The Good
A funny movie that never lets its subject off the hook or becomes the type of property it is lampooning.
The Bad
Fox didn’t send me this film with the correct packaging. Movie is too short.
The TV Set is the tale of Mike Klein (David Duchovny) and his fight to keep his new TV show pilot as close to his original vision as possible. This movie doesn’t hesitate coming out of the gate with Klein already having to endure the head of the network’s (Sigourney Weaver) vicarious whims. Whether she wants Mike to cast a role because she thinks her daughter will “love” the actor, or she wants to change up a scene that completely alters the theme, mood and feeling of the script, Mike from the very beginning appears to be at his wits end. He is a veteran soldier of these wars and he knows too much. Within the first 20 minutes of this story he’s thinking of going another way, but with his wife (Justine Batemen) pregnant with another child Mike can’t be as cavalier as he would like. Mike’s only salvation comes in the form of Richard McAllister (Ioan Gruffudd), a Brit on the staff who seems to understand his vision.
Harshly satirical at every turn and never afraid to skewer anything, The TV Set is one of those movies that is sure to be appreciated by many who see it. Mixing clever wit and smart writing with a seeming contempt for the the “brains” behind American TV, I found this movie did a solid job of never becoming what it beheld.
Features
They have put two tracks on this release. I chose to listen to the track that featured director Jack Kasdan and Executive Producer Judd Apatow. My reasoning was simple, both of these men have a wealth of experience in TV so this track was bound to be fun. Apatow jokes at the outset that he got rich executive producing this film, and then these two talk about how the subject matter in this film was all almost 100% accurate. They explain that they wanted to give people an idea of the “pilot process,” and how it seems that every “creative discussion” can kill the originality that made people want to produce the pilot in the first place. Lastly, I loved how Kasdan laughed when saying that shows can be altered just so executives can get home in time for dinner.
The Making of The TV Set
Deleted Scene
They have only put one scene on here and it’s titled “Small Talk At the Upfront.” An upfront is television event in which shows get sold and orders are placed by the networks. This scene was shot with a cinema verite style that the rest of the film had. We are also treated to a funny conversation between Mike Klein and some random executive. Since this movie’s actual run time is only 88 minutes, I would highly suggest checking this track out.
Video
Widescreen. Fox has sent me a burned copy of this movie to review instead of a regular DVD in proper packaging. Due to this I really can’t go into technical specifics about the kind of aspect ratio that was employed. The picture looked pretty solid. This movie was shot, for the most part, with a documentary-like feel. The actors all play things fairly naturally, with certain executives going over the top as only those sort of people probably can.
Audio
Again, without the proper packaging I can’t tell you exactly the kind of audio that was employed but things sounded decent. Like the acting, the sound was captured in a fairly normal way. There isn’t anything about the score that really stood out to me as everything seemed to be naturally recorded (or at least made to sound that way). I think my only real gripe with any of this was that everything sounded pretty low for the most part. I would have thought Fox would have put more strength behind the audio but it might just be my burned copy?
Package
Sadly, Fox only sent this release to me in one of their standard white envelopes so I really can’t say too much about the packaging.
Final Word
There are aspects of this movie that I really agree with. However, I find that by and large the sitcoms on TV (‘Til Death, Two and a Half Men, 30 Rock, etc.) are not the problems. Sure, they are sometimes given to boring drama humor, but they ultimately don’t bother me the way a lot of the one hour shows do.
I find it hard to believe that as a culture we are so bereft of anything meaningful on TV that shows like Heroes, 24 and Battlestar Galactica could be see as arty. I am not saying that these are bad shows, I just think that oftentimes these things pack themselves with so many stories, so many characters and their only reason for doing this is to delay and layer the fact that there really isn’t anything that amazing happening in the first place. Don’t even get me started on Lost.
I find that the sitcoms of today are by and large pretty similar to the sitcoms of years passed. Sure, the humor is different and what is allowed on TV is really different, but I don’t expect sitcoms to come to me on any greater level than they always have. I just want to laugh, enjoy the characters and be entertained. Shows like Heroes and the like are so calculated they make it very easy to allow ones mind to wander. While the The TV Set isn’t directly about the topics I have just laid out, by how it examines television it at least puts itself in the ballpark.
The TV Set was released April 6, 2007.
