The Black Donnellys

[kateln]

brindle said:

The guy who plays Tommy looks like Nascar driver Kasey Khane. I'm no good at links but I think they look alike. Oh...I give the show three weeks.

See, to me he looks like Anderson Cooper, back before his hair turned gray.

I'm Irish, and I sort of find this show funny, it's warm cheesy goodness. I just can't take it seriously enough to find it offensive. These guys are too pretty and would be beaten down out on the streets.

My frend was complaining that in every Irish show you have a character named Tommy, or Jimmy, or Sean. I paused for second and went--well, I have an Uncle Tommy, and grandfather Jimmy (and a cousin James), a cousin Sean, and Terrence for good measure.

[waytoocheerful]

If he wanted to make a tv show that had absolutely nothing to do with the Donnelly family, then why keep the name? Because he IS ripping off their story. The characters and family depicted are very similar to the original Donnelly's.

I can only hope that this means Nicky massacres these fictional annoying Donnellys. And that Kirk Acevedo takes his shirt off to kill them all. Lots of stuff gets ripped off from real life stuff. And Haggis is right, most, if not all, Americans would be clueless about the real Black Donnellys. I certainly had never heard of them, but because of the series and hearing tidbits about the "real Black Donnellys," I googled.

[firstaid]

I refuse to watch anything associated with Paul Haggis after watching the nonsense that is Crash but I thought you guys would enjoy this "scathing" review from pajiba.com.

[cyclonevkc]

lemuralley said:

Beyond the fact that Tommy looked like the child of a union between Christian Bale and David Moscow (conceived on the set of Newsies, I guess) which totally freaked me out, I thought this was pretty decent and has potential. If nothing else, it's way better than Studio 60, which we were previously continuing to sit through, amazed by how it just kept getting worse and worse.

I keep thinking Tommy's the love child of Tobey Maguire (it's the mouth) and the hated Kirk Hinrich (former Jayhawk and traitor to my Cyclones).

I watched and liked the whole first episode but turned it off halfway through last night's... we have been renting 24 and it interested me much more (even though Season 4 is kind of ho-hum so far, plus I have irrational Kiefer love).

[Deleted]

Eh, I'm not crazy about it (and I also hated Crash, so maybe I had some bias going in). The VO device doesn't really work for me, although it is kind of funny that the detectives keep asking Johnny Ice Cream, "How do you know that?" and the answer is always, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I was there!" Then you get that record-scratch sound effect and Johnny Ice Cream is just randomly inserted as an observer.

I think my main problem with the show is that I can't figure out the tone. Is it supposed to be black humor? It just seems like it's wacky hi-jinks juxtaposed with extreme violence. It doesn't help that the junkie brother and the gambling brother are plain pork stupid, and the guy playing Tommy always looks to me like he's about to start crying no matter what's going on around him (although with brothers like that, I'd probably be constantly on the verge of tears too).

[buckdutter]

Okay. Three episodes in (I think) and uh, no. Just no. Why are they showing flashbacks to scenes they never showed in the first place? How the hell did Jimmy just go from being locked up to being free with nary a word of how that happened? After the big fight scene between Tommy and Kevin over that very issue? Had to find an online episode guide to make sure that I hadn't just missed an episode or four. I'm all for quicker pacing, but that's a bit ridiculous.

Oh, and call me shallow, but bod aside, Tommy's just too weird-looking to be the lead character. Boy's got Simpsons face. That top lip had to come from the pen of Matt Groening. And for f#cksake, I can't stand to hear someone talk with a mouth full of saliva. Somebody hire a dental hygienist and get him some damn suction!

It went from being far-fetched to something that looks like a HS drama dept. putting on a combined production of Sopranos/Godfather/Goodfellas. And you can just feeeel the self-satisfaction of the makers of this show oozing through. Just no. I don't even think that Kirk Acevedo's voice is enough to get me through another episode.

[bitsygirl]

Okay. Three episodes in (I think) and uh, no. Just no. Why are they showing flashbacks to scenes they never showed in the first place? How the hell did Jimmy just go from being locked up to being free with nary a word of how that happened? After the big fight scene between Tommy and Kevin over that very issue? Had to find an online episode guide to make sure that I hadn't just missed an episode or four. I'm all for quicker pacing, but that's a bit ridiculous.

How he got out was explained in the episode they're only playing on the NBC website. Not sure why they did it that way because that's a pretty big plot point and there's nothing in that episode that couldn't be shown on tv considering all the other stuff they've shown.

[kateln]

Yeah, I gave up in the middle of the second episode.

[berb]

I'm still watching but it's really only because I have nothing better to watch during that time. I think I hate every single character on the show. I know we're supposed to feel sorry for Tommy but I don't because he comes across as a huge asshole and I can't stand his mush-mouth way of talking.

The show is one huge eye roll to me but it's only 3 episodes in so I'll still give it a chance.

[buckdutter]

bitsygirl said:

How he got out was explained in the episode they're only playing on the NBC website. Not sure why they did it that way because that's a pretty big plot point and there's nothing in that episode that couldn't be shown on tv considering all the other stuff they've shown.

Unbelievable! They're trying to build an audience by making them hunt out episodes of a brand new show? Not TOO full of themselves, are they? Hell, I'd given up before finding that out. Now I wish I hadn't even wasted the three hours I did.