Second Chance

Not exactly a new premise, but the new Fox action-drama has enough of a twist to make it make it worth checking out.

Yes, this sounds preposterous. And the crime-of-the-weeks sometimes dabble in clichés--child in jeopardy, villain with an East European accent. But the actors sell it, and the writers throw in enough winking humor to let us not take it too seriously.

It's pretty ridiculous, but also oddly compelling at moments. [8/15 Jan 2016, p.98]

Kazinsky is likable, but seemingly lacks the imagination to suggest depths that aren't indicated in series creator Rand Ravich's screenplay. He doesn't sync up with Hall's performance as the older version of the character.... There are compensations, though: The emotionally fraught relationship between Mary, the CEO of the tech company, and her brother Otto, the scientific genius behind most of its advances, is fascinating, and DeKay's performance as Duval is intelligent, sensitive, and often unexpectedly touching.

Second Chance is guilty pleasure TV viewing. If you can get past its flaws and gaping plot holes, there’s some fun to be had with its unusual premise.

By current standards the show isn't particularly graphic or brutal and, indeed, works best the closer it comes to comedy and romance. When it tries to go deep or dark, it feels overwritten and overwrought; as light entertainment, it's passably diverting, not without charm.

The show moves briskly but not well. Kazinsky is good and tries to continue the cranky character Hall so memorably creates, but the writing wants to turn him into Captain America.

Kazinsky is bland. As is the seen-it-before strained relationship between him and his “son,” an FBI agent played by Tim DeKay. The strange dynamic between twin brother and sister, however, is the reason I will give it a second chance.

Second Chance is watchable without being especially engaging.

Second Chance is pretty much another Fox attempt at a crime procedural crossed with a high concept.

Their [Kazinsky and DeJKay's] bro-ish father-son bond isn’t enough to make Second Chance worthwhile. For all its shiny jewelry, the show is ultimately a plain procedural, and no amount of advanced technology is enough to make it feel brand new.

Second Chance is preposterous, silly, and forgettable. But it never takes itself too seriously and it flows along at a good pace. Take it or leave it.

The pity is that there are aspects of Second Chance that work amidst the nonsense, but the show becomes no greater awareness of those aspects over the four episodes I've seen.

There may be interesting stories to be told about the nature of the soul and our resistance to change, but they're buried under the weight of the premise and the efforts to paper over multiple plot holes.

The end result feels like a hideous pastiche of focus-group testing, procedural clichés and CliffsNotes literary references that got pulled out of the incubator about two seasons too early.

Other than presenting Kazinsky with the late holiday gift of a starring role, there’s not much else to Second Chance. The twins feel as if they’ve been grafted onto the plot from another series, while DeKay’s sole note for much of the first few episodes is pissed off. Other shows have tackled estranged fathers and sons better.

The right kind of fascinating character and performance could have made the premise work, but neither are in evidence.

What sinks Second Chance is its consummate laziness, from the regressive characterization of its non-cis/white/male characters to its reliance on the most threadbare tropes of the buddy cop genre.