Jake Kasdan's satire The TV Set wants to give an insider's view of what happens behind the scenes of a television pilot, much like what Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration attempted to do for the movie industry last fall. Both get some laughs, both score some points; neither film is particularly illuminating or funny.
In this case, the project in question is "The Wexler Chronicles." The show is the baby of writer Mike Klein (David Duchovny). Klein is a mess, an unkempt Jew with a beard, a bad back, the beginnings of a pot belly, an infant child, and a pregnant wife (Justine Bateman, who long ago rose to fame on TV.) Klein is ready to make compromises, but before long, his show is one big compromise. It's plain awful. Problem is, "The Wexler Chronicles" never seemed very strong from the onset. In For Your Consideration, we were supposed to believe that anyone would have ever backed Home For Purim. The mediocre, charmless "Wexler Chronicles" is only slightly less ludicrous.
Duchovny is not appealing in the lead role -- not even as a sad sack. Sigourney Weaver has a fine time playing evil in a suit, and she gets the best lines, including a pointed quip during a casting meeting: "Who is Hope Davis?" If you, reader, don't know, shame on you. The ensemble also includes Judy Greer as Klein's manager (funny), Fran Kranz as the pilot's lead actor (irritating both in as actor and onscreen character), Lindsay Sloane as the starlet (an appealing caricature), and an impossibly bland Ioan Gruffudd as a suit who goes down the slippery slope.
Kasdan and Guest are pitching their respective films to an already jaded, media-savvy audience. Give us some respect, please. We know all about the movie business and slick, satisfying TV. We know that the corporate execs think about the bottom dollar. We know that artistic considerations don't come first. It's no big surprise that the creative end will make unfortunate compromises, that fine projects get obliterated by the time they've made it through the system. We know. We really do.
