HOUSE OF LIES
Sun., Jan. 8, 10 p.m., Showtime
Coming off a great first season for “Homeland,” Showtime could not be hotter. Even so, “House of Lies,” full of sex, lies and swearing, won’t be a show for everyone.
Starring Don Cheadle, “House of Lies” tells the story of four management consultants who’ll do anything to keep their clients on the hook and the millions rolling in. In between all of those meetings, late nights and Power-point presentations, there’s a fair amount of sex in restaurant bathrooms and shot-fueled nights at strip clubs. Yuck.
“I like to examine people’s dark motivations,” says executive producer Matthew Carnahan (“Dirt”). “This project was a fun way to look at the corporate malfeasance and financial debacle of the past few years.”
“House of Lies” is based on Martin Kihn’s book, “House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time,” and it stars Cheadle as Marty Kaan, a take-off on the author, who advised Carnahan during the show’s development.
Kaan’s team is composed of Jeannine (Kristen Bell), a young hot-shot who’s got Kaan’s number, Clyde (Ben Schwartz) and Doug (Josh Lawson).
“For me, this show is really about the four of them together,” says Carnahan. “It’s about watching Don and Kristen and Ben and Josh light up when they get to play scenes together.” — Paige Albiniak
Patrick Ecclesine/Copyright:Show
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THE FIRM
Sun., Jan. 8, 9 p.m., and
Thurs., Jan. 12, 10 p.m., NBC
John Grisham’s legal blockbuster was made into a blockbuster movie with Tom Cruise so many years ago — 1993 — that people may have forgotten it. NBC’s new version launches 10 years after Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas) and his wife, the loyal Abby (Molly Parker), extricated themselves from the Mob-tied Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke.
With the head of Chicago’s Moralto crime family dead, the McDeeres feel that it’s safe to leave witness protection and make their way to Washington, DC, where Mitch has opened his own firm, in partnership with his private-detective brother, Ray (Callum Keith Rennie) and his long-time girlfriend, Tammy (Juliette Lewis), who is also Mitch’s assistant.
“I always wondered why Grisham didn’t tell us more about Mitch and Abby,” says Lukas Reiter, creator and executive producer of the series, “and I got a thought in my mind about how he might do that.”
Reiter wrote a script and his agent managed to get it to Grisham, who agreed to consult on this series.
Each episode will be chock full of action, Reiter says, who also worked on “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.” “We are trying to combine a legal thriller with a conspiracy arc that crosses over all episodes in the first season. ‘The Firm’ is about a guy in a suit carrying a briefcase and running as fast as he can.” — PA
Steve Wilkie/NBC
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ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?
Wed., Jan. 11, 8:30 p.m., NBC
With “Bridesmaids” being voted as one of the top films of the year, the time may be right for “Are You There, Chelsea?” The brainchild of E! Entertainment’s caustic Chelsea Handler (“Chelsea Lately”), and inspired by her best-selling essay collection, this show could be the 2012 version of “Cheers,” but serves up the kind of dialogue that would make Sam and Diane blush. Want proof? The Chelsea character has named her dog Ass Face.
Handler herself has taken a supporting role, donning a brunette wig and handing off the leading lady honors to another real-life Jersey girl who has no trouble with potty mouth, Laura Prepon (below, “That “70’s Show”).
Isn’t that strange, playing someone famous who is actually acting alongside of you?
“Funny enough, I never get weirded out about that,” says Prepon. “I’m doing my own take on her, rather than trying to mimic her. I never feel like Chelsea is judging me or thinking that I’m doing it wrong.” — Deborah Starr Seibel
Mitchell Haaseth/NBC
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Rob
Thurs., Jan. 12, 8:30 p.m., CBS
Rob Schneider’s life dovetailed quite nicely with the production of his new sitcom, “Rob,” loosely based on his recent, real-life marriage into a big Mexican family. In fact, series co-creator Lew Morton says that Schneider shot the pilot and then went off and got married just a week later.
Schneider plays a landscape architect with a significantly younger wife, Maggie (Spanish film star Claudia Bassols), whose Mexican-American family doesn’t approve of him. (The one exception is Maggie’s uncle, Hector, played by Mexican superstar Eugenio Derbez.)
Chief among those who don’t like Rob is Maggie’s father, Fernando (Cheech Marin).
Some scenes on the series reflect Schneider’s own life with his in-laws. “As an example,” Morton says, “We have an episode about Rob realizing that the family is talking about him in Spanish, in front of him, because they know he can’t speak Spanish.”
But, not every joke in the show is an ethnic one; several come from Morton and fellow married series writers’ experiences.
