ABC green-lit 13 episodes of ‘Big Shots,’ which is 13 episodes too many

Each fall, the major four networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) try to win viewers over with their new pilots. The pilots that make it to TV represent the months work of many producers and executives trying to anticipate trends (i.e. the primetime soap opera, the one-camera sitcom), while avoiding pitfall timeslots to produce shows that will catapult a network to TV rating stardom.

It is inevitable that some shows will slip through the cracks, whether it because of an ill-guided executive or a high-powered producer or guest star. These shows become mockeries of their respective networks.

1. “Carpoolers” (ABC, Wednesdays, 8:30 pm)
This show, unfortunately the brainchild of “Arrested Development” creators, chronicles four men in their commute from suburbia to the city, where they work in a giant health clinic.

They have extremely uncommon names: Laird, Galen, Aubrey, and Dougie. The show, a one-camera comedy, attempts to show how very different men can have a free life in the 45-minute commute to and from work. What it ends up doing is portraying a stereotype of wives that should have left TV decades ago.

Aubrey’s wife is only shown sitting in front of the TV set with her feet up, with five kids sitting around her. Dougie’s wife, wearing a ‘50s style dress and apron, offers the guys a basket of freshly baked cookies, with a baby stroller at her arm.

Galen’s wife is a house-flipper who spends $400 on a toaster and causes him agony when it appears that she makes more money than he does. Aubrey is a recent divorcee who gripes that his wife has taken everything that he has, and is threatening to take the only possession he has left, his ab-machine.

“Carpoolers” could tarnish the records of producers Joe and Anthony Russo, who previously directed the critically-acclaimed “Arrested Development.” Its attitudes about women are enough to warrant a giant, red “X.”

2. “Big Shots” (ABC, Thursdays, 9 p.m.)
This show, which follow’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” is cut from ABC’s new primetime soap opera mold. It follows four male professionals, who are all CEO’s of successful companies. The men, James (Michael Vartan), Duncan (Dylan McDermott), Karl (Joshua Malina), Brody (Christopher Titus) have successful lives, until they are screwed up by women.

Karl has a rocky marriage, but at least he has a great sex with his mistress… until she wants to go to couple’s therapy with him. Duncan is slated to be Entrepreneur of the Month in a prominent magazine, but the reporter could expose his dirty little secret: Duncan was arrested for having sex with a prostitute at a truck stop who turned out to be a man.

James’s boss just died, and he finds out at the funeral that his wife was having an affair with him. Brody is a leader in crisis management, and is always reading to help his friends deal with their latest scandals.

The premise of this show should illustrate why it’s on this list. The situations in the drama are far from realistic, even compared to “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Even the sexualized scenes are absurd and tacky. When Duncan is talking to a reporter, banter is flirty, and Duncan can be seen fondling a pair of golf balls in his right hand. The dialogue is worthy of a daytime soap.

Case in point: When James finds out his wife was cheating on him, he storms out of their house. “Don’t just walk out on me,” she says. “I may be leaving, but I am not the one who walked out,” he replies. “Don’t go,” she screams through tears, running after his car as it speeds away into the night.

ABC green-lit 13 episodes of “Big Shots,” which is 13 episodes too many. I hope that ABC soon realizes that a line for taste exists, and that “Big Shots” crosses it.

3. “Bionic Woman” (NBC, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.)
NBC dips into history with their remake of the short-lived 1970s series by the same name about the world’s first female cyborg.

In the series pilot, Jamie (Michelle Ryan) is a college dropout raising her younger sister, working as a bartender. When she gets into a horrible car accident with her boyfriend, Anthony (Mark Sheppard), who is a professor in biotechnology, he operates on her.

He installs anthracites in her body that make her heal at abnormal rates. She becomes a bionic woman, a military experiment. An emergency separates Jamie and Anthony, and it leaves her ignoring his calls and crying in the shower.

In her depression, she attempts to leap off a building; in this act of depression, she realizes her strength.

There are a lot of horror, sci-fi clichés at work in “Bionic Woman,” most notably flickering lights, layered, blurry imagery, and secret military operations. Unfortunately, it sticks more to conventions than to originality. Although this “Bionic Woman” has access to more high tech special effects, it seems doomed to the same fate as the first one.

4. “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS, Monday, 8:30 p.m.)
CBS reverts to the classic four-camera sitcom, complete with obnoxious laugh track (some sources say the show is taped in front of a live audience, but either way it is annoying).

Two awkward 20-something prodigy physicists, Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) live across the hall from a beautiful, totally out of their league gal, Penny (Kaley Cuoco), who happens to be blonde, ditzy and misguided. Leonard falls for her, while Sheldon tries to discourage him, because…you guessed it, she is totally out of his league.

The set contains very amateurish lighting, and watching the show feels like a bad “Friends” trip. The show embarrasses the brilliant wit of Jim Parsons (“Garden State”); he is clearly the only redeeming quality of the show, but his dialogue is lost in a swimming sea of laughter. “The Big Bang Theory” made me chuckle but I couldn’t get over that damn laugh track.

> Comments