Normally I like to reserve my column for shows that I otherwise would never have gotten the opportunity to watch, because for whatever reason it takes knowing that I have a column to write to get me to watch shows that fly under my radar. But every once in a while I find myself able to focus that same reasoning on checking back in with shows that I’ve decided to quit, which is exactly what led to this week’s column selection: USA Network’s In Plain Sight.
I’d done enough to cleanse my palette that, going in, I had no guesses as to where the fourth season would be picking things up. I had some vague memories where it concerned the ongoing plots, but I spent much of the last run that I saw not really focusing on what was happening, so to say that a distance had grown between us would be understating things significantly.
The season four premiere started as almost all episodes do, with the latest WITSEC inductee about to experience the event that drives them into the program. It occurs to me now that Riley’s (James Carpinello) problems didn’t play any sort of prominent role in the story. Is that why they threw him a bone with the lack of zest for life, to manufacture a problem? For once an episode didn’t expect us to buy the improbable premise that all of this particular Marshal’s office’s witnesses get into trouble one after another. Cool.
Instead the episode was about Mary’s (Mary McCormack) sister, Brandi (Nichole Hiltz). I’m glad to see that Joshua Malina’s found a home here; I felt badly in the past that his Peter Alpert had to deal with Brandi in his life, but it turns out that she actually isn’t so bad. In fact I liked their story, even if it was slightly overly dramatic. The new Brandi, and their relationship, is pleasant to watch.
That’s right … distance actually did put things into a different perspective for me. Now, maybe I’d feel differently if annoying Jinx (Lesley Ann Warren) had been around, but I actually had no problems with any of the ancillary characters who orbit Mary Shannon. And I was even slightly disappointed in the fact that the case wasn’t about a whiny WITSEC member. The only thing that I had trouble with was Mary.
In season one Mary was introduced as the prickly, hard-to-get-close-to US Marshal who could compensate for her human deficiencies by being so good at her job that everyone was okay with how frosty she was. But something happened when the show had to keep selling her as the same person: she became a horrible person, and she became something of a caricature of the persona she played in the initial run.
That takes its toll on everyone else. Marshall’s (Frederick Weller) a lot of fun, but how much altitude can he achieve when most of what he does is weighted down by his partner? I guess that’s why I liked Detective Chaffee (Rachel Boston), because with her Marshall can be the guy we all liked so much in season one. And I think her addition makes an interesting statement: the police romance is a great idea, but when the show tried it with Mary and Dershowitz (Todd Williams) it kept on sinking. So it seems like it’s not so much a bad idea as it was poorly executed the first time around, because Marshall can sell it.
That’s why I think adding Delia (Tangie Ambrose) to the office might be a bad idea. Eleanor (Holly Maples) didn’t work because Mary makes it impossible for the people around her to be tolerable; trying again with another new face in the same situation isn’t going to end any differently.
So revisiting the show didn’t result in any overall new feelings toward it on my part, but I am glad that I cleared up my Shannon family problems. It really is just Mary. I tried muting her lines, but they’re so frequent that I kept missing the beginnings of everyone else’s sentences. I see that I made the right decision when I decided to drop the show. Oh well … can’t like them all.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on May 10, 2011 @ 15:40 EST5EDT
