Viva Las Vegas
May. 2nd, 2003 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynIs anyone else watching Lucky on FX, Tuesday nights in The Shield's time slot? I'm actually really enjoying this show, and am sort of surprised that I do. It's got a quirky "dramedy" sensibility that I like -- laugh tracks really annoy me for the most part, and I like comedy that doesn't come through laugh tracks. I also like the fact that Lucky is somewhat ambiguous -- he's a liar and a chronic gambler and pretty messed up, but he's also, at heart, a decent guy who can't quite overcome his addictions and his need to atone for what happened to his wife. I like that need for atonement in a guy. ;-)
I didn't think I'd enjoy it for a couple reasons: one, John Corbett. He was my least favorite character on Northern Exposure, and I could never get into him in subsequent series because I didn't find him appealing enough. Proximity also probably had something to do with it; he was an acquaintance's boss for a long time, as co-owner of a nightclub here in Seattle where she worked, and so I didn't always take him too seriously as an actor because of that, I think. Takes all the mystique out of them!
Second, I'm not overly fond of Las Vegas-set things. I spent the worst year of my childhood living in Vegas (just outside of it in a suburb that is now part of the sprawl of the city), and so I usually pass on anything that reminds me of it. Even though it gave me lots of fascinating stories to tell (the night we had the police siege, the night the famous actors were trying to shoot out the Golden Nugget sign, the black widows experience), I have never once been tempted to go back to Vegas, and don't usually want to watch anything that's suposed to catch the flavor of the town -- not a flavor I enjoy.
But Lucky's pretty fun. Corbett doesn't do a half-bad job, although at times he seems a bit lightweight for some of the darker elements of Lucky's past. I was a little disappointed that this week they took the relationship with the girl he's sponsoring in GA into a romantic level, because I was kind of hoping it might stay on a simple friendship level, but if it doesn't just devolve into standard couplehood, it could be interesting since they're both such damaged people. And I like the secondary characters, especially his loser friends, who are really just very funny. Their lines aren't all that original, but they deliver them with such panache that it works. And it's hard not to like a show that makes pot roasts into a threatening weapon.
And now onto my Giles rant...
I didn't think I'd enjoy it for a couple reasons: one, John Corbett. He was my least favorite character on Northern Exposure, and I could never get into him in subsequent series because I didn't find him appealing enough. Proximity also probably had something to do with it; he was an acquaintance's boss for a long time, as co-owner of a nightclub here in Seattle where she worked, and so I didn't always take him too seriously as an actor because of that, I think. Takes all the mystique out of them!
Second, I'm not overly fond of Las Vegas-set things. I spent the worst year of my childhood living in Vegas (just outside of it in a suburb that is now part of the sprawl of the city), and so I usually pass on anything that reminds me of it. Even though it gave me lots of fascinating stories to tell (the night we had the police siege, the night the famous actors were trying to shoot out the Golden Nugget sign, the black widows experience), I have never once been tempted to go back to Vegas, and don't usually want to watch anything that's suposed to catch the flavor of the town -- not a flavor I enjoy.
But Lucky's pretty fun. Corbett doesn't do a half-bad job, although at times he seems a bit lightweight for some of the darker elements of Lucky's past. I was a little disappointed that this week they took the relationship with the girl he's sponsoring in GA into a romantic level, because I was kind of hoping it might stay on a simple friendship level, but if it doesn't just devolve into standard couplehood, it could be interesting since they're both such damaged people. And I like the secondary characters, especially his loser friends, who are really just very funny. Their lines aren't all that original, but they deliver them with such panache that it works. And it's hard not to like a show that makes pot roasts into a threatening weapon.
And now onto my Giles rant...
