Cool News
What Make The Critics
Of TNT’s PERCEPTION??
Created by “Legend of the Seeker” vets Ken Biller (“Star Trek: Voyager,” "Smallville") and Mike Sussman ("Star Trek: Enterprise,” “Threshold"), TNT’s new hourlong “Perception” stars Eric McCormack (“Will & Grace”) as a paranoid schizophrenic neuroscience professor who, while off his meds, uses his hallucinations to help the FBI solve crimes.
His co-stars include Rachael Leigh Cook (“She's All That,” Psych"), Kelly Rowan (“The O.C.”), and LeVar Burton (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”).
... while it's no "Closer," which also returns Monday, the Eric McCormack vehicle "Perception" is perfectly adequate "Eccentric Consulting Genius" fare. …
... across the four early episodes provided for review, Pierce’s hallucinations are already beginning to feel like stunts covering up for a lack of ideas. … McCormack puts Pierce’s vulnerability and fear in the foreground, and avoids the huckster’s smirk that can sometimes mar his performances; he’s winning, and he has an easy rapport with Ms. Cook. For more critical viewers, though, that may not outweigh the show’s forced eccentricities, or the way in which ideas and motifs from “Monk,” “House,” “The Mentalist,” “Numbers” and other series clank around in plain sight.
... If you can overlook both the derivative nature of the set-up — "House" meets "A Beautiful Mind" and adopts "Monk" — and the dangerous absurdity of defining schizophrenia as just another way of looking at things, "Perception" has a certain summery, tweet-friendly entertainment value. … If only the strokes weren't so broad and easily anticipated, if only the paranoid schizophrenia weren't so actually horrible and devastating, rather than quirky and revelatory. Co-creators Mike Sussman and Kenneth Biller are on to something with their exploration of the endless and fascinating facets of perception. But too often it seems like they have chosen to afflict their character in this manner simply because all the other dysfunctions have already been taken.
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… "Perception" isn't very smart. It's also not very pleasant. ... There's very little that's fun about "Perception." It doesn't have to be a laugh riot, but it should be enjoyable to watch and the sad truth is, it's just OK. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... a ho-hum affair. The show is not so much awful as it is a colorless copy of better shows that have come before. It doesn't take a keen sense of perception to see that. …
... Pierce is one of those brilliant-yet-eccentric TV heroes, a neuroscience professor and FBI consultant who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, causing him to hallucinate and engage in lengthy conversations with imaginary people. While this adds a twist to what would otherwise be an average crime drama, it also means that the audience never knows whether a scene is actually happening. Essentially, the writers can take the plot in any direction they want without much regard for reality. For some viewers, this will be a neat trick. For others, it will be maddening. …
… There are aspects of the series that are engaging—Daniel's intricately conceived sleuthing for the FBI, for instance—but, as the voices in your own head soon tell you, there's a lot more of it that's wearisome. …
... Perception's near-total divorce from reality, while annoying, is not the worst of its crimes. The larger problem is that Daniel's crime-solving abilities are so randomly applied as to be virtually pointless. …
... just more of the same-old, same-old, with a colorfully flawed (eccentric or crazy, take your pick) hero solving cases that prove almost wholly generic. It's no accident networks keep replicating this formula, but whether reality or mere perception, the result here is kind of a snooze. …
10 p.m. Monday. TNT.
Readers Talkback
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I seem to remember it having that name.
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And his turn on Dead Like Me was the balls.
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July 9, 2012, 4:08 p.m. CST
Consultant with [fill in special talent] helps stupid police.
by cookylamoo
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July 9, 2012, 5:18 p.m. CST
What crappy credentials: Voyager, Enterprise and Threshold (The Braga trifecta in play)
by FrodoFraggins
The show was doomed before it started.
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His former registered sex offender co-star could certainly use the work too.
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July 9, 2012, 5:44 p.m. CST
If it fails, my glue-sniffing genius fingerprint expert series is still available
by tangcameo
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July 9, 2012, 5:47 p.m. CST
this has uber liberal sucker-punch written all over it, after all...
by Raptor Jesus
Now that 'Law & Order' is gone where can we get our weekly fix of 'white, Christian men are evil, child-raping, monsters'?
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July 9, 2012, 5:52 p.m. CST
It's called 'Huff' and he's got a young naieve but dedicated detective partner...
by tangcameo
...who's a recovering paste-eater. Attends Elmer's Anonymous, trying to convince Huffnagel to come along with him.
