| Donna K. |
09-15-2015 06:14 PM |
Fall TV 2015: Quick guide to season packed with superheroes, scream queens, muppets and more - San Jose Mercury News
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SUNDAY
"Blood & Oil" (9 p.m., ABC; Sept. 27): Don Johnson returns to television as a ruthless North Dakota oil tycoon who finds himself pitted against an aggressively ambitious young couple (Chace Crawford, Rebecca Rittenhouse). Drama happens.
Snap judgment: Ah, yes, shades of "Dallas." They should have called it "Blood & Oil & Soap."
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5 reasons why 'Blood and Oil' will fuel your thirst for drama | abc7chicago.com
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With a stellar cast of veterans and promising newcomers, breathtaking settings and a penchant for fiery drama, ABC's Blood and Oil is promising to fuel viewers' desires for top notch TV drama. Focusing on a couple who moves to a booming oil town in hopes of making it rich, ABC's latest drama will look at the family ties and deadly thirst for wealth that dominate the oil industry.
Here are five reasons why you'll want to watch Blood and Oil.
1. Don Johnson
The actor is best known for solving high profile cases on Miami Vice. But now Johnson brings his veteran acting chops to the role of Hap Briggs, a well-respected and equally feared oil baron who will let nothing get in the way of total industry domination. Johnson has commonly played the protagonist in many of his iconic roles so it will be a refreshing change of pace to see him play a more dark, malevolent character.
2. Sweeping landscapes
Rock Springs, North Dakota, the setting of Blood and Oil, isn't actually a real place, but the natural beauty and sweeping landscapes are far from fiction. With shooting locations including outdoor-haven Park City, Utah, Blood and Oil's beautiful setting will be one of the defining features that haunts the characters of this show.
3. Family drama
Blood may be thicker than water, but it is also more deadly too. One of the main plotines of Blood and Oil is Briggs' tumultuous relationship with his son Wick. And with Briggs' wife Darla proving to be just as conniving as her husband, you can expect a lot of double crossing and intrigue when this family sits down at the table.
4. Talented up and coming actors
Chace Crawford and Rebecca Rittenhouse may not be household names just yet, but after Blood and Oil premieres they'll definitely be some of the most talked about stars on television. Crawford and Rittenhouse play Billy and Kelly LeFever, a couple who moves to Rock Springs in hopes of making it big in the booming oil industry. But as they continue to strive for success, tensions will rise, and these two actors' penchant for high stakes drama will be brought to light.
5. Danger at every turn
The oil industry is very lucrative but also dangerous, with opportunities for wealth equally matched by opportunities for death. Even though these characters hope to make it big, it wouldn't be surprising to see them drown in their wild pursuit of vast fortune.
Blood and Oil premieres Sunday, September 27 at 9 p.m. ET | 8 p.m. CT on ABC.
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'Blood & Oil,' winsome skulduggery - Media Life Magazine
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Not everyone was happy when gas prices went down this summer. Take, for example, the folks behind ABC’s new drama “Blood & Oil.”
Supposedly set in the present, the series depicts North Dakota as bursting at the seams with people trying to cash in on the oil boom.
Now that the state is experiencing the inevitable cyclical bust, “Blood & Oil” feels dated.
Fortunately, one doesn’t have to be nostalgic for 2014 to enjoy the show, an old-fashioned boomtown melodrama with broadly drawn characters and easy-to-follow skullduggery.
In the premiere episode, airing on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 9 p.m., Billy (Chace Crawford) and Cody (Rebecca Rittenhouse), a young married couple, travel to a oil-rich town in North Dakota, planning to cash in on the boom by opening three Laundromats. They’re investing the savings of their friends and family members.
After an accident puts those plans on hold, Billy gets a menial job at a drilling site. Cody, who dropped out of pharmacy school, works at a drugstore, where she overhears a guy discussing a deal that he was probably told to keep secret.
The deal will expand the empire of Hap Briggs (Don Johnson), a self-made zillionaire who is the most powerful oilman in the region.
Billy and Cody see a way of profiting off the deal, but Hap isn’t the kind of man you want to cross.
He is on the verge of disinheriting his wayward son, Wick Briggs (Scott Michael Foster). Wick blames this on the influence of his young, beautiful stepmother, Carla (Amber Valletta).
1The on-the-nose dialogue makes some of the themes clear early on: Wick clearly has Oedipal issues — at least the patricidal ones. Billy could become a surrogate son to Hap, or a rival, or a surrogate son who turns into a rival, stirring the Oedipal pot again.
Carla isn’t just arm candy: She tells Hap that she has figured out a sneaky way to get a geological report before it’s officially released. “I knew there was a reason I married you,” he says.
Other characters include the local sheriff, Tip Hamilton (Delroy Lindo), who early on calms an unruly crowd by shooting his pistol in the air, and a sexy British bar owner, Jules (India de Beaufort), who also serves as Billy and Cody’s realtor and loan shark.
They should be good for subplots.
The script, by Josh Pate and Rodes Fishburne, keeps the details of the oil business simple. All we need to know is that everyone is grabbing for wealth as fast as possible.
Although the acting is fine, the casting seems to be based more on looks. Chace Crawford and Rebecca Rittenhouse are so cute that we’ll root for them regardless of their business ethics. Don Johnson and Amber Valletta are the Platonic ideal of a self-made zillionaire and his younger wife.
Our emotional involvement in the characters is skin deep, but it should be enough to draw people back for a second viewing. It helps that the premiere ends with a cliffhanger that leaves all of the major characters in jeopardy.
As the Three Stooges once put it, oil’s well that ends well.
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:hug:
Donna
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