The TV Set (***)

? Jake Kasdan’s comedy-drama follows a Hollywood writer (David Duchovny) as he shepherds his highbrow sitcom through the process of casting and shooting the pilot episode. Kasdan, incidentally, is the brother of Jon Kasdan, whose In the Land of Women opened the same week.
+ I’m no expert, but this seems to do a pretty good job of showing the way the TV business works, and the kinds of creative and financial choices that must be made. Watch the audition for the sitcom’s female lead and see which one you’d pick. (Lindsay Sloane, in the role of the winner, is appealing.) Watch the writer and, to a lesser extent, the programming boss played by Amazing Grace’s Ioan Gruffudd, try to resist turning themselves into whores. Presumably, when they fully emerge, they may become like Sigourney Weaver’s network boss, who has so merged conscience and commerce that, in one scene, she relates how a life-altering event led her to the conclusion that the network could possibly dominate the ratings on Thursday nights. The rest of the cast, especially Judy Greer as Duchovy’s assistant, is also excellent.
- All movies about TV and movies (like 2006’s For Your Consideration) seem to be about the same thing, the battle of art and commerce, and this is no exception. Maybe the way writers who are forced to compromise their visions get satisfaction is to write scripts about writers forced to compromise their visions. Maybe someone should make a movie about how anything good ever does make it on screen. Anyway, one (small) flaw The TV Set shares with For Your Consideration is that the production in question never seems like the brilliant piece that, for purposes of the plot, it’s suppose to be. In this case the fictional Wexler Chronicles seems passably dramatic, but, though it’s supposed to be a sitcom, not funny. And, more seriously, neither is The TV Set. Okay, that’s overstating it. Sure, it’ll make you smile at times, especially if you’re the sort of person who knows who both Hope Davis and Lucy Lawless are, but it’s only laugh-out-loud funny about twice.
= *** If you’re one who likes to watch the "making of" featurette on DVDs, you’ll probably like this movie for its behind-the-scenes glimpses. If you just want some laughs, seek out Kasdan’s delightfully goofy debut, Zero Effect.

IMDB link

reviewed 4/27/07