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Rescue Me
- Thread starter Cern
- Start date
It started a couple of weeks ago. It follows one squad of firefighters through their day to day life with work and personal time. I think it's supposed to be set a little after 9/11 and show how they are copeing with life after the fact. Its on FX, new episodes air weekly every Wednesday at 10PM.
B5_Obsessed
Regular
The theme song is "C'mon, C'mon" by Von Bondies (got that off TV Tome), as opposed to its surrogate theme song "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie.
I mostly like it, but I think they're laying it on a bit thick with all of Leary's character's problems. They should have played some episodes straight before getting into his delusions. My dad was FDNY, so I'd say most of the firemen are, unfortunately, spot-on. But the real business of firefighting and the stories on the job are much more bizarre and interesting than the divorce/alcoholism/survivor's guilt stories seen so far on the show.
I mostly like it, but I think they're laying it on a bit thick with all of Leary's character's problems. They should have played some episodes straight before getting into his delusions. My dad was FDNY, so I'd say most of the firemen are, unfortunately, spot-on. But the real business of firefighting and the stories on the job are much more bizarre and interesting than the divorce/alcoholism/survivor's guilt stories seen so far on the show.
B5_Obsessed
Regular
With so many it's hard to choose:
"Alright you primitive screwheads, LISTEN UP!"
"This is my BOOMSTICK!"
"Well, HELLO MISTER FANCYPANTS!"
"The only things you're leading are Jack and shit... and Jack just left town."
"Come get some"
"Give me some sugar, baby."
"Baby, you got real ugly."
"Good. Bad. I'm the one with the gun."
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
And Leary, who knows the world of firefighters very well*, will undoubtedly get to them. The really bizarre stuff will be sprinkled throughout the show - but just because it is bizarre, it can't be the main thrust of the show. You can't do a steady diet of that stuff. Family problems, raising kids, work headaches are all universal problems that everybody can relate to, so they are properly the focus of the show.
I'm really enjoying the show. I'm hoping it is successful enough to get another Leary series, The Job about the NYPD, released on DVD. The show (which I've never seen) is reportedly a similar combination of black comedy and drama - informed by the other part of the Leary family, which is law enforcement.
If you're Irish American and living in New York or Boston chances are you have relatives in the police department, the fire department or both - either in the cities themselves or in the nearby towns. Not for nothing was the NYPD once known as "Irish Welfare". Family tradition has led generations of families to continue in these professions. I know a cop from my old neighborhood in the Bronx who is the latest in a line of cops, unbroken from father to son through several lines of brothers, uncles and cousins going back to the founding great-grandfather over a hundred years ago.(* For those who don't know, Leary really did have a cousin/best friend who was a firefighter and who died - along with one of their childhood friends - in a building collapse in the Boston area five or six years ago. In the aftermath of that tragedy Leary founded the Leary Firefighters Foundation which helps the families of firefighters killed in the line of duty and which also provides equipment and training resources to fire departments across the country. Through the foundation Leary has become friendly with a lot of firefighters in New York, especially the ones in the houses closest to where he lives in lower Manhattan, and therefore was personally acquainted with some of the over 300 NYFD personnel who died on September 11th. So he knows whereof he speaks.)
Regards,
Joe
B5_Obsessed
Regular
I'm sure they will, Joe. I'm just saying that we're three episodes in and there's just too much goofy situation stuff in the plot. Leary's seeing dead people everywhere, bribing his children for info, hiring a hacker to attack the business of his wife's new boyfriend. Then there's the gay angle and the lesbian angle. There wasn't a lot in the last episode or two that I would call genuine or specific to firefighters. Half the stuff could've been recycled from The Job. I think the show is losing that delicate balance where you can take it seriously. Again, a lot of the humor is situational. I just think they're trying too hard. Real firemen's humor is more in spite of situations. It can be dark, but funny too. I would rather see men dealing with the job than slogging through the same old contrived dramatic storylines.
True Story: It's a Sunday morning and EMS comes across two bikers who got themselves wrapped around a tree. The deceased bikers are real hardcore; leather, tattoos, swastikas - the works. One guy says to the other, "Maybe they were on their way to Church."
B5_Obsessed
Regular
Ack! Something's fishy in Beantown!
crofootski
Regular
That's the reason I stopped watching "The Practice" a couple of years ago...
B5_Obsessed
Regular
Let me clarify my statement. The reason ER was such a consistent hit over the years was that it combined drama with very dynamic and powerful sequences in the emergency room. For every story of divorce, substance abuse, yada-yada, you had the blood and guts, fence post through the chest, spurting artery action that you expect to see in an ER. This gives the audience a glimpse into the hellish world of emergency medicine. Similarly, COPS has been on forever, using a winning formula of showing the insane world of law enforcement as it happens. Contrastingly, I've only seen one fire call on "Rescue Me", and that was in the first episode. So rather than showing the viewer what firefighters do for a living, we're getting fed a lot of generic dysfunctional American drama. The more I've thought about it, though, there is a good reason why this might be so. It is a lot cheaper, logistically simpler, and safer to film riveting scenes in the ER (or for that matter, any crime show) than to stage a practical fire on set. The inherent difficulties (and FXs budget allowance) may be why they are choosing to make a series about FDNY, one of the busiest departments in the world, without much actual fire. Still, they might have considered that ahead of time.
B5_Obsessed
Regular
I've already tuned out.
