Seasoned — Pilot
Seasoned is a proposed television show based on the popularity of Mandy Patinkin’s and Kathryn Grody’s home videos on social media. The pilot episode, “Hangry,” aired in the Episodic program at Tribeca. At its best, it plays like a more mature, sedate version of Before Midnight. At its worst, it feels like a slightly less nasty episode of Seinfeld.
The allure of the premise is, I think, that Mandy and Kathryn are just like us. But while that is a charming thought on some levels, it begs the question of whether we want to watch ourselves trying to get to a restaurant before our seats are given away or see reflections of our chatter when we can’t remember where we have seen a performer previously.
The plot climax features an argument between the couple that is as much about the accumulated baggage of decades of couplehood as it is about anything that has happened that evening. His emotions are too big even when he stifles them; her criticisms are borne from chronic frustrations rather than proximate actions.
I spent some time thinking about this argument and what it signifies for the proposed series. One presumes the pilot wants for the couple to be likable, so it is risky for them to have a meta-argument stemming from chronic frustrations before we have built up an affinity or affection for the characters. Don’t get me wrong, the tone here is light years from the toxicity of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but …
Is the point supposed to be that successful, seasoned couples have learned how to argue productively? If so, I don’t see it. Their argument ends prematurely as Mandy happens to see a couple practicing a ballet-style dance in the street. Perhaps the idea here is that a successful couple can let things go or accept that arguments are an unavoidable part of partnership. I would have preferred something that showed a long-standing couple practicing the skills they have learned from past experiences rather than one that bears together the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
One misstep doesn’t doom a series, even in the pilot. It is hard to overstate how much good will Patinkin has banked over the years. I have probably played the cast album of Evita more than any other CD in my collection. His comments after leaving Criminal Minds after two seasons appeared to show a thoughtful human being in a high-profile industry. He came across as one of the select few who was capable not just of parroting talking points but thoughtfully examining the industry he has poured so much of his life into.
I can only imagine how quickly celebrities must weary over our appetite for anecdotes regarding their past professional gigs. (There is even a joke to that effect in “Hangry.”) But let’s be honest, the thing that distinguishes Mandy and Kathryn from any other couple bickering in the streets is not the freshness of their everyday frustrations or the eloquence they bring to bear when voicing archetypal complaints of married couples. They have our attention because of who they are, so any series that will keep our attention probably needs to lean into that.
