S. I. L. A. and R.E.M.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate NBC for piloting Stephen Gaghan's S.I.L.A. Gaghan is the weaver who brought you TRAFFIC and SYRIANA, and the S.I.L.A. pilot is only a little bit less complex of a tale. Certainly this went against the trend in primetime broadcast to give us nothing but episodic cop shows. This is a cop show, but it's serialized, with complicated threads that only begin to weave together by the time the pilot fades out. Of course, they didn't pick it up. [Note: I was confused before, and thought they had picked it up. Thanks, alert readers.]

Kyle Killen's R.E.M. (now called AWAKE), on the other hand, is your basic episodic cop show, with a character who has a gimmick. After a fatal car crash, his wife is dead. However he dreams a world in which his son is dead and his wife is alive. Or, possibly, he dreams the first world and the second one is real -- he can't tell.

Wouldn't you know it, facts bleed from one reality to the other, and he can use his dreams (or his alternate reality) to solve crimes.

What makes the pilot compelling is that he's unwilling to be "cured" of his dreams (if dreams they are) because he hasn't really lost his wife or his son so long as he lives both realities. He's clinging to both. And the human reality of a guy who would rather be crazy than lose his wife

I'm not sure where the show goes from there. I imagine it will be something like MEDIUM, where there are nicely-sketched Non-Player Characters that inhabit his worlds, and he cleverly solves crimes, and we get to see his process. There's a race to catch the bad guy, and he runs into flak because he can't explain why he has the hunches he does.

There's a suggestion that his mind is really trying to figure out what happened in the accident -- he can't remember drinking, he can't remember the accident -- so presumably the mythology is going to expand from there.

Not exactly ground breaking TV, but an interesting gimmick.

The Golden Age

I've been watching TV comedy pilots because I'm writing a spec pilot. I went to the library and went through a whole bunch of '70's pilots (THE JEFFERSONS, CHICO AND THE MAN, etc.).

A lot of it was unwatchable. Or at least, I couldn't watch it. Man, most old TV doesn't hold up any more. It's slow and the jokes seem obvious. The situations seem forced and the characters seem cartoonish, without being full of cartoonish life.

(To be fair, I don't watch THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE either, for the same reasons. It feels like old TV.)

M*A*S*H holds up, though these days it would probably be an hour drama with banter, not a half hour, I think. LUCY holds up. What old TV comedy holds up?

If you're looking for a Golden Age of TV, it has got to be now. Single camera comedies like 30 ROCK and EXTRAS and THE OFFICE and ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM ... actually, there are a fair number of single camera comedies that aren't really "like" anything. Same goes for dramas like MAD MEN and ROME and SOPRANOS.

Pilots often suck. 30 ROCK didn't really hit its stride for me until about episode 9 of season 1. (1.09, in the parlance.) What TV comedy pilots really knock your socks off?

"Life"

How is it, of all the networks, NBC seems to be doing the best work?

I watched the LIFE pilot. It's a strongly written procedural, created by Rand Ravich, the core of which is a cop who just did twelve years for a crime he was framed for. Now he's doing his best to be all Zen about what was done to him -- cops don't have good experiences in prison. He got a huge settlement but he's back on the force, though no one knows why. And some on the force are still out to get him.

Damien Lewis (Capt. Winters from BAND OF BROTHERS) brings to life a fresh and intriguing character who feels real and fleshed out. The Zen isn't played for cartoon contrast, but as a person who's really trying to make sense out of a life that hasn't made a whole lot of sense. Likewise there are moments where his prison experiences work for him, helping him connect with suspects and witnesses; and other times those experiences and the emotions that come with them get in the way. And Lewis carries the show convincingly.

Like so many shows these days, this is your basic episodic procedural, but with an über plot which, I am sure, each episode will forward juuuuust enough, VERONICA MARS style.

I won't be watching LIFE because I just don't care about cop shows. Lewis's character is very clever, in his irregular way, and the episodic performances are lovely. I just don't need to see crimes solved, no matter how cleverly, and no matter how compelling the performances by the episodic characters. But if you like cop shows, try this one out.

LIFE airs after THE BIONIC WOMAN on NBC and Global on Wednesdays at 10 pm.