Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

TV:

Lazy summer drama: ABC’s “Scoundrels” and “The Gates” fail to deliver

Scoundrels

Scoundrels

Although summer is much fuller of original TV programming than it used to be, the networks tend to rely on cheap reality shows rather than new scripted series, which they usually leave to cable. This summer, however, ABC is pushing not only reality fare like The Bachelorette and Wipeout, but also a pair of high-profile dramas—Scoundrels (9 p.m.) and The Gates (10 p.m.)—which are taking the place of Sunday-night staples Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. The two have been advertised as heavily as any new fall offering, and have casts and production values to match. Watching each pilot, however, will tell you all you need to know about why these shows weren’t deemed worthy of regular-season premieres.

Each show has a decent premise: On The Gates, a peaceful suburban enclave hides numerous supernatural secrets, including vampires, werewolves and witches. Sexy creatures of the night are hot right now, and The Gates makes sure to include plenty of soap-opera moments among its various plot twists. The stars are all suitably attractive, too, but the acting falls short, and the script is full of clumsy exposition and awkward exchanges. Rather than sexy and intriguing, the world comes off as cheap and simplistic, a lackluster version of something that’s being done better elsewhere.

The Details

The Gates
Two and a half stars
Scoundrels
Two stars
Click to enlarge photo

The Gates

Not that there aren’t glimpses of something more enticing: The main characters are a dull human family who move to The Gates so the father can become the chief of police (in an ill-defined role that seems partly governmental and partly private security), but some of the supporting characters show signs of life. Chandra West and Victoria Platt are nicely vicious as a pair of feuding witches, and the slumming Rhona Mitra (who has vampire/werewolf experience as Kate Beckinsale’s replacement in the third Underworld movie) brings a genuine sensuality to her role as a conflicted vampire housewife.

There are fewer of those glimmers of hope in Scoundrels, an adaptation of a New Zealand series about a family of criminals determined to go straight. Virginia Madsen plays the West family matriarch, who decides after her husband (David James Elliott) is sentenced to five years in prison that she and her kids will no longer engage in fraud, burglary and con-artistry, but will instead come by their money honestly. The show aims for a whimsical tone that is sometimes at odds with the criminal theme (although it goes out of its way to stress that the Wests never engage in violence or deal drugs), and the actors all strain a little too hard to be quirky.

The worst offender is Patrick Flueger as identical twin brothers Cal and Logan, who are sort of the Goofus and Gallant of the West clan. Cal is a long-haired burnout who protests the most at the family’s new direction, while Logan is a clean-cut lawyer trying to set an example for his ne’er-do-well siblings. Flueger looks equally out of place in both roles, and the twin-brother gimmickry is already worn out by halfway through the first episode. A few years ago, FX’s The Riches did this crime-family-goes-legit thing with both more humor and more seriousness, and made it seem like it had real consequences. Scoundrels, like The Gates, is just marking time until summer’s over.

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