TV Reviews - Sirens

First of all I want to apologize for the conspicuous lack of Something Awesomes lately. I have been very busy recently due to a crisis at work, and quite frankly until I settle into this more frantic state of my life, regular updates here will likely remain pretty far from my mind. Hopefully things will normalize soon and regular updates will return, and you shouldn't expect no Something Awesome updates at all. They will just come less frequently than before.

Second of all, with that being said, I want to draw your attention to the fact that this review is not a Something Awesome. Quickie review, the show is okay. Long review, well...


For those who don't know, Sirens is a new workplace comedy which premiered tonight on USA Network. With a few exceptions I like the vast majority of everything on USA. I love Suites and White Collar, I loved Monk in its day, and I will surely cry a manly tear when Psych ends in only a few weeks' time. When I saw ads for a workplace comedy about wise cracking EMT's, I thought it looked good. The trailers made it look like it would be very lighthearted with a lot of witty dialogues. I was also worried, however, because as interesting as the premise seemed for a comedy premise, I wondered if such a show could have such a tone without seeming too lighthearted. These characters are paramedics after all. The saving of human lives should be taken seriously, regardless of the medium. Naturally this all led me to worry that the show would have some serious undertones to offset the comedy and make clear that these were characters who take their jobs seriously, and that it might not mesh well with the rest of the show. Also, while this show opens itself up for some possibilities as a dark comedy, of which there are far too few on television (with actual likeable characters anyway), it was clear from the trailers that there would be a degree of  adult humor in this show, as well, such as a scene where one character points out that another character is able to, and has from time to time, searched porn on his smartphone while driving the ambulance. I'd hoped that jokes like these would be few and far between as dark comedy, done well, is subtle, and sex jokes are not, and I don't enjoy them any more than I enjoy poop jokes in a bad Adam Sandler movie.

Let's just say that this USA show isn't as subtle as it could be.

Watching this first episode felt like a mixed bag (and yes, I have so far only watched one of the two premier episodes, suck it up). The scenes that were serious felt like scenes from a completely different show, and the comedy scenes felt almost like watching a particularly raunchy episode of Family Guy, with adult humor galore, except that Sirens isn't willing to go as far as Family Guy, so it doesn't even get any shock laughs. I chuckled from time to time at some of the comedy that actually pertained to their job (hello, it's a workplace comedy), but mostly this episode just struck me as boring. Amusing with some interesting bits scattered throughout, but mostly just boring. Don't get me wrong. The writing was quick and pretty sharp, the dark comedy was pretty funny (nothing wrong with a little dark comedy, if you know what you're getting into), and the performances, for what they were, were better than fair. It just wasn't funny enough or exciting enough to hold my full attention. I actually had to force myself to watch, and that's a bad sign for a twenty-two minute comedy.

I won't talk about the story, as it doesn't, as of yet, really exist beyond the show's premise. Instead I'll just jump right to the characters, commenting a bit on the storytelling as we go. First of all I want to point out that I really like the main character, Johnny, played by Michael Mosley. He's completely believable as this selfish commitmentphobe who uses crude humor to hide his uncertainty, and who is also pretty frackin' brilliant and great at his job, which he takes way more seriously than he pretend to. I also like Kevin Daniels as his homosexual African-American partner Hank, though so far writing for Hank has mostly just consisted of lines that try desperately to remind us that Hank is gay and black in a funny way. This actor's performance was way too good for his character to be little more than a stereotype, and I hope that he gets some more fleshing out in later episodes. All exposition, which, so far, has consisted of details of Johnny's personal life and of the on the job habits of Johnny and Hank (but mostly Johnny), was cleverly facilitated through a trainee assigned to them: Brian, played by Kevin Bigley. Another stereotype, Brian's only development so far has been the establishment of the fact that he's a bit of a nerd, and that he still lives with his parents (though they live on totally different floors, so it's not that big a deal). We are also introduces to a character with a subplot attached in the form of Johnny's sorta-but-not-really-ex girlfriend whose name I don't remember, and a forgettable throwaway excuse for them to be involved in a will they won't they storyline.

Overall Sirens is okay. It certainly has possibilities, and I really look forward to seeing how some of these possibilities are explored going beyond this introductory episode. Maybe that's why this episode seemed underwhelming. Maybe they were just too restricted by all of the introduction. I would argue, however, that a good writing team would have done well to spread those many introductions out over a few episodes, instead establishing a consistent tone and pace for the typical episode. A Pilot should introduce the concept of the show, not simply try to cram in as much exposition as possible. However, the acting is good, and the jokes that weren't gratuitously raunchy were amusing enough. My advise to the show is to focus on dark humor a bit more, and tone down the raunchy humor going forward. Overall I award Sirens a middle of the road 5 out of 10. It isn't a great show yet, but I think it shows enough comedic and dramatic possibilities to become one, and I have faith enough in the network that's spearheading it that I'll certainly give it at least a few more episodes. Just remember that if your are considering watching this show, don't take the trailers as an indication of the tone. The show is a lot less laugh out loud funny than those trailers would have you believe. If any of the above sounds interesting to you, though, check the show out, and let me know what you think. USA will probably air the premier again sometime this weekend or next week, and it will certainly be online and on demand, so if you missed it I'm sure you'll have a chance to catch it down the road.