The Catch

As someone who has grown exhausted by frenetic and increasingly absurd plotting of "Scandal" and "How To Get Away With Murder," I suspect "The Catch" will prove at least as durable simply because the stakes aren't as high here, and it doesn't take itself as seriously.

What starts off as a lusty and dewy-eyed dance between lovers quickly turns into a taut game of cat and mouse more titillating than the pair’s pending nuptials. Enos and Krause have palpable chemistry.

If Enos and Krause can keep things fresh and frisky--and the writers can sustain the premise--The Catch could be quite fetching. [25 Apr 2016, p.57]

It’s heightened reality at its finest as Vaughan and her associates (Elvy Yost, Jay Hayden and Rollins) proceed to track down the con artists who hacked them and stop them before too much damage is done.

The pilot is a slick, constantly entertaining hour of programming, directed by Julie Anne Robinson with hell-for-premium-leather pacing and a surplus of stylized, split-screen transitions.

Despite a few directorial errors--a stunning over-reliance on pop music, for example (please stop with the Pitbull), and a too-eager-to-please hyperactive editing style--there’s something engaging about The Catch. It’s largely due to the overwhelming charisma of its two leads, but there’s also just something witty about the set-up and the promise of a cat-and-mouse game in which the two roles are constantly being reversed.

The Catch is about illusions, also about who’s real, or not. It’s about human mirages. Could Ben possibly be a genuine “catch,” or is he just another Shondaland heel in a bespoke suit? The answer is not so clear-cut, and it’s also what makes The Catch so possibly engaging.

The Catch contains all the ingredients we've come to expect from the folks at Shondaland: glossy production values, a diverse cast, hyper-articulate dialogue, hairpin plot twists and lots of eye candy and writhing hips. If you've been a fan, you'll surely want to take another ride on the roller coaster. If that stuff makes you want to spit at your TV, it's best that you keep your distance.

Enos is terrific, managing the seeming impossible: to go from adoring fiancee to avenging private-eye angel in a flash. She’s well partnered with Krause, who is an entirely convincing liar when Ben and Alice are still together, and equally credible when his ruse is revealed. The show moves so fast, you may miss its logical flaw until after the episode ends.

Retooling usually ruins a show, but not so with The Catch, which works precisely because of Heinberg’s changes. Of Shonda Rhimes’ block of Thursday night dramas, The Catch most resembles Scandal, with a gorgeous, well-heeled squad of operators doing dirty work for powerful people.

If you prefer your crime dramas from the To Catch a Thief corner of the genre, The Catch has much to recommend it, including clever plotting and an elegant, witty cast. Enos, a long way from the bipolar ragamuffin detective she played in The Killing, shows that she can rock an evening gown.

The Catch is sort of Shondaland’s roller-coaster in that sense--it moves so fast, gearing up and careening down, shooting left and right, and its effusive energy makes it easy to forgive the familiarity of some of its themes.

There are a few things The Catch will need to establish before taking off. For instance, it’s a bit hard to buy Alice’s and Ben’s instant attraction. But as light entertainment, the show flies by pretty quickly, a good fit for the #TGIT playground.

The Catch wants you to hope for the best, but he’s such a sociopath, it’s hard to root for their relationship to end anywhere but in a lifetime sentence behind bars. Still, Enos is terrific and makes this caper a fun ride toward righteous retribution.

The Catch takes a while to kick in, afflicting viewers with way too much of Pitbull’s “Fireball” during an extended early game of now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t.

The first episode sets up a storyline with limited long-term potential, but it’s entertaining and stylish enough to be worth following to see where it leads.

Like other Rhimes shows, including "Scandal" and "Grey's Anatomy," it filters a lot of nuttiness through good actors who can make compelling what otherwise might seem absurd.

Despite the presence of Krause, Enos and Walger--all of whom have been standouts in modern TV classics--The Catch is barely worth investigating.

In many regards, The Catch certainly achieves its goals, but when the lives of every person on-screen revolve around one character and viewers are left wondering how a private investigation firm can afford a huge futuristic office with an enormous staff, it takes away from some of the fantasy.

Fans of USA's White Collar might enjoy the cat-and-mouse game that ensues, though I'd argue that the relationship between its con artist, Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer), and FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) was (in a totally bro way) a more compelling romance than this one.... Krause, who looks the way he always does, even when his character's trying to look different, isn't all that convincing a con man, but maybe that's exactly what's required of a con man.

Forget the incongruity of the premise--we’re asked to believe that Alice and Valerie’s company is both the best private investigation firm around and the most incompetent--and instead just be dismayed at the prospect of having to spend more time with Alice and Ben. They, like everyone else in this series, have a “Stepford Wives” blandness to them.

Alice has been betrayed and bankrupted, but the character is given no time to let the emotional impact land because the show needs to get her into another fancy dress for some Mission: Impossible-type sting. An equally troubling issue, particularly for a show that clearly wants to plant its flag in the Shondaland "sexy" territory, is that the two stars generate precious little onscreen heat.

Formulaic but fashionable.

[The Catch] mostly just feels tired, like a TNT caper show that futilely seeks to derive energy from visual gimmicks, like split screens and slo-mo. Based strictly on the premiere, the show is hardly a disaster, but nor does it offer much incentive to see what maze-like corners this cat-and-mouse game will explore.

The Catch, unfortunately, reads as an attempt to combine many of the elements of the previous shows into something new and fun without infusing enough originality into it.

The most interesting thing about the premiere of The Catch is the camera-work and the editing--including some very clever split screens. But the characters ought to be the most interesting thing, and they're not.

Though it’s crisp-looking and well-cast like its predecessors, The Catch is mostly a flashy lot of nothing.

The show’s cast is great, and they work hard to elevate subpar material. But whether the series can catch viewers with what has become an overused formula (and one that--as has happened with Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder--can flame out very quickly) remains to be seen.

[The Catch] is so aggressively Shonda-ed--with fast cutting, split-screening, long romantic looks, and pop music competing with the dialogue in an attempt to boost your energy to keep watching--that it very nearly plays like a parody of a Shonda Rhimes show.

Everything about The Catch is annoying, from the basic premise to the impossible twists to especially (somehow, especially) the insistent soundtrack that is supposed to whip us into a froth of excitement.

Enos is asked to sell a caper, but the inciting incident--her husband turns out to be a con artist who disappears, taking her money with him--is played less as melodrama than as farce.... The bigger issue is that Christopher Hall, played by Peter Krause, responds to pure goofiness as though he’s the tormented hero in the penultimate scene of a DC Comics film.