Poor "Snowpiercer" has been on the slow track to premiere since it was first announced almost five years ago following the success of the 2013 feature film of the same name.
And now the show, already renewed for a second season, debuts in the midst of a pandemic, suboptimal timing for a series that can vie for feel-bad-show-of-the-year status.
Was it worth all that effort? The answer probably depends on your appetite for postapocalyptic drama right about now.
Brimming with an impressive production design _ so many different looks among the assorted carriages in this 1,001-car train _ "Snowpiercer" (9 p.m. ET Sunday, TNT) certainly looks expensive. And it's a timely story of class warfare.
But by episode two I was looking at my phone and more interested in reading about our current crisis than watching a fictional one unfold on screen.
TNT's "Snowpiercer" is of the same quality level as, say, TNT's "The Last Ship." You could even call it "The Last Train," which began its meandering journey to its premiere in 2015. "Snowpiercer" was ordered to series in January 2018 and from then on behind-the-scenes drama dogged the show: Original showrunner Josh Friedman ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles") was fired, the pilot episode's director quit in a show of solidarity and the first episode was almost entirely reshot under new showrunner Graeme Manson ("Orphan Black").
In May 2019, the show was bizarrely moved to longtime comedy network TBS (with plans to add more drama to that channel) and then in October "Snowpiercer" chugged back to TNT.
Sunday's premiere begins with an animated sequence _ the whole franchise was inspired by a 1982 French graphic novel _ that depicts the frozen future where presumably the only humans still alive are on a train that endlessly circles the globe. It's the "haves" who get access to the train and the "have-nots" who fight their way onto the cars at the train's tail.
The series takes place almost seven years after the "extinction event" that necessitated the survivors of humanity living out their days on futuristic Amtrak (the 2013 film was set another decade later).
"Tailie" Andrew Layton (Daveed Diggs), a former police detective, is brought forward to the front of the train to assist head of hospitality Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly), representative of the mythic Mr. Wilford who created the train. It seems there's been a murder, and Cavill needs Layton's help solving it. Alison Wright (Martha on "The Americans") co-stars as an entertainingly high-handed hospitality attendant.
It's a plausible enough excuse to get a peasant mingling with the ruling class, but there are some inherent flaws in the "Snowpiercer" concept that didn't bedevil, say, the 1979 NBC flop "Supertrain."
Early "Snowpiercer" episodes suggest no one can survive outside the train, which means the show will be set on the train in perpetuity (in a finite movie that's less of a concern, in an ongoing series it seems limiting) and that the train can never derail because there's no one outside the train to get it back on track, which sucks the tension out of any derailment threat (see: an avalanche in episode two). In a one-shot movie, the plot can be solely about "tailies" trying to take over the train; in an ongoing series, that can't be the overwhelming focus because if it is, once they succeed, the show is either done or it becomes a repetitive back-and-forth power struggle.
What "Snowpiercer" does best in early episodes is world-building. But it's problematic for the show's long-term prospects that the various train cars _ cattle car, aquarium car, classroom car, night club car (with multiple levels and a surprising number of staircases for a train) _ stir up more initial excitement than the characters or story.
The "meh" murder plot in early episodes is largely to blame, but eventually the show moves beyond that into an insurrection storyline (somewhat reminiscent of a "Battlestar Galactica" plot) complete with shifting loyalties and better character development. It's just too bad viewers have to spend so much time on a slow-moving local before an express-speed plot kicks in.
'THE GREAT'
Hulu's "The Great," streaming Friday, lives up to its title.
A self-described "occasionally true story" about Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) and her husband, Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult, channeling Jonathan Rhys Meyers in "The Tudors"), this comedic drama is written by Tony McNamara, who previously wrote the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated "The Favourite" about Queen Anne in 18th century England.
Unlike last year's "Catherine the Great" on HBO that starred Helen Mirren, this one begins when Catherine is a naive woman from what is now Poland. She's recruited to marry Emperor Peter and arrives full of romantic idealism. Unfortunately for her, Peter is a churlish lout who travels with his own pack of laugh-track-providing suck-ups, smashing glasses wantonly and frequently bedding his best friend's wife.
By the end of the premiere, Catherine is already wishing for Peter's demise, and in episode two she enlists one of his advisers, Orlov (Sacha Dhawan, "Outsourced"), to help her plot a coup.
From its title to its tone to its production design and look, "The Great" mirrors "The Favourite" quite a bit. "The Great" is at its, uh, greatest when Fanning and Hoult spark off one another with McNamara's rat-a-tat-tat dialogue. It occasionally brings to mind "Moonlighting" if Maddie (Cybill Shephard) actually wanted to murder David (Bruce Willis).
"You gave me a bear and have ceased punching me," Catherine says sarcastically to Peter in a highly entertaining conversation in episode two. "What woman wouldn't be happy?"
KEPT/CANCELED/RELOCATED
Amazon's Prime Video renewed comedy "Upload" for a second season; FXX did the same for "Dave."
HLN ordered two more seasons (32 episodes total) of "Forensics Files II."
History canceled "Project Blue Book" and "Knightfall" after two seasons each.
USA canceled "The Purge" and "Treadstone."
HBO's "Room 104" will end with its fourth season, which premieres July 24.
Season two of "Alternatino" relocates from Comedy Central to streamer Quibi.
THE PANDEMIC UPFRONTS
Usually this is the week broadcast networks announce their new fall shows. This year is different due to the pandemic.
Late last week CBS ordered three new series for the 2020-21 TV season: dramas "Clarice" (a sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs") and "The Equalizer" (remake of the 1980s series that will star Queen Latifah) and comedy "B Positive" (a Chuck Lorre-produced show about a newly-divorced dad in need of a kidney who finds a donor in a woman from his past).
Notably, CBS did not announce a fall schedule as broadcasters come to accept it's likely they won't film on soundstages for at least a few more months.
Fox was able to cobble together a fall schedule using scripted shows originally intended to be on the air this spring but now held back for fall ("Filthy Rich," "Next"). They bought the second run of a show that was already on a cable system's proprietary service ("L.A.'s Finest" from Spectrum Originals), airing the broadcast run of a new season of "Cosmos" (it aired earlier this year on Nat Geo) and relying on returning reality shows and animated series that can be produced remotely.
The CW is restocking its larder by acquiring canceled streaming shows "Swamp Thing" (from DC Universe) and "Tell Me a Story" (from CBS All Access) plus imported series from Canada and England that have never been available in the U.S.
The CW also ordered two new series, a female-led "Kung Fu" reboot and "Republic of Sarah" (a small-town teacher leads an uprising whose members attempt to form their own country), but who knows when any new series will see the light of day? Los Angeles authorities are expected to extend the current stay-at-home order later this week, possibly until August, per TheWrap.com.
CHANNEL SURFING
The season finale of NBC's 'The Blacklist" (8 p.m. Friday) wasn't completed before production shut down due to the coronavirus, so producers opted to complete the show using graphic novel-style animation with the actors recording their parts from home. ... Next week PBS's "Frontline" (10 p.m. Tuesday, WQED-TV) goes "Inside Italy's COVID War." ... AMC acquired the rights to create series based on author Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles" book series and the "Mayfair Witches" series.
