Lower Decks

This isn’t going to be a regular column or anything, but I felt it would be of interest here at Lower Decks.  Originally airing on CBS in 2004, the show was your standard legal drama with a science fiction twist – it took place in the year 2030.  Thus, unlike your standard legal drama, this show was taking on cases that involve futuristic technology and ideas, including cloning, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.  Knowing that, follow me passed the jump for a review of a show from the past…that takes place in the future.

I’m not going to lie – I never even heard of Century City until after it was cancelled, but I was pretty intrigued by the idea once I did hear about it.  I’ve always been fascinated by the future (and the many interpretations of it), and I was interested in seeing what had been produced.  And it wasn’t until the show appeared on Hulu that I got my chance to see it.

First impressions – the cast is pretty great.  Viewers should immediately recognize Hector Elizondo, who has been in a million things.  Sci-Fi/genre fans should also immediately recognize Nestor Carbonell (who later became huge by playing Richard Alpert on LOST) and Ioan Gruffudd (who starred as Mr. Fantastic in the recent Fantastic Fourfilms).  Gruffudd appears like he would’ve been the lead actor in the show, but it does a pretty good job of spreading the casework around.  I thought the entire cast worked well together, and I thought the show was well acted for the most part.

The episode format was pretty generic – there was one major case (usually worked by two of the show’s lawyers) and a smaller one.  Almost every case on the show dealt with an area of law that is nebulous in the future due to new technology – for example, should a man be allowed to keep a computer chip inside his brain that cures his mental illness, even if it’s killing him?

The law firm on the show (Crane, Constable, McNeil, and Montero) is usually defending someone’s rights, and it works through a variety of areas and subjects.  There’s a case that involves a professional baseball player with an ocular implant, a rock band that is using anti-aging drugs to stay young and relevant, and a child that no longer wants to be monitored 24/7 by her parents.  Some of the smaller cases are a little more bizarre, including a couple that had sex on a “smart highway” and a woman who didn’t divulge to her lover that she has a fake penis.  I’ll leave that at that.

All in all, the show is pretty interesting.  The writers picked a year (2030) far enough in the future that a lot of the technology in the future is feasible, but outside of the technology, not much is different.  All the clothes on the show are pretty much the same as the ones we wear now (with the occasional bright color or different fabric) – which makes sense because lawyers are pretty much wearing the same things today that they wore in the 1970s and 1980s.  All in all, the show lets you know it’s the future, but it doesn’t shove it down your face.

In fact, there’s very little evidence of the futuristic technology inside the show itself.  There’s the occasional shot of a CGI “smart highway” and perhaps an image of the “technology of the week” – but outside of that, there isn’t a whole lot of difference.  Some of the cases are done in front of a “holographic judge” – but most are done in a normal courtroom like any other legal drama.

Like I said, you’re told (on many occasions) that you’re in the future, but you’re only shown it every once in a while.

There are a few things that are a bit over the top.  They claim that the President of the United States is Oprah Winfrey, and that her vice president is an openly gay man.  I think it was supposed to be a sign of progression (and, given the fact that Oprah would be almost 80 by 2030, perhaps it’s supposed to be an allusion to Ronald Reagan), but it seems like a bit much.  Other little tidbits include moon colonies, 52 states in the U.S.A., and a life expectancy in the 90s for American women.

We do get to see a bit into the lives of the characters.  Darwin, the egotistical one, starts to fall in love with his electronic equipment.  Lukas and Lee May have a flirtatious relationship despite the former’s marriage.  Lee May is the result of genetic engineering is keeping it a secret.  And Martin, the elder statesman, is the link to the viewers – considering he would’ve been born in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

So this is a review, and I need to answer the obvious question: is the show any good?  And I’d say that it’s very watchable.  Like any legal drama, the show can get sappy at times, and there are definitely times when it tries to tug at your heart strings.  If you’re okay fighting through some of it, it isn’t that bad.  There are probably as many genuinely funny/clever moments as over-the-top sappy moments – so you aren’t deluged with them.

Why did the show fail?  I think it was probably on the wrong network, and I think it was probably too weird for most people.  I don’t think a futuristic show would play very well on CBS with older viewers (and let’s face it, CBS has a wide but older fanbase) that want something more conventional than this.  ABC or FOX might have worked a little better, but it probably needed something on cable.  And probably more like USA than Sci-Fi Channel – because it was a legal show more so than a science fiction one.

And I’m guessing it wasn’t advertised very well – like I said, I never heard about it while it was on so the commercials didn’t reach me.  And I’m guessing it also had a conflict with the people who decided to watch it – it was probably “too sci-fi” for regular viewers and “not sci-fi enough” for people interested in sci-fi.

I think it straddled the line pretty well, but I can’t imagine there are a lot of people like me who would’ve been locked in.  Not to mention the fact that I’m not sure how much staying power the show would’ve had.  It seems like the show touched on a lot of subjects, and there’s probably a finite number of them out there.

So if you’re curious, check the show out on Hulu.  If the show does well there, there’s a chance that similar programming could appear elsewhere.  As for Century City itself, it’s a unique idea and an interesting TV experiment.  If it sounds good, take a look.  There are only nine episodes…so you won’t be wasting a lot of time on it.