The Riches - "Pilot" - 3/12/07
 

"Pilot"


Been looking forward to this.

just a quick heads up for those may tivo/dvr this show -

my cable box shows this show as lasting 1 hr 17 minutes. maybe this is a mistake, but i set my dvr to record an extra 30 mins just in case.

Almost forgot about this. With Eddie Izzard in it, it is definitely worth giving a shot.

Any buzz on this show? I've heard virtually nothing.

The promos I've seen for this are quite good. I did a double take when I realized that was Izzard talking. I'm going to give it a shot, I hope it's better than Dirt.

It's most likely because I don't have FX anymore, but I had not heard/read a thing about this show until this past weekend.

FX certainly hasn't been pushing this show as hard as they shoved DIRT at us. I was sick of the "this time you've gone too far" song before that show even premiered.

Got this one set to record... Black Donnelys on at the same time, but that one is hanging by a small thread for me, and this looks pretty good.

I am a huge Izzard fan, so I'm so ready to see this one. Really keeping my fingers crossed that this one will be really good. I'd love for Izzard to get a really good TV show.

DVR is set for this one.

Here are some excerpts from the NY Times review (one of several good ones that have appeared in NYC papers):

<i>So much research is devoted to studying whether violence on television desensitizes children. Yet nobody seems to worry that adults are becoming inured to excellence.

"The Riches," a new series that begins tonight on FX, could serve as the control in a much-needed experiment. <b><u>It's so compelling it deserves to be a hit, generating as much media attention and Internet chatter as "Deadwood," "Nip/Tuck" or "24."</u></b> (It would be blasphemy to invoke "The Sopranos," since no show is that good, not even "The Sopranos.")
So if "The Riches" does poorly, then it can only mean that there is too much high-quality television driving away the bad.
Some of the danger signs include the ho-hum, seen-it-before syndrome. A synopsis of "The Riches" -- a family of Southern grifters con their way into a wealthy gated community -- sounds vaguely familiar. Some might shrug it off as a cross between "Weeds," the Showtime series about a pot-dealing soccer mom and an R-rated "Beverly Hillbillies." It's not the first cable drama centered on an endearing career criminal and his family.
But <b>"The Riches" has a voice and peculiar style all its own</b>, the comedy always offset by a lurking sense of sadness and menace. The Malloys are Travelers, Gypsy-like nomads who in the United States, most often in the South, live in tight, hierarchical communities. Many survive on thievery and petty scams. After a dispute with the would-be head of their clan, the Malloys steal the community bank and run away.
More through bad luck than serendipity, they assume the identity of a dead couple, Doug and Cherien Rich, and masquerade as a lawyer and a homemaker with three children in private school.
The father, Wayne Malloy, is played by Eddie Izzard, a beloved stand-up comedian and sketch artist in Britain. Minnie Driver plays his wife, Dahlia, a princess of the blood in the realm of the Travelers but in the outside world a woman who has just emerged from a two-year stint in jail with an addiction to cough syrup.
Together, <b>they are superb in "The Riches,"</b> a couple alternately loving and alienated, winning and disturbing, artful and doomed.
Trading in their battered RV and Louisiana swamplands for a sumptuous pink mansionette with swimming pool, the Malloys pull off their ruse with skill and also childish naïveté. The children do not go to school but are well educated in the arts of forgery, car theft and flimflam. "Buffer" is the Travelers' term for civilians, and the Malloys are at first bewildered by and slightly contemptuous of buffer luxuries like the garbage disposal and flat-screen TV.
Slowly the lure of affluence and ease pulls them in. "This American dream, they don't just give it to you with a big old ribbon and a bow," Dahlia scolds her husband. "If we want it, we have take it, do whatever it takes to hold on to it till they rip it out of our cold dead hands."
<b><u>"The Riches" is that rare thing, a dark, sophisticated series</u></b> that speaks to our most childlike natures. Just as little boys and girls dress up as the Little Mermaid or pretend they are enrolled at Hogwarts, the Malloys tempt even stand-up adults to assume a new identity and live it to the fullest -- on someone else's MasterCard.</i>


Really looking forward to this .....

I have seen a lot of ads for this. Most have been during dirt that I notice when I am zooming through the commercials. I think it looks great. FX seems to have a lot of quality shows.

I can't wait for this. I've been a huge Eddie fan for years and am so glad he's finally got something he can sink his teeth into.

Watch the pilot online:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/tvbuzz

izzard is awesome

It seems to have borrowed a lot from Big Love. You have the family trying to hide their secret and the hillbillyish relatives they're trying to not have anything to do with.

Izzard was good and it has potential.

"Chromosomal retard":lol:

I loved Eddie Izzard in this, but I cannot stand Big Love. I'll give it a few weeks to see which is going to be the overriding influence.

It was funny to hear Minnie Driver talk like Jaime Presley. I'll give it a few more episodes, but it was a little too slow, or overly dramatic.

This show was fine and all, but I have a nit to pick.

Have TV/movie writers ever been to a high school reunion?
Because, in real life, they are NEVER in the high school gym, and are usually at a hotel or banquet hall. Also, tickets for reunions usually run from about $75 to $200, and if you haven't paid and have your ticket, you're shit-out-of-luck, and aint getting in.

Anyways, besides that, the show was fine - good acting, and Gomez!

My high school's reunions are held in the school gym, and so are my parents --and my parents' reunions are free.

I enjoyed last night's pilot much more than I anticipated. Was glad to see Gregg Henry (Body Double) in a supporting role.

Forgot about this show. Need to download it from someone. Thank God for ReplayTV!! :)

I liked it. I just wonder where the family and friends of the real Riches are. It seems strange they would be able to pull this off so easy.

Since it is on FX, it will probably be replayed throughout the week.

I haven't watched my recording yet, but Minnie Driver was on the View yesterday and mentioned the show becomes more humorous as the episodes proceed.

Looks like it did well last night