TELEVISION: 'Meadowlands' Outside the Mainstream
By Rob Owen
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Now that "The Sopranos" is done, but surely not forgotten, every TV network will be jockeying in hopes of being home to TV's next great drama series. Of course, odds are one won't come around soon. Medium-altering series don't happen that often. And with more choices that continue to fracture TV into smaller factions, the next "Sopranos" will only be harder to come by.
Showtime's "Meadowlands" (10 p.m. EDT/PDT, Sunday), a British import, certainly has the weirdness factor down, but as it goes on the show becomes overly dark and sadistic. Not as opaque as HBO's mind trip "John from Cincinnati," "Meadowlands" is, nonetheless, decidedly outside the mainstream.
The series begins with the blindfolded Brogan family being taken to their new house in a new town, Meadowlands. Eventually, viewers learn that Danny Brogan (David Morrissey, "Viva Blackpool"), wife Evelyn (Lucy Cohu) and twin teens Zoe (Felicity Jones) and autistic Mark (Harry Treadaway) are in a witness-protection program following a fire that left Mark an elective mute with burned hands (he always wears gloves).
Once in their new, pre-furnished home in a community of look-alike modern houses, the Brogans begin to meet their new neighbors, including overly effusive Brenda (Melanie Hill), heavy-breathing handyman Jack (Tom Hardy) and determined cop Bernard Wintersgill (Ralph Brown). Turns out the entire community shares something in common with the Brogans, which is revealed at the end of the premiere episode.
Mysterious "Meadowlands" brings to mind "The Prisoner," "Twin Peaks" or "The Village," but it quickly becomes more sexually charged and more violent. It's a creepy show, but the slow pace and a brutal torture scene in a future episode made my interest wane.
The first season runs just eight episodes and concludes with a big revelation about Meadowlands, but I have to wonder if many viewers will stick with it that long. The show features some larger-than-life characters whose psychological pathology could be interesting to learn, and Treadaway's performance as a Jack White-coifed emo-boy is oddball-cool, but "Meadowlands" demands too much of a slog for too little in return.
Also....
My first reaction to the series finale of HBO's "The Sopranos" was shock and disbelief when the screen went black. It seemed like another cable failure.
My second reaction was anger: Creator David Chase punk'd the audience!
But the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the finale. And by Monday morning, when I kept thinking about the show during my morning jog, I was ready to declare it brilliant.
I know many fans feel ripped off, but anyone expecting closure wasn't paying attention to the show. Chase hates closure because often real-life doesn't have tidy resolutions. That's why we never heard from the Russian in the Pine Barrens again.
It's tough to do a series finale today because there are so many expectations. What better way to defy expectations than to bring a show to a cold stop? No one expected that. And Chase tried to prepare those who felt played: He had the Soprano family members discuss the value of remembering "the good times."
Still, viewer discontent is understandable. That last scene built tension so strongly and ended so abruptly that it provoked a visceral, emotional response, more so than any other series finale since Suzanne Pleshette turned up in former TV husband Bob Newhart's bed in the last scene of CBS's "Newhart" in 1990.
Cynics think there will be a "Sopranos" movie. I doubt that will happen, but if it does it will be a prequel. To film anything set after that final shot would be a betrayal of the open-ended, choose-your-own-adventure conclusion. Chase wanted viewers to imagine it for themselves rather than showing it to us, ensuring that the characters live on in our imaginations.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.