A Top Chef Goes to the Valley • Invasion of the DeLoreans • RedEFINing the L.A. River: Will the Feds Come Through? SEPTEMBER 6-12, 2013 VOL. 35 / NO. 42 LAWEEKLY.COM David Boreanaz, left, and Julian McMahon acerbic auteur Neil LaBute — which winds down amid plot twists so jarring DINNER FOR that precisely nothing more is allowed to be said. SCHMUCKS Later, down a warrenlike hallway, BY MINDY FARABEE executive producer Nick Hamm ducks into an editing bay to call up some less Mayhem has top–secret footage, and suddenly there’s broken out at David Boreanaz on-screen, revving into DirecTV’s El Se- a rat-a-tat tirade that’s a world away gundo headquar- from his bantering romantic lead on ters. Bones. On this mid- Structured as a series of two-person June morning, scenes, all at the same Los Angeles res- the small production stu- taurant, Full Circle’s 10-episode season, FULL dio normally reserved for set to premiere Oct. 9 on DirecTV’s CIRCLE the satellite-TV provider’s Audience network, rotates through 11 Oct. 9 sports-themed Red Zone lead actors, who are paired up to eat channel has been tempo- together in a kind of thespian chess rarily transformed into a Westside L.A. match. Storylines are passed along the restaurant, all violet lights, splashy red chain as each episode carries over one artwork and gleaming silver. At the mo- character from the previous installment, ment, however, the whole place appears La Ronde–style, in a manner meant to tease out hidden connec- tions between them. Those with even a passing familiar- ity with LaBute’s Our First-Ever, work will know to brace themselves for what’s coming. Network-Agnostic, Boreanaz’s character, a provocative come- Distribution-Neutral dian named Jace, has made a homophobic FALL joke under the guise of artistic freedom, which leads to tragic consequences once social media fans the fl a m e s . H i s s e l f - a b - sorbed agent, played by Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck), is TVPREVIEW embroiled in his ere in L.A., it’s hard to ignore the changes in how we watch television. Most of our Facebook friends have own personal a Kickstarter for their web series. CBS goes blank on Time Warner Cable boxes — but you can still watch mess. full episodes of Under the Dome through Amazon Instant Video. Netfl ix’s “For Your Consideration” In another epi- Emmy Awards billboards for House of Cards assault us as we’re stuck on Santa Monica Boulevard. sode, Ally Sheedy We know that online video may be the future — and that not all of it is worthy of our attention. That plays a mother Hmany new cable channels are starting, but it’s hard to know which will survive. with a discom- So for L.A. Weekly’s fall TV preview issue, we’ve kept an open mind, including shows from almost every delivery forting rapport method, new and old: network, basic cable, pay cable, syndicated, satellite provider, user-generated video commu- with her teen son nity and top-down online media site. Each one, however, is of particular interest to L.A. readers, capturing an aspect — and that’s not of our city and the way we make entertainment. —Zachary Pincus-Roth the only unset- tling parent-child pairing in Full to be coming apart at the seams in a not Circle. Eventually, someone dies in a entirely metaphorical way during the plane crash, and ultimately all hell just fi nal day of shooting for the fi rst season kind of breaks lose. of Full Circle — the series TV debut of Gesturing brusquely at the ( 16 » | laweekly.com / September 6-12 2013 / LA Weekly ( 15 ) » 15 ) monitor, Hamm, a fast-talking mugs — and, of course, the brilliance intertwine. “We want to say, ‘Here’s a Brit, sums it up with a LaButean turn of of their vaudevillian high jinks — have story to follow that we’re going to check phrase: “This ain’t your regular fucking solidifi ed the group as one of the ruling in on from dif erent angles,’#” Kowalick network TV show.” FUNNY sketch teams at the Upright Citizens explains. “It all culminates in the end, so What the show wants to be is a com- Brigade Theatre on Franklin Avenue. On it’s a reward to the viewer.” bination of theater and television, not Oct. 18, the septet, which also includes At UCB, the group caught the at- unlike the two-person episodes of HBO’s Jef erson Dutton, Dave Ferguson, Matt tention of sketch revolutionary Bob In Treatment . FACES Kowalick and Chris VanArtsdalen, Odenkirk, co-creator of Mr. Show With “It harkens back to the days of live TV,” moves from stage to tube to join a Bob and David, who has shepherded the Hamm says. “It’s television unplugged, BY ANTHONY D’ALESSANDRO cable-TV sketch mini-renaissance that IFC show as an executive producer (Ben acting, directing