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July 9, 2012, 5:58 p.m. CST
I thought Threshhold was a decent show, but mostly because of Carla and Dinklage
by Cash907
The plotline and central conceit were both retarded, but eh, that's Braga for ya.
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July 9, 2012, 10:35 p.m. CST
Of course the formula keeps churning out this stuff, you idiots.
by whyamihere
When shows with real ideas like "Virtuality" get aired, nobody watches them. America has become an inert mass of brainless consumerism. You can't blame a network for playing to their audience.
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Alright guys! I got a great idea. House is over and Monk is over. Let's create a House Monk. We'll call it House Monk. It will be sort of like if you mixed Monk and House.
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I think Goldbloom had a short lived network show called something like "Raines" or some such thing. Terrible timeslot killed it but it was actually quite interesting stuff. He was a detective that randomly had the recent homicide victim dropping in on him to give advice. Probably given no more than 6 episodes in early summer and it died. I feel the same way about "Life". That show deserved at least one more season. Compelling stuff.
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That little snarkiness reminded me sooo much of Jim Gaffigan's little asides he uses in his stand-up.
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very weak pilot
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Goldblum alone was enough to make the show worth watching, but I liked that it featured an LA that actually felt like LA, and there was just this emotional weight to the show, or specifically Raines character, that really appealed to me. Was very much a bummer to not see Goldblum get to play around more with that role. On this show, its nice to see Levar Burton working again.
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July 10, 2012, 2:57 a.m. CST
TV Networks love the idea that mental illness is like a superpower.
by V'Shael
Is it possibly because so many execs are crazy, and have delusions of supernatural abilities?
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Threshold A great idea with a cast better then anyone could possibly hope for, turned to shit by the second episode. Enterprise The trek that killed off the franchise. I still the only trek series that i've never watched all episodes of it was that bad. Smallville Bascially the same episode throughout its entire season run. Lanas medical coverage was fucking outstanding. A program to keep on the background whsilt you're actually doing something else. Star Trek: Voyager I can't be too harsh on voyager, I actually liked it. became a bit formulaic Hell even Beltran became fed up of it. Which genius Exec thought.. these two were the fucking dream team? Now if you added the guys from terra nova you would have instant hit.
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That way all the ads can have the tagline: "Welcome to the Monk House"
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July 10, 2012, 10:31 a.m. CST
Another vote from me for "Raines" as a really interesting show with
by jim
great potential. Too bad NBC seems to have never had much of any faith in the show, ordering only 6 episodes. It did well in the "ER" timeslot but, as anyone here could have predicted, didn't do so well when moved to Friday night. And, insult to injury, no one's bothered to put it out on DVD. Whoever was developing hourlong dramas at NBC around 2007 did a great job - from them we got "Raines", "Life", and "Journeyman". At least "Life" got a second season and a DVD release. Where's my "Journeyman" DVDs, fammit!
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mmmmmmmmm
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July 11, 2012, 8:54 a.m. CST
My proposal: ''PAT,'' about a guy with Parkinson's, Asperger's, and Tourette's
by spacehog
The twist is that he's just an asshole, but everyone assumes that because of his ''quirky'' traits and hostility towards everyone that he must be a genius. Each week the clueless police barge into his house demanding he solve another crime, and while he berates them and drives them out of his home, he inevitably accidentally says something that proves instrumental to the case. Like he screams ''Come back here again and I'll fuck you up one wall and down the other, you fucking shitbags!'' as he's throwing them out of his house, and one of the cops is like ''Shitbags! That's right, we found a colostomy bag at the crime scene, the murderer must be...!'' ''You've done it again, Pat!'' the chief of police bleats as a handful of cops hold Pat down and slip a medal over his unwilling head, at the end of every episode. ''Shitbitches, sandwiches, cocksand!'' he screams while thrashing and shaking, and the cops look up toward the studio lights and laugh heartily at his antics. Freeze-frame, roll credits.
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Not impressed. Made me think of an interview with someone at the network who laid out all of the things one of their shows must have. Lots of bright sun, something about wardrobe colors... indicating a certain uniformity that they want their shows to have. And it shows. This feels like it was churned out by a factory. Too bad, really, because the cast is good.
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as well. I'm sure I will though. I have seen Voyager least of all Trek series' though. I hear it got better, not worse. Same with Enterprise, but I watched most of those. Enterprise wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be, especially toward the end. We'll get another Trek series, you watch. It's not dead yet. JJ won't kill it, if anything he could reinvigorate it all with this next film. I wish him the best. But.... well...
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