Review of The TV Set (2007) by Burton L — 03 Jun 2007

Here is a movie that hedged its bets, didn't take one way or the other, and came up short, both in duration and quality. As a satire of television production and the selling of souls along the way, the movie fluctuated between a very human and dramatic approach and a more over-the-top one.

Duchovny and Gruffud (who is perhaps best known from King Arthur) play two men whose virtues and even lives descend from higher places into the lowest common denominator, where they find themselves, as Duchovny appropriately puts it, perpetuating the pipeline of crap feeding into America's homes.

This more moving duo contrasts oddly with Weaver and the show's dimwitted lead actor, who's more concerned with money and his co-lead's body than with the artistic vision or shaping of his craft.

To me, the over-the-top TV exec found in Weaver, along with the lead actor, failed to mesh well with the more subdued, more human Duchovny and Gruffud. In a spectrum-sense, the movie never settles quite in the middle ground of combining the two poles and lets the comical and the despairing never truly meet in the same scene.

The movie bounces back and forth between these poles but never integrates one into the other. As character development the movie works, but the overall style and framework connecting the different experiences is a little disjointed.

Not to forget that we never see the aftermath, no falling action; Duchovny settles into producing a bad show, yes, but what happens to Gruffud's marriage, the two leads, the show itself, is only implied.

The cliche, art-house message of 'corporate-america destroying creativity' is seen almost in a misanthropic light, which is as depressing as it is unentertaining. A few set-piece gags save face, and a large supporting cast adds flavor, but a unified approach and another twenty minutes might have been interesting.

Two Stars.