in season two. When they didn't, I was ready to dump it, then the showrunner change came, making me think that someone at the network felt the same way I did. But apparently not.

    I get what you're saying about trying to crank out "characters that are welcome", but I don't know that USA was in a rush necessarily to get something out - they're always super-careful with keeping their shows on brand, and I don't think they'd risk that. I think it's more a strict adherence to formula, as any show they do MUST have at least part of it be breezy light fun, even if that's not what the writers want it to be about, which results in pieces that are awkward to fit together. This formula is getting a little old though, as each new show has generally proven to be of lesser quality than its predecessors (I'm looking at you, Royal Pains. God what a piece of crap you are).

    Still, they're apparently getting good to great ratings for all their shows, so what the fuck do I know?

    PS: I can't believe I've put this much thought into IPS. It's so not even worth it.

    PSS: Brandi the character still does suck, but the actress is pretty decent (and again, I had some residual affection for her from her part on The Riches).

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