Hit or Sh**: FOX’s LETHAL WEAPON
In this Crossfader series, our intricate and complex rating system will tell you definitively whether new television pilots are worth your valuable time. We call it: HIT OR SH**.
For all of its glaring, predictable flaws, I kind of enjoyed watching LETHAL WEAPON. Despite the pilot feeling like an expedited version of the movie, there were points where I couldn’t help but chuckle at the dialogue. Sure, it was so cheesy that I felt constipated the next morning, but it was decently made cheese nonetheless. Still, I can’t in good conscience recommend LETHAL WEAPON, mostly because I have no idea where the show can possibly go from here.
Ironically, I feel as though I can predict exactly how the story will progress and end. I think we all know that the season will end with either Riggs (Clayne Crawford) or Murtaugh (Damon Wayans) killing or incapacitating the leader of the bad guys with a bullet. What does LETHAL WEAPON have to show the audience now that they’ve established that its entire meaning, its entire purpose, is nothing more than to allow us to suckle some sweet, sweet member-berries?
I figure there’s about six more weeks before that reference gets stale
Far and away the most grating aspect of LETHAL WEAPON is the utter disrespect the show has for the audience’s intelligence. Sure, campy action that defies real world physics is a staple of the genre, but they don’t bother to do anything original with the big scenes. Instead we’re given a generic car chase, a generic “hero has no gun” scene, and a generic hostage standoff scene. I’m willing to tolerate a lot of crap for the sake of glorious violence, but the payoff simply isn’t there. Their brazen willingness to recycle content for the one aspect of the show that promised to be fresh is what really kills any hope of this show being good.
LETHAL WEAPON suffers from not being adaptable to new formats. It works fine as a blockbuster shown in a theatre carried by people with star power, but not as a small screen thriller with all of its teeth pulled out. Bullets produce a minimal amount of blood, all heavy profanities are suddenly interrupted, and while the subject matter gets as dark as heroin dealing and suicide, the dialogue completely fails to add any real substance to these themes. There is no real reason to watch LETHAL WEAPON; its IMDB page tells me that there’s only three episodes, so hopefully its death will be swift and final. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover deserve better.
Well, at least Danny Glover does
Verdict: Sh**
LETHAL WEAPON airs on FOX on Wednesdays
Dan Blomquist
Dan Blomquist is a guest contributor for Crossfader and writes about important things sometimes, but mostly about television. He believes that memes are the future and that free will is an illusion.