unplugged. We take An actor’s unique look can accentu- includes IFC’s Portlandia and Comedy Stiller’s Red Hour Films also is execu- away the normal artifi ce, the subplots ate any comic Central’s Drunk History and Key & Peele. tive-producing). and car chases. ... A lot of TV is puf ed-up performance. On Since the Ithaca College friends (and “There’s a shared sense of irony in nonsense. If you invert the conventions an August Sunday University of Texas alum Kowalick) their pieces,” Odenkirk observes. “That’s of storytelling, you go back to the three afternoon at a pri- formed the Birthday Boys in 2007, the a rare thing to see in sketch groups. ... basic elements: character, an inherently vate home in Sherman group has been a consistent sellout at They can pitch each other ideas, edit dramatic situation, and a great script.” THE Oaks, Tim Kalpakis, a UCB, often co-billed with its absurdist together, and they aren’t at odds.” For DirecTV’s suits, these scripts sold BIRTHDAY member of sketch group doppelgänger, A Kiss From Daddy. Neil After MADtv’s cancellation in 2008, them on the idea, but the show’s format BOYS the Birthday Boys, with a Campbell and Paul Rust from that group sketch comedy beyond Saturday Night sweetened the pot. Self-contained on one Oct. 18 Dick Tracy–square jaw, gave the Birthday Boys their start by in- Live looked dead. But it has rebounded, small soundstage, the entire production, is prepping a bit as a 60 viting them to perform at the duo’s open- thanks to its popularity online in places from casting to shooting, was com- Minutes–type correspondent lecturing mic UCB Friday show, Not Too Shabby. like YouTube and Funny or Die — lead- pleted in two months, neatly sandwiched on “the contemporary family” for his (The Boys have since cast members of A ing to the wave of cable sketch shows between the end of pilot season and the start of shooting for the fall’s shows. Working within such a compressed time frame — each actor had to be avail- able for only about a week — allowed a host of familiar names to sign on to the project, including Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights), Kate Walsh (Private Prac- tice) and Cheyenne Jackson (30 Rock). “I read it, and was, like, Jesus, that’s quite a piece,” Boreanaz says. “I saw it as a piece that’s extremely challenging, that I’m afraid of, and something that will require a lot of hard work in order to go there.” In addition to those caustic bon mots, the series revolves around familiar LaBute themes, such as human weak- ness and big-picture morality. “Jace just represents this man who, God, he’s just so manically obsessed with his own self-righteous ego that just gets way out of control, and he just thinks he’s above it all, and he gets slammed down and becomes very humble in a very sad way,” Boreanaz says. The actor has been a fan of LaBute’s ever since meeting with the writer- director in 2007 about possibly starring in a production of Fat Pig, the writer’s typically confrontational play about our poisonous obsession with appearances. Primarily known as a home for critical favorites salvaged from other networks The Birthday Boys with executive producer Bob Odenkirk, center when their ratings were too low (as with Friday Night Lights and Damages) and unconventional foreign acquisitions gang’s new IFC show. Kiss From Daddy as guests on their IFC that the Birthday Boys are riding, Oden- (such as Hit and Miss, in which Chloë Kalpakis stops by a family photo of show.) kirk says. Sevigny stars as a transgendered hit a group of denim-clad men. “What is “When we signed ourselves up to “This show is the web infl uencing TV woman), DirecTV has only recently family?” he asks. “Why, a family could be perform at Shabby, we would write now,” Odenkirk says. “The web has made begun creating its own original, scripted 10 fathers.” He then proceeds to another seven names or write ‘Those guys from people ‘sketch-smart.’ Young people programming, which hasn’t drummed up photo. “A family can be a father, a mom Ithaca,’#” Ferguson says. “At the end of have really grown to like the form more the same good notices thus far. Its fi rst and a son. But look closer, that man isn’t the day, we wanted a name that evoked a than they ever did. I think there’s a big- dramatic of ering, Rogue, the Thandie really a man, it’s a woman.” Eventually silly, inclusive element.” ger audience for it: Watching it, doing Newton cop drama also executive-pro- he ends on a photo of fellow performer The Birthday Boys’ sketches and on- it, trying to do it, writing it and taking duced by Hamm, which debuted earlier Mike Mitchell hugging a large piece of line videos are reminiscent of absurdist classes in it.