TV Review – ‘Pepper Dennis’
4/3/2006
Posted by Frosty
Pepper Dennis
Rating: 3 stars out of 4
Review by Steven Snyder
All television shows evolve one way or another – it’s why so many long-running series are better in later seasons and in fact why we keep watching certain series in the first place. Hell, we want to see what twists and turns it’s going to take next.
And while I have only seen the first two episodes of the new, heavily-advertised (can’t cross a street in New York City without being confronted by Pepper Dennis’ best Marilyn Monroe impersonation – not a complaint, just a fact) WB sitcom, I can already say that it seems to be devolving from its original concept.
The real questions is not whether Pepper Dennis is promising – not even really whether its good – but whether it can correct a skid that seems to be starting from episode number 2. Another way to put it, given the start of the baseball season this week (the only baseball reference you will ever see me construct), we’re only two episodes in and we’re already 1-1.
Given the unlikely premise of this unlikely series, the success of the pilot, scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Tuesday night, is a bit surprising. Imagine Ally McBeal, but in a television studio instead of a lawyer’s office. Some might claim - and by some, I mean me - that local TV news anchors, regardless of gender, are not exactly the role models of modern American society. Hell, some – me again – might even say that watching the local evening news is a grueling and embarrassing experience and that the thought of being one of those anchors, mumbling through a silly, superficial string of copy, is enough to make one – me – cringe.
It is to Rebecca Romijn’s credit, then, as well as the show’s creators, that they manage to find a way to get us to want to be Dennis’ character. She’s one of the lead reporters for her station’s newscast, but we meet here not so much as a woman hard at work on that night’s report – which, to be fair, is constructed almost as a rift on some of the silliness that has torn down TV news lately, such as in-your-face confrontations and undercover stings – but as a twentysomething trying to find her way in a man’s profession.
Enter Charlie Babcock (Josh Hopkins), the latest hunk she’s found at a bar, who also turns out to be the station’s new lead anchor. It’s the job she’s always wanted, but her jealousy is muted by the fact that she really kinda likes the guy. And while she sets out to bust a corrupt public official, the more interesting dramas are those of her personal life, as she helps her sister (Brooke Burns) deal with a breaking marriage and as she fights with her conflicting feelings over pursuing Charlie.
Romijn has just the right balance here of driven moxie and girly silliness, balanced between the reporter and the woman. We can celebrate Pepper without being intimidated feel for her without feeling manipulated.
It’s difficult, then, to describe how far the second episode drifts from the first.
Ironically, the DVD I was given had the episodes in reverse order, and my experience was the exact opposite of what I am describing here – and what newcomers to the show will experience over the next two weeks. I popped in the DVD, watched the first episode, dreaded the second and then was delightfully surprised. But sadly I have a feeling that most people will experience the reverse, being let down as they return for a second dose.
In the second episode, personal pain is ignored in favor of quick punch lines and almost absurd slapstick. Pepper is now convinced that Charlie does not like her, she retaliates in response, she tries to one-up Charlie by posing as a prostitute in a sting of a local gentleman’s club and her sister turns into a cliché: The broken woman returning to her mess of a husband before breaking free in a my-boots-are-made-for-walking kind of moment.
Yet it’s difficult to describe how far the tone of this first regular episode – second in total – falls from the pilot. Things feel heavy-handed and contrived. When Pepper dresses up in a short skirt and low-cut dress to bust the prostitute ring, the sequence feels forced, as if it’s bending over backwards for a laugh. And it isn’t naturally funny, or realistically involving, precisely because this.
No, people do not want reality when they flip on the TV. But they do want a set of rules that match the emotional goals of the show. Here, we are not meant simply to take this all as a random bit of network news silliness. There are many segments underscored by the emotions of romantic pop ballades, asking us to genuinely care and reach out to these characters. Pepper Dennis is part comedy and part drama, that asks us to care about Pepper’s career and her happiness in her romantic life.
Yet something shifts runs askew between the pilot and the second episode. The rush for laughs overwhelms the rush for empathy. And while I would recommend Pepper Dennis as one of the more well-constructed, and ambitious, hour-long comedies of recent years, I do so tentatively. If it continues in this direction, it risks caricaturizing the very personalities the pilot so carefully brings to life.
General rule of thumb to the WB: Make us care more about the off-screen Pepper and less about her as a news personality. None of us care about the local nightly news, but all of us care about an up-and-coming dreamer who is dealing with the same issues of love, career and family that tugs at our hearts on a daily basis.
They’re sitting on a hit here. But will they be able to trust us enough to get it, or go too silly for their own good?
|
Home |
Contact Us |
About Us |
Advertising |
Privacy Policy |
Terms of Use |
RSS |
Site Map