Soccer Moms?
Posted on May 09, 2005 at 01:04 AM
What a let down.
As you may know, I was asked to review a new TV show this past Saturday and give a telephone interview of what I thought of it. I couldn't have been more disappointed.
The show was entitled Soccer Moms, it starred Kristin Davis of Sex and the city fame as DeAnn, a suburban housewife, who partners with Jamie (Gina Torres) as private investigators. Jamie is an ex-cop with two kids and a husband who is in jail who becomes a P.I. in order to make ends meet. DeAnn is her friend who assists her in solving cases. They officially become partners at the end of the episode when Jamie realized she can't do it without DeAnn's help.
The character of DeAnn could really be summed up by that of Charlotte in Sex and the City. You know, the well dressed, mild mannered, prudish, goody two shoe? Take Charlotte out of her 5th avenue world and plop her down in suburbia and presto, you have DeAnn. Not much of a stretch for Kristin Davis.
Instead of being called Soccer Moms this show should be called "Sex and the City: The Latter Years" (minus Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha of course) The show evens uses the voice narration of the main character DeAnn, just like that of Carrie in Sex and the City. Total rip off.
I won't bore you with the plot, as it was convoluted and a real snoozer. The "highlight" was at the end of the show when Jamie is being held at gunpoint by an illegal alien maid. DeAnn saves the day by grabbing a can of Pam and leaps in front of the gun woman, spraying it directly in her face (all in slow motion) temporarily stunning her. Then DeAnn uses her self-defense skills to disarm the gun toting maid. Very compelling, not.
The show lasted only 33 minutes, not the 40-50 minutes previously relayed to me. I couldn't have been more thankful.
The interview started promptly at 4pm and was conducted by a company called TNS. The interviewer asked what seemed to be about 100 questions. Ranging from have you seen the stars in other shows, would you like to see more of this star in the show, to whether I liked future plot scenarios.
One future plot involved DeAnn and Jamie having to repossess a car not knowing the car had a cat inside of it. This of course not being your ordinary cat, but a champion show cat. And the owners of the cat were connected to the mob, putting the lives of Jamie, DeAnn, and their families in jeopardy.
Who writes this crap? Hell, I could write better this. Somebody call my agent.
As you can probably tell I bagged the show during the entire interview. I like Kristin Davis and always watched Sex and the City on HBO (I am comfortable enough with myself to admit that), and stated I would watch the show if someone else wanted to watch it, but definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. This show will make prime time TV based solely on the star power of Kristin Davis but will fail if the writing doesn't improve.
Also, change the damn title of the show. You won't get anyone sans uterus to watch the show with a name like "Soccer Moms". What's the first thing I think of when I hear the words "Soccer Moms"? Overweight, frumpy, fast approaching middle-aged women, adorned in bedazzled jogging suits, driving mammoth SUV's, guzzling Starbucks like it was going out of style (if that's possible).
Towards the end of the interview they asked how much of the following shows I watched per month:
Hope and Faith - nada
Alias - nope
Extreme Makeover: Home edition - occasionally
According to Jim - vaguely familiar
Desperate Housewives - Are you kidding me? I'll stare at Terri Hatcher for about a minute but then it's time to move along.
They then asked if I was a fan of the following shows:
Hart to Hart - Remembered seeing it, but how many 9 year olds would really be into a show like this?
Remington Steele - Again, remembered it but wasn't a fan.
Moonlighting - Total fan. Bruce Willis, pre Die Hard, with Cybill Shepherd. Great show.
So I can kind of see where they are going with this show, two friends, suburban setting, kind of opposites when you compare their personalities, mixed in with investigating/bringing down the bad guys, all in time to take the kids to soccer practice.
Obviously they got the wrong focus market when they chose me. If it isn't on the Discovery Channel, TLC, HBO, or on before 10pm I'm probably not going to watch it.
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Comments
Hoover--Your description of a Soccer Mom sounds a bit like profiling. You may be line for some sensitvity training.
The interview company probably got your name from the card you filed out in Hollywood years ago on our trip to LA--(when we were pulled in off the street and promised the opportunity to "watch/critique a pilot" of a brand new series). You were tough on that one too--as I recall, you gave it two thumbs down.
Keep the thoughts coming--it beats the hell out of the evening news!!
Dad
Posted by: Your Dad | May 9, 2005 06:09 PM
Yes, I remember when we watched that pilot for CBS. They gave us two buttons. If you liked something you just saw, we were told to press the button in our right hand. And if we saw something we didn't like we would hold down the button in our left hand. I don't remember much of the show, other than it was some cheesy sitcom. But I do remember holding down the left button quite often, especially when a certain actress (I forget her name) on the screen would even open her mouth.
Posted by: joeschmidt | May 10, 2005 07:29 AM
Not sure where you're from, but the Soccer Moms I know are not overweight. Although they do usually wear bedazzled jump suits, you usually want to see said jump suits in a ball on the floor, if you know what I mean.
Posted by: Kip Rockfist | February 25, 2008 09:57 PM