DJariya

By djariya at 2012-01-05

Synopsis:



Episode 3 of 22

Guess I will be the only one watching.

critterdvd

I plan on watching all three episodes this weekend. I like Josh Lucas and have been a fan of Molly Parker since ("Swingtown") - not to mention Juliet Lewis is a personal favorite so I'm expecting to at least like it, but I wanted to have a good sampeling available before I made up my mind. I generally dislike most pilots and fall for a series in episodes 2 and 3.

floundering

I'm gonna check it out tonight. Missed the pilot that most people seemed to dislike.

aynrandgirl

I like this show (I'm a sucker for conspiracy shows), but the resolution for the murderer was absurd. The cops don't interview the guard, or if they do he fails to mention the two very identifiable guys who checked out that very room the day before? Typical bad Hollywood writing.

Time has not been kind to Tricia Helfer. She's aged quite poorly in the last couple of years.

Evan Meadow

Good series. Very curious to see what the deal is with the main case in question and why its entrapped our characters yet again in trouble.

Geofferson

Early word this had a dismal ratings performance last night -- we shouldn't expect this to be around much longer.

aynrandgirl

The general public never seems to like mystery shows.

RichC2

The first two episodes drew a lackluster 1.4/3 on it's Sunday premiere, it pulled an even worse 1.0/1.3 last night with a total of 4.24m viewers.

The show is a goner.

clckworang

Yowza. I didn't like the pilot, so I was just coming in to see if people thought the series showed improvement. I guess there's not much reason to get attached to it. Is it wrong that I couldn't help wondering if this would help Community?

DJariya

Unless you want them to put Community at 10pm? The 10pm timeslot on Thursdays is usually reserved for a drama. Remember the failed 30 Rock/Outsourced 10pm experiment last season? What else are you going to put here? Awake is their prized possession right now for midseason, look at what Prime Suspect and now The Firm is doing there. This is a bad timeslot to launch anything new at if your expecting good ratings.

I'll watch this later today, but all 22 episodes are bought and paid for. Yeah I know you can't keep a show on the air with a 1.0 in a competitive timeslot like this, so it will probably get burned off on Friday or Saturday. I mentioned in my OP in the Pilot that Sony financed this show through overseas syndication and NBC is only paying a small licensing fee, similar to what CBS did with Flashpoint. The Firm is only costing NBC a fraction of what they paid for in Prime Suspect. Realistically I expect it to get pulled and NBC will probably add a 2nd night of Dateline or something like that in this timeslot.

clckworang

Eh, I figure the more new NBC shows that tank, the more need to fill timeslots, which could create a ripple effect that would move other things around.

DJariya

Alright, I watched Chapter 3 today. I actually liked it alot more than the 2 hour premiere.

However, as DeadLamb predicted, we started out with a 5 minute chase sequence and then we have the title card that says 5 weeks earlier, hence the case of the week begins, then the episode picks up 5 weeks later with Mitch making a frantic phone call.

I did think the non-linear story-telling worked for this episode as they incorporated more elements of the overall story into this Chapter.

The case of the week IMO was actually pretty interesting. I thought the twist with that nut job who confessed to the murder & was released and then mass graves being found was pretty cool.

I'm not sure I'm getting right away why this murder case of that blonde girl being accused of killing that old lady is so important to that Firm that hired Mitch. Then at the end we see a laptop missing from the evidence storage.

Even though I enjoyed this episode, it wasn't perfect. The subplot with Mitch's daughter discovering that Popular cheated was pretty weak. And then the resolution with the Abby not ratting her daughter out. I'm guessing the writer of this episode thought he needed to give the daughter something to do.

Since the ratings were shit, waiting until NBC does the same thing it did with Persons Unknown and move this to Saturday.

And Geez, Tricia Helfer looks like crap. I don't know if it's just a shitty makeup job or her aging badly.

TGM

we don't speak about Persons Unknown.

aynrandgirl

I think it's fairly obvious. They, or somebody they're beholden to, actually did the murder. They were probably expecting the son to be charged, but the girl was instead because she stupidly didn't dump the necklace on her way out. Why that woman was murdered is unknown, as is how they could have accomplished it with the girl in the other room.

They want control of the defense so they can ensure the girl gets convicted. The laptop likely contained exculpatory evidence (and damning evidence too, but they weren't worried about it being found), so they stole it.

DJariya

Cool thanks

DeadLamb

yeah but I think last time it was 6 weeks earlier... I mean sure, they can also go into "tv time" and just say it's 4 weeks earlier for 12+ eps in a row or whatever but at this rate maybe they get into the meat of the main story arc in less then 10eps?

anyways, I liked this ep more then the pilot but I'm not going to be shocked if the rating numbers are just horrible for this show..

DVD Josh

I love how this says 3 of 22, as if 22 are even a remote possibility.

MikahC

I think the "of 22" is nice because even if they don't air in the current timeslot, that's no guarantee they won't air at all (on Saturday or whatever). And even if they don't air at all, we still might see all 22 episodes on DVD/BluRay. In fact, since DJariya has done a great job letting us know about the distribution deals, I pretty much know I'll see the whole season even if it doesn't come out on DVD in the U.S. because it'll probably still come out on DVD elsewhere. So by and large, I expect to see them all one way or another.

DVD Josh

Not a criticism of DJariya, but of the show. That should have been more than obvious.

critterdvd

NBC is only co-producing this series with several other foreign venues and thus the episodes are VERY cheap for the network (less than a third of there second cheapest drama) so I don't think the ratings are going to matter much for this one, they are going to air the entire season - they don't have anything to replace it with in the same price range. Honestly I think that if the series can stay at a 1 rating, it might even be renewed and sent to Fridays...