Pilots, Part One: The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Welcome to my first post on new pilots. To be clear, I don't fancy myself a journalist. I'm not attempting to write true "reviews" of new shows, but just to throw out my thoughts on what worked for me and what didn't. I'll also be focusing on the storytelling and not on things like production and performance.

Today we're talking CW's Hellcats and FX's Terriers.

Hellcats

Hellcats is about Marti (Aly Michalka), a pre-law college student who loses her scholarship. Faced with having to drop out, she joins the cheerleading squad to get a new scholarship. Let's start with the bad.


The Bad

The episode begins with a voice-over. I could do a whole post on the problems with and merits of voice-overs (hmmm... maybe I will). In brief, voice-overs can sometimes be used as a lazy way to puke exposition all over the viewer. This seems to be the case here. It's ridiculous though, because any piece of exposition we learn from the voice-over comes up naturally in dialogue before the first commercial break. You could literally just chop the first two minutes off the episode and not miss out on anything.
Marti only initially appears to be our eyes into this world. In reality, the voice-over completely disappears until the very end of the episode (where it is just as unnecessary). What is this voice-over doing? What purpose does it serve? It's a crutch. Get it out of there.

A big part of the show's premise is that Marti is going to bring some fresh moves to the Hellcats. She's not a typical cheerleader, and the team is desperate for a way to stand out so they can win something or other, you get where I'm going with this. There's a scene where the coach tells the team they are going to throw out their old routines and "improv". Sounds pretty cool. But then we cut to: the Hellcats doing a rehearsed cheerleading routine. In perfect unison. Hmmm... something is not right here. This show is unwilling to follow through on its premise. Which is a shame, because how much cooler would it have been to see thirty cheerleaders busting a move, doing their own thing, and then finding a way to bring it all together as a routine? Way cooler, I'd say.

Maybe the biggest problem I had with the episode is that it kind of didn't work as an episode. It worked as a pilot, introducing characters and establishing conflicts that will carry through the series. But the episode didn't work on its own. It was the story of Marti joining the squad... for the first half. And then I don't know what it was about. It meandered around a little, finally ending with a cliffhanger that felt like we were getting somewhere. Because there was no beginning-to-end through-line, I didn't know what I was watching for. An episode should have a question that remains unresolved until the end, where the resolution might raise further questions for the next episode. For the first half, the question was, "Will Marti find a way to pay for school?" After she makes the squad, the question is, "Will something, anything happen?"

The Good

I know it seems like I didn't enjoy the episode, but I actually did. I like the characters. The cheerleading is well choreographed and fun to watch. The episode did a fine job of expeditiously setting up a lot of different conflicts in just one hour. And the cliffhanger ending I mentioned was rather well executed and has me intrigued. Bottom line, I'm not impressed enough to want to commit to the full season, but I could see myself checking out another episode or two. It's fun to watch, and that's no small thing.

Terriers

Terriers stars Donal Logue (Grounded for Life) and Michael Raymond-James (True Blood) as a pair of private eyes. That's pretty much it. They solve crimes for money.


What I can say about Terriers that I couldn't quite say about Hellcats is that after seeing the pilot, I know what a typical episode looks like. On Terriers, two guys solve a crime, there's some clever misleads and plot twists, some humorous bits, and a few scenes about their relationships with the women in their lives. That's exactly what a pilot should tell me - what I will see if I tune in next week.

The pilot also sets up a Big Bad, a villain that will carry through at least a few episodes, possibly even a whole season. I like that it blends a procedural format with sort of a longer-arcing story.

The show takes a tried and true format (crime-fighting duo) and executes it very well. It has that recognizable FX-y grittiness. And as a bonus, the main characters are original, complex, and likable. That being said, I don't think I'll be watching any more of it, but only because it's not really a genre I enjoy.

Next up is Nikita, premiering tonight on CW!