FOX
Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let’s get on with…
The Show: Lonestar,* FOX
* Fox’s press materials alternately identify the show as Lonestar and Lone Star (it’s the Flash Forward / FlashForward of 2010!), but I’m going with the show’s title logo.
The Premise: Every once in a while, TV’s fall season manages to sync up weirdly with real-world events, as in 2001, when the networks announced several terrorism/CIA-themed dramas before the 9/11 attacks. Now, with the Deepwater Horizon wreck spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, Fox has two shows—Running Wilde and this—involving the oil business. Here, Bob Allen (James Wolk) is a Texas con artist running an elaborate scam under the tutelage of his dad (David Keith), fleecing two targets and leading two lives. Bob has married Cat (Adrianne Palicki) as a way of insinuating himself into the oil company run by her father (Jon Voight) in Houston. And as “Robert Allen,” he lives in Midland, with a girlfriend (Eloise Mumford) while running an investment scam. His problem: he’s in love—with both women—and, despite dad’s protests, wants to find a way to go straight while keeping both of his lives.
First Impressions: There are a lot of directions you could go with a premise like this: wry dark comedy (like Fox’s brilliant-but-canceled Profit), for instance, soapy melodrama (Dallas, natch) or quirky relationship drama (Big Love—which of course also has elements of the first two approaches). Lonestar, instead, makes maybe the most interesting choice: it plays it straight, letting its unlikely premise play out with emotional realism. And while it isn’t exactly Friday Night Lights yet, the result is at least intriguing in the pilot, largely through the performance of Wolk, who somehow makes Bob likeable, understandable and oddly naive-seeming—if a bit of an enigma. (One trick to the character is that he’s spent his entire life putting on personae, both to his marks and to the people close to him, and suppressing his actual self and feelings.) This is the kind of premise that makes me skeptical about its sustainability—it could become really implausible really fast—but the pilot at least has a confident and strangely earnest voice (for a show about a flim-flim man).
Do I Want to Watch Another Episode? Sure, but we’ll have to see if subsequent episodes can deliver, or if I’ve been scammed. If you’re still curious, here’s a trailer:
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