The 4-Episode Test™, Fall 2015 Edition, Part 2: The Grinder, Quantico, Blood & Oil, and More
A wise man once said, "A show can only be truly judged as totally radical, super lame, or hecka-okay after four episodes," and that wise man was me, Tim. With so much network television being shoved down your gullet this fall season, it's time TV.com direct some prudent advice for your television scheduling your way by determining which of the new fall shows are still good after four episodes.
You've already seen www.tv.com/shows/blindspot/community/post/4-episode-test-best-new-fall-tv-shows-144484726226/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.tv.com/shows/blindspot/community/post/4-episode-test-best-new-fall-tv-shows-144484726226/">our first round of the 4-Episode Test™, which featured Blindspot,Heroes Reborn, Life in Pieces, and more, and now we're back with the fall stragglers. Let's look at the report cards!
www.tv.com/shows/blood-and-oil-2015/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.tv.com/shows/blood-and-oil-2015/">Blood & Oil
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: It's already dead so don't feel obligated unless you're really into Chace Crawford or Scott Michael Foster
This one is a bit tricky because ABC has already pulled the plug on the melodramatic lives of the LeFevers and the Briggs. The series will finish out a 10-episode run this fall and hopefully, if it's lucky, pull together something that resembles an ending. But the series was never really all that stable as its different pieces never came together, so I don't have high hopes that it'll ever resemble a coherent story. The pilot was conventionally soapy, but not terribly unwatchable, but after that it tried to be too many things; sometimes it was an emotional family drama and sometimes it really, really wanted to shock viewers with its trashy melodrama, like Hap and Wick sleeping with the same woman. Ughhhh. Also eww. The behind-the-scenes instability likely contributed to this death, but the loss isn't going to break anyone's hearts either. —Kaitlin Thomas
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: It's not worth it unless you really love medical dramas
CBS ordered additional scripts for Code Black, which means it sees potential in its emotionally manipulative drama, but there's absolutely nothing new or all that interesting here. The patients and their various maladies have been more interesting than the residents themselves, which is problematic for the longterm. I'm not asking for a miracle, but after four episodes of retreading the same character beats, I'm already bored. — Kaitlin
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: Continue not watching, but it's not as bad as you once thought
The pilot for Dr. Ken was awful, but star Ken Jeong implored people to watch more episodes and chastised critics for trashing his show based on one episode. He was right! Barely. Dr. Kenimproved after the first episode had him tracking his daughter with an app and getting thrown in jail for soliciting ecstasy at a nightclub, because it focused more on the character relationships and Ken's faults as an insensitive brash loudmouth (which Jeong does very well) instead of a psycho dad. The third episode, "Ken Helps Pat," was what the show needs to be more of: Ken and his boss Pat (Dave Foley, still earning points from me for NewsRadio) acting like clowns and dismissing their coworkers as "lowers" until Ken went to bat for them because he realized he valued their friendship. Dr. Ken isn't good, but it's a perfectly fine Friday night multi-cam show. —Tim Surette
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: Send this one to an old folks' home and don't look back
Fox did this a favor by giving it the lead slot in the 8 o'clock hour while the vastly superior The Grinder suffers from audience decay at 8:30pm, which is NOT FAIR. John Stamos' new comedy—in which he stars as a playboy restaurateur who discovers he has a son and a granddaughter—is a disastrous combination of bad bad-dad humor, unfunny everything else humor, and sappy ploys at tickling the emotional centers of your brain by using sledgehammers. The pilot was the best episode just by virtue of the fact that the obvious every-episode premise—Stamos' character messes up somehow, makes up for it later, everyone hugs—wasn't yet repeated over and over in the next three episodes. Paget Brewster is great, but this show sucks. —Tim
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: Keep grinding and make this part of your weekly schedule
Everyone involved with The Grinder bought into this wonderful comedy's premise—TV lawyer (Rob Lowe) tries to be a real lawyer—so hard that it's the only way this show could work. And it does, very well. Sprinkling goofy laughs atop meta humor, a cross-section of The Grinder looks like one part family comedy, one part slapstick legal parody, and one chunk of self-aware examination of how television fries our brains and makes us dumber. Or does it? Lowe gets all the attention, and desrvedly so, but Fred Savage is such a great complement as the straight man to Lowe's out-of-touch narcissist, that he deserves a lot of credit, too. The structure is weird and something we're seeing more of lately—patient concept comedy over rhythmic beat comedy—which allows for different stories to be told, but pushes it away from the mainstream. Fox didn't care and The Grinder passed its 4-Episode Test, getting rewarded with a full-season order. —Tim
Episode 1: ★★★★★ | Episode 2: ★★★★★ | Episode 3: ★★★★★ | Episode 4: ★★★★★
Verdict: Keep watching at your own risk of getting your neck snapped by all the tweeeests
I love the idea of Quantico—FBI recruits go to school while flash-forwards show that one of them is responsible for a major terror attack—as another ABC Rhimes-y drama, but good lord this show is obsessed with pulling out so many rugs underneath viewers that at some point we just have to lay down on the ground so we don't lose our balance over and over. This is a perfect example of a show so reliant on twists that it's collapsing beneath its own weight, but there's also a tightness to the plotting that leads me to believe that the stories—and there are many; no character is left cheated here—have been planned out very well. But I have a rare request for a show: slow down. Please. It's hard to invest in something that you know will become undone when the next episode twists it away, and the flashbacks to "present time" don't always carry the kind of weight that the flash-forwards do. This is watchable entertainment with some flaws, but they're the kind that could get worked out. —Tim