“To anyone who gets married, their in-laws seem like they’re from a completely different country,” he says. “We’re writing stories that anyone with a family will recognize.” — Maxine Shen
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ALCATRAZ
Mon., Jan. 16, 9 p.m., Fox
Like other one-word shows from J.J. Abrams (“Lost” and “Fringe”), “Alcatraz” takes a unique premise and underlines it with mythology. But unlike those shows, “Alcatraz” presents two detectives, Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and her new partner, Alcatraz expert Dr. Diego “Doc” Soto (Jorge Garcia), with a case to solve each week.
“This show has an element of thriller and of procedural,” says executive producer Dan Pine, “and you don’t often get the opportunity to do all of those things in one show.”
In the premiere, Madsen connects a present-day murder to “Alcatraz” prisoner Jack Sylvane (guest star Jeffrey Pierce) who has supposedly been dead for 30 years. Madsen and Soto discover that Sylvane is part of a group of 301 inmates who disappeared together in 1963. Now, one by one, they are mysteriously returning and they are seeking revenge.
“Each episode will deal with a guy coming back, and the team will spend the episode hunting him down and catching him,” says executive producer Jennifer Johnson (“Cold Case”). “The mythology will be there for the loyal viewer who is looking for it.” — PA
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LUCK
Sun., Jan. 29, 9 p.m., HBO
David Milch and Michael Mann have both created worlds populated by tough guys and degenerates, and they present the best of both in “Luck,” HBO’s new drama centered around California’s Santa Anita race track.
Dustin Hoffman stars as Ace Bernstein, an ex-con seeking to rebuild his life. Nick Nolte plays a horse owner with a secret past and John Ortiz co-stars as a hot-headed master trainer.
Milch provides thoroughly believable lowlifes (you’ll need to bone up on race track lingo to understand how the bug boy can affect the pick six); Mann makes viewers fall in love with the sport of kings; and Hoffman excels as the covert architect of an empire.
“Dustin is the great actor of his time,” says Milch. “With all the contradictions in Ace’s personality, he was the perfect choice to bring him to life.”— Larry Getlen
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The Finder
Thurs., Jan. 12, 9 p.m., Fox
If you like “Bones,” a new spin-off shares its quirky sensibilities.
“The Finder,” whose characters were inspired by Richard Greener’s “Locator” books, stars Geoff Stults as Iraq War vet Walter Sherman, an obsessive-compulsive with a knack for finding anything, who operates out of his BFF Leo’s (Michael Clarke Duncan) Florida Keys bar, Ends of the Earth. Among the people lining up for help: a magician whose assistant has disappeared, a man in search of a meal and a mathematician looking for his Cinderella.
None of these cases leads to the expected places, says executive producer Hart Hanson. “We make hard right or left turns. If you look for something really hard, you find a lot of things that you weren’t intending to find and Walter actually warns people about that,” he says.
Part of the conceit of the series is that if Walter doesn’t find something, either he’s going to die or be locked up in the loony bin.
“Walter’s like a bloodhound that’ll run himself to the death to find something — to the detriment of everything else in his life,” Hanson says. “By the end of the season, we will explore what might happen if Walter can’t find something or if that something is, in fact, unfindable.”
They’ll also explore Walter’s nemesis, a character played by Peta Wilson. If Walter’s the Finder, she’s the Hider.
“She’s out there in the world, someone who is the evil opposite of Walter,” says Hanson. — MS
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THE RIVER
Tues., Feb. 7, 9 p.m., ABC
Oren Peli’s “Paranormal Activity” surprised Hollywood in 2007 by grossing more than $100 million worldwide. The film attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg, who invited Peli to lunch and suggested that he and Peli should create a TV show. After months of racking his brains, he finally pitched an idea for a movie to Spielberg and DreamWorks TV.
In the pitch, Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood) the star of a long-running nature program, goes missing. His wife (Leslie Hope), estranged son (Joe Anderson) and a team of show producers search for him, journeying to the Amazon and filming their sometimes terrifying expedition.
“They are in a place where they are not supposed to be. They are going deeper and deeper into the jungle, following the footsteps of someone who has gone crazy, gone missing or gotten killed,” says Peli. “There’s sort of a monster of the week, with every episode taking on a specific phenomenon.”
There’s also a lot of handheld camera work and sketchy lighting as Peli infuses the series with his trademark realistic feel.
“We aren’t trying to go for gore or torture porn, but for the scares that live in the imagination,” says Peli. “We use the audience’s personal fears and nightmares to complete the picture.” — PA
ABC
