Television Reviews

by Dave Heaton

The Amazing Race

(ABC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m. EST)

These days it's become de rigueur to criticize reality TV--in fact, in this morning's paper I read a quotation from a comedian to the effect that reality TV shows were a sign that we've returned to "the same old stupidity" despite the seriousness of what happened in the U.S. in September. The specific shows he referred to did not include The Amazing Race, but the connotation, a popular one lately, was that reality TV as a genre is idiotic, even more so than your average sitcom or cop show.

What's unfair about the current craze of condemning reality TV shows is the assumption that they're all the same. While it's true that many of the shows are vehicles for us to indulge in our voyeuristic tendencies and most of the shows' participants are celebrity wannabes who will do anything for that elusive thing that is fame, it isn't true that every "reality show" is the same. I submit to you as exhibit A The Amazing Race. Part game show (without an annoying, omnipresent host or know-it-all contestants), part travelogue (without stereotypes about the "exotic" otherness of far-away lands, or the travel-industry infomercial-feel of many Travel Channel shows), part real-life human drama with moments of genuine humor and emotion, The Amazing Race is not only more entertaining than station after station of clichéd sitcoms and family dramas, it also offers a more complex view of humanity than most fictional creations on TV these days. And the biggest surprise of all? That the name Jerry Bruckheimer appears in the credits, yet the show isn't bad! In fact, the adrenaline rush feeling that runs through Bruckheimer's inane action films is here in the Race, only you care about the participants more.

The show's premise is pretty simple. Take 11 pairs of people, each of which already has a relationship (a couple that's recently engaged, fraternity brothers, a mother and her daughter, etc.), and have them race each other to places all over the globe. Along the way they participate in a sort of high-speed, head-to-head sightseeing battle, by going on vague clues to find particular places in an unfamiliar city, using communication and negotiation skills to arrange last-minute travel to places across the globe, etc. In each episode, the pair of participants who reaches the final destination point is kicked off the series. For the viewer, then, much of the expected feelings emerge (which team will get kicked off next, etc.). Yet the show is more human than most, for the simple fact that everything flows naturally from the show's premise. They don't need to continually create contrived situations which will lead to conflict. Take people who know each other well enough, put them through a worldwide journey and make them do it on a fast-paced time schedule, and there's bound to be enough natural feelings generated to give the show a deep emotional range.

The main contrivance of The Amazing Race, then, is simply the fact that the contestants have close relationships with each other before the show--put a couple who are just starting to date in stressful situations and they're naturally going to fight. The show is perhaps therefore no more "real" than any other reality show, but the emotions and relationships shown are more real, and the people involved are depicted more honestly. There's no manufactured attempts at stirring up sexual attraction or causing people to hate each other--in that way, The Amazing Race is more genuine than most of the other reality shows (especially your Temptation Islands, Big Brothers, Love Cruises, etc.). Instead, the show is filled with real human drama. Some of it is the usual tensions and arguments that come out during travel, though here it's all amplified due to the fast pace (not to mention the million-dollar prize given to the winner). Yet there's also stories here about friendship, reconciliation, forgiveness, cooperation and love. The relationships between the two members of each team are depicted vividly, with depth. Plus there are ever-evolving relationships among the various teams--another story of people and how they interact which is growing from episode to episode.

Of course, as with TV in general, escapist fun is a major reason to watch. But as silly as it might seem for a show that is essentially a cheesy game show, designed to piggy-back on the popularity of Survivor and its ilk, The Amazing Race has real depth and complexity to it. It is as much a study of relationships, of human behavior, as it is a contest. The Amazing Race is a multidimensional portrait of how humans relate to each other in unfamiliar or extraordinary circumstances. That makes it more engaging and more weighty than most of what's on TV.

Pasadena

(Fox, Fridays, 9 p.m. EST)

Each television season brings a whole new batch of series, most of which will be vacuous, carbon-copy exercises in blandness. Given that fact, it's hard to figure out which shows might be good, especially for someone like myself who only watches a few shows a week. So what attracts my attention is often talent which I trust--actors, writers, creators who have worked on other projects that I respect or admire. Pasadena caught my attention pretty much because of Martin Donovan, an actor whose career includes several appearances in films by one of my favorite directors, the idiosyncratic genius Hal Hartley, as well as fine performances in other films (The Opposite of Sex, Portrait of a Lady) and a role on the way-too-short-lived TV series Wonderland. I mention him only as an entry point. There's other names here which could attract other viewers, particularly that of the show's creator Mike White (of Freeks and Geeks and Chuck and Buck) or some of its other actors (Dana Delany, Philip Baker Hall, Balthazar Getty). The actors involved might all be entry points, but the show's power lies in the way everyone, and everything, fits together.

Pasadena is essentially a drama about the members of a wealthy, powerful family in the city which the show is name after. It's classified as a "prime-time soap opera," and I suppose it is. The melodrama factor is high here, and the show's characters and their behaviors are in a way familiar to watchers of the prime-time soap opera genre (Dallas, Falcon Crest, etc.). The truism that power and money corrupt is lurking behind nearly every scene, as these rich, powerful (and power-hungry) people connive, cheat and lie to gain more wealth and status. Yet where this show seems different is all in its perspective. So far, Pasadena seems all about slowing tearing a family of entrenched power inside out, instead of edifying it.

The show mostly follows the life of Lilly McAllister (Alison Lohman), the teenage daughter of Will (Donovan) and Catherine (Delany). Catherine's parents are the Greeleys, owner of a publishing empire and the wealthiest family in Pasadena. At the start of the first episode, Lilly is confronted in her home by a man named Philip Parker (Paul Dillon), who before killing himself speaks words which give Lilly doubts about how respectable her family. Aided by her classmate Henry (Alan Simpson), who comes from a less economically privileged background and has a deep skepticism towards the Greeley family, Lilly begins to investigate her family's past. While following Lilly and Henry's journey to the truth, Pasadena also depicts the family in a comic yet biting way, essentially showing its "dysfunctional" state.

While only three episodes have aired thus far (either a side effect of its Friday-night placement or a symptom of the low ratings it's getting), Pasadena, while not by any means covering fresh ground, is unfolding in a interesting, pleasurable way. The show's path is that of a patient unraveling, a revealing of what's behind a veneer of glamour. It has the pace of a movie delivered in installments more than that of your average TV drama. In a way it resembles a more straight-laced version of Twin Peaks more than it does any of the unbelievably phony shows usually associated with the phrase "soap opera." It's too early to tell if the series will falter as more of the story is revealed, but so far it has been consistently intriguing.

Issue 7, October 2001 | next article