Monsters of Television

“I am currently having a drinking problem.”

How mad do you think this guy was when Phillip Seymour Hoffman made it big?

I seriously just about gave up on this series.

I’ve already talked about how confused it is, hiring comedic actors to play dramatic roles on a series sold as a dramedy leaning more toward the “edy” than the “dram.” One week it’s all about the city being important as setting and the next week we switch to Mayberry instead of a unique metropolitan area. “Love Me Tender” starts off Dwight’s intuition running rampant as he observes a jumper (yes, apparently detectives get called on the scene for negotiation scenes, too) and, from his mismatched socks and still wearing a ring, calls that the guy wants to kill himself over a woman. I mean, the dude’s socks might as well have lit up non-diegetically after a quick push-in. So on top of this mess, we’re going to throw a little bit of Psych and The Mentalist (the Psychalist?), too? The episode goes on to half-assedly imitate a police procedural (specifically SVU without the charisma) and, somehow, make Southerners looks soft on crime (I’ll get into the details after the jump).

What’s more frustrating is that my hypothesis from my review of “Baby, Let’s Play House” doesn’t really pan out here since the lyrics of “Love Me Tender” don’t apply. There is a couple and, possibly, they might like the song. That’s about all the nuance this episode could muster.

I watched this with someone that hadn’t seen an episode before and felt compelled to apologize for that mess.

But then “Polk Salad Annie” showed me a glimmer of hope. A faint glimmer but some shiny bit of possibility all the same. It was like a show that finally coalesced, the puzzle pieces fitting together from all angles. It felt like they might actually be in Memphis. The detectives were investigating a case they belonged on. And it had comedy. And not just comedy but comedy that utilized the peculiarities of the comedic actors properly (for the most part). It wasn’t perfect but it was something. I’m looking for anything now.

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Lyrics: “Baby, Let’s Play House” (Elvis Presley version)

“Oh, that’s where we buried this show’s nuance. I knew it was around here somewhere.”

My mother is a huge Elvis fan, not in the worst psychotic “He’s Alive and He Sings to Me in My Dreams” way. He’s like a member of our family, some long-lost relative that passed before I was born that my mother loved dearly and can only remark, “If only you’d known him you would understand.” His name is often delivered in the dimunitive (the “l” is dropped to accomodate the cute tone she takes), his picture is on the wall next to her children, and her Facebook wall is a constant feed of black and white videos of the man in his prime.

The fandom, however, has only presented itself this heavily in the last few years (she was a superfan as a kid though, probably a big reason as to why my similar-looking father could tie her down) as her kids get older and she is able to follow her own pursuits. Unfortunately for her, she had three snarky boys and she’s made of mercilessly with such cleverness and dry wit she can only laugh.

So, what does this have to do with Memphis Beat? My brothers and I have so much fun at her expense that we never really care to much about the validity of Elvis’s music; it’s one of those foregone conclusions that his impact on music and celebrity was monumental but not our cup of tea. I’m not big into rhinestone jumpsuits or large-scale Vegas acts. But this show hints at caring very deeply about Elvis, possibly (and I’m just assuming here) basing episodes on song titles. With that perspective, this show gains some cool points because, with the songs coloring the plot of the show, the characters gain nuance and depth, something the pilot lacked for me. There are still hurdles to leap but here’s my case for this program.

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“There are women that work around here that do not want their papers illuminated by nipples.”

“What the hell am I doing here?”

Have mercy, indeed.

Pilots are a tricky sort, what with having to establish characters and tone all within the same amount of time that, from then on, you can tell a cohesive story. It’s why pilots often lean on archetypes in order to get the ball rolling. This is the no-nonsense Mother Hen. This is the Damaged Yet Intuitive Detective. This is DJ Qualls. The point is to give people the basic equipment they need to inderstand the show and then throw in the curveballs when they’re on board.

The hope is that your marketing department doesn’t screw you.

The thing about this show is that it’s kind of like In the Heat of the Night except with Jason Lee and DJ Qualls, meaning they are similar in that they are cops and they are in the South. Jason Lee, whose most dramatic role to date is the skateboarding eccentric in Mumford and DJ Qualls, the guy who looks like he was touched by the Cocoon aliens a little too early in life (because he never grows old and he’ll never die) bring a certain stigma with them, especially when Jason Lee speaks in the same Southern drawl he used in his last series, My Name is Earl. They are comedic actors and TNT sold that to me by putting all the “funny” parts in the trailer, including parts where Lee is an Elvis impersonator. Lee and Qualls hijinks as cops in Memphis while Lee moonlights as Elvis in his off-time? Let the hilarity ensue!

So why am I not laughing?

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