In a fall schedule filled with over-stuffed television bloated with plot devices we’ve seen before, laugh tracks we thought were a thing of the past, and NBC, who can’t keep a stable of good shows on the air if you paid them directly for the luxury — many viewers have been turning to non-network TV to accomplish what random sitcoms and exhaustive procedural dramas haven’t been able to create — real entertainment.
Has Starz hit paydirt?
Leaving network TV for the more entertaining shores of cable television isn’t a new thing. We’ve taken this road for years now with the evolution of the cable drama from HBO’s The Sopranos, and The Wire, and Showtime’s Dexter, to basic cable series like Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, and the new crew of rapt favorites, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Enter now the Starz network.
What is Starz? It’s not Cinemax or The Movie Channel which for many became synonymous with soft core porn and bland movies like Max Dugan Returns. No, Starz wants to be cool, edgy even, not your grandmother’s Sex and the City channel. Yet, for years it stayed in the realm of “unnoticed cable channel” on the grid. It didn’t make a name or a mark, until it decided to take on original programming. That’s where you change the game, folks — original programming. So they rolled out Spartacus to tepid reviews. It wasn’t as noble as Rome, or something else equally heavy handed, but it was gritty, and dirty, and vicious, and gratuitous — basically a guilty pleasure, and well, a good time. Riding on a positive wave from re-airings, and word of mouth, they made a successful prequel to fan appeal, with a sequel to air this winter. Spartacus? Yes, it’s a bit of a hit, despite its first detractors. Next came Camelot, and well, that show was a bit of a dud. It was plodding and silly, a flimsy take on a much covered subject. Decidedly not the best Starz has to offer.
This fall, though, Starz has been able to find something that’s pretty close to drama gold — Boss — and I bet you’re not watching.
Kelsey Grammer. Frasier Crane, a bloviating, pompous, effete jerk. This is what we know. How could an actor so well known for one character translate or transform into a ruthless, corrupt, Chicago mayor? Well, with finesse, expertise and a bit of hardcore doggedness that’s required to take on a city of this proportion. Boss starring Grammer is a story about the political underbelly of Chicago, and that’s no easy feat. It has bravado and swagger, it’s laden with dirt and grime, infused with depth and merciless cunning, both Shakespearean and urban. Kelsey plays Tom Kane, Chicago mayor extraordinaire in a guileless and uncompromising turn, acted superbly. Forget everything you thought you knew about Grammer as Frasier Crane, Tom Kane would eat him alive.
In this new world Starz has created, Chicago is a city of diabolical mishegas with the mayor at the center of it all. Rounding out the cast is Connie Nielsen (Gladiator) who plays Kane’s calculating wife, Meredith. Martin Donovan and Kathleen Robertson play Kane’s senior advisors, Ezra Stone and Kitty O’Neill who will both stop at nothing to see Kane succeed perhaps even with lethal consequences. You could probably call them henchmen and you’d be mostly right. There’s also an insistent newspaper man played by Troy Garity who wants to uncover it all, and an upstart state treasurer named Ben Zajac (Jeff Hephner) whose ambition could be a game changer.
In the din of Chicago’s cacophony, Kane’s secret — at the forefront — is the biggest and possibly the most damning, taking a page out of the Breaking Bad playbook. There’s a revelation in the pilot episode that shapes the whole season, and the entire thing is terrifically shot. The first episode getting a boost from director Gus Van Sant. Other big names include, director Mario Van Peebles, and newcomer Farhad Safinia, co-writer of Apocalypto, who created the series and wrote the first two episodes. The show, however, has the gravitas of anything currently on AMC right now, with a good bit of The Wire‘s fourth season thrown in. Do you want politics? Well, there’s no better place than Chicago, and this show gives you every sword in its arsenal. You’ll question ethics and morality, identify the power hungry, see the abuses, and the acts and deeds that will have you chuckling at the realism, the absurdity, and sitting on the edge of your seat as the show moves unpredictably and imperceptibly in an almost thespian countenance, mixing soliloquies about righteousness and moral compunction with downright venom.
Interesting note: Grammer has met current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Mayor Richard Daley, and “I assured both of them that I was not portraying either one of them.” Good move, Kelsey.
Slate ponders if Boss is the “Great American TV Show,” the New York Daily News asks, “Imagine if Tony Soprano had run Chicago instead of the Jersey mob, and you’ll get some idea what to expect in “Boss,” and Salon‘s television reviewer, Matt Zoller Seitz, started off underestimating the show in a kind of tongue-in-cheek liveblog just to get nearly ten minutes in and decide, “(9:35) I might need to recap every episode of this series. Starting…now.”
Why aren’t you watching? There are two episodes left. Go back and start from the beginning.
Watch the premiere episode here:
Boss Airs Fridays at 10pm, EST, on Starz. On Demand service also available.
