September
26, 2024
The
word of the week is “Hallmark.”
There’s
a show called “High Potential”. It operates on the tired premise of an
unacknowledged genius in a minimum-wage
job who ends up helping the police solve cases because she notices things that
others don’t. The premise would have been OK, but the dialogue in the first
half sounded like it was written for a Hallmark movie. It got marginally
better, but you’ll have to forget every other police procedural you’ve watched
in order to overlook the sloppy detective work. (Does a newbie really have to
tell them to check the site of the victim’s fall for clues to what happened?)
Next,
we have “Murder in a Small Town”, a mixture of “Midsomer Murders” and Hallmark,
with a pale imitation of Wallender thrown in for the lead. Worse than his rough,
non-police garb (he’s a different breed of lawman, of course) is the laid-back
speech of the main character, who sounds like he’s talking in the back of his
throat—but very softly. He mumbles. And the romance is textbook Hallmark. Hard
pass.
Finally,
“Doctor Odyssey”. Again, a Hallmark situation: a maverick new doctor resented
by the tried-and-true staff, and another very fast romance. To be fair, the old
guard and the new guy all have something to teach each other; it’s not
one-sided. And one patient situation was pretty funny. But you’d have to be
very bored to watch it regularly.
Maybe
I’m too old and cranky to be watching TV anymore.
Or
maybe the writers aren’t trying very hard.
