Network TV doesn’t get much blacker than ‘Donnellys’
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- March
- 13
For the last three Mondays I’ve been checking out the new drama “The Black Donnellys” on NBC which follows behind the network’s breakout hit “Heroes.”
It’s the story of four Hell’s Kitchen brothers in their 20s who are generally malcontents. They’re mixed up in low-level street thuggery and get into trouble when the oldest, Jimmy ( the junkie played by Tom Guiry), kidnaps his bookie and tries to make a quick score from the Italian mafia. Things go badly. The other brothers, including Tommy (the smart one played by Jonathan Tucker), Sean (the cute one played by Michael Stahl-David) and Kevin (the dumb one played by Billy Lush) are draggged down with Jimmy, with Tommy doing most of the heavy lifting and problem solving.
Along for the ride is the impossibly hot Jenny (played by Olivia Wilde  her character is the boys’ best friend and Tommy’s love interest) and Joey “Ice Cream” played by Keith Nobbs. Joey is the narrator for the show and does it all in the future from his jail cell. How he got there and why he’s telling the brother’s story is one of the show’s hooks.
A few critics  including The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times  had very little to say that was positive about Academy Award winners Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco’s new show. The L.A. Times called it “rubbish.”
I disagree. I’m with the other batch of writers who find this sort of gritty television entertaining. Not just for the violence, which there’s plenty of (in the pilot I lost track of the body count after 5), but because I can relate to bad people doing bad things just because they think it’s right. I find most of Haggis’ dialogue refreshing and I especially like how most of the characters have a good reason to be miserable. There’s only one romantic relationship being explored so far and the rest of the show is about moving the plot along.
Of course, I also liked the cancelled “Smith” with it’s sketchy characters and plot driven episodes.
But mostly, I can relate to charcters who aren’ trapped on a mysterious island, don’t have superpowers and/or aren’t running a popular late-night television sketch comedy show. The Donnelly brothers are punks who like to drink, hang out in seedy bars and charge ahead into conflict when you step on their toes. Their fearless in their own foolhardy way and I find myself pulling for their syubborn bravado. And the show is a pretty fare representation of lower-middle class American values, at least from what I’ve experienced and I’d say that was quite a bit growing up in rural Vermont and living in New York towns like Suffern, Pearl River and White Plains. Towns with bar crowds that often lack pretention.
Also fair is the representation of the family as the people in this world who’ll stand beside you through thick and thin. When one of the four Donnelly brothers is beaten up badly and sent to the hospital … the family rallies and camps out in the hospital. Everyone brings something to eat. It’s the sort of thing that families do.
Of course, this television could also be the poster child for the “family values” crusaders for strickter content controls on network TV. The violence, the drug use, the criminality and sexual themes are all there … only bad language is taboo. It’s an interesting gamble by NBC  especially when the before mentioned “Smith” on CBS was whacked after a handful of eps last fall due to noone tuning in. “Smith” stared Ray Liotta and was the story of a group of bigtime thiefs planning an executing a series of heists. Maybe Liotta doesn’t have the “Entourage” hipness of Haggis. The HBO show on which he did a guest spot playing himself.
So did James Woods for that matter and look how good his show “Shark” is doing in the ratings.
Still, the Donnelly brothers’ story is compelling … the ensemble’s acting isn’t great, but neither is the acting super on show’s like “Heroes” or “24.” It’s network TV and “The Black Donnellys” is great for what it is … refreshing plot-driven television.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 1:15 pm by Matt Sartwell.
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We still have the first three eps on our DVR, waiting for a time when we can watch while our little ones aren’t around. We love super-violent television (no one would ever guess with the joy I take in Jack Bauer’s torture scenes, I suppose!) for some bizarre reason (I’m something of a pacifist myself; maybe I just need to get these tendencies out in some fashion), but I can’t allow my little ones to see such stuff quite yet. There’s plenty of time when they’re older.
But we’ve been looking forward to watching it. We really liked “Smith,” too and were disappointed when it was dropped. The cast was great and the back story was mysterious without being annoyingly so.
Who doesn’t like a touch of the ultraviolence, my droogie?