Will The Listener find its groove? – CliqueClack Preview

I’m generally a pilot-hater. There are not too many shows that catch me on the first go around. Most need some time to find their groove and usually, I give a series a few episodes before I dump it. OK, that’s not entirely true; sometimes, like with Mental, I give it about fifteen minutes, whether it’s fair or not.

The Listener I gave two episodes, because that’s all I had. Some things really work for me; elements of the show have huge potential. Other things fell flat and I hope it gels soon. Watching the second episode become more painful as it went on, and I found myself drifting off … so slow … is this show still on?… how many more minutes left? … that sort of drifting off.

The basic premise of The Listener is that Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik), an EMT, can read minds (but it’s a secret). Think Buffy‘s “Earshot” meets True Blood‘s Sookie Stackhouse, without all the vampires. He learns that this is a gift, not a curse, because he can help people. He’s got a mysterious past, a mother who also had a gift, and a mentor named Ray. He’s got an EMT partner, a doctor girlfriend (cold, cold woman….), and a hot chick cop that banters with him.

And he just doesn’t have chemistry with any of them. At first, I was catching the funny lines and liking that they were delivered in such a dry way, my gloriously open mind and all. Then I realized they weren’t meant to by dry — there’s just no spark. It doesn’t have to be that way, but a few things really throw it off:

• Craig Olejnik may as well be annoying Toby McGuire in the Spiderman movies … boring, doesn’t actually open his mouth when he talks and he’s boring. Did I say that already? Show us some charisma, dude.
• The music is off, so very off. It just doesn’t fit the mood of the show for me, or if it does, then they’ve got the mood all wrong.
• You’ve got to listen a little too hard to find the funny, because you’re so bogged down in what’s wrong with the show. Bummer.

While I wanted to be interested in it because I like the premise and think it has promise, it just really reminds me of Moonlight, which did end up finding its groove, then really, really lost it again after the writers’ strike. I hold out some hope that it can find a stride and go with it, because the potential is there, but if The Unusuals can’t make it, I’m just not sure there’s a place for this show.

Will I tune in again? I guess that will depend on how bored I get this summer, but it won’t be with baited breath that I wait for The Listener‘s new episodes.

The Listener premieres on Thursday, June 4 at 10:00 on NBC.

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on May 20, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT