'In Plain Sight' on USA HD - Page 3

I thought that the finale, like last week's episode, was strong. I particularly appreciated the way Mary's mother and sister were portrayed as pitifully lazy and unwilling to accept responsibility. Last night's finale made clear that there isn't much to laugh at where they are concerned. I thought that Lesley Ann Warren was excellent, again. Thanks to her charm and vulnerability, she managed to show her frustrating weaknesses in a way that let me avoid hating her, albeit barely.

The ending involving the dope was a hoot and I look forward to seeing the tall, arrogant FBI guy continue to get his at the hands of Mary's bunch next season. I just hope that next season doesn't drift into light weight and often boring soap opera, as too many episodes in the middle of this season did.

All that dope mixed into the chalk will inevitably wind up in the MLB players urine samples, triggering an investigation of where it came from.

LOL ... I guess we know where "Daddy's" hiding out now too.

This show strikes me as a little too much like some things that have failed before:

1) The 1998 film Out Of Sight where J Lo starred as a female marshall named Karen Sisco, with a screenplay based on the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. Dennis Farina played J Lo's father, Marshall Sisco, aka Marshall Marshall.

2) The short-lived 2003-2004 series Karen Sisco where Carla Gugino stepped into the female US Marshall role and Marshall Marshall was her father, retired and now a private investigator. The lead character switched between witness protection and fugitive aprehension, frequently doing both after a protected witness got rubbed out. Elmore Leonard wrote two of ten episodes.

The writing and pacing of the earlier episodes in the series In Plain Sight greatly resembled the film and the earlier series - both of which succeeded critically but the film never got the box office it deserved, and the series was doomed from the start as it was scheduled in the slot dominated by Law and Order.

Although this time they started tinkering with the show elements as others have noted, it only made things worse. I sometimes think that the real problem with the number of channels we have today is that there is no more good writing than there ever was before when three networks ruled the air, and a quarter the movies premiered as do today.

I agree that there is a certain resemblance between In Plain View's Mary and Karen Sisco in both the movie, Out of Sight, and the Karen Sisco series. I have been a huge Elmore Leonard fan for many years and loved Out of Sight, it deserved a better reception than it received. I like Carla Gugino, she is both beautiful and talented, and her costar, Robert Forster, was terrific. Nevertheless the series seemed to fade in the stretch and I stopped watching before it ended. I just hope that In Plain Sight learns from that and that it doesn't fade in the middle next season, as it did this.

Well, looks like I am the only one here (and in the TiVo Community Forums IPS thread) who has been convinced that there is somebody dirty in the FBI or the DoJ involved in this drug deal. Spanky showed up at Chuck's NJ home with guns blazing, and Spanky didn't give Chuck a moment to talk before hauling him off to go get the drugs, shouting that he knew Chuck had rolled. This was after the two FBI agents had to stand around for who knows how long for their call to be returned authorizing the deal with Chuck. To me that was too much coincidence. To me it shouted "mole" in the FBI. Am I just hearing things?

(And when Spanky was captured, Marshall commented that Spanky had a pilot's license, twin engine-rated. Why that detail unless it is going to lead somewhere next season? Personally, I suspect the zealous FBI agent. The writers put an American flag pin on his lapel and Hollywood likes to make flag-wavers the villains.)

I think that was just to reinforce that Marshall is a detail and fact freak, like Dr. Reid on Criminal Minds.

I assumed it was to explain how Spanky got from New Jersey to Albuquerque so quick, it was overnight IIRC.

:-d

It was supposed to be a , but occasionally it doesn't display correctly, browser problem maybe..

Actually, it's me enjoying some of Mendocino's finest.

Actually, I was was referring to Mendocino's other finest....

But I can get you some recommendations, my brother's a wine freak, buys and sells futures and product and has connections with a lot of the boutique operations.

