Rescue Me: My TV Apparently Got A Different 4th-Season Premiere
While Everyone Else Oohed and Aahed, I Wondered What the Big Deal Was
I have to admit that I’m not the least bit surprised about the ratings decline that greeted “Babyface,” the fourth-season premiere of FX’s normally sizzling anti-heroic firefighter drama Rescue Me, which drew an audience 18 percent smaller than that for the third-season premiere. Judging from what I saw last Wednesday night, the series isn’t what it used to be, at least not at this early stage of the new season. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching too long. Maybe it’s because last season ended with not just one, but several truly smokin’ episodes. Whatever it is, last week’s premiere did almost nothing for me, despite all the glowing reviews and lofty claims that the show is the best thing to happen to TV this summer. I don’t agree after experiencing the mediocre, even boring premiere, and I sincerely hope things improve soon.
Copious Spoilers Follow—Proceed with Caution
What’s my beef? For one, the prolonged opening scene featuring Tommy (Denis Leary) awake at night with the new baby and then his daughter Colleen (Natalie Distler), recently turned eighteen, returning home three hours past curfew verged on mundane. So, Colleen dates a twenty-six year old dude in a rock band, smokes weed, drinks, and has sex. Please, tell me something we don’t already know about the typical fictional 18-year-old. So, the Gavin clan are loud-mouthed degenerates who are born to become drunks and idiots. I got that loud and clear from the first three seasons—is there nothing else there, or could we possibly advance the plots a bit to make the characters and their lives a little less predictable?
Moving on to the other main players: none of the storylines demonstrated that trademark Rescue Me knack for being simultaneously funny, lewd, and shameful—not the attempted sex in the church between Kenny (John Scurti) and his former-nun girlfriend Theresa (Susan Misner, who, incidentally, also played a morally challenged nun on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent right before she popped up on Rescue Me); not somewhat slow Sean (Steven Pasquale), married to Tommy’s irredeemably whacky sister Maggie (Tatum O’Neal), coming to terms with his wife’s open appreciation of porn; not the schtick about interim Chief Pecher’s (played by series co-creator, executive producer, co-writer, and director Peter Tolan) inability to communicate with other humans; not Franco’s (Daniel Sunjata) girlfriend Natalie’s (Sherri Saum) mentally challenged brother Rich (Cornell Womack), who has never had an urge to use the n- word that he could resist, and his desire to get laid; and certainly not all the nonsense about basketball and hockey courts in the basement of the firehouse. Not even the cryptic appearance of Jennifer Esposito, an actress whose work I normally enjoy, registered enough for me to care.
There were only two events in the premiere that got a rise out of me: the team going into a building to save some cats and instead getting in a bind with a collapsed floor engulfed in flames (Whew—That was a close one!); and the wry phone conversation between Jerry (Jack McGee), recovering quite nicely from his heart attack at the end of last season, and his gay son Peter (Neal Jones), a Boston-based firefighter happy about his recent engagement.
Sure, I have every intention of sticking with Leary and company for the entire summer. At their most boring, they’re still a trillion times better than the majority of stuff on other networks, not to mention that the possibility of Tommy heading to the slammer for causing the brilliant third-season-ending house fire (or so everyone seems to think) would be fine retribution for his many crimes against others—what viewer would want to miss that? My continuing support doesn’t mean I think the show is infallible or always terrific, however, especially after the disappointing premiere that FX aired last Wednesday. If this is the best that Rescue Me can deliver right now, the cast and crew should pray that other television fans and reporters continue to spread their hype. Unfortunately, I can’t at the moment.
Rescue Me currently airs Wednesdays on FX at 10pm EST
Rescue Me photo courtesy of FX
