Pilot Watch: CBS "Smith"
Source:What's Alan Watching?
Date:May 30, 2006
By Alan Sepinwall
"Smith"
Who's In It: Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Simon Baker, Amy Smart, Jonny Lee Miller, Franky G
What It's About: A master thief and his crew try to pull off a few more jobs so he can retire before his ex-con wife figures out he hasn't gone straight yet.
Pluses: Have you looked at that cast list? Okay, subtract Franky G and add Shoreh Aghdashloo, who has what I hope will be a recurring role as Liotta's fence, and that's as talented and pedigreed an ensemble as I've seen in a while. (Then again, ABC has a show that somehow features both Campbell Scott and Hope Davis, so maybe this is just a season where a lot of indie character actors got mortgages.) Cool setting and some nice moments, particularly an early scene that establishes Baker's sniper as the kind of amoral sociopath you usually don't see on network TV. (Fienberg is convinced it will be cut before September; I'm more optimistic.) Smart is also really strong as a damaged woman of a thousand identities, all of them involving low-cut tops.
Minuses: It's by John Wells, so you know it's going to be competent but glum. What's there so far isn't nearly as much fun as an "Ocean's 11" and not nearly as stylish as a Michael Mann caper story. However, the pilot runs almost 60 minutes without commercials, so there's plenty of room to add some scenes to tip it one way or the other. (Either they pad it out to two hours or they cut off all the fat.)
From What's Alan Watching?
Date:May 30, 2006
By Alan Sepinwall
"Smith"
Who's In It: Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Simon Baker, Amy Smart, Jonny Lee Miller, Franky G
What It's About: A master thief and his crew try to pull off a few more jobs so he can retire before his ex-con wife figures out he hasn't gone straight yet.
Pluses: Have you looked at that cast list? Okay, subtract Franky G and add Shoreh Aghdashloo, who has what I hope will be a recurring role as Liotta's fence, and that's as talented and pedigreed an ensemble as I've seen in a while. (Then again, ABC has a show that somehow features both Campbell Scott and Hope Davis, so maybe this is just a season where a lot of indie character actors got mortgages.) Cool setting and some nice moments, particularly an early scene that establishes Baker's sniper as the kind of amoral sociopath you usually don't see on network TV. (Fienberg is convinced it will be cut before September; I'm more optimistic.) Smart is also really strong as a damaged woman of a thousand identities, all of them involving low-cut tops.
Minuses: It's by John Wells, so you know it's going to be competent but glum. What's there so far isn't nearly as much fun as an "Ocean's 11" and not nearly as stylish as a Michael Mann caper story. However, the pilot runs almost 60 minutes without commercials, so there's plenty of room to add some scenes to tip it one way or the other. (Either they pad it out to two hours or they cut off all the fat.)
From What's Alan Watching?
posted by nikita | 2:19 AM
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