| Culturebox NBC Couldn't Save Save Me The latest attempt by a network to make a cable series failed, just like all the others. By June Thomas
Posted Tuesday, May 21, 2013, at 02:13 PM ET  In the opening moments of a new TV show that premieres this week, a disheveled, hammer-wielding woman stands over her sleeping husband, considering whether to kill him. Deciding against homicide, she heads down to the kitchen, where she chugs a beer, greedily rips into a massive hoagie, and chokes to death. A viewer watching Save Me's opening scene this Thursday might place the show in the tradition of cable staples like Weeds, United States of Tara, or Enlightened: comedies in name only, in which middle-aged women struggle with big issues—financial disruption, mental illness, corporate corruption—as they try to keep their families together. After all, there's Anne Heche, an intense, often misunderstood actor, playing the heck out of the lead role—just as the often ill-used actors on those other series made the most of the great characters cable finally gave them. That death scene—which turns out to be premature; hours later, Heche's Beth Harper wakes up and discovers she can now talk to God—is even reminiscent of the "how they died" vignettes that used to open episodes of HBO's Six Feet Under. But Save Me isn't a cable series; it airs on NBC. Barely. Its premiere date comes one day after the official end of the 2012–13 TV season, and the network plans to air two episodes back-to-back each week. The burning-off of Save Me, once the network's great comedy hope, represents the problems inherent in networks' increasingly frequent ... To continue reading, click here.
Also In Slate
UPDATE: Oklahoma Officials Revise Tornado Death Toll Down to 24
Letter to a Young Scandalmonger
Why Doesn't Apple Open More Stores?
|
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment