Checking in With Showtime Mondays

Last week Showtime premiered its two summer shows, Weeds and Nurse Jackie. While I have yet to see tonight's episodes, I'd still like to take a look at whether these will be fun additions to the summer schedule, or have me running back out to the sun. Let's start with the returning show.

Going into its fifth season, Weeds was, to me, on notice. Sure, I loved Albert Brooks as Nancy's cranky, gambling addicted father-in-law, but when he jetted four episodes into last season, so did the show's quality. From the Mexican tunnel to Celia's drug addiction to Shane's increasingly obnoxious behavior, the characters just got so unlikable and the show so dreary that there was nothing fun left.

But the pregnancy cliffhanger left me intrigued enough to see where this season would go. And the verdict: inconclusive. It's not clear that any of last season's problems will necessarily be fixed. Nancy still seems to barely remember she has a family, Shane's still hanging with the sketchballs, and previews show Guillermo and Captain Till aren't going anywhere.

For now, at least, all that doesn't seem to matter. I'm still glad to have the show back. As disappointed I was to see Quinn return last season just to hold her mother ransom, it paid off with the comical series of phone calls in which no one would pay it. I liked that the non-Nancy section of the family (Andy, Silas, Shane, and I guess Doug) actually interacted.

I still miss the show about the pot-dealing suburban mom, and think the move down to the border was probably a mistake. But at least the premiere made me laugh. Even if the show does start sucking again in a few episodes, I'll still probably watch it to the end.

Moving on to something new, Nurse Jackie, to me, poses an interesting question regarding the trend of single character focused dramas out there. House is all about House, and Dexter is all about Dexter, but neither show would be as successful without the strong supporting casts and good stories to work from. But at least in the pilot, it seems like you watch Nurse Jackie just for Jackie. Is that enough? For many, it could be.

The show's a weird animal, a half-hour comedy-drama medical show that's more drama than comedy and wouldn't like to be called a medical show. Most of the show's in the hospital, but it never becomes a character the way hospitals do on shows like Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, and ER. Other characters come and go - the arrogant but sloppy doctor, the British doctor Jackie's friends with, the other doctor she's sleeping with, a murse - but they have yet to make too big of an impression.

The show may very well exist solely as a showcase for Edie Falco, but she gives such a phenomenal performance that may be enough. She's certainly got a lot to work with: Jackie pops pills and sleeps around on the job, but is also damn good at what she does. And by the end of the pilot, it's clear we've just scratched the surface of who she is. So for Falco and Jackie, I'll give this one another try. But just as Dexter wouldn't be the same without Deb, I need more than one great character to keep me hooked.