Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Mysticism for the Masses Touch offers up pseudo-religious hokum TV by DEAN ROBBINS Presents the 4th Annual Saturday, April 14 5:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. CROWN EXPO CENTER Visit www.ncceed.org and vote for your favorite celebrity dancers! Find us in TV networks have always had a weakness for mysticism, from The Twilight Zone to The X-Files to Lost. The trick is to keep the audience from laughing at you — a trick that the new Touch (Thursday, 9 p.m., Fox) hasn't quite mas- tered. Oh, I admit that the story of a mute boy (David Mazouz) with special powers is watchable, thanks to Kiefer Sutherland's intense perfor- mance as his beleaguered dad. But Touch takes its own mumbo-jumbo so seriously that it's hard to get through an hour without a few giggles. The boy is a mathematical genius, and somehow that gives him a supernatural insight into human destiny. He predicts the future and brings together far-flung individuals who "need" to be brought together. Sutherland is as confused as the viewing audience, so Danny Glover shows up to explain it all. (He's the series' "magical Negro," recently ID'd as a preposterous Hollywood type by Saturday Night Live.) Meanwhile, the filmmakers throw in 9/11, Islamic terrorists, a dead child and any other cheap elements they can think of to raise the stakes. "Patterns, mathematical in design, are hanging in plain sight," the boy says in voiceover. "Only a few of us can see the connections." The only pattern I perceive is one of TV networks periodically throwing this kind of pseudo-religious hokum against the wall to see if it sticks. Duck Dynasty Wednesday, 10 pm (A&E) Cable networks are desperately seeking colorful families who pursue un- usual livelihoods — exterminators, wild boar hunters and other eccentrics who can cheaply fill a half-hour of reality TV. In Duck Dynasty, it's the backwoods Robertson clan, who've struck gold by selling their handmade duck calls. The company is run by son Willie, the only family member who's obtained a bit of ed- ucation and dedicated himself to modern business principles. The others are un- reconstructed hillbillies more interested in hunting frogs than in turning out the duck calls on a tight schedule. Even Willie's Pappy scoffs at his industriousness. "Willie went off and bought a suit," he drawls, as if recounting a family tragedy. "He's a suit man now." Pappy seems to have a different notion of "suit" than the rest of us. Willie looks just like the rest of the Robertson men: a huge bushy beard, long stringy hair that's never seen the inside of a barbershop and camouflage duds. Nevertheless, the family regards him as a sellout, particularly during a nighttime frog hunt in the swamps. When a huge snake drops from a tree into their boat, Willie jumps into the water to escape. Pappy can only shake his head in shame. "Too many days in a subdivision. (910) 323-3377 For sponsorships, tickets and more information visit: WWW.NCCEED.ORG Proceeds will be used to provide safe, affordable housing for low income families within our community. 24 UCW MARCH 21-27, 2012 Snakes fall out of trees, you go a-runnin'." If I know my American TV audience, I predict they'll come a-runnin' to Duck Dynasty. The only people unlikely to be amused are barbers. The Firm Saturday, 9 pm (NBC) This lawyer series premiered in January and lasted about a month in the prime Thursday night slot. An audience never materialized, so NBC moved it to the Saturday soon-to-be-canceled slot — "burning off the episodes," in TV parlance. I can see why The Firm didn't catch on. We'd already read the 1991 book and seen the 1993 movie, so it felt like recycled material from a distant pop-culture era. The tone is relentlessly tense as Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas) defends cli- ents while fleeing mobsters and jousting with cops. Who could look forward to a year's worth of that anxiety-producing percussion on the soundtrack? Then again, The Firm is perfect for an occasional lazy Saturday. If you're sit- ting at home with nothing to do, the production will leave you thinking that you've had an intense evening of entertainment. In other words, while The Firm failed as a series, it makes for a strangely satis- fying burn-off experience. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM