The INSIDE - Tim Minear and FOX TV

In 2003, riding on the success of the Buffy / Angel force of nature, show runners Minear and Joss Whedon bring this odd little show to FOX - a show set in space without aliens. It was called Firefly. And by now you know the folklore surrounding the show, its popularity, it's cancellation and then rise to cult status with devout follwoing!! It also gave you the term - TEFE - that evil fox executive who is to blame for all the cancellations of good shows.

It's 2005, Tim Minear collaborates again with Fox Network - overcoming the firefly debacle and brings us a crime procedural called The Inside. By this time Minear had already created a quirky show called wonderfalls which also met an untimely demise (TEFE strikes again).

Post 2005, after 4 years to be specific, Minear and Whedon would colloborate yet again with Fox to bring yet another tragically doomed show called Dollhouse.

Yes, Minear just couldn't escape TEFE devious plans!

In this creative graveyard called Minear's filmography - The Inside is one of those serious dramas that actually stuck to the procedural genre that is universally adored by Networks, TRP's and bottom lines. It should have succeeded - hadn't it been for Minear and his need to make every show a notch above the flotsam

By now most of you know Criminal Minds and the genre that it belongs - the dark seedy crime procedural. The Inside was that in 2005. It too had a team of FBI agents investigating gory, horrific crimes by getting into the Inside of the criminal (oh right criminal minds calls them Un-subs). Plain cookie cutter stuff you would think - but for the fact that Inside gets lot more darker and lot faster.

You see, even though it is a show where a team solve a gruesome crime every week - the thing that Minear did to make is masterful is to let the gruesomeness in - into the team. For most procedurals, the team is the pseudo family where the supervising head is the protective patriarch and the rest of the team adjusting to the various siblings roles in the family. Every show does that, provide a surrogate for a family with the team - pause and think about the last procedural you saw - you know i am right!!

Our team battles evil every week and after that and again...but they have a family to get back to who are loving and supportive. That is comforting, that is light at the end. Minear goes and snuffs that light from under you and then bashes your pet bunny as well in Inside. AND that is what makes this show dark.

Your team patriarch is not your protective father - he is guy with a job who wants to get it done - and he is a charming bastard at that. All you need is to watch the 50 minutes of the pilot to appreciate the twisted beauty of this crime procedural - making it infinitely more satisfying than the regular barn churn

That is why Inside is worthy of look and something Minear would be proud of!

Kings

Biblical stories when transformed to the contemporary age can become extremely riveting - or so though the NBC execs who premiered Kings in the early 2009.KINGS tries to tell the tale of modern day David & Goliath set in an Manhatton-esque kingdoms where David transforms into a dove eyed young soldier facing enemy military Tanks - the Goliath. We follow the tale of David as he gets engulfed into the turmoil filled waters of royalty, power and Class structures. But the tale is short lived, Kings abysmal viewership rating led to its cancellation in first season itself.

In retrospect, Kings pilot pretty much told us everything about the shows fate. For the all beautiful visual imagery (yes scenic as well as youthful) could not save a show which cannot tell the tale. Kings is supposed to be serious drama that should have rested on two characters - David & King Silas - played by the fresh Christopher Egan and veteran Ian McShane. Only one of these two ended up rises to the requirement of their roles - no surprise who it is!

Ian McShane lives up-to this reputation of Deadwood and carries the role of complex, egoistical, insecure King Silas with intensity and calculated reservedness.

Christopher Egan on the other hand completely falters though the role, he seemed to have mastered a single painful expression - quite painful to watch for viewers that is. Egan inadequately fills in the role of the protagonist with whom the viewers were supposed to connect and root for - robbing the show of a reason to return viewings week after week

Not to say that Egan was the problem, the script also left much to be desired for! The show can be brilliant in mixing the real with the surreal - the instances of madness, ghosts and foreboding omens are immensely captivating. But Alas, if only there was more meat to the story.

Kings run ended with 13 episodes and with it took to grave the ideas of adapting biblical stories on network television. It is one of those cancelled shows, where i believe network took the right decision. (Yes, i still hold grudge for Firefly. We Browncoats don't forget)

Random Trivia - Macaulay Culkin was brought in as a special guest star, with a story arc of his own. No, it couldn't save the show - and i doubt that was the intention