From the horse's mouth, check out their websites, and if you find something in particular, I'll ask him about it - all the below are good in his opinion,

From Fredfa's "Hot Off The Press" thread:

TV Notes
'Criminal Intent,' 'In Plain Sight' Set For USA Returns April 19
Goldblum Joins 'L&O' Franchise For Eighth Campaign
By Mike Reynolds, Multichannel News, February 17, 2009

USA Network will jump into the Sunday night fray on April 19, with the return of the eighth season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and the sophomore campaign of In Plain Sight.

Both shows are still in production at this stage and will air 16 new episodes during their upcoming seasons. Law & Order: Criminal Intent will run at 9 p.m., followed in the 10 p.m. hour by the Mary McCormack-starrer.

Criminal Intent, which was slated to begin its run in November, will feature new cast member Jeff Goldblum, who will portray Zach Nichols, a detective who was born and bred on Manhattan's upper West Side; he replaces Chris Noth. Goldblum joins Vincent D'Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Julianne Nicholson and Eric Bogosian for season eight.

In Plain Sight, which is currently in production on location in New Mexico, was cable's top new original series in 2008 among persons 25 to 54 with 2.66 million of those watchers and 2.28 million 18-to-49 viewers.

The show stars McCormack as Mary Shannon, a U.S. Marshal working in the highly specialized branch of the witness protection program, who relocates federal witnesses.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/...s_April_19.php

I could not agree more. Mary and the crew in kick ass mode and with some tension among them is wonderful fun but an excess of the Kumbaya soap opera stuff gets very tired very quickly. Don't get me wrong, I thought the show was decent, even in its weaker moments, but the early episodes were terrific television.

You both are right on.

I thought last night's premiere was excellent. It didn't try to fast forward from the season finale and did a nice job of showing the effects of the shooting on Mary. There were plenty of good one liners and enough drama keep my attention.

Looks like a new intake next week. I'll be watching.

I liked it as well, I'd been watching it all week and had managed to see the entire first season, and I was right there and I think the show is doing fine with it's direction.

The comments above are an opinion that I don't think I share, after rewatching all the shows, I don't think it got too far off the track, I think the acting got a lot better. I liked the show better the 2nd time around.

I never saw the first season, and stupid me never checked to see if they were rerunning it last week. I watched last night and liked it enough to keep trying it for a few more weeks.

As several of you have already posted, I thought this season got off to a terrific start. I particularly enjoyed how Stan took care of the officious new office administrator once he fully understood what a busybody she was. I also enjoyed the chemistry between Mary and Marshall. They understand each other, which makes their scenes together a treat. Although this latest episode was beautifully written I continue to be most impressed by Mary McCormack's talent. She can show both the tough and vulnerable sides of Mary Shannon, sometimes nearly simultaneously and that can be magical.

As noted in an earlier post some of the soapier stuff, in the form of mama's and sis's travails, got a little tiresome last season but I never came close to giving up on the show because of that. It's really nice to have it back.

Good episode tonight, the title In My Humboldt Opinion, that went by me?? Looks like the new office manager is a regular, I wonder if we'll see the psychologist in the future, she was pretty cool.

Edit: The farm was in Humboldt, California, so that at least explains where the word Humboldt came from.

The "green" USA HD bug really fit in well with the subject of tonight's episode, if you catch my drift.

Another quality episode. The bathroom scene with Mary not being able to find any towels was an excellent piece of continuity. Loved the Bob on the microphone.

I keep hoping that mom and sis will get run over by a train or the house will fall in. They really add nothing to the show.

I disagree. I can think of 2 reasons to keep the sister.

I agree that this week's Out of Sight was another excellent episode. Although I get somewhat tired of Mary's monumentally irresponsible mother and sister, I have to confess that they work within the context of the show. In this connection, I loved the department shrink in this week's show. She was gentle and patient and proved that she had developed a pretty sound understanding of Mary's strengths and weaknesses. The officious new office manager also showed that she has something going for her. This week's show was good stuff!

I agree. This episode rocked. Reminded me of some of the best of last season. Mary was kick a**, Marshall's wisecracks, the sister's pair, etc. I also really liked the psychologist's role in the episode and the Bob sticker. This was some very entertaining television.