Not one to waste any time, Jackie starts off the series by forging a dead man’s signature in order to reflect that he was an organ donor. Talk about stealing something major. She also begins what is a very repetitive sequence of snorting, drinking, swallowing, etc., drugs of all sorts to deal with, supposedly, her bad back. And, in case you were worried that she’d lose her taste for crime early on, the pilot doesn’t end before she flushes a man’s ear down the toilet (it shouldn’t matter that she was judging him for stabbing a woman), and stealing his money clip to give to the pregnant girlfriend of the kid she stole the organs from.
And that’s not to mention the fact that she has a husband and two daughters sitting at home, while she’s at the hospital, wedding ring off, secretly dating the pharmacist (Paul Schulze, the family priest from The Sopranos, whose Father Intintola was extremely inappropriate even as a man of God. Did he and Falco just want to be an on-screen couple so badly?)
Anna Deavere Smith, who played Nancy McNally on The West Wing, stars as Gloria Akalitus, the hospital administrator, who butts heads with everyone. While I suppose that the stereotypical character is such for a reason, why is she doing slapstick comedy? Drinking Jackie’s spiked coffee? Tasering herself? Come on.
Jackie’s mentor/mentee relationship with Zoey (Merritt Wever) needs a bit of work, too. Predictably, Jackie sucks as a mentor, taking out her own frustrations on a very timid student. But, Zoey is not only awkward, she’s an idiot. And dangerous. Everyone loses patients, and I don’t blame the old lady’s death on her, but she is very dangerous in that environment. That doesn’t make for a particularly humorous situation. What is funny, is Zoey and O’Hara (Eve Best), an odd couple if there ever was one. Hopefully that will be explored more.
Speaking of which, what is Dr. O’Hara supposed to represent? There’s decadent and egotistical, then there’s comically self-involved and indifferent, and then there’s nine million miles, and then there’s O’Hara. I’m sorry, but a person like her would have likely never been interested in medicine, at least as something other than a surgeon. And NO ONE wastes clothing and money like she does, no matter how wealthy or self-important. Was it really necessary to make her a caricature?
I like Mo-Mo (Haaz Sleiman), but I’m disappointed that he’s a cliche, as well. For some reason, gay characters always need to be representative of myriad characteristics, and it doesn’t allow for them to just be people. Too bad.
Pharmacist Eddie is boring, and I’m glad he may soon be replaced by a dispenser. On the other hand, Coop (Peter Facinelli) is so interesting, because he’s not real in any way. A turrets-like tic that makes him grab women inappropriately when he’s nervous? Really?
Surprisingly, however, the most irritating part of the show was the lame attempt at making Jackie’s home life relevant. Husband Kevin is completely oblivious, while Grace’s (Ruby Jerins) anxiety is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at injecting a little bit of drama into things. She’s irritating, not interesting. And, again, true to all cliches out there, the school therapist recommends medication and counseling for the problem. Is that really all we’ve come up with in our advanced society?
Alright! That said, I will tune in with my wife this coming Monday night, at 10:30PM (well, our TiVo will start recording then, and we’ll catch it later), and I do look forward to the second half of the season that I haven’t yet seen.
At the very least, I hope I can put words to the intangible that kept me watching.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jun 05, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
Ouch…. I’m shocked you made it through the six episodes… ouch….
The problem with Showtime these days are the characters are so much a group of assholes that you can’t care about them. They did the same thing with Weeds, and Californication is just bad… They need to have screwed up characters that you can like.
*POST AUTHOR*
It doesn’t keep me up at nights, but I’m surprised: if pressed, I would have guessed you were a Californication fan … just saying.
I would be a Californication fan if I didn’t feel like I was watching a completely different show every other week. I watched season 1 and out of the dozenish episodes it felt like three completely different people were making three different shows. Then season 2 started and it was horrible. I think I watched maybe 1.5 episodes.
*POST AUTHOR*
For some reason, I liked Lew Ashby a lot, until he started in on Karen. I think, overall, Duchovny really makes the show for me, everything else be damned.
I really enjoyed the first episode, at least enough to want to watch more. Personaaly I saw the restaurant scene as an attempt at humour, I don’t know what kind of overall tone they’re going for but I didn’t get the impression that they were wanting this to be just a drama.
And the thing about the TV is quite understandable, you see “poor” people all the time with expensive luxury goods that they shouldn’t be able to afford. I work in insurance and I see loads of long term unemployed people who have new cars, the reason they have them is a little thing called credit. It’s been in the news a lot recently, it seems that people with no money are given money and then can’t pay back the increased amount of money they then owe.
*POST AUTHOR*
It’s a dark comedy, whatever that is, but I still think there’s a line. Honestly, I think O’Hara was worse there, what with the Hippocratic Oath, and everything.
I “get it”, I just don’t get it. It’s always so jarring to see huge flat-screens in dumps of all sizes. Or Escalades in crappy neighborhoods. I understand the process, I just don’t get how we got here, and what we’re doing it for. So, sometimes, I hope that at least TV will be smart about things. Would it be so bad for them to have just hung onto their 35 inch tube TV, or whatever?
After watching the pilot on Youtube I never want to see a broken pill’s particles falling against a white backdrop ever again. I also actually liked Nurse Jackie as a character till the end when she came home. Everyone is just an unlikable hypocrite. Even Weeds has more likable characters than this. And that is saying alot.
*POST AUTHOR*
Unfortunately, it’s a recurring theme with the pill particles, amongst other things. But, Jackie does do some interesting stuff with sugar packets.
Yes, the worst part about her hit home when she got home to the family. Just awful. Is it hypocritical to have been okay with it when it was Tony Soprano? Maybe. But, for some reason, I see it as worse with a) a woman, and, b) THIS woman, a healer.
I have seen the first episode, My summary of the episode, blah blah blah, average medical show, why I will not watch another episode of this show. she has her hair cut way to short. this is a very disturbing trend on TV, I will not watch or support any show where one of the main female characters has a very short hair. what is the point of it even being a woman. apparently the role could have been played by a gay male nurse, and it would have been more interesting. I know the produces are feeding womens fantasys about equality and all that etc… but if women become any more masculine, men will have no choice to to treat them as not being men or women but something ambiguous and ultimately very much lesser. women you want to know how it feels to be treated like a man, watch The Sopranos. see how men are treated there.