A Man. And His Blog.

Season 1, Episode 1 (1)
Date of airing: Jan 8, 2012 (Showtime)
Watched for review: Jan 6, 2012
Number of review in January/2012: 37/37

Whether on a pay cable channel or a broadcast network: Screenplays needs strength and story to give the watching audience a reason to give a new show a chance in the pool of hundreds of shows on TV. If it’s not clear whether the main character is to be treated as an antagonist or not, then it’s not clear, which significance said character will have in the story. And when the story is even more stereotypical and a cliché that it hurts, and when the audience thinks to have seen the same story over and over already, then different ways of storytelling have to be found to make a show unique. After all, there has to be a connection between the characters and the audience – the main attraction for the audience to love the characters, to feel with them, to be interested in the characters’ stories and lives. Well, the new dark Showtime comedy HOUSE OF LIES managed to not only miss all those things, but also show why it’s not always a benefit to use stereotypes and try them to make them look better with some updates. Especially when those stereotypes only serve as the punchlines for the comedy. HOUSE OF LIES can have a great premise, a great cast, and couldn’t look more great – when the script is crap, then the show can’t be helped.

Based on Martin Kihn’s book “House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Tell You the Time”, HOUSE OF LIES tells the stories of management consultant Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) and his team of crisis managing geniuses. They travel first-class through the economical shattered country and fix problems for managers of businesses, who can’t fix anything anymore. For that, money has to be spent, truth has to be told, lies have to be hidden, reputation has to be build. And Marty takes any opportunity to bleed the business out for his (and his team’s) own sake, while his conscience is not taking a hit from it. He rather is busy with keeping his ex-wife Monica (Dawn Olivieri) out of his life and his bed, and thinking how bad it would be when his son Roscoe (Donis Leonard Jr.), currently going through his crossdressing phase, gets the role of Sandy in the school production of GREASE.

TV writing 101, part one: Write the main character’s job in a way, where no one can take that job very seriously. Despite the seven-figure sum Marty is bringing in every year. The best example here is Marty’s live-in father Jeremiah (Glynn Turman), who doesn’t care whether he stands on the wrong side of the family spectrum. Number two: Fill your dark comedy with as much character moments as possible, so the show looks like as if it will also deliver character drama. The best example is the last scene, with Marty looking into a mirror, giving me the feeling that he is in the middle of a midlife-crisis. That he has secrets seems oblivious, but that the final moment pushes him from the position of being the antagonist, is kind of awkward in a storytelling-way. Because it doesn’t fit at all, when the asshole-character is suddenly dramatic and therefore likable. Number three: Cook up one cliché after another and don’t forget to stack them into your script, and write them around the comedy. Well, there is the sociopathic ex-wife; the father, who doesn’t think much of his son; the obvious-gay son with the obvious interest in all things girls (including clothes and behavior); and finally the story Marty finds himself in – directed from one middle finger to another, but at the end he still manages to win the day and the trust of the bank he is consulting in the pilot. And finally, number four: Write it in an asshole-ish POV, make the characters unsympathetic, and then write the comedy. The result: sex talk, comatose nude women, stripper as business partners, and a beating in a restaurant. Damn, talk about believability and predictability here.

Four reasons, why HOUSE OF LIES can’t be taken seriously in any second. And this is why you’re gonna have a problem in getting the characters, or getting Marty and his actions, his tone, his behavior to his colleagues and family – because he completely acts outside of believability. But hey, it’s Marty’s number two, Jeannie Van Der Hooven, who can save this show and Marty as a character. Unfortunately Kristen Bell‘s character is as interesting as her personas in the various rom-coms she starred in the previous years. Reasons are missing to think that the stories of the crisis consultants in the bureaus of the multi millionaires is interesting enough to guarantee a long-living TV show. Because it seems obvious already that HOUSE OF LIES won’t be living a very long time with those episodic storylines involving business and how Marty’s team save them from bankrupcy and humiliation. Especially when the writers want to make the stories unique and surprising, as well as having the characters involved in them, having them developed through the stories. The first season of HOUSE OF LIES needs to have diversity to make room for the characters. Otherwise the show runs in danger of running away from its own premise.

Well, I read it somewhere and must approve: HOUSE OF LIES doesn’t look and feel like a Showtime show. Take away the “fuck”s and “shit”s, the tits, and make it sunny in New York, and HOUSE OF LIES could easily be a show on USA Network. A unique selling proposition is completely missing, and this means the exceptional is not seen here. The sex-laden chemistry between Marty and Jeannie is not good enough to save this show in its completion, when the story of the episode is so damn uninteresting and boring that my eyes fall asleep. Maybe HOUSE OF LIES is supposed to be a show about characters you shouldn’t like – anti-heroes in a world with economical crises, and “I am the 1%” quotes of people who still like Occupy [insert street name here]. But the characters are still int he center of attention, and they need recognition from the writers, and much, much depth. But when this depth is resulting out of all the lies between the characters, as well as stereotypical and predictable twists and the usual amount of secrets and lies, then the rest of HOUSE OF LIES will be as empty and shallow as the pilot episode. And not even the good-looking cast and the interest-sounding premise can’t help out here. Especially when Don Cheadle looks very much bored in front of the camera and doesn’t really know what to do. 3.5/10

One of those lies is being told right now

And here is one of those middle fingers