The Art of More

The show undermines any authenticity it tries to create with a general lack of specificity in language, presentation and mise en scene. It doesn't help that the characters are so off-putting even the expensive items up for bid can't keep the show from feeling ugly.

Meanwhile, there’s Bosworth, throwing glacial glares and selling her soul to impress her father and compete with upstart Connor, giving a beautifully restrained, imminently watchable performance that conveys depths with very little. Too bad there’s not more of her and less of everything else.

The characters manage to get themselves into a lot of trouble, and the show is genuinely suspenseful at times, as shows will be when guns start to wave. But it's hard to care, even after having seen six out of 10 episodes, about anyone's fate. Neither their tales of early or current sorrows nor their displays of aesthetic sensibility nor even their expressions of shame quite balance out the fact that most are kind of bad people, mostly out for themselves.

The story lines never rise above network level, with a cast of one-note characters whose motivations, beyond greed, are left unplumbed. Quaid’s crude billionaire is paper thin, and so is another collector, an aristocratic Brit played by Cary Elwes.

A lackluster entry that's unessential viewing in this age of #PeakTV.