With the plethora of cop/procedural/crime dramas on our television screens, it was only a matter of time before some semi-smart producer realized that there hadn’t been one about U.S Marshals yet. These same semi-smart producers therefore created In Plain Sight, a series that revolves around the life of Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), a marshal for the Witness Protection Program. As one would expect from such a program, each episode centers on a new, zany witness that needs to be protected/reprimanded/killed or something like that.
The show tries really hard to be different from its half-sisters. For one, it supplants its characters from the usual New York City or Los Angeles gritty, unrealistic city setting and sets it all in New Mexico. It also throws in some family characters that get more screen time then they deserve and, most importantly, creates a female main protagonist that no one in their right mind should be interested in or sympathetic towards. Okay, okay, okay. Maybe that was unfair. But it’s not that far from the truth. In an early episode (I’ll admit to watching five, but that was only out of a curiosity to see if she got any better. She doesn’t.) Mary even admits that her partner Marshall (played by Frederick Weller and the only good part of the entire series) is her one and only friend. Even that friend is looking for another job in order to get away from her (because he, for some unknown reason, likes her. But hey, he’s still trying to get away from her.)
Mary is antagonistic, uninteresting, mean, selfish, inconsistent, uncaring, and a whole lot of other unattractive things, yet we are still supposed to care about what happens to her. This would all be alright if not for the fact that she’s on the screen forty minutes out of every episode. While the interesting Marshall disappears for commercial breaks at a time, our screens are always graced by Mary. Not even a well-rounded character can stay interesting for twenty minutes straight (See M*A*S*H’s “Hawkeye” if you doubt me).
Her family isn’t much better. Although I commend the semi-smart producers for introducing a new element into a tired television style, Mary’s family is more jarring than anything else. Mary’s mother, a drunk who never really got her life together, is there more for the jokes than anything else, and Mary’s sister is there for….for something. Unlike Castle, the family drama never has anything to do with the witness-of-the-week story and so it’s all very disjointed and strange.
USA Network is known for its tagline (“Characters Welcome”) then anything else. For people who want a generally care-free, suspense-less crime procedural, In Plain Sight is a perfect fit. But for anyone who actually wants interesting characters in their television shows, look elsewhere.
Show to Watch: Castle
0 comments:
Post a Comment