Meet The New Boss

I caught Kelsey Grammer's new show Boss.  They've only run the pilot, but Starz has already ordered a second season. (Wish they were so generous with Party Down.) I'm not sure if it's there yet, but it's good enough to keep watching.

Grammer plays Tom Kane, mayor of Chicago.  He's a tough operator (and since this is premium cable, he can swear--and we get nudity, too!), but he does seem to believe in what he does.  After the first hour there are enough political subplots to last the season.  In addition, he's got a marriage of convenience, an estranged daughter, and, to top it off, he's just been disagnosed with a degenarative neurological disease.

I really don't know if they needed that last bit, since it weighs down everything else.  Did the show's creator, Farhad Safinia, worry (or was told) that just a hard-hitting show on politics wasn't enough.  I realize Breaking Bad started with the protagonist finding out he's got a terminal disease, but that's what motivated him to do everything else--Tom Kane is already living inside a drama.

The pilot was directed ably by Gus Van Sant, though it seems like another case (such as Scorsese and Boardwalk Empire) where you bring aboard a big name to launch the pilot.  The cast is pretty good.  Grammer, beloved as Fraser (though I preferred him as a supporting character on Cheers rather than the lead on his own show), shows his dramatic chops.  His wife is played by Connie Nielsen, who I still think of as a romantic lead, but I guess now that she's in her mid-40s she's been kicked upstairs to wife roles.  I especially liked Kathleen Robertson as his personal aide (I've always liked her--I'm surprised she hasn't been big in movies)--and Martin Donovan as his advisor--though it does seem every political drama these days has a female aide who's both hot and extremely efficient, plus a fixer who can do whatever is required.

If the show has a problem, in addition to piling on with the illness, it's that it seems to feel that since this isn't about cops or organized crime, it has to show how tough it is anyway.  Maybe they're right--maybe the audience would find the ins and out of running a city too soft otherwise.  But really, Kane's doctor, who shows no indication of breaking her patient's confidentiality, has to be leaned on, and have a syringe stuck in her?  And some political underling who goes off the reservation has to have his ears cut off?  Yes, I know Chicago is a place where they play hardball, but this is a bit much.  I guess if I watch the show I'll have to get used to this level of reality.

I'm not sure if Kane is based on any actual mayor (like the original Mayor Daley, or his son, or Harold Washington, or Rahm Emanuel.  The only one who gets a name check in the pilot is good old Mayor Cermak.) I've lived in Chicago, and probably know it better than any other city, even Los Angeles. I used to pass the city government building on my way to work.  I know how ugly local politics could get and I wanted as little to do with it as possible.  But watching it on TV is a different matter.