I’ve been watching the first few episodes of the new Fox series Standoff over this past week, as a kind of experiment in the lower rungs of television entertainment. There are a bunch of really well-produced shows out there that I really enjoy — Rome, House, Arrested Development, The Shield, to name a few — "Standoff" is not one of them.
The premise is simple, kitschy and fairly cheesy. From the site:
MATT FLANNERY (Ron Livingston) and EMILY LEHMAN (Rosemarie DeWitt) are the top-ranked negotiators in the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit. They’re trained to talk their way through volatile situations. They’re experts at knowing what makes other people tick. They’re also sleepingtogether… a secret that they agreed to keep to themselves, until Matt revealed it to the entire world during a tense hostage standoff. The public revelation causes friction between Matt, who doesn’t take much seriously and relies on gut instinct, and Emily, an academic who analyzes every move. [ ... ] STANDOFF advances a fundamental idea: that in life and in love, "everything is a negotiation."
I’ve only seen the first two episodes and it’s pretty much what one would expect. Matt is a follow-your-gut kinda guy and Emily is a careful, calculating skeptic. They stage office shouting matches so people won’t think they’re continuing their relationship, and have cute little tiffs during critical negotiations. Hostage situations exist more as a backdrop for their romantic calisthenics, and (as yet) do not seem to be very relevant to the two leads other than as an excuse to squabble.
What interests me, ultimately, is how long this show will be around. The cast is tiny and the plot, when you really think about it, is a total dead-end. Consider: we are essentially watching these two principal characters oscillating endlessly around the fact that they want to be together, but can’t, kinda. It’s a situation where the final resolution is boring compared with the problems it creates, therefore, the situation can never be resolved. In other words, it’s fairly standard pop romantic drama stuff, disguised as a cop show. (Personally, I’m expecting a new character to be introduced somewhere during the second half of this season, probably along the lines of a talented, hotshot negotiator whose sole purpose on the show is to challenge Matt’s alpha-male status.)
Amusing and utterly moronic at the same time, watching this show is a lot like watching a retarded person write a poem. You know it’s gonna be terrible, but you just gotta see it.