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Smith: Pilot (series premiere)
(S01E01) As I sat watching the premiere episode of Smith, I kept thinking the same thing: after Heist and Hustle and Thief, are people really going to want to watch yet another show about a gang of clever thieves who pull off elaborate robberies?
If it's based on quality, it shouldn't really be a problem. This is a good show. But we all know it's not just based on quality, there are about 9 other things that come into play when people decide to watch or not watch a TV show, and I wonder how viewers will calculate those other things in their head when deciding whether or not to watch it.
Ray Liotta plays Bobby Stevens, suburban husband and dad/paper cup salesman by day, criminal mastermind by night. Actually, he's a criminal mastermind in the day a lot of the time too, as he is always going on "business trips" that are really covers for new heists. So he's juggling his double life at home and also a double life at the office.
Bobby leads a gang of crooks that are all very talented, but they're also a lot more ruthless than the likable gang of crooks you usually see on shows like this. In this first episode, a museum robbery goes wrong, and one of the guys actually kills an innocent museum guard (these guys aren't exactly Thomas Crown), and one of the guys, Jeff (Simon Baker) seems to be a bit of a psychopath, killing two dudes who tell him he can't surf on a private beach (though I'm not exactly sure if he killed them because they kicked him off the beach or if he was paid to kill them by someone else). Rounding out the gang Joe (Franky G), Tom (Jonny Lee Miller), and Annie (Amy Smart), who has a funny yet disturbing scene where she is recognized on the street during the heist by an old schoolmate and has to, um, "incapacitate" the woman so the con can go on.
So, judging from the pilot, these aren't the most likable con artists, but that actually gives the show a darker, somewhat more meaty feel than anything else on television. And the cast is great. Virginia Madsen plays Bobby's wife, who has her suspicions about what he's doing on those business trips, but she's keeping a big secret of her own, and that plot could go to interesting places too.
The first ep is told in flashback, as we see how we got to this point (the museum robbery goes wrong, that guard is killed, and one of the gang is shot). We see how things happened, from different viewpoints and different camera angles, and that's always a fun gimmick. The tech aspects of the show are great. It really does look like a movie the way it's filmed.
Something happens to one of the gang at the end that I really didn't expect, and I like it when a show keeps me guessing and surprises me, and there's someone else behind Bobby's heists and that adds another layer too.
So can this show survive? I hope so. It's up against Law and Order: SVU and Boston Legal, so it's a tough time slot (unless people are getting weary of the long-running SVU). Based on the quality, it should. But, as I said above, I wonder if audiences will like the characters enough and if they'll want to try out another robbery show after Heist/Thief/Hustle. I say give it a shot. It's well-made, clever, and entertaining.